One of the Duchess of Cambridge’s worst traits is that when she’s bored – and she’s often bored – she spends a ton of money on stupid things. If it was her own money, it wouldn’t be so bad. But Kate has blown through hundreds of thousands of dollars/pounds on a series of renovations for her apartment at Kensington Palace (apartment = mansion within a palace) as well as Anmer Hall. Some of the renos were necessary, to be fair. To be fair, some of the renovations were just undertaken out of sheer boredom and what appears to be the Middleton spendthrift gene. Pippa Middleton has it too. Pippa has been living with Terribly Moderately Wealthy James Matthews for something like a year and a half, well before their summer wedding. Their home is a huge mansion in London, which James bought in 2014. All of a sudden, the £17 million mansion is just not good enough for Pippa, and it must undergo an extensive redo, complete with an extension built to the back of the mansion. Their neighbors are PISSED.

Men in hard hats move in on Pippa and James Matthews’ £17million mansion as work begins on a new bathroom for the wealthy couple who live on one of London’s most exclusive roads. The newlyweds are building a first floor extension above the kitchen to build a new bathroom that comes complete with a ‘vanity basin’, his and hers sinks. Their mansion already boasts a gym, an underground cinema, a lift, a ‘staff room’ as well as six bedrooms. The extension will also add separate male and female dressing rooms off the master bedroom. Removal men were pictured taking bedding in anticipation for the renovation to the five-storey, stucco-fronted property, which James, 40, bought in 2014.

But the plans have angered the couple’s well-heeled neighbours along the tree-lined streets who have complained that the extension will block out the light and building work will cause noise and disruption. Ellen Dyvik, who lives next door, was concerned that the extension will block out the sunlight into her kitchen. She complained to the council: ‘We have reviewed the proposed plan, and strongly object to the suggested rear extension. It will completely block the sunlight which currently comes into our kitchen for a limited time in the middle of the day, and generally block the daylight into our kitchen from the adjacent window.

‘If the project goes ahead we will see significant morning light and sun loss in; our cherished outside patio, our main kitchen dining area which is designed as an orangery, our main office. The house should be big enough to be able to accommodate our neighbours’ architectural plans within the existing structure.’ She added that neither Mr Matthews or the council planning officers considering the planning application have ‘ever spoken to us or assessed the situation’.

Marc Perusat, neighbour on the other side, said he was dreading the disruption of the building work, after enduring an extension and years of renovation work at the property before Mr Matthews bought it. He wrote: ‘My family lived through the [previous] extensive several years development a few years ago. It was a highly disruptive construction project with all the obvious inconveniences that a refurbishment of that size involves. At one stage it caused the tallest part and substantial part of the rest of garden wall to collapse into our garden, which could literally have killed persons though strangely we received no apologies from the then owner and we had to pay for all the damages done to our garden. The current application appears to be yet another floor on top of the extended kitchen, which will reduce both the view of vegetation from our property as well as the light. Consequently we very much oppose this development though, in doing so, we feel sorry to inconvenience our new neighbour.’

Another neighbour wrote: ‘The completed extension would constrain the view over the gardens from the master bedroom, kitchen and staircase windows. The construction itself would cause considerable inconvenience to us and our children.’

But despite his neighbours’ misgivings Mr Matthews was granted planning permission to build the new bathroom in January last year. Now work appears to be finally beginning, well within the three year time period of the permission.

[From The Daily Mail]

“Their mansion already boasts a gym, an underground cinema, a lift, a ‘staff room’ as well as six bedrooms.” For two people. Even if they have live-in staff – they have a housekeeper, but I don’t know if the woman lives with them – that’s more than enough space. Even when they have a baby or two, that mansion will have enough space. There were probably a million other configurations that could have been made within the existing structure, but no – Pippa just HAD to have the trendiest bathroom and they just have to screw with the structure of the home and piss off all the neighbors. Is this what Pippa does all day now? She just sits around, thinking up stupid renovation ideas?

Photos courtesy of Backgrid and Pacific Coast News.