It Is Finished: A Look at my Hallowed Temples

Today, the plumbers came to install the bathroom accessories as well as the toilet bowl in the common bathroom. And that spells the official completion of my bathroom project.

At the master bathroom ...

The pink Grohe doughnut

The master bathroom light

With warm cove lights

At the common bathroom ...

A mismatch of the bulb and shade at the common bathroom

The Philips kiddy light came with a warm ball light. It was too dim for any good, so we switched back to using our original bulb. I'll go look for a day-light ball light soon.

Coco and Baby got good taste.

This basin has won compliments from the carpenter and the solid surface guy. 

Seems it looks expensive (but impractical).

I was reluctant to install corner glass shelves as I worried about the possibility of cracked glass, but I didn't have much option.

I am quite happy with the result, although there are imperfections here and there, like the toilet roll holder in the master bathroom was installed too near to the shower screen, the towel rack in the common bathroom is not directly above the toilet bowl, the thermostats are not accurately calibrated,   and even one of the Legrand switch is done upside-down!

Yesterday: Solid Surface Installed

The solid surface guys initially asked me if a longer-than-required vanity top was 'okay' for me.

I said no.

They cut off the extra length outside my place and installed it.

The vanity top at the master bathroom has a thicker edge as the carpenter had made the cabinet a bit too low. He topped it with a one-inch wood plank to increase the height, so the edge of the solid surface had to be thicker.

Many Days Later ... Shower Screen and Door Installed at Common Bathroom

10 days after the cabinet went up, the glass guys came to install the shower screen and glass door for the common bathroom.

The carpenter came down specially to do something he forgot: drilling holes for the taps!

Unfortunately, I was not home and I gave this instruction to William,"Ask the carpenter if it's okay to place the tap for the master bathroom behind the basin or on the right-hand side of the basin. See if it would be too near to the wall or the basin."

And according to William, the carpenter placed the tap behind the basin and asked him,"Like that, can?"

William replied,"Anything."

I played with the placement of the tap. I decided that although I liked the look of the tap behind the basin, it could pose a hazard when the basin was pulled out and placed protruded of the vanity top - we might hit our heads on the basin when we are in a haste to get something from the cabinet. On top of that, the tap was near to BOTH the wall and the basin!

I stopped the solid surface people from coming down and requested for the carpenter to drill a new hole on the right side of the basin. Unbeknownst to me, the solid surface people would charge the carpenter for a trip cancelled on the day of house-call.

The carpenter said he would be going away and could only resume work one or two weeks later.

I decided to wait, but fortunately, he came down two days later to drill the new hole.

Shower screen in the master bathroom

It has been done quite some time ago. I don't know why I missed it out.

Lost Track of Days: Carpentry at the Common Bathroom Up

5 days after the common bathroom was tiled, and washed, the carpenter came to install the vanity cabinet at the common bathroom.

The interior of the storage mirror

We spotted some chips on the shower area tiles.

Dorothy sent Ah Huat back to replace one of them. He was reluctant to replace the other tile with a smaller chip though. The reason he gave was that the tile was next to the floor trap and the box-up tile and he could break the other two tiles if he was not careful enough.

We let it go, but not before he offered an alternative: to smoothen the chip using cement.

Day 18 - Tiling of Box-Up at Common Bathroom & the Unprofessional Painting

Ah Huat returned to tile the box-up.

His tiling is not perfect, but I think it's good.

The painter came too!

Unfortunately, the 'professional' painter is not very professional.  The painting is poorly done.

He even painted a patch of dunno-know-what on the wall that he should not be painting, and got his paint on walls that he should not have painted!

Sigh!

Our dear Dorothy called me and repeatedly shouted that I must not get the painter to paint extra,"Must charge!"

I think I can do better than your painter lah. Don't worry. I also don't dare to ask him to paint more.

The L-box that was torn was repaired and made er ... quite-good. Can still see the joints though.

Dorothy said that ALL THE WORKERS complained about me looking at them work, giving them STRESS.

I thought I should since I am in the house anyway, so that I could correct them immediately if they are not doing it the way I wanted. The only one that I didn't watch was Creative Plumbing, and look what kind of STRESS the young boss gave me!

In any case, I don't think that ALL THE WORKERS complained about me. Xiao Hei and his worker were doing work in our master bedroom and the door was always closed. How did I look at them do work?

