BBQ Fiasco

Today was the day when the outdoor kitchen was supposed to be finished. What a fiasco. First of all the grill installers didn't turn up this morning - they claimed to have been given the wrong address. When they finally did turn up, they unpacked all the equipment and discovered that none of it fitted into the holes waiting for it in the frame of the outdoor kitchen. The holes cut in the counter top were not big enough.

The gal in the Landscape Designer's office tried to get the counter top guy out, but he was not to be found. After the BBQ installers had hung out for an hour, they prepared to go home, leaving all the equipment out on the patio. At that moment the counter top guy arrived. He had started to cut the counter top as I left for an event elsewhere.

Returning home, I see that the two grills are positioned in their spaces on the counter top - but there is a big gap behind them, about two inches wide, which means that the unit is not water tight and generally looks rubbish. Did I mention that this counter top - honed limestone - cost us over $8,000? Unless there is some magic fix, they've ruined it. Also some of the stone cladding fell off the wall.

The BBQ installers were pretty sour and unpleasant. They also tried to install the fridge but couldn't because they said it was impossible to reach the feet under the fridge when it was in place. The space in the base of the kitchen unit is apparently insufficient for the installation to happen. The BBQ installers also said that they wouldn't be installing the other pieces of equipment we bought from their store - at immense expense - because "we only install into wood studs, not concrete, so someone else will have to do this."

All in all, a total fiasco, and Hubby is on the verge of firing everyone. (Which of course would be madness, given the late stage of the project, but I understand his frustration.)

When we embarked on the landscaping, we were assured that it would all be done by the end of May. How wrong that was.