by A devastated mum claims her B&Q kitchen has ‘collapsed’ – removing their £4,000 limited edition Emma Bridgewater range and leaving her oven ‘in pieces’.
Maria Kimble says she woke up with a bang to find her two kitchen larder cabinets had come off the wall, taking the oven, microwave and more than 100 plates and bowls with them. The 46-year-old and her husband installed the units in their kitchen 14 months earlier and were both dismayed to find many sentimental and ugly items broken to pieces.
The mom of three lost six platters, 20 dinner plates, 10 cereal bowls, half a dozen sandwich plates, serving bowls, egg cups and more, almost all of which were limited edition. British ceramic producer Emma Bridgewater makes all of her earthenware pottery in Stoke-on-Trent using traditional techniques, often with decoration applied by hand using sponges and brushes.
Photographs appear to show her two £100 B&Q GoodHome Caraway Larder Cabinets fallen to pieces, ripping the electrics out of the wall and breaking everything in them. The stay-at-home mother was blamed when she lost a much-loved set of purple dahlias as a gift from her husband and a blue lobster plate bought for her son as a memento of his childhood pet lobster.
Maria, who is a full-time carer for her autistic daughter, felt ‘numb’ when she saw the limited edition dishes her daughter had eaten to pieces on the floor. B&Q said they were sorry to hear about the incident and said they were keen to instruct the independent Furniture and Home Improvement Ombudsman to investigate, at the company’s own expense.
Maria, from Gosport, Hampshire, said: “It was Saturday morning and at six o’clock we heard a bang. It was very windy that night so I thought one of the windows in the kitchen had been blown in.
“My husband went downstairs and said ‘you’d better get down here’. It looked like someone had stuck the kitchen units and pulled them off the wall. The electrics were on long drawn out.
“Most of my plates were smashed on the floor. It was a seven-year collection. I felt numb when I saw them smashed on the floor. I just thought ‘oh my goodness, it’s all gone’.
“My husband bought me some of the dinner plates as a gift from the Liberty. They were purple dahlias, which meant a lot to me because I grow dahlias and dahlias show me. My husband also felt the guilt.
“They’re sentimental. It’s all a bit tragic. We bought my son a blue lobster plate because when he was little he had a pet blue lobster, so that was a reminder of that.
“My daughter has her own Emma Bridgewater pattern so she knew it was yours and no one else was going to use it but you can’t get it anymore. It’s all very personal. My a tomato in me, which I’m spoiled about. . You can’t find those at all, I’ve tried everywhere.”
Maria and her husband filled a lifetime of seven bags with kitchen debris and were left with nothing to cook with for two weeks as the oven was ‘in pieces on the floor’. After inspecting the kitchen parts, Maria claims they found that the two larder units were ‘disintegrated’ by the flood and she speculates that this is what caused them to collapse.
Online the cabinet is advertised as having a 25 year guarantee but Maria claims B&Q did not respond to her complaint. Maria said: “It was a lot of cleaning work. The oven was in bits on the floor.
“My husband laid out all the kitchen parts in the garden and it looked like the top was very low on the flood board.
“All our electrics were hanging out. All the cupboard doors also took the full force of the oven and cupboard.”
Maria has now fitted a larder unit and a small base unit from Ikea in her kitchen, which she has made into a tea station. Of the 100 limited editions that were damaged, only two others were able to be replaced but she hopes to keep an eye out for more in the future to develop her crockery collection and has even acquired a jug from Emma Bridgewater.
Maria said: “I’ve got my kettle and a few drops and a whisk just in there. It’s not finished, I still have to put the cupboard doors on it. Emma Bridgewater sent me a beautiful jug with an inscription on it.
“It’s a pink heart jug and it says ‘when there’s clouds in the sky you’ll get it’, which is so beautiful. I’m now looking forward to building my collection over time. They have new collections all year round so I’ll see what the summer brings.”
A B&Q spokesman said: “Please accept our apologies to Ms Kimble, we were very sorry to hear that the unit collapsed resulting in the loss of her Emma Bridgewater plate collection. However, we have checked our records based on the information you provided. , we could not find any contact record of Miss Kimble with our Customer Services team.
“We are sure you will appreciate that it is not possible to determine what caused the issue based on the photographs provided, therefore, we would like to instruct an independent expert from The Furniture & Home Improvement Ombudsman, at our expense, to visit. Miss Kimble’s property at a date and time mutually satisfactory to do a thorough inspection of the unit etc and provide us with their expert opinion on what caused her problems.
“Once the visit has been made, we will be provided with a report detailing their findings and we will be able to take the matter further.”
