The new doorway, shelving and part of the new wardrobe
I guess it’s to be expected that a 1 bedroom flat doesn’t have a great deal of storage space. We have a wardrobe in the bedroom, what could probably be called a linen press in the hallway (though it functions as a place for the brooms, vacuum, tool box, camera bags, extra kitchen stuff that doesn’t fit in the kitchen, spare doona and a few other bits and pieces as well as our towels), and a lock-up storage cage next to our carpark. The cage is full of stuff that doesn’t fit into our flat. Some of it we use occasionally, and other bits we never use but they will be very useful when we move into a larger place. This includes lots of glassware, a lawnmower, spare chairs, radio stuff, car stuff, camping gear, boxes of tools and cables and other goodies, eskies, empty boxes for when we move, wine (it’s nice and cool and relatively dark down there), bicycles, Webber and probably loads of other stuff. So it’s already full. The linen press is full. The wardrobe is full (and I even have to share my underwear and socks drawers because we don’t have enough drawers otherwise), and we have stuff sitting around in piles that doesn’t have a place to go. Bring a baby into this, and you can see that we have no hope of coping.
In September we decided that we should just take the bull by the horns and spend some money on the study to make it a suitable space for a baby. The idea to get airconditioning installed had already been thrown around, and Andrew had started trying to get some quotes on installation of a unit that would fit onto the compressor that we have on the balcony. Sounds simple, but there were all sorts of issues including the fact that you could no longer import the units into Australia because of the type of gas they use. Anyway, a second hand unit was found and installed (nowhere near as quickly done as described, and having to deal with a whole set of issues I won’t bother boring everyone with) and now we just have the holes in the walls and ceiling to patch before we can call it all done. Poor Andrew had the job of sorting the aircon out, and he did a good job of it.
My job was to sort out the wardrobe, because we desperately needed the storage space. I had 4 companies come around to provide quotes, a couple were able to schedule this for early October, but the other companies were fully booked until mid October and so I had them come after my week long holiday in Melbourne. We decided on the quote from a company called Creative By Design, with a small wardrobe (doors from ceiling to floor), an overhead cupboard next to the wardrobe and some shelving in an alcove. Then we had to pay 10% to book them to do the job, 30% when the job was commissioned, 50% when they came to install the units, and 10% when we were happy that everything was done properly. We were to have a new wardrobe in about 5 weeks, which was sometime before the end of November. So that was all good…the designer had all our details, measurements and sketches and when she left I felt pretty happy about it all. A couple of days later we got the computer plans in the mail, but I couldn’t make sense of some of the measurements and had to try ringing the designer several times over several days until I finally got through to her. She said she’d fix them and then emailed me the new sketches, which Andrew and I had more issues with. The designer assured us that everything was fine and how we wanted it, and an installation date was set.
The first installation date came, and we got a phone call to inform us that the wardrobe doors had been made the wrong size, and another installation date would have to be set. The second installation date came, a builder arrived and he built the shelves for the wardrobe. I had been told that the wardrobe doors can’t go all the way to the ceiling, that there had to be a small bit of wood coming down from the ceiling to stop the doors from possibly contacting the ceiling if the ceiling wasn’t flat. However, the bit that they had supplied was 15 cm wide, and our top shelf on the wardrobe was only 25 cm in height, so that meant that we had a 10 cm gap through which to fill our 25 cm high top shelf. The builder also managed to break the overhead cupboard, so we were told that we needed to arrange a third installation date.
I rang the designer the following Monday and told her of the 4 issues I have (what’s been installed is just fine, it’s the bits that haven’t been done yet that were going to cause problems)…..1) the height of the bit attached to the ceiling, 2) that the overhead cupboard was made too big, 3) that the overhead cupboard was made of 4 compartments instead of the 2 that we had asked for, and 4) I wanted a slight modification to the shelving in the alcove if that was possible. Several more phone calls the following day resulted in the third installation date being set, and assurances that everything would be arranged just how we wanted it. The day before the third installation date I rang to make sure that they were coming, just to be told that they couldn’t make it and asked me if Friday (morning or afternoon) would be ok. It was their last day for the year and they said that they wanted to make sure that the wardrobe was installed by Christmas. So I booked them in for Friday afternoon (I had a hospital appointment already booked for that morning). I rang Friday morning to find out what time to expect them, just to be told that it wouldn’t be happening and that a new installation date would be arranged early next year.
We decided that to turn the study into a real room, we should install a door. So last weekend Andrew and Gabe built a doorway, and all that needs to be done now is the preparation for painting. Andrew also plans to fix the holes that were made when the airconditioning was installed, and that should happen next weekend. Then the following weekend we can paint.
So it’s been quite a drawn out project, but we’re getting there! Hopefully we’ll have a room suitable for a baby, complete with a wardrobe and door, before the baby is born.
