As you may have guessed from some of these blog posts, even though Royal Stone Care treats and cleans many different types of stone, we are a bit fond of marble. So I was not best pleased when I recently sold a marble hearth to someone who seemed highly indifferent to the look of a beautiful marble hearth he purchased from me.
Over the course of the last few months, my partner has been in the process of updating a house that will eventually be used as an upmarket rental property. Part of this remodelling included removing two rather dated and worn tiled fireplaces. They both had loose tiles, didn’t look particularly attractive and could hardly be called ‘period pieces.’ So they had to go. The idea was to replace them with far more attractive Adam surrounds and marble hearths and infills.
The first fireplace came out ok and was replaced with a white surround and a gorgeous rose tinted white marble hearth and back panel. The solid back panel has an electric fire in front of it with the flex coming in from the back, so no trailing wires to spoil the attractive lines of the Adam surround.
However, when it came to the second fireplace, the old one didn’t come out as expected. It left a massive hole with an arched top. Which gave the owner a different idea as to how the finished fireplace could look.
It was decided to plaster the opening and tile the base. Giving a completely different look from the first marble fireplace installation. The electric fire for that one now sits inside fireplace rather than in front of it. Although a pre-used marble set up had already been purchased for this second fireplace, it was decided to resell it.
There are now many places online where you can advertise items for sale locally for free. It was one of those sites that was used to offer the now surplus marble hearth, back panel and surround. Surprisingly, although the items were put up for sale as a single item, we got enquires for each individual item. This meant we ended up selling each item separately. We were amazed that they all sold in a very short space of time and there was even a slight profit on the deals.
The enquirer for the marble hearth arranged to come over and pay on collection. As with the other items, we expected to have to do a bit of selling and price negotiation when the item was physically viewed. That turned out to not be the case. It was an elderly lady that made the enquiry and the visit arrangements over the phone and she came with her husband to collect the hearth.
When they arrived, her husband came to the door, announced “He’d come for the marble hearth” then we went to the garage at the side of the house where I’d stored the hearth. I led the way and walked past it, turning at the end expecting him to be stood in front of it and scrutinising as to whether or not it was suitable for what they’d got in mind. Instead, he was bending down picking the end of the hearth up ready for loading it into his car. He never even looked at the condition of it or assessed if it was the right colouring or anything.
He was a bit taken aback by the weight of the hearth “It’s a bit heavy” he said, and suddenly realised that I’d have to help him by lifting the other end. We lifted it into his car without a word being said. I must have been a bit confused by this behaviour because I suddenly realised it was in his car without him paying for it. As it turned out I need not have worried because after he’d settled it in position to his satisfaction he turned and, quite literally, thrust the money into my hand. He didn’t say anything, I said “Thank you” and he drove off. I’ve relayed to you his entire ‘conversation’ here. His wife, who’d done the phoning, never even got out the car or acknowledged that I existed when I said “Hello” to her. Weird.
I’ve never had an experience like that before, where someone who had not yet paid for an item, had only seen online photos of it, didn’t bother to even look properly at their intended purchase. The hearth was not quite in perfect condition and I was going tell him how to clean it and getting it looking it’s best if he didn’t already know how, most people don’t. but I never got chance. Usually, it is the wife that has the say as to what goes into the home, so why wasn’t she interested either? All very strange behaviour to me.
The one saving grace from all that was that we later got a text message from them saying that they were happy with their purchase and it matched perfectly. Matched with what I’ve no idea. At least they must have looked and admired the marble eventually.
Remember, if you live in the London area and you want your marble features to be kept in a condition where they can by admired by others who also appreciate fine living, then Royal Stone Care can help you achieve that without you having to be put out unnecessarily. Just give them a call, they will do the rest.
