The Pumpkin Chronicles: The reno begins

Saturday, I went to the flat with my daddy. Actually we were supposed to meet our ID Paul, MD of Six Dimension Design & Decor, at 11.30, but I was running late so got Dad to drive me down. And since the last he had seen the flat was in darkness cos the electricity had not been turned on, I pulled him along upstairs to take a look.

Here's Paul & us - we got him to take down a cupboard door to symbolise the start of

our reno before the Lunar 7th month. Better to be safe =P

Stepped into the house and got a shock. To paraphrase Val - it looked like something out of a war movie. Paul got the approval to hack on Wed. By Sat, all the major hacking had been completed. Renovation had officially begun!

Thanks to our previous (lousy) experience with contractors who did our respective parental homes, and the horror stories from the older folks, the speed at which Paul's people completed the hacking was a pleasant surprise. Also, the tiles for toilet and kitchen had all been ordered right after we met him to discuss on Wed night, and delivered by Sat, and so had the bricks for the low structure where the sink would rest. Pretty amazing.

Paul presented us with a work schedule and kinda kancheong-ed the shit out of us by telling us we needed to shop for toilet & kitchen sinks, toilet bowl AND the aircon units by coming Sat. So, Big & I spent 3 hours rushing from Marine Parade to Mountbatten to Suntec (to get the Matrix) to Changi/Telok Kurau to Geylang Serai to Geylang looking at toilet & kitchen sinks and toilet bowls...By the 4th shop, I was bored. At the same time, Big was on the phone with 3 aircon contacts - 2 from Paul, and 1 from Daniel - all confusing us becos we hadn't the faintest idea which brand of aircon is best. Big's dad is a fan of "tradition" so he has no experience with aircon units whatsoever. My experience with aircon is a bit outdated cos the ones at home have been around for 15 years now, so we had problems...

Our little outing was such an adventure too. Becos Big had to try figure out directions to the shops in Telok Kurau from both parents at the same time (each giving different directions naturally), while I sat by petting Dinky and trying not to laugh. Men and women do see things very diferently. They communicate them differently too *snigger*

Tiles
We spent last Sun morning shopping for kitchen & toilet tiles with Paul at Balestier. After a while, they all started to look the same. Fortunately, we did manage to short-list a couple, and then Paul left us to argue over whether we should use mosaic (for a more stylish contemporary look) or normal coloured textured tiles (for a more homely but bright feel). The latter won. Our tiles are from:

Lian Seng Hin, 568A Balestier Rd, DID: 6252 2222
Hafary, 560 Balestier Rd, DID: 6250 1369

The sales people in Hafary are a lot more useful than the pretty little Malaysian xiao mei at Lian Seng Hin whose only duties were to follow us around with a clipboard and note down preferences.

Next up - the boring kitchen & toilet stuff
Paul told us - DON't buy furniture now. It was quite amusing. I suppose he's had to deal with many couples buying couches when they were supposed to buy sinks. Hardly surprising really. Couches are more interesting than sinks, unless you're Melvyn.

Contrary to expectations, the 3 hours on Sat spent doing an Amazing Race of sorts in the East were actually productive, although I still think you need to sit on the bowl to test its suitability.

Thanks to the gal at Sparco (Telok Kurau), we learnt that the 6.5" that Paul told us about the toilet bowl referred to the measurement of the, er, pipe (?) connecting the toilet bowl to the sewage and not the toilet bowl itself. We did short-list at least 2 cute little sinks for the toilet. It can't be very big cos the toilet isn't exactly palatial. But then again, after a while, they all start looking the same. AND we found a very reasonably priced stove+hood combi at Geylang. AND a very reasonably priced granite kitchen sink there too. I've been a fan of granite sinks since my mum bought one for her kitchen 15 years ago. Unlike aluminium/stainless steel sinks, you don't get the teeth-grating clinks and chinks when you put china/porcelain/glass utensils in it. And you don't have to worry about scratch marks either.