Let's Hear It For The Kitchen Fitters
The kitchen fitters make a house a home. How well the kitchen fitters do their job will make the family room feel just right. The kitchen is the heart of any family. It’s where they meet, eat and gather for all important matters. But how we all take for granted the skills, the thought and the knowledge that make this place as comfortable and convenient as it is.
I recently had good reason to really appreciate the kitchen fitters’ skills. You see I bought a new kitchen from a catalogue. A well-known Swedish brand that looked fantastic in the pictures and the showroom. It didn’t look so good when blocking my rearview mirror as it crammed into my car and my bargain could have been very expensive as I was nearly decapitated by the very long worktop flat pack on a sharp right-hander. My house was empty so I decided to build the units in the lounge…until I realized that corner base units do not fit through the door once assembled.
I was reminded of the old adage that experience is what you get just after you really need it. So then I asked myself what other experience I didn’t have that a kitchen fitter would bring.
Had I selected the right units for my kitchen? Can I read and understand manufacturers scale drawings and make a good plan of a basic kitchen layout -or even one that works-? Could I mark, set out and level my units to a datum line? How long will it take me to assemble and fix base and wall units? I know I don’t have the right tools such as a work top jig and router so I couldn’t scribe and then cut 45 and 90-degree masons miters. I was sure I could do 43 or 98-degree miters and make each one a unique piece that only randomly touches the wall.
The thought of cutting an insert for that trendy circular sink and the hobs in my worktop sent me diving for the ‘K’ section of yellow pages. Whoa, be a man my inner voice rebuked me. Even I could hang doors and templates
for fitting of door furniture couldn’t I? How hard can marking, cutting and fixing of a cornice pelmet and plinth be?
Days, possibly months, of backbreaking frustration, cut fingers and head bumps loomed ahead of me. Three worktops later and 5 tubes of all-purpose sealant and I might be able to do the backlog of washing up, but only if I’ve plumbed the sink unit properly to the dishwasher and the washing machine. Ye Gods, back to the yellow pages, because fitting a kitchen is not for this amateur.
You see, a kitchen fitter will come with knowledge and experience and health and safety all fitted as standard. They will have the essential
personal protective equipment (like a brain), and they’ll know the building regulations applicable to kitchen fitting in respect of electrics and water. They’ll be quick and clean and make my kitchen ship fit into my kitchen bottle as though it grew in there.
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