Hot water & cool air

Itz always nice to stop by the flat once a week, and gawp at the changes.

Last Sat, we stopped by to let the aircon people in. Our new gate was in, the walls had been(mercifully) re-painted to the correct shade of buttercream, and the marble floor polished to a sheen. I was too amused by the "pls take off your shoes" sign on the gate to notice the gate itself actually until Big pointed it out. Maybe we should consider just keeping it here when we move in.

Paul's people had already put up the false boards, which will be the backing of the cupboards in the master bedroom, and serve as the separating "wall" between the front room (i.e MY room), and the bedroom. So, MY room is 3m long. And frankly, it looks kinda short...I miss the huge room before the board was put up...SIGH.

We also had an interesting run-in with the upstairs neighbour - he of the pastel pink tee, beige bermudas and the strange I'm-trying-to-sound-overseas-educated-but-failing accent - who came down especially to try and find fault with us for doing "renovation works" after 1pm on Saturdays becos he had brought his baby home, and she couldn't sleep. Big pointed out to him that we were merely doing aircon installation (there were maybe 3 bangs on the wall) which was not under our HDB renovation approval permit, and would be done in an hour. Our dear neighbour, of cos, didn't want to listen, and actually continued to threaten our ID - "If I call to complain, he will lose his HDB permit!"

For him, I only have one thing to say (in my poshest more authentic American/British accent) - Darling, do check the HDB and MND websites thoroughly before hot-footing down to threaten your new neighbours and their ID.

I think he probably thought we were a young impressionable couple, hailing from Ms Ris "Rad is an American slang" Low's crowd of the population.

Ok, I didn't use my posh accent, and attitude on him last Sat. But hot-foot down one more time, Mr Pastel-Pink Tee, and I'm so giving it to you.

(This is why Daddy says I'm a fighter cock; too bad, I been standing up for my rights since I was a 7-year old demanding to be served at KFC Thomson Plaza, when the stupid counter staff decided to overlook me. You don't mess with the Pebbles, small in stature it may be).

Anyway, to get back on the reno track - we also brought in the water-heater for the bathroom (itz a 707 compact that came with a shower with some fancy settings at $176 from Jln Besar - couldn't believe Big actually paused to consider the $276 package with the "rain shower").

Paul's people are putting in the cupboards this week (they're probably already up), so this weekend will be even more interesting...

Length, thickness, height, hardness ALL matter

We spent two out of three days of our long weekend - how else - doing house stuff. This time round, we found out just how much the length, thickness, height and hardness matter.

Itz gotta be long enough to reach us nicely. Itz gotta be not-too-high or it will be most inconvenient. Itz gotta be not-too-thick or it will look damn out of place. And itz gotta be not-too-hard and not-too-soft or it won't be comfy. Oh yes, and the angle of the tilt is important too. Or it will just spray all over the damn place. Not too ideal.

We tried a couple; measured them all with finger and thumb - 11cm was too short, 15cm was too long, 13cm is just about right. But the longer they are, the higher and thicker they tend to be. But if we didn't want an obnoxious lump, we were left with the really weeny ones.

And then, there were those really pricey ones. Which looked exactly like the ones which weren't as expensive. Er, we haven't quite figured out why...

Big prefers not-too-hard ones; I prefer them a little harder. He didn't fancy the ones with the little balls, I thought they were cute. And then there was that question - to flap or not to flap.

Whoever said all those don't matter was lying.

Decisions, decisions - Librans, who take about 15min to decide on one dish from the menu - make them all the more fun to lock down.

We finally settled on the toilet sink faucet and the glass shelves for the toilet & bath from Hoe Kee, the toilet paper holder from Sim Siang Choon, and the mattress from Serta. The mattress comes with a plush sheep - Beth, you can have that when itz delivered.

OMG moments

Due to work commitments, I hadn't been down to the flat in over a week, and as always, there are already new things going on. So, I had a couple of "OMG" moments when I finally found the time to go down on Sat.

OMG moment #1 - three walls were pink. Yes, PINK. Ok itz known as "peach melba" but pink is pink huh. They were supposed to be "buttercream" - yes, as in the kind you find on cakes. My fav kind of cream. And, um, the pink looked really strange next to the yellow...the painters had better get the colour right. I am so not living in a house with pink walls.

OMG moment #2 - Big had wanted an orange wall in the dining; Paul had reciporcated with a rather bold suggestion that the entire dining be in orange instead. So, we went for that. The effect was, to quote Ms Singapore World 2009, rather BOOMZ. Orange is supposed to stimulate appetite, so be prepared to dine in an orange womb when you come over.

OMG moment #3 - the lights were all up. The ones in the living look particularly good. Very "studio apartment" as Big put it. The big fancier one in the bedroom also looked pretty good, thanks to the incandescent light bulbs, becos we want a dimmer for that. (I didn't even know there were incandescent light bulbs). I barely noticed the star patterns on the light in *my* room - was too distracted by the lights in the living room.

OMG moment #4 - the toilet lights and switches were all over the place. Well, first, the fancy lights Big chose for the bath and toilet did look nice. BUT, the light in the bath (which is on the left side) was linked to the switch on the right side, and vice versa. AND the light for the toilet (already linked to the switch on the opposite side) flicked up for "off" and down for "on"...itz one of those *smack forehead* moments, which brings to mind what my poor long-suffering colleague had to go thru with not one, but TWO stupid event partners recently.

OMG moment #5 - the wall fan in Big's room stopped at "1" and wouldn't go any more powerful...fortunately Giant has a 7-day exchange policy, so Big carted it back to them, and they were suitably embarrassed by the fact that it was faulty without even being used.

