Ripping out Cupboards

Andy arrives home from work.

'I read your blog at work today,' he says.

I thought, blimey, he must have been very bored.

'Do you really want to redecorate your writing room?' he continues. I sense a feeling of trepidation in his voice.
'I wouldn't mind,' I say. 'It's the only room in the house we haven't touched since we've been here, and as it looks like we are staying put for the time being, we might as well spruce it up.'

Andy holds his breath. He knows what's coming next. The 'Cupboard Issue.'

'And I would really like to rip out the old cupboards and replace them with some nice shelving,' I say. In hindsight I think I shouldn't have used the word 'ripped' quite so enthusiastically.

Andy is looking a bit pale. 'Hmmmm,' he says. I can tell via the subtle nuances of his body language and tone of voice he is already resistant to this idea.

You see, when we moved in, the room that is now my writing room was a bedroom. And as such it has, running the length of one wall, a double set of built-in wardrobes, and another single cupboard that's a bit like an airing cupboard but without the facility to air anything i.e immersion tankless. The single cupboard contains three shelves at the top and a chest of drawers at the bottom.

This arrangment worked well all the while it was Chris's bedroom (although he never really got the idea of using the hanging rails properly, preferring to spread his clothing over the carpet. Ease of access, I suppose, or an extra layer of insulation. Or just to irritate his mother who'd just spent an hour or more doing the ironing.) Anyway, when Chris moved out, and I turned the room into a work space pour moi, the cupboard arrangement became inappropriate to my needs (I think that's the correct term these days to describe something that is pointless and therefore useless.)

I ended up shoving an old Ikea storage unit that belonged to Andy's batchelor days inside the wardrobe, and balancing things in it and on it (i.e my masses of books and other assorted tat) as best I could. It hasn't been 100% successful. Also, the doors, which were clearly done 'on the cheap' are becoming harder and harder to open and even more difficult to close. There's a lot of shoving and banging required to get door to meet door frame. The cats are very good at using the extra time it takes me to open and close the doors in order to disappear inside the cupboards and if I don't notice, they get trapped inside and I don't notice until they start trying to excavate their way out via means of their sharp and pointy little claws.

'It'd be fun,' I say, 'taking the cupboards out. You could use your sledgehammer. And when we've made a right Royal mess of the job, we can call Guy the Builder in to sort it all out.'

'Hmmmmm,' says Andy, again.

Anyway, I'm leaving the idea of cupboard ripping to settle for a while. I know when to stand back and bide my time. I mean, I've even resisted the urge to look at new carpets. How good am I??

In the meantime, I've reinstated my subscription to 'Country Living' magazine, in order to keep a grip on our country living dream, (having recently been 'specially selected for a one-off two year £1.85-an-issue-deal-with-free-2010-diary - an offer too good to miss really - and it's nice to know I am soooooo special!!). It's been a disappointment for Andy and myself that we didn't get that cottage with the massive garden that we found way back in the summer, but as friends and family have consoled us, it's because something better will come along in the future.

We hope so.