The only person I happened to look at most of the time was Ah Huat as he was in my house for 6 days!

I don't think it's wrong to look at the workers do work. I don't have all the time in the world to keep looking at them anyway.

I don't know what Dorothy's intention was to say something like that. 

Perhaps I would find out in due course, or maybe I may never find out.

Day 16 continued - Tiling, Electrical Works & Carpentry

The mirror and vanity cabinet for the master bedroom bathroom came after lunch.

The carpenters installing the carpentry in the master bathroom

The product

The electricians fixing up the lights and connecting the storage heater with electricity while the tiler, Ah Huat, continued with his tiling in the common bathroom

Niche mosaic beautifully redone by Xiao Hei

Compare it with the one previously done: 

Nice, right?

Thank you, Xiao Hei!

Day 17 - Boxing Up of Pipes & Very Creative Plumbing

The box-up guy came in the morning on the last day that we would have noisy works. Our new neighbours above were obviously enjoying the fun of trying to stop us from doing reno by calling up HDB repeatedly on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, complaining that we were too noisy.

This is a vengeance game.

William had complained to HDB last month that they were using 4 drills at the same time for hacking purpose. The HDB rule for hacking is to use no more than 2 drills at any one time. When he went up to the neighbour's, he saw that they were using 6 drills! Baby was sleeping and he could not get out of the house.

Apparently, they thought that William was too petty. They continued to use 6 drills after the HDB officer had left. And they continued to do hacking even on Saturday! We endured the noise as we didn't want to be difficult neighbours.

However, came our turn, our beloved neighbour complained that the cutting of tiles was too noisy, every single day. If you had done renovation before, you would know that cutting of tiles is in no way noisier than a drill, much less 6 drills!

Anyway, back to the progress ...

The box-up guy going about his business

And the bad news:

The box-up could not be flushed with the side wall as the storage heater was in the way.

So I got William to call Dorothy to send her plumbers down to move the storage heater away.

Well, as expected, given his arrogance, our beloved Creative Plumbing Young Boss made tons of excuse and skilfully employed a wide repertoire of tried-and-tested tactics to avoid correcting his mistake:

1) Scare tactic: 

"If the storage heater is moved, there would be A LOT OF HOLES! Very ugly huh!"

2) Heck care tactic: 

"The storage heater was not in the way what! Box-up still can flush with the wall. Just cannot service the heater in future lah! Spoilt also cannot replace. It's okay what!"

3) Runaway tactic: 

When I insisted that I wanted the box-up to be flushed, he said he was busy that day. He would just take down the heater and rush to other sites!

I replied Dorothy, his ever faithful messenger and supporter,"How can he be so irresponsible?" and got William to speak to Dorothy. Then Dorothy relented and asked him to reinstall the heater.

4) TL tactic: 

So he finally proceeded to do what he had to do EXTREMELY RELUCTANTLY.

And this is what he gave me:

5) What-can-you-do-to-me tactic:

For some reason, I knew that he would do something to irk me for vengeance's sake.

That's not all. 

6) Big deal tactic: 

He said,"Who will see the heater?!!"

Wah, now even who sees the heater is also his problem!

I see it. You see it. Your worker sees it. My husband sees it. My visitors will see it.

Nevermind. I gave him an answer,"My sisters would see it."

He looked disgusted.

7) Scare tactic (again):

"If you want me to install again huh, later the tile crack and we all have to stop work."

By then, I was very sian of his lousy attitude. I conceded defeat and said reluctantly,"Okay lah!"

How can a plumber install a heater slanted?

It is unprofessional and irresponsible.

I watsapped Dorothy to complain about the plumber.

Her reply took me by surprise:

Be thankful that he came down to install the heater for you.

Wow! I have to be thankful for a job shoddily done! Thanks huh, Dorothy!

So I told Dorothy that Creative Plumbing installs heaters CREATIVELY.

Day 16 - Creative Plumbing - Empty Vessels Make the Most Noise

As our neighbour directly above our unit complained to HDB that we were too noisy on a Saturday (Day 15), Ah Huat had to stop cutting tiles, and that caused his tiling to continue on the following Monday.

Day 16:

The plumbers came down in the morning to fix up the rainshower and the storage heater.

Apparently, the plumber was not in a good mood. In fact, 'not in a good mood' was an understatement. He was arrogant (dunno what a plumber is arrogant about).

