19 January 2009 - The Kitchen

So...this is my kitchen in the picture. Notice the curious absence of not only appliances but also otherwise-useful items like kitchen cabinets and even the, um, kitchen sink. This is apparently commonplace in Germany. People buy their kitchens and take them with them.

Now, you're probably wondering the same thing that I wonder pretty much every day -- Why (and how) do you take your kitchen cabinets and sink with you when 99% of the time the new kitchen room will have different dimensions than the one you just left? I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer. Which, in itself, is puzzling because there is a reason for everything in Germany. (I should also note that people also take their lighting fixtures with them, so unless I pick up a lamp or something at IKEA, I will be living by candlelight at my new digs until I purchase and install said electrical fixtures. It's like the essence of what we learned -- and promptly forgot, because it was crazy, right? -- in property law class.)

So on Friday morning I met with the kitchen designer, who has apparently designed all the kitchens in my new apartment building. He had taken measurements of my miniscule kitchen area (yes, it's as small as it looks in the picture) and had some preliminary ideas. The meeting was supposed to take about an hour. So, two and a half hours later, I told him I had to go, given that I'd already postponed a meeting at the office and it was, after all, a workday (a day in which people such as myself generally work). He said he had about an hour of "homework" to do before he would have a quote. Fine. I said I'd give him a call after my meeting. I did and he told me he'd send me a picture, though what I was asking for was a quote. I got it and then he wanted to talk at greater length, but I had other things going on (you know, work!), so we agreed I would call him at 7 PM. So I did, at which point he asked if I was on my way to see him. Uhhh....no???? Given that the relocation company person had dropped me off at the office and I had to take the train back to the Liv'in in order to pick up my car and then drive to his office. He said he'd wait. Okay....

So I didn't get there until about 8:30, which is pretty late for a German business to stay open, based on my limited experience. We discussed the updated design and he gave me a quote. I searched the room for a defribrillator kit to revive myself because I was certain a heart attack was approaching. Care to guess the estimate? Over €16,000. Uhhhh.... Oh, but wait, he'd give me a discount because of his experience or something with the building, so only €13,900 or so. Now, I get sticker shock all the time over here, but this is well on it's way to purchasing a car! Fortunately, it required approval by the firm. So I faxed the quote to the US and asked if they could turn around the approval/rejection by Monday morning. Sure. Except input was also required by the firm in Germany, which makes sense since they would know how overpriced or potentially reasonable this kitchen was.

Suffice it to say that the firm also experienced sticker shock. I went back to the kitchen designer (who's really a great guy and who has excellent ideas) and asked what he could do to bring the price down and to send me an updated quotation. Well, the price came down to about €12,000, which still is a bit rich. So at present I have no approval for a kitchen, each day of non-approval pushes back the date at which the kitchen could be installed, and oh yeah, most of the other kitchen places apparently take about 6-8 weeks to get a kitchen installed versus two weeks. When I think about this, I get visions of myself on the floor of the kitchen pictured above, in the dark, warming my hands and my dinner on a little camp stove. Not exactly what I had in mind when I moved over here.... Stay tuned.