900 Centimeters

It is time for a construction story.

I have been building a new house for a great young couple. This couple have been living in a townhome and have decided to upgrade to a single family home. The key word is upgrade.

The hardworking couple have made all the correct financial decisions to allow them to build their “forever” home.

The house we are building for them has one of the best “gourmet” kitchen I have seen. Custom cabinets, marble countertops, a wine fridge, upgraded appliances including a glass exhaust hood are all in this kitchen.

While the cabinets were being installed, the carpenter actually installing the cabinets walked up to me and said, “I hope the dishwasher fits in these cabinets.” I asked him, “Why would you say that?” He replied, “Something just seems wrong.”

The carpenter and I again went through the plans and specifications and convinced ourselves the thing would be okay. We decided to go ahead with the construction with the kitchen.

My years of construction have taught me kitchens are designed by architects and interior designers, which are artists and not necessarily mathematicians. (If I have offended anyone, I’m sorry. However, my thoughts will forever remain.)

We continued with construction of the kitchen. The marble countertops were installed. Glass tile backsplash were installed on the walls. (Tile between the countertops and the upper cabinets.) The painting is finished.

Of course, as with every new homeowners this couple was excited about moving into their new home. But they may have been a little too excited. A few weeks ago the homeowners asked me when they could move in. I gave them a date of around the end of May. The husband said, “that works well. We have sold our existing home are renting a place until our home is ready, After May 31st we will need to pay $250 per day to continue renting.” Now the pressure is on.

I don’t really mind pressure, but I realized that one glitch could cost this couple $250 per day. The house was moving right along. No glitches.

For the past two weeks I have been waking every night at around 3:00 AM with that (construction language) carpenter’s comments about the (construction language) dishwasher. I would watch television with the sound off until I would go back to sleep, which was usually about five minutes before Maggie scratches the side of the bed.

Last week the appliances arrived. I was watching the installers unpack the dishwasher. The dishwasher is ready to be installed. It fit in the cabinets exactly like it was supposed to. All that lost sleep and the dishwasher fits.

And then! The appliance installer said to me, “Hey Monner, this glass kitchen hood doesn’t fit.”

I replied with a standard saying that is heard a lot on construction sites, “What the (construction language) are you talking about?” He replied with another construction saying, “I don’t know, it just doesn’t fit.”

It seems glass kitchen hoods are measured in inches or centimeters. We had received the hood that measured 36″ and we needed a hood that measured 900 centimeters.

I called the appliance salesman to discuss our dilemma. The salesman ask me if I could measure the hood. I measured the hood and told him it measured 36″. He asked me how many centimeter that would be.

Well……..I’m a senior citizen that was educated in the United States. I don’t like even spelling centimeter, let alone knowing how big one is. I asked if anyone had anything that measured centimeters. One of the workers asked me if I knew what country I was in.

I started planning to tear out cabinets to install the 36″ hood. The salesman called with the news that he has a 900 centimeter hood that will fit. We just need to swap hoods. That meant no moving of the cabinets. I again realized that lost sleep was for nothing.

Our crazy lives!

Monner