Few more Minor Touch Ups

Ever since we officially moved into the house, we have brought many electronics into our home. Due to their high values, we insisted in replacing the number lock to our house with a legit padlock. This way, it is more secure than a number lock, which could be broken into in less than a minute, and it also restrict the contractors from entering without the supervision of my interior designer. However, such security resulted in a standstill in our renovation. It has been almost a month of no updates, and it is slowly draining our patience out. The only thing that is making us hold on is that we constantly find new things to get our contractors to touch up or install, so it all works well somehow.

Just a rough list of what there are to do....

Wild hairline cracks appeared at our entrance. It is not obvious but upon a closer inspection, it becomes hard to ignore. A repaint job would have to be done.

Previously had plastered the ceiling, but because it was so similar to the ceiling paint, we missed it out and only found out several days later. Touch up paint would be required.

Several grout lines has some holes on closer inspection. Although this was probably there since the beginning of time, our designer said it could be fixed up and he can take it up so we are looking forward to it

We had requested for this netting thing to be changed to an acrylic board so as to prevent cobwebs and dusts from collecting, and also it look nicer with the toilet ambiance lights. Still waiting for the acrylic boards to be delivered and put up.

Had installed LED lights at our bedhead, and the drivers are placed in the display cabinet at the side. Had requested for a cover to be made to hide the drivers, and is still waiting for it. There were also some problem with our lights, where it kept losing power after a while, and had requested for our electrician to take a look at it.

After trying our designer tap for a while, we really dislike it and intend to change it. The water power is too low, and the water stream is too close to the edge. Kind of an installation issue when they drilled the holes on the quartz top, but a change in the tap should fix the issue.

Where the walls meet the floors will often have gaps like this. It is unavoidable, but that is the reason why trimming are always used around the house. Here shows an area of the wall where the trimming was forgotten and the hole was visible. Now we need it to be covered up.

Another area where there the trimming is missing, but because this area is quite small, we would be covering it with the brown sealant to cover the gap.

And lastly, because we had chose for such a bold solid color, the painters need to apply many layers of coat to achieve the desired result. However, this also mean that the paint is prone to being chipped off whenever we accidentally knock something against it. Here is yet another hole that require to be painted over again due to our carelessness. Being extremely careful is the price to pay for having our walls painted with such bold colors.

Would there be more discoveries after another round of inspection?

Insect Netting - Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Please pardon us for the lack of updates lately. Audits at work are sucking us dry!

Many years ago hubby had a traumatic experience with a hugeass flying ugly cockcoach while he was bathing. With nothing to defend himself except a showerhead, he was trapped inside as it landed on the shower screen door and he needs to push it open to run out, likely causing that ugly thing to spread its wings and attack the prey. One could only imagine the terror of how a buck naked prey knows its death fate with that giant ugly thing guarding the only door to freedom. Ever since then, he always bathed with the shower door half opened, so that he could attempt slipping out without touching the door should the situation arise again.

That definitely was not the best solution, but it provides a contingency plan for hubby. However after seeing the solution at a friend's house, we knew we had to get the same thing too! We bought an insect netting from Qoo10 and used it to cover the bathroom window! Although yes the ugly things could appear from elsewhere, but it blocked out a good amount of area that it could appear by. One could only roughly guess how much mental damage the ugly thing did when they see the great height that hubby goes to prevent a similar occurrence.

It really did not require much effort. Just 10 minutes and some stick on tapes that were provided and the net could be nicely installed to keep the bugs out. Thus far it has been effective, and we really hope it could be for the long run, though the thin net does make us question its durability. Only time can tell.

A glimpse from the inside. The great thing about new BTOs are that the windows are accessible from the aircon ledge. This is because the netting could not be installed on the inside as the panels would protrude out from it. However, there is no problem from the outside. Also it is aesthetically pleasing because you cannot really see it from the inside. Definitely recommended if ugly giant things annoy you too.

Adding the fine details now

At this point of time, the main bulk of our renovation had reached the end. The things remaining now are the touch-ups, minor corrections and a few missing elements. The clean-up of the house had also been completed, and although not exactly dust-free clean, but it's in a bearable condition. A few other stuffs happened today too.

Our ID came up to help us drill holes to install some towel racks and the IKEA mirror cabinet. It was hard work because the drill was the portable kind and not very powerful, but appreciate his kind gestures to help us get them up. The mirror is looking great, although Wifey commented that it was thicker than imagined, and expressed concerns that people may hit their heads when using the tap. Perhaps we will put a "Caution your head" sign on the mirror if there were to be anyone who hit their head on it.

Our ViewQwest was connected today. Say hello to WIFI! This is the heart of our home automation system, as well as the core to our projector streaming videos and tv channels. Hence we invested in ViewQwest, as well as the monster ASUS RT-AC88U. We had always admire ViewQwest for it's say no to traffic-shaping/throttling unlike the other competitors, and its excellent customer services, again unlike the other competitors. Furthermore, when we saw that their price were not that far apart from the rest during the IT Show, we signed with them straight away. The above speed and download/upload rate were with my Dell XPS using Wifi 5GHz on ViewQwest 1Gbps plan. Pretty impressive I must say.

Our blinds are up. We got a light colored one for the study room so that it would still be bright enough for any works at the table, yet keeping the glare out.

We gotten the darker shade one for the bedroom 3 just in case there are any guests that wants to sleep during the day.

The curtain contractor helped us to put up the Dooya track too. Really thankful because we did not have the equipment to drill all the support onto the ceiling. We plugged in the Dooya motors too, and our motorized curtain track is complete. Cant wait to put up the curtains and play with it after we did a thorough cleaning.

We had also pulled the wires for the projector to the mount in anticipation of installing the projector. However, there were some problem with the support structure that is holding this mount, and it was shaky when we fitted the projector. Hopefully our ID can solve this.

It would be terrible if the projector were to fall off halfway, and even disastrous if the entire false ceiling were to crumble and collapse due to the strain of the projector. In defence for our ID, he had actually planned for a support block in the false ceiling for my projector, but during the installation of the mount, we realized it was too near to the wall and we decided to pull it back to have a larger screen size. However, the new place does not have any support block within, but was assessed to not be a problem because my projector is relatively light at 1.5kg only.

Despite that assurance, we still feel a bit uncomfortable because there are 5 holes in close proximity which are stress points and could give way anytime. Let's see what our ID can do when he comes and take a look.