Adventures in Kitchen Renovation: Part II: Renee vs. IKEA’s rubbish delivery company

I probably should not admit how much I stressed about my IKEA kitchen delivery. It shows just how privileged and stress-free my life is that this was the only thing I had to worry about. But I did worry about it. A lot. I lost sleep thinking about it when the delivery was still days away. Every day I obsessively checked Google Maps to see if roads were closed. On Sunday night, the night before the scheduled delivery, I was like a kid on Christmas Eve. I could not sleep. I kept thinking about what I could say to the driver to convince him not to cancel because of the traffic. I thought about what I would say to Alex our builder when I had to inevitably tell him the kitchen wasn’t coming for another week. I thought about what we would do if Alex rage quit, which would be completely understandable given the circumstances.

On Monday I woke up at 6am anticipating the call. Last time the driver called at 6:24am to say he was 30 minutes away, so I figured we’d be first on the list again. But 6:30am passed and no one called. At 7am I received a text message with a tracking link that showed me exactly where the driver was. He was near Heathrow and still had another drop to make before our delivery. I should have gone back to sleep, there was no way he was going to reach us before 9am. But I couldn’t sleep. Instead, I obsessively refreshed the tracking location, then put the location into Google Maps to ensure there was a clear route here. It seemed more roads were closing by the minute because of the queen’s procession to open parliament. I tried to get some work done, but I was exhausted and driving myself mad with the refreshing. Around 9:15am I saw that the truck icon was one street away and I nearly cried tears of joy. It was coming! My kitchen was actually coming!

I met the truck downstairs and spoke with the laborer. “Is it far up to the flat?” he asked. I showed him the way from the street through the lobby, around the corner and to the lift.
“It’s far,” he said. “They should have sent a three-man crew. We don’t even have a trolley,” he said.

You loaded a full kitchen order onto the truck, including three appliances, and didn’t think maybe you’d need a sack truck (which is British for dolly)? I wanted to ask.

I waited while the driver phoned the delivery depot. IKEA UK outsources its deliveries to a third-party company.

“We can’t do this delivery, you’ll have to call IKEA to reschedule and tell them you need a three-man crew. We’re running behind on our other deliveries and have to leave,” he said.

The old Renee would have said I understand, and then probably cried about it upstairs while listening to IKEA’s ABBA hold music for 30 minutes while trying once again to reschedule the delivery. But I was a new Renee, hardened by carrying massive tiles and wired on matcha, lack of sleep, and adrenaline. I was looking right at my entire kitchen packed up in boxes in the back of a truck. I wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“You drove all this way, I can’t let you leave,” I told them, wondering how in fact I was going to enforce that. Chain or glue myself to the truck like an Extinction Rebellion protester? “I am not rescheduling one more time, you are not driving away with my kitchen.”

The driver continued to strap up my fridge in preparation for departure. The delivery company dispatch called me and told me I’d have to reschedule. “I’m not rescheduling and waiting another week for my kitchen when it’s right here in front of me,” I told her. She continued to rattle on, so I hung up.

I could tell my pleas were starting to work on the laborer.

“Is there anywhere we can store it in the lobby?” he asked. We live in a posh building, the kind that normally doesn’t even let you make deliveries through the lobby, insisting they go through the basement, but these were desperate times. The porters could sense my frustration and despair, so they kindly moved some furniture out of the way so we could store our entire kitchen in the lobby. Not only that, but one of the porters started helping the delivery guys unload. I couldn’t believe it. I definitely owe the porters some fresh-baked cookies when I have a functioning kitchen.

I called Alex to let him know the situation. He was happy the kitchen had arrived, but not too happy when he found out he’d have to carry it up to the flat. He and Vinnie arrived a few hours later and brought all 122 items upstairs.

I definitely owe them cookies too!

Adventures in Kitchen Renovation: Part I: Rebellion v. Tiles

Ever since we moved into this flat almost three years ago, I’ve been wanting to redo the kitchen. Everything was outdated, there wasn’t enough storage space, and on the day we moved in there was literally a green onion in the oven and dog food on the floor. But the living room and bedroom took priority, but now it was finally time for the kitchen. I told Stephen I wanted to take charge of the project, which I think in my mind meant put everything away where I want it once the renovation was done, not handle getting quotes from builders and kitchen manufacturers, but I did. I did everything, and was determined for this project to go smoothly. We said we’d learn from the mistakes we made from renovating the living room while doing the bedroom, but we didn’t. So I was determined for the third time to be the proverbial charm and for one of our renovations to actually only take two weeks.

