Moving forward

Today is momentous. Finally, 8 months after ordering, my front door has arrived & is being installed.

The delays in the supply chain for the building trade are notorious & I have blogged about them several times. It was bad enough when I wasn't living here, but not having a proper front door when I was has been a trial. 

I am delighted with the door & the men fitting it seem very good. I will be so pleased to feel completely secure & finally the internal work in my house will be almost finished when the hallway is done. I actually started planning where to hang my pictures with my daughter yesterday. So it will really begin to feel like a home rather than a building site. Most of my pictures have important memories. 

All the exterior work is on hold though, possibly for a long time. A neighbours wall at the bottom of the garden is leaning into my garden & needs to be demolished & replaced. It will be a big job & cause a lot of disruption because I have offered that all the work can be done from my side because access is much easier than from hers. So I can't have my drive, security gates, patio & garden done till the work is finished. All the men, machinery & materials will have to come in & out through my entrance. That can't happen until the Surveyor has done his report though. It's a pity, because I do want to get on with my garden, which looks dreadful at the moment.

Even as I'm writing this I have just been told that there is a problem with the door frame! The arch has been wrongly constructed. My doorway has a flat arch & the frame has a true arch. So it won't fit properly. They will install it temporarily & fill the gaps & get another frame made. Also the inside of the door should be cream & they have done it in Chartwell Green, which is the outside colour & looks very odd from the hall. So that means another door

Unfortunately I'm not even surprised. It's par for the course. Nothing has gone well.

UPDATE 4 pm

Just when you think nothing worse can happen! The window & door company founder came to see the problems with the door & frame & noticed something that I certainly didn't. But worse, my surveyor & none of my builders noticed either. The side wall of the house isn't level & there are signs of cracking on the front wall above the doorway. My skill set doesn't stretch this far, so I have emailed my surveyor. (This does prove that a - You do need a good survey & b - Even that doesn't necessarily stop you from getting a nasty shock).

I will wait with baited breath.

If there is a serious problem it does make you wonder what the point of employing professionals is. Because it certainly doesn't seem to protect house buyers from having to go through this sort of truly worrying scenario. The side wall of my neighbours detached house is covered in cracks, so maybe I don't need to be too worried. But that isn't helping me at the moment.