SAGA

Okay. So I promised a kitchen explanation to those of you who have been unfortunate enough to hear/read my rants on the subject of our blind shaved monkey kitchen guy and his escapades in fixing the sink area wall and installing the kitchen we designed over months of painstaking re-work and geometry too complicated for the mathematically challenged individual that I am. Right, maybe I am selling myself a bit short on the math thing… Nah, I am hopeless. I have to have a frickin computer to even do simple addition. As most of you know, I love to cook and so does Mira. The kitchen, to both of us, is the heart of our house. One look at my scale and you can tell why :)

We finally decided on the flat we bought specifically because we could have an open kitchen/living room arrangement. Our previous flat had the kitchen in an inconvenient location for full conversation sharing between the cook and guests. One of us was always running back and forth to check on the dinner being prepared so we would always miss part of the conversation etc. This flat had the “bones” we wanted (literally too) and our adventure began after signing our signatures 11 times each on documents at the bank and paying money.

Kitchen Design: We finally chose a “kitchen store” (Domus) to provide us the cabinets because of color choice limitations of all of the other stores (Parma, Petra, etc). Seriously. 10 color choices is not my idea of having a “choice”, and for those of you who don’t know, Mira’s livelihood is color. She can look at something and tell you the % of all colors in it. It is a spooky talent. Okay she is a pro, but still. I am hopeless. I tried to describe the color we chose and it was like “um..bluish with grey..but not too grey and not too blue”…and she just shook her head. Same thing with the color of the wall paints… I just tried to describe what I wanted, she picked up the color swatches and actually handed me the color I was describing and told me the name…which I still can’t remember.. So, after what seemed like 4907987 visits to the kitchen store we explained our design to the consultant and all she pretty much had to do was write down the measurements, and put it in something similar to CAD (geek I know). Voila, we had our design and our price tag. (Props to Mira for reducing the cost of our kitchen by about 3 grand without compromising on our taste and wants (mmmm hard wood counter tops)..She rocks). The sales consultant then gave us the name of the firm they use and the offer from them to install it.


….during these whole shenanigans it was decided that the walls of the sink area needed to be altered so that the cabinets would “sit properly” and that the walls would look appropriately nice… After having a friend’s workmate (both of them in construction) who promised to come look at it and give us an estimate, stand us up 3 times we called the referenced firm from Domus. Monkey Boy, which is what I refer to him as now, showed up, we explained what we wanted done, he took a look and said “Jep, ei hätää”. Which means: “Yep, no worries”….

…Fast forward 3 weeks.. Sink walls…HOLY HELL. The left wall, which was supposed to have a sheet rock panel installed over the brick (due to time constraints), had the worst plastering job you have ever seen and it had more dips and holes than a rally course…. Fear began to settle in…. When he arrived to do the kitchen wall work, we informed him that our floors had JUST been sanded and that we covered the hallway and the whole kitchen area floors with paper (voima paperi) and to please not step off of them…. Well…we come in after they have gone so we can put the floor stain (very nice choice by mira I might add) to give them a bit of color and then after that the 1st layer of sealant to protect them. So..we dutifully take off our shoes (outside the door) and put on nice socks and go in to remove the papers. We walk around, remove the paper, vacuum and tack cloth the entire fucking flat. Excuse my language… We scrubbed with a clean cloth and started the floor staining ritual. I am telling you it was like invisible frickin ink. The frickin idiots walked all over our living room area with work boots on. We now have foot prints everywhere. I can tell you that Monkey Boy wears a size 42….. Okay..don’t panic..don’t scream Steph…UGH!!! At this point we just don’t have 1.) Money (paying for 2 apartments and a renovation leaves me at this very moment with 38,23 euros in my bank until payday on the 15th, and 2). TIME. We had no option NOT to move at the end of January… So to all of my friends who suggested the resanding, I appreciate your suggestions, but there is no way in hell we can afford it...both in money, or another place to live while it is being done and the re-staining is accomplished….

..so..Steph’s Latin temper begins to boil and poor Mira listens to me rant and rave at the ceiling.. We call him. Well…it was Mira cause Monkey Boy don’t speaka da English and I don’t speak Finnish well enough when it comes to remodeling terms and I would just spend 10 minutes yelling: “VITTU SAATANA PERKELE!!!” at him and that would get us nowhere. MB says that “we needed to use the electrical outlet on the other side of the room…and we didn’t realize there was NOTHING protecting the floors”…. WHAT?!?! What the hell did we tell you earlier you frickin ASSHOLE!! OH and the outlet that was right next to you on the wall of the COVERED area wasn’t enough?!?!?... JESUS..Thanks for the interesting conversational piece that is now our living room floor. I will just have to say it was a game of Twister gone wrong?

Cabinets arrive and Monkey Boy starts to install them. Now..the installation of cabinets begins…and he says that it will take him 3 days… Half way through he runs out of tile (and we estimated a whole extra square meter so he wouldn’t) and we have to order another box so he can use 4. Yes 4. To top it off, the 4 he decides to use have black stuff on them that won’t come off!. Our tiles are installed, but the frickin grout was not wiped afterwards so it is all over the tiles in clumps. Not only that… the “chemical” wash he used to “treat” the tiles when they went on is now splashed over our newly painted LIVINGROOM wall ( a good 3 feet away), down the front of my brand new cabinets and inside my BRAND FUCKING NEW and REALLY EXPENSIVE STAINLESS STEEL GAS STOVE!!!!.... What does Monkey boy say when we call him: “It wasn’t me. I didn’t do it. The stuff was covered and the stove shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”….. WHAT?!??!?!!? FUCKING WHAT?!?!?!?! You mean to tell me that this intellectual giant never installed tile in a kitchen that had appliances in them before?!?!?! You have to be fucking kidding me!!! Not only that, when we are preparing the kitchen for our moving day, the fucking genius grouted the masking tape he used to attach the “covering” of the countertops TO the fucking counter-tops!!! It took 3 hours with needle-nosed pliers and a hell of a lot of patience for it to be taken off… Oh and did I mention the giant holes he punched in our walls to run the electricity and didn’t even ask us first?... That part isn’t so bad because they are now covered with face plates..but come on buddy..give me a fucking break! Oh..and he STILL hasn’t scilconed the gap between the tiles and the countertop so we have to be very careful about not having any kind of wetness (especially in the sink area) splash near it.

…so the kitchen is completely done yet, the bastard has to come back… We called Domus and they told us that we are not the only client that has complained about his workmanship and attitude. We were number 3. So we actually were told that they are severing their contract with him. It is just sad that we had to be the 3rd client that had this experience. We called the consumer protection agency to find out our rights ( I was threatening not to pay at all) and the woman there said that the only thing we can do is argue when we get the bill and that we have to have him finish the contract or HE could sue US. WHAT?!!??!?! So Monkey Boy comes tomorrow to attach the backboard for the island (the original one was 3mm too small) and the kick boards for 2 locations. He is also supposed to silicon the gap…. We have decided that he will NOT be allowed in our house without one of us there….

….there..the Kitchen rant….


…on the plus side, our Bathroom company (Blosius) did a great job. Expensive, but great. It is precisely what we asked for and finished on-time. The painter we had help us was also great…..so all in all it isn’t THAT bad, but I still want to kick Monkey Boy in the bits..many many times.