My nice shiny new door!

Still no progress on the roof, but I’m pleased to say that this Monday saw the friendly chaps from Leading Edge Joinery fitting my shiny new door.  A wonderful job they did too – they even transferred the old cat flap, and did such a good job cleaning it that I honestly thought they had replaced it with a new one!  Who knew the centre part was supposed to be transparent?

The chaps even tidied up after themselves – to the extent that I don’t think our front step has ever looked so clean.  It was almost a pleasure to hand the cheque over on completion of the job.  Almost.

It’s heartening to see that some workmen still take pride in customer service, unlike certain other companies – naming no names.

I got up this morning bright and early, eager to trundle off to work. Shower, dress, breakfast – all is going according to plan. I don my coat and shoes and set off out the door.

Wait – rewind. I try to set off out the door, but the door has other ideas. The multi-point lock has failed in the ‘lock’ position, and I’m trapped. Being, as it is, a back-to-back terrace, I’m really trapped – the front door is also my only door.

First things first – a quick e-mail to work to let them know I shan’t be in. I’m sure it went down well, being off for unscheduled absence in my first month of work, but these things can’t be helped. Next step was to contact someone who might be able to do something. They attended a scant half-hour later, and spent the majority of the morning trying to effect entry.

Eventually we get the door open, albeit in pieces – as the image above attests. The next step is to declare the door right royally buggered, and ‘fix’ it in such a way that it will sort of work for the time being. The door frame, y’see, is a strange and non-standard size – which means it’s rather more complicated than a trip to Wickes to solve the problem. It’s a custom-build job – and it’ll take around a week to get.

Wonderful.

The good news is that I can leave my house once again – so I’ll be at work bright and early tomorrow morning. The not so good news is that I’ll have to be at work – to pay the expected bill of around £700 for supply and fitting of a new PVCu door.

Ouch.