Damian is a lovely guy, but definitely not organised. Our experience with
DIY Australia so far has been pretty disorganised.
Whilst the quote was great and Damian (who runs DIY Australia) is lovely we have had some issues ever since the quote!
When I followed up on the delivery, it turned out that they were missing the doors. They were made... and ready but just couldn't be found! So they have to make them at a later stage (unless I wanted a different colour? No I wanted to stay with the theme.)
The delivery of the kitchen was delayed even after I did a work from home day. At 9pm I called to find out where it was... late shouldn't mean that late... and shouldn't I have had a call before that time? I gave them the benefit of the doubt as maybe they thought they could still do it... but it turned out the delivery would happen the following day when I would try and rush home to be here around 6.50pm to take delivery of the kitchen.
When I got home, Will was helping Damian unload the truck into the garage. All good so far... Damian even showed us how to put together the cabinets with Cabinet one as an example.
I'm glad he did... but I was hoping also for a set of instructions? And what about a list of parts? But no... we had to guess how many handles there are meant to be... and I counted them up and told Damian that there weren't enough!
But the worst things have been:
- When we got to Howes Valley to put the cabinets together we found we didn't have all the pieces to build the two base corner cabinets! It was very very irritating especially since Will then took a day off work to build the cabinets later that week (and Jason had allowed Monday to do the kitchen installation which now could not be done!)
- We found out yesterday that the benchtops were scratched (we don't know to what extent) and more importantly one of the benchtops wasn't the right length :(
This now means that the kitchen is delayed... the plumber is delayed, the tiler is delayed... which this close to Christmas means... we won't be in before then! It was making me physically ill but I think it's my high expectation thing. I just need to resign myself to not being in during the forced xmas break period.
The space in the loft storage areas is quite good. Here is a peep into one of them.
The downstairs is looking quite good now but this is prior to the kitchen going in or the ceiling paint...
Outside is looking pretty good with the decks now oiled. I think this photo is prior to the oiling happening. More progress photos would be good but the weather has been pretty miserable at this point.
I don't think Batman is helping too much... but is enjoying the kitchen!
Pauly is doing a great job with the fiddly balustrades. She seems to like getting a fake tan courtesy of the varnish.
Ceilings are awful to paint. Now I know why we never did ceilings before. Even harder on plasterboard.
Onto the ceiling panels in the loft area. We're just using decking oil which was recommended by the guys at the local Bristol store. (btw I'd recommend using Bristol over Bunnings just for sheer efficiency. It was quick to get advice and also quick to get in and out of there. No queuing at the paint counter for us!)
