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Renovation Part 2 - Flooring & Preparation for Electrical Works

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<<< Part 1

It is almost two months since my last update and although there were tons of developments, i prefer to break them into shorter blog posts for ease of flow.

Making good the hacked walls is a prerequisite before the contractor can do any more work and it's amazing to see that things are slowly taking shape into the house i envisioned to stay in for the next few decades!

Save for the differences in colour and tone, an amateur would never have guessed that there was a store room in that corner! Some have said i would regret the decision to remove the store room and i believe i would grumble in time to come; however, i can also bet that should the store be around, it would be filled up to the brim! 

The initial first layer of paint that, voila, totally transformed the flat; no more splashes of bright pink, gaudy green, dirty blue etc. 

Metal angle pieces were inserted to sharpen the edge; i was there when the sub contractor did the work and it was incredible that he can do it so fast! If it was me, i would fumble, curse in numerous languages yet give up after a while. Point of this paragraph; leave it to the professional. 

Space that used to be the store room; no evidence that there WAS a store room. Oh, and that's my FANCO ceiling fan (cost: S$310 inclusive of light kit). During the terrible ordeal in Maldives, i came to realise that a ceiling fan above the bed is extremely comfortable; hence, i opted to have one in the bedroom! 

Fast foward to a week later and the vinyl flooring is up! Expenses for tiled flooring shot up when the government announced that all contractors can only use pre-packed cement and this has driven up both the material price and labour costs; being a person who doesn't earn a lot, i could only afford tiles in the kitchen. 

Nevertheless, i am super pleased with the vinyl flooring; i could have chosen the conventional brownish wood / Japanese concept vinyl but this darker Amsterdam Silver was too hard to resist! 

For first time house owners, choosing the colour and design of the flooring can be stressful as what you select would eventually affect the concept of your house; to be fair, everything about renovation is nerve racking, from flooring to doors to gates to window grills to carpentry etc etc.

Please don't be too quick to criticize your contractor too as things often look strange and even out of place at first; for example, the air con trunking is so ugly right?!?!!?! Once it's painted over, you would just brush it off as a beam of the house; no big deal actually. 

As the flat was more than 30 years old, i took the contractor's advice to change the electrical wiring and ageing DB box. In the technological age we live in, it's also a great time to add in all the sockets require for the television, game set, computers, printers, air revitalisers, iphone, ipads etc. 

A rough estimate of the cost under electrical was indicated in the quotation as the amount really depends on the number of power sockets you need for your devices. 

My lights from Taobao are up! Each cost less than S$25 including shipping and that's a huge difference in price compared to if you buy it in Singapore! If you are interested, you can check out the taobao link here

I absolutely dislike ambient lights even though the option is available at a premium. Whatever the case, bright white lights have always been my preferred choice. By the way, the new aluminium window grills had been put up too! 

Fan and light kit were installed too! I was in fact looking forward to the KDK fans as they were known for their durability even though i had to give up the idea when i saw with my own eyes that the light kit provided wouldn't be able to fill up even half my room. 

Installation of the water pipe - do you know what this means? Carpentry will be up next and i tell you; deciding the laminate (wood grain, colour), the number of shelves, the height of the shelvings, the closure of the hinges etc almost drove me nuts! 

=to be continued=

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