When I saw that the stainless steel pipe was bundled up with the pvc pipe that came in from the kitchen like this:

I immediately asked him if this bundled thingy can be done from the kitchen.

Wah, cannot ask, you know?

He gave a very TL face and said,"If want to come in from the outside, then we must charge already! We are only doing toilet. So it must be in the toilet! And you don't want to spend money to do the kitchen!"

In my years of blogging, I don't think I have ever used the word 'TL'. But nothing less describes his look and tone.

Then, in the utter fashion of a spoilt brat, he said,"I don't want to do your place already lah! Everything also want but don't want to pay!"

Although I was displeased with his KBKB (neither have I ever used this in my blog, right?), I kept quiet.

When I was in the bedroom, I overheard him complaining to Xiao Hei who popped by to re-do the mosaic that I 'insisted' on this and 'insisted' on that.

When I opened the door, he stopped his nonsense. I didn't want to make an issue out of it, so I kept quiet.

He proceeded to put up the storage heater.

 On seeing the placement of the heater, I was concerned that:

1) it was not centralised above the doorway

2) it might be too close to the side wall and got in the way of my storage mirror

The spoilt brat insisted he always placed the storage heater at the same place. He also insisted that my mirror would not be so high. On top of that, he mentioned that I would have a box-up that flushed with the wall and it would be fine.

On hearing that the storage heater would not obstruct anything. I left it at that, not knowing that a nasty surprise awaits me because of his poor placement.

Day 14 - Tiling of Shower Area

Tiling continued today. 

It's slow-moving after the first day, after Ah Huat knew that the plumbers were not coming until Monday.

Tile-cutter

Ah Huat cutting a tile

A floor trap needed to be installed in the shower area.

Previously when we bathed, the water would flow out from a hole in the shower kerb towards the floor trap under the basin near the door. It made the whole bathroom floor wet and I didn't like that. However, this tile-insert floor trap was thicker than the average floor traps, so the floor level was raised. My worry is that the dry area would be raised even higher, 4 inches off the ground to be exact.

 Tiling the kerb for the huge pipes in preparation for the box-up

Because the floor level was raised substantially, Ah Huat ran out of sand for the remaining area. 

He said that the sand would arrive the next day.

The shower screen was installed in the master bedroom bathroom. 

We can't open it to the max though as it would hit the thermostat.

The installer stuck a rubber piece to the shower screen so that when it knocked against the thermostat, the screen would not break, but I found it too ugly and got William to remove it.

Baby said,"Oh my goodness! The doors are so nice!"

Day 13 - Tiling of Walls and Waterproofing

Ah Huat finished tiling the walls and waterproofed the bathroom. 

I had mistaken that he had waterproofed the bathroom yesterday as I saw that he placed 2 sticks in the form of 'X' at the doorway to indicate 'no entry'.

Dorothy gave Ah Huat a call and asked him to create an extra inch above the doorway. She knows that I wish to place my storage heater there. I measured the heater and it was 14 inches while the space above the doorway was 16 inches. She wanted to play safe and to 'give provision' to the heater.

I appreciate her thoughtfulness.

In the meantime, the tiles above are taped with masking tape to hold them in place.

The view from outside the bathroom

Day 12 - Tiling of Walls for Common Bathroom

I told Xiao Hei that the mosaic had been tiled in such a way that the piece of mosaic was cut in all ways  - top, left, right and bottom. He said that he would return on Saturday to stick another piece of mosaic in the niches, but he didn't sound like he was confident of tiling the mosaic the way we wanted it. But I don't think we are being OCD, right?

Today, another tiler, Ah Huat, came to tile the common bathroom.

By evening, he had almost finished tiling the walls ...

and water-proofing.

I am impressed with his speed. 

Despite working alone on a larger bathroom, he could complete so much within a day.

I also like the small grooves between the tiles.

This colour is closer to the kind of beige that I have always wanted (although it does not show up as beige on camera). Now I like the common bathroom, a little more than I like my master bedroom bathroom.

I really like beige, don't I?

Bad news from Dorothy: the plumber can't make it to my place on Friday or Saturday. He can only come next Monday. This would mean that the whole renovation would be held up, as without the laying of pipes, boxing up of pipes can't proceed, neither can tiling of the box-ups be done.