All hell done break loose

Well, not exactly. But 'Get Over It' was on TV the other night and that is one of my favourite Martin Short lines in it. And it is broadly applicable to last night's site meeting.

Firstly, Mr Architect was back to his trick of being late. Regardless, the Wonderful Paula from Wickes came down to measure up and ensure the kitchen would fit. She was also able to talk to Mr Builder with such confidence about dimensions that I've not been able to that the whole thing was done in a few minutes. Good start. It didn't last.

It soon became apparent that our excellent bathroom research at the weekend had been somewhat pointless as Mr Architect had given us the wrong ceiling value on the bathroom costs, so rather than achieving a saving we were actually too expensive. This then descended into a contractual debate we'd hoped not to be involved in, and resulted in Mr Builder having to run around trying to source similar items for less and get our approval by the end of the week. Not good.

Apparently there is still a dispute with Building Control over what happens to the rainwater draining from our roof. Mr Architect had specified that it should join up with our waste water drainage from the house, but (seemingly) in the knowledge that Building Control like it to drain to a soakaway in the garden. If he fails to win his argument with them we could be looking at an extra £300+ for the necessary work. Not good.

Mr Builder had also come up with 3 quotes for the granite worktop for the kitchen, but all were beaten by my quote from a local supplier. This was fine until we heard we had to add a 15% markup to give Mr Builder some profit out of the whole thing. Not at all good.

And to top it all the recessed spotlights in the new extension will cause a problem with the roof insulation specified, so they tried to persuade us that different lighting might be better. Rachel suggested they work out the problem and give us what we specified. Attagirl!

So all in all a pretty negative site meeting. Glad we're going on holiday to leave the whole thing behind for a while