Something I learned through our renovation

I am a typical Japanese person. I can't really rock the boat. I'm not good at speaking up at all, but I learned something new through our renovation experience. If you don't say something, you don't get anything! 

For our carpets, we used a local shop. I went there and paid in full before the installation because they said they needed to cut the carpet to the size once I ordered. I didn't argue. 

We booked the carpet installation for Thursday morning and we booked our move in for Friday. I went to our new home Thursday afternoon to do the final cleaning before moving in. I was pretty impressed by the carpet and was happy with the work they'd done, but when I was vacuuming I noticed one part of Nico's bedroom carpet had a big cut. I was a bit panicked! I was sure that the carpet shop would fix it but wasn't sure they could do it before Friday morning. 

I called up our project manager Maria but couldn't get through, so I went to the shop (it was nearly 3 pm) and told them there was a big cut on the carpet and showed them the photo. The shop owner said "ah, that's easy to fix. I'll send someone tomorrow morning" and then I said "Ok! Thanks." After that, Maria called me back after reading my text message and seeing the photo of the carpet. "How do they fix it?" she asked and I said "dunno, but they said it's easy." 

She came to the site and said "I think it's not that easy. They shouldn't just cut one part and join it, they should change the whole thing because you paid for carpet without a join. " Probably the carpet shop took advantage because I didn't know anything about carpet and didn't argue at all. They must have thought it's easy because I'm the EASY one.. 

Maria called up the carpet shop and asked how they would fix it. The carpet shop said they have no more of the same carpet and it's a discontinued item, so there's no way they can change the whole thing. Well maybe that might have been true, but their attitude made us think that they just didn't want to change whole thing. 

Maria and Paul's dad went to the shop and negotiated. In the end, we had to have one join but got $200 back. That was pretty good for us. 

Paul's dad advised me not to pay in full before the job's done from next time. Once they get money, sometimes they can just walk away from this kind of trouble. 

There's one extra story behind this carpet trouble. When Maria was calling up the carpet shop in Nico's new bedroom, I was putting a lampshade in our new bedroom. When Maria finished talking, she went to the lounge to see what her 1year old son Luca was doing and then I heard her scream!! I could tell something really serious happened from her scream. I thought Luca fell down from a ladder or something. 

When I went in the lounge, I saw that Maria and Paul's dad were trying to grab Luca's hand - he was holding a paint brush. And then I saw red paint everywhere on our new white kitchen cupboard - I was painting our front door in red and left the brush near the kitchen. 

Thankfully all the red paint was removed with turps, so now we can laugh about it. We even think we should have taken a photo of Luca doing that. It was definitely the most dramatic and funniest thing that happened throughout our renovation. 


With love, 
Allie