Our last ‘PG’ or paying guest left in early December. Then the garden fell asleep (oh joy, deep joy!). With short days and long nights , it was time to plan the WOW in the bedroom project! Richie our ‘little bit of a perfectionist’ carpenter arrived the first week of January.
One minute the Pijjery was all White Company Egyptian Cotton and fluffy bathrobes, peace and tranquillity and the next it was sawdust, dust sheets and stuff with Milwaukee written all over it!
And so… work began.
The different trades speak in a strange language and discuss things like fused spurs and dead legs which are not, I learned, spurs on your boots and numb thighs. Two weeks into the project we hit the dark night of the renovator!
“We need a 15 millimetre gap - that’s 12mm”
...really?
“I need a 5” Stove pipe offset bend”
“this won’t work, it doesn’t fit”
“Is that fitting chrome on brass?
“Whose van is blocking the driveway?”
“Those knobs just don’t do it for me”
Then there’s the delivery issue. Light switches and architectural hardware such as handles and hinges were painstakingly sourced and bought. The stores then hand over your carefully chosen goods to the delivery companies. Then the stress starts to mount.
These nameless so called fast movers of goods proudly bombard you with countless emails announcing they have your order, it’s being sent, it’s going to the hub, it’s left the hub, the drivers name is John, he has a good sense of humour, supports Arsenal and likes Thai Food and is hoping to get married in 2040 etcetera etcetera!
Then the email proudly announcing your parcel has been delivered drops into your mail box, along with a photograph of a door just not YOUR door! The door could be in a Selkirk, Solihull or Spain. It’s not even the same colour as your door. I really think it takes as long to find your parcels as it does to make them in the first place. Sure enough, as the dust cleared, the finishing post came into sight along with the end of January. The clear up was going to be enormous. Mess spreads and creeps like ground elder. Mr Milwaukee began to remove his troops and slowly but surely a bedroom and a bathroom began to re-emerge.
Now there’s no excuse, no one to blame, no one to hide behind, the fine detail in the decor is down to yours truly. Can the WOW be put into the Pijjery bedroom?
We’ve got about ten days before our ‘guinea pigs’ come in and look for snags in the design and issues with the delivery of our service. Then in the last week of February real PG’s will arrive. We’re super flattered that our very first guests in 2025 decided to re book and will be our first guests in 2026. A repeat booking is perhaps the greatest complement a customer can give you. What will they think of the improvements? We’ll let you know.
