After a nice two week break over Christmas and New Year it was time to switch the phone back on and get back to work.  The new build we had been working on was now all plaster boarded and John and J the plasterers were making a start on getting everywhere skimmed, so we are leaving them to it.

Stu and I were off to do a refurbishment and new kitchen fitting in Peterborough.  We were doing it for the parents of a client we did an extension for last year.  His parents were impressed with our standard of work and so they got us in to do the work on their newly purchased bungalow.  We had to take out the existing kitchen, remove some stud walls and put back some new stud walls so that they could alter their room layouts, and then supply and fit a new kitchen.  As it has tuned out their revised layout works really well and makes far better use of their living space than the original layout.

Of course we have also had the snow and cold temperatures, but fortunately this hasn’t stopped us from getting on with the job in hand.  Stu and I were doing all the work as usual, with John and J popping over to skim some walls.  The client had got their own electrician in doing some work for them.  I prefer to run the job from start to finish myself, using tradesmen I know and trust to come in and do their work as part of a schedule of works.  Some people don’t understand why there is an issue with them getting in their own trades, but here is a good reason why.  Stu and I took out the kitchen Monday morning, so then the electrician could run his revised sockets.  But this took them longer than they planned, and as a consequence we were tripping over each other in the afternoon as we were trying to take the stud walls down.  On the Tuesday morning they were going to replace the mains fuse board, which I wasn’t aware they were going to do, which meant there would be no power on site.  They said they would be done by around 11am.  So Stu and I went shopping for materials and got back on site for 11am.  Unfortunately the electricians hadn’t finished the fuse board and there was still no power, and we couldn’t do any work.  They then had a problem with the fuse board and did not get finished until around 13.30.  So Stu and I, through no fault of our own had lost out on half a day’s work.  It was only day two and we were already behind.  Then the afternoon was a mad rush to get the stud walls up so John and J had something to plaster Wednesday.  In the end we managed to work through things, but with some better planning and organisation the situation could have been avoided.  But most of the time its Stu and I who are the ones on the receiving end and we get messed about.  One day we might get our own back!!