COMPROMISE

Aagh it’s so noisy I can’t hear myself blog!   It’s been one hell of a week - a succession of tradespeople beating a path to the door and an increasing amount of noise, mess and surprises; some good and some not.  I’m surprised none of the neighbours have dobbed us in to the Covid police for breaching lockdown rules. Yep, the refurbishment rave is in full swing – bring a hard hat!

Here’s a quick peek at progress after the first week:

 

Doing a 'John & Yoko' sleeping in the lounge

No room at the Inn

Carpenters have been in to rip out the old cupboards in the main bedroom and put them back in again.  My dreams of a 5 door walk-in wardrobe chucked in the skip with the old plasterboard and timber because the original loft conversion turns out to have been a large bodge. 

Before - back wall

Before - window wall

Before - the wardrobe wall

 

Compromise is now the name of the game.  How to make do with what you’ve got but at least make it better than it was.  Not a happy bunny ☹ 

Bodge 1 - Turns out the corner cupboard that was scheduled for demolition to bring extra space into the room can’t be removed because it is essentially propping up the roof.  After ripping out all the plasterboard, exposing the timber supports and realising this, the carpenters had no choice but to put it all back again as it was.

 

BEFORE - corner cupboard

DURING - Stripped to the bone

AFTER - Rebuilt, insulated and bigger doorway

Bodge 2 – Instead of running pipework to the water tanks in the loft along the main walls, the previous builders had just run them vertically up in the loft crawl space that is behind the main wardrobe so the stud wall at the end can’t be removed to make the wardrobe longer because there’s a rat’s nest of pipework in the way.

 

BEFORE - the existing cupboards

DURING - ripped apart ready for face lift

AFTER - remodelled into 2 larger units

BEFORE - unsightly heating pipes

AFTER - pipework boxed in

The news that I can’t have what I wanted is about as welcome as a turd in a swimming pool.  I feel short-changed but I guess it’s important to realise that these refurbishment projects are all about compromise as you really don’t know what can be done until you’ve stripped the guts out of something then stood back to take stock.

 

What a mess!

The upside of this seemingly fruitless (and expensive) endeavour is that all the cupboards have now been insulated with some heavy-duty plasterboard making them less draughty, all unsightly holes and pipework neatly hidden away before plastering.  

Let’s hope there are no other disappointments to contend with.  I guess the moral of this post is that managing your expectations is as important as managing your refurbishment project.  In life you don’t always get what you want thus it’s always best to have a Plan B up your sleeve. 

It's snowing