In 2012 I purchased a three-bedroom house just outside Ipswich town centre.

To look at it from the outside you could tell it wasn't worth a fortune. In fact it was one of the smaller and more tired looking houses in the street but there it stood, surviving the test of time and deserving of its place amongst the ever-so-slightly more superior houses that kept it company.

Once you stepped inside though you'd be hard pressed to argue that it didn't look better than some of the bigger, more costly houses next to it. It had been maintained pretty well, the dining room and lounge knocked into one and if you ignored the exterior and ranked these houses just on how they performed as a living space, mine was definitely punching above it's weight.

One issue that we didn't realise though was the problem in the kitchen. One of the walls had succumbed to rot, due to a build up of leaves in the guttering keeping in excessive moisture and after seeking professional opinion it was deemed that the very nice-looking wooden kitchen cupboards were too badly damaged, rotten from the inside, and they would have to go.

The wife and I thought long and hard about it and decided that rather than just rip the cupboards out, deal with the wall and then put direct replacement cupboards in to the hole that would be left, we would undertake a far more ambitious development project of the whole kitchen, upgrading the sink, the worktops and essentially rotating it 90 degrees to what would clearly be a far more pleasing on the eye kitchen area.

The problems set in though as soon as we ripped out the kitchen.

A number of neighbours walked past the window, looked in and remarked 'careful what you wish for'.

National journalists would write pieces on all the kitchen problems we were now experiencing, just days into the project, seemingly ignoring the fact that we had a professional in, we had computer generated images of how it would look, there was a clear plan in place!

Former homeowners would lambast us on Twitter suggesting that the house would have been better under the previous owner and that perhaps they should return to show us what we do.

A few days later and friends and family would come round and chant at us that we didn't know what we were doing.

Okay. So I didn't buy a house in 2012. We didn't have the kitchen ripped out. This is about Ipswich Town.

It was time for a change. Mick McCarthy was a careful owner who made us look far more of a prospect than we should have done but a rot had set in. Hurst is now ripping it all up.

It takes time.

marcusevans added 11:13 - Aug 28 Excellent analogy my friend. Everything wears out and needs replacing eventually. There is always pain during the process. We all know from experience that these projects cost more than you expect and take longer than you expect. A kitchen facelift merely papers over the cracks and puts off the real work and expense for another day. Better to face up to the big task at hand and hit it head on. Yes, it’s painful to us devoted fans of ITFC but deep down we know it’s for the best. Keep the faith brothers and sisters.

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Chaz26 added 11:32 - Aug 28 A most enjoyable read. Thank You. I think we will all be more comfortable as we approach Christmas and Town are sat in the middle of the table and making headway towards 50 points. Thereafter I think we can push on, play with real freedom with a view to a very successful 2019/20 season.
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monty_radio added 15:20 - Aug 28 Trouble is that you have to buy free-standing units and concoct your own kitchen, and nobody encloses any plans.
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hyperbrit added 16:00 - Aug 28 ...I for one am much happier with what is happening with Town at the moment than the endless tedium of mid-table mediocrity under Mick. It was a brave move that will ultimately pay off given time!!
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Len_Brennan added 12:23 - Aug 29 Great piece of writing & a point well made. I'm a little disappointed that the house doesn't actually exist though! You wouldn't have wanted your beloved home to have been rezoned into a different area during the period of refurbishment of course.
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bluewein added 12:55 - Aug 29 But what did you do with the turnstiles...?
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Palestine added 15:22 - Aug 29 Not even bothering with cup games (as was under last regime), a bit like never inviting people round for dinner, so not needing to worry whether the house looked nice or not. "It's liveable..." "Yes, but is it nice to live in!"
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ElephantintheRoom added 08:26 - Aug 31 Did you demolish the kitchen foundations before you started? Did you borrow a few cupboards that you will have to hand back in a few months' time? Did you use cheap paint that will look a bit flaky within a couple of weeks in the harsh kitchen environment? Did you put one of the old cupboards back in with creaky hinges that don't work any more?
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Hiltzkooler added 10:30 - Aug 31 An Ikea kitchen is one where what you see in the show room is never quite what you get.....you have to make sure you get every hinge and component from the “pick your own” kitchen, get a fitter to put all these components together, find you have bits missing, and you end up making do, wishing you had gone to Wren in the first place for the full service ......
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geminimustang added 14:10 - Sep 1 Rediculous analogy.I'll give you a better one.Bugsy was a gangster with the mob.He goes into the Nevada Desert and sees it could become Las vegas.The mafia financially backed him,It wasn't working out so they killed him.Las Vegas proved Bugsy was right but he was dead.MM came into the Desert,saw what ITFC could become,wasn't backed but was killed anyway.The Desert will always be the Desert without financial backing.

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Bergholtblue added 09:38 - Sep 6 I suppose also that you had to sell the units that were perfectly OK plus the cooker and the washing machine in order to finance this project.
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