Kitchen Design Realisation

‘Wait a second,’ I yelled into the phone, pressing it to my chest as I spun around to gesture at the contractors. One of them saw me, tapping his buddy on the shoulder and getting him to power off his tool.

‘Thank god,’ I sighed, picking the phone back up. ‘Now I can hear myself think.’

‘What’s the problem?’ my husband, David, asked me from the other end of the line.

‘The problem is that the kitchen is all wrong,’ I said exasperatedly. ‘The island is in the complete wrong spot!’

‘The contractors installed it wrong?’ he asked. I could almost hear him frowning, even above the noise of his car. ‘Just get them to put it back to where we asked, that’s their problem.’

‘No, no, the contractors did as they’re told,’ I said, narrowing my eyes at the two in the room with me, impatiently waiting for me to finish my call. ‘But it’s clearly wrong. We need to reconsider our plans.’

‘Rebecca,’ David groaned at me, ‘I told you ­– this is why we need to hire professional kitchen designers. Melbourne is full-to-bursting with them, just pick one!’

‘They’ll never understand my vision!’ I yelled into the phone.

‘You don’t understand your vision!’ he shot back. ‘Look, I didn’t want to do this renovation in the first place—’

‘Excuse me?!’ I said, gobsmacked. ‘This was a joint decision.’

He actually chuckled as I said that.

‘Absolutely not,’ he said. ‘This was all you from the start. You said you were dying for a new kitchen renovation. Ideas were flowing from you like water, you told me.’

‘From us,’ I hissed, stomping into the hallway. ‘So you hate it? Just tell me.’

‘I hate what it’s doing to you,’ he said gently. ‘You seemed much happier before we had all of our walls removed.’

‘But think how perfect it’ll be when we’re done,’ I said softly, toeing an abandoned nail that had found its way onto the floor.

‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘but only if you call someone.’

I sighed deeply, looking around at the exposed beams.

‘Fine,’ I said, snapping the phone shut.