Things were off to a good start. After meeting with designers from various manufacturers, we decided on an IKEA kitchen. It was by far the cheapest, and from what most of the builders I talked to said, about the same quality as some of the more expensive brands. It all depended on the fitting, and for that I had found a respectable builder who came highly recommended. We ordered the kitchen before we went on holiday to Italy, and scheduled for it to be delivered on Tuesday, October 8. I scheduled Alex the builder to start on Monday, October 7, figuring it would take a day to demolish the kitchen. I also scheduled for the floor tiles to arrive on Monday, knowing I’d need the builders here to help me carry them upstairs.

We returned from a lovely holiday in Italy, I spent the weekend packing up the kitchen and we were all ready to go on Monday. But you know who else was ready to go that day? Extinction Rebellion, a radical protest group that decided the only way to get the government to act on climate change was to shut down all of Westminster for two weeks. Beginning — you guessed it — Monday, October 7, the first day of our kitchen renovation. The builders could take the Tube — we don’t have parking near us anyway — but I neglected to realize the impact shutting down the entire city would have on deliveries. Remember how people were going to storm Area 51, claiming “they can’t stop us all”? Well that was Extinction Rebellion’s tactics. Protesters greatly outnumbered police, so even though plenty of arrests were made, they could not stop the group from peacefully sitting in the streets, stopping all traffic.

On Monday the tile company called and said the driver couldn’t get to us, so we’d be on am delivery on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Alex’s colleague showed up and demolished our old kitchen in record timing.

On Tuesday I was awoken by a call from IKEA’s delivery company, saying they were 30 minutes away. I hurriedly cleared out the guest room so there would be room for all the boxes. And then 30 minutes passed. I called the driver and explained the situation about the roads. I texted him a map showing how he would have to travel in order to reach us. And then the delivery depot called me.

“We have to cancel your delivery,” they said.

“I was just talking to the driver, there’s a way to get here!” I told them.

“It will take too much time and we have other deliveries today. You’ll have to call IKEA to reschedule.” they said.

And just like that, my dream of getting my kitchen finished without a hitch vanished.

I was frustrated and exhausted, but I had to turn my focus to the floor tiles. I called the company every hour. They kept assuring me my tiles were on the truck and they were coming today, just not as quickly as originally promised. Meanwhile, after sitting on hold with IKEA for over 30 minutes, the soonest I could reschedule the kitchen delivery was for Monday, Oct. 14.

“Monday?!” Alex exclaimed with a frustrated groan over the phone when I had to break the news to him. I had just dashed his dreams of completing this project without a hitch too. He told me if the floor tiles didn’t arrive, there was no point in him coming the whole week since there was nothing for him to do.

“The tiles are coming, they keep telling me they’re on their way,” I assured him. But even I was losing hope. I spoke with the porters who said the building had only had a couple deliveries all day. Normally there were more than 20. Royal Mail couldn’t even get to us.

I wanted so badly to take a nap and forget everything, but I had to remain awake for the tiles. They could come any minute. But then I got a call.

“We’re so sorry, but our driver has just been turned away by the police and cannot deliver today,” the tile company said. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

And with that I actually broke down and cried. Partly from sleep deprivation, partly from frustration and anxiety. The protest was supposed to last for two weeks. I could not afford to wait two weeks to work on the kitchen, especially right after we demolished it. There was no going back, and no way to cook or do laundry (yes, like most households in the UK, the washer/dryer is part of the kitchen). I couldn’t believe our bad timing.

I decided to take my mind off things for a bit and turned on the TV to watch some Netflix. And then my phone rang.

“Hello? I have a pallet delivery for you. I’m outside.”

I stuck my head out the window. It was my tiles! I almost cried again, out of joy this time. How had they managed to arrive?? I went downstairs to accept delivery, remembering one minor issue: it was a curbside delivery of 30 60cmx60cm, essentially 2 ft by 2 ft, porcelain tiles. And I was all by myself.

“Can I borrow the trolley?” I asked the porter.

“Are your builders not in?!” he asked. “Are you planning to carry all those tiles upstairs yourself?”

“Yes,” I told him. He offered to help. He lifted half of the tiles into the trolley, and I pushed it up the ramp and over to the lift. And then one by one I carried them by myself into the flat. I went back down to collect the rest of them, only to find it had gone from bright and sunny to pissing down rain. The tiles were packed in cardboard sleeves, which had all but disintegrated. I got soaked lifting the remaining tiles into the cart. But I did it, I brought them all upstairs, and Alex was able to get started on the floor the next day.

Stay tuned for part 2, in which IKEA attempts to deliver our kitchen a second time and I almost lose my mind again.