The unbearable feeling of light

Geeky Eclectic, who looks even more like her name now that she's got a super-funky hairstyle, asked me over lunch - so which part of your house did you furnish this weekend?

We did the lights. And thank goodness the house is small. Becos I really hate shopping for lights.

The fun started when Big spotted a row of spotlights on a wire at Ikea, which are adjustable in any direction, and frankly, are kinda cool - like stage spotlights you know. So we bought those, maybe 2 weeks ago. For the living room. Becos Big doesn't want lighting in his huge display cabinet, so the spotlights will have to serve that purpose whenever we need to light up the display. We'll probably need another standing lamp - found a really cool one shaped like a cactus - would have been wonderful if not for Spooky (to quote Big - hmmm the cat or the cactus - hard choice really). I predict she will topple whatever standing lamp we get...

But we had to get lights for the rest of the house so that Paul's electrican could string them up before the carpentry starts.

So, yesterday, the fun ended. We found out that Giant only sells light blubs; Ikea's ceilings lights are not very practical; and Courts doesn't sell lights period.

Balestier, on the other hand, has far too many light shops. By the third shop, my headache started. This brought back all the lousy memories of afternoons spent trailing my parents from shop to shop along Balestier, looking for 6 lights for 3 bedrooms, 2 lights for the living, 1 light for the kitchen, 1 for the study, 2 for the staircase wells, 3 for the toilets, 1 for the gate, 2 for the car porch and a chandelier for the dining...that's a good 19 lights in all for a three-storeyed house. After a while, the huge crystal chandeliers in suffocatingly small shops, the smell of electricity behind acrylic covers, and too much light entering your pupils start to overwhelm you, and you just want to turn mole and hide from the over-powering light.

We ended up with 3 lights for 2 rooms, 2 for the kitchen, and 2 for the toilet/bath (fancy ones from Ikea - Big had his heart set on them altho they will be but 5 inches from the top of his head).

I say again - thank goodness for a small house.

P/S - On a lighter note, Big got a wall fan for his room - that's the one I'm not stepping into; it will be a mess. We also got a good deal on a 37" Toshiba Regza at Comex. Big moaned for 2 days on missing out on the $800 42" one - which we could have gotten if we place it at the far end of the kitchen, and sit near the front door to watch TV...

Managing de-loo

2 weekends ago, when the flat looked like something out of a war zone, Paul assured us that we would see something new about it when we went on our weekly Sat pilgrimages.

Being the super-efficient, very enthusiastic (as Beth put it) ID of ours, he was right.

Last Sat, the first thing I saw was the (very striking) wall of red in the toilet.

When we were discussing toilets, Big & I had agreed we wanted our toilet to be cheery. We both had greys and dull blues in our toilets at home, so we wanted something different. Also, the toilet-cum-bath in the flat isn't the most palatial of loos, so we definitely needed a lighter colour scheme to make it look bigger.

It was a tough choice between normal coloured wall tiles or very mod and pretty moasaic tiles. But we're both quite happy about how it turned out. The white wall tiles with the checkered patterns are laid in such a way that it made the toilet look expansive. And thanks to Paul's suggestion, and Big's expansion on it, the white goes very nicely with the red & orange sections. The wall of red tiles behind those horrid huge HDB pipes actually do work. Big thinks it looks like something out of Hotel RE. I just think itz cute =)

The elusive toilet bowl & sink
Gushing over and done with, we had our feet firmly pulled back to the cardboard-protected marbled floor becos we needed to furnish the toilet quick. So, after taking measurements (again), we nipped back to Sparco to look at the sink & cabinet that Big liked on the last visit. It was 3cm longer than what Paul had specified, and did we really want to pay almost $400 for the toilet sink (albeit with storage space)?!

We had searched for a suitable toilet bowl & sink the previous Sat. After a while, I could name the different brands, and tell with a glance whether the toilet seat was too small/narrow. I still can't get over how many different types of toilet bowls there are, and the whole range of prices. Why would someone pay $500 for a place to shit?! And as Big declared in frustration after trying yet another similar-looking white toilet bowl - what was with all these newfangled toilet bowls! Why couldn't we just find a normal one (like the ones we have at home), with a flat, broad seat?? No, it had to be either sloping (you feel like you're gonna slip in if you don't hold on to the sides), raised (don't ask), circular (yes, circular), or too narrow (research shows people are bigger now cos we have better nutrition so why are toilet seats narrower than before?)

So, yesterday, we went back to trusty Ikea, only to find out their toilet furniture are not water-proof (?!) Much chagrin and gnashing of teeth (becos we had to circle Queensway a few times before finding a parking spot) later, we ended up with the living room lights, an Ikea hotdog and a cup of Ikea's very strong coffee (and STILL no toilet furnishings).

Then, someone (the credit goes to Beth & Big) had a brainwave, and pointed out the even more trusty IMM, since we were already "in the west" anyway. We braved the dark (it was almost 8pm when we left Lighted Pixels - our wedding photographer, THE wedding photographer in Singapore - saving this for another entry) and the unknown (itz the west, for goodness sake), and successfully navigated our way to IMM. Where we bought our wall-mounted toilet sink (and accompanying cabinet) - 50cm just nice - and our toilet bowl at a special Hari Raya Puasa price (still deciding if need to get a FLAT toilet seat) - within 1/2 an hour of our arrival. All in a day's work.

Ironic that we had to go all the way across the island to get these two items when there is a Hoe Kee closer to home at Geylang Serai... Talk about elusive...

P/S - we bought our stove and hood at Heritage Bathroom Gallery in Geylang (yes they sell kitchen stuff altho they are a Bathroom Gallery" for a rather good package deal)