A Few Good Lights

The kitchen and service balcony lights conked out about a fortnight ago. 

We had been pottering around the kitchen and service balcony in the dark for a while. I actually got used to it except that it would be a challenge to do any cooking.

So William called up an electrician and asked him to come down to fix up lights for these two areas, but I was extremely displeased with the design, or rather, the lack of design, of the lights.

It was a round, mundane-looking ceiling light. 

I told him a grandmother's story,"Once, my friend visited me in the house and she asked,'Eh, why your kitchen light like that one?' I have been waiting for a lifetime to get the lights changed! They are so fugly! I am not going to let you put another ugly light up there!"

He didn't seem to have any choice. 

I Googled for 'nice kitchen lights' and found that Sembawang Lighting House had quite a variety and a few of those lights were what I found interesting. We made a trip down to the small lighting shop the next day.

I adored three lights and could not make up my mind on which two to buy. Incidentally, William wanted a brighter light for the study. An idea struck me,"Coco always complains that her room light is too bright. Why don't you shift her light to the study and we get one more light for her room?"

He agreed after a little consideration. However, he insisted the hanging light I chose was too dim for the girls' room. I argued that they have a study light and the ceiling light hangs directly above Coco's bed so a dim light would do just fine. Furthermore, it would be a 12-watt LED bulb which was quite bright.

After paying for the lights at $75 per unit, my next two days were spent worrying,"Oh dear, did I make the wrong decision? Hanging lights for the kitchen and service balcony? Should I change them for more practical options like the boring ceiling lights? Was I too impulsive? Am I crazy to have pendant lights for kitchen? Even Renotalkers don't have many - actually, only one or two - opting for hanging lights for kitchen or service balcony. Not both. And even then, their hanging lights are much bigger. The ones who fix lights I have chosen put them up at smaller areas like the toilets. Will I regret it? Is it a big mistake to choose these lights?"

I decided to be adventurous for once: At most, let William scold me for my mistake and pay again for boring and practical lights. If I don't try, I'd never know.

The following Monday, the electricians turned up as promised and these were the arrangements:

Geometric light (9 watt) for the kitchen

  

Triangle light (9 watt) for the service balcony

 

Square light (12 watt) for the girls' room. Baby made the choice and Coco had no objection.

William's worry that the 12-watt light would be too dim for the girls' room proves to be unfounded. It is just nice, a comfortable reduction from their original 22 megawatt LED ceiling light. It turns out that LED lights are a few times stronger or brighter than their non-LED counterparts with similar wattage eg. a 9-watt LED bulb produces the same brightness as a 60-watt incandescent bulb.

The kitchen and balcony lights are more than sufficient to illuminate the smaller areas. 

I also learnt a new thing: The nearer the lights are to the ceiling, the brighter they are. The theory works well with me as I didn't want the cords to be too long either.

The result: Everybody is pleased with the lights!

I'll worry about the part on cleaning later.

Charges for light installation ($80):

- $35 for fixing the first light and $10 for the two subsequent lights

- $12 for moving and fixing a light from the girls' room to the study

- I topped up $13 for them to patch up three holes that the lights were not able to cover

The Malaysian electricians seemed pleasant and experienced so I got a namecard from the main guy. Will look for them if I need their service again.

All in all, William spent $305 on the lights and installation. Not sure if it was too exorbitant a price he paid but we did not have the luxury of time to get them off Taobao, with the shipping time and all. William would not have trusted anything electrical from Taobao either.

Roomba and Braava in Action

I have been decluttering the platform of mainly Baby's stuff, especially toys. As it was occupied with too many toys and other items, and thus not fit for human activities, the platform had been a place of neglect. As a result, it became very dusty. The gaps in between the wooden planks were, unfortunately, the perfect places to hide age-old dust.

So I decided to pick out the stubborn dust, paper bits, beads and dirt in the gaps and got Roomba to strut its stuff.

The dust and dirt dug out

I switch Roomba to 'spot' cleaning mode so that it concentrates on the area by circle-cleaning it.

 

How the area looks after the spot-cleaning

The white spots on the wood are mostly scratches.

 

 The size of the platform

 

The collection of dust in Roomba's bin

 

The actual amount of dust and dirt

 

The hepa filter traps the finer dust

 

The amount of fine dust from the hepa filter after tapping it repeatedly on the corners

The 'clean' hepa filter after the tapping

How Braava 380t mops: back and forth in a systematic manner

You don't have to watch the whole two-minute video. Just get an idea of how Braava moves will suffice. You will also know what I mean by 'absolutely quiet at work'. The children playing at the void deck were making a ruckus compared to Braava.

How Braava manoeuvres and fits into a corner

It may seem Braava is not doing a complete job at cleaning the corner here but eventually it returned to clean it quite thoroughly. Unfortunately I had captured that using time-lapse mode below, so it may not look obvious.

A quick look at how Braava cleans the corner and one of the sides

 

Dirt mopped up by Braava
Quite impressive, I thought, after Roomba had done the vacuuming.

My Kinda Guys: Roomba & Braava

 

For a long time, I have always wanted to blog about the two very important guys in my life but never got down to it.

The Grandmother's Story

I had read tonnes of reviews on Roomba and secretly harboured hope of acquiring one, way back 6 or 7 years ago! The cheapest model then cost about $500 to $600? It was, and still is, a lot of money for a vacuum cleaner. For this kind of dough, I had checked out other vacuum cleaners, cord or no cord. From Philips to Dyson to Miele, I still came back to the attractive idea of owning the best robot cleaner in the world. 

We had a bulky corded traditional vacuum machine when I was young. At first, we loved to 'play' with it. We liked to see how the staples and other small objects disappear magically under the suction nozzle. For little children, it felt kind of 'powerful' to do that kind of chore. The vacuum cleaner also came with a electrical cord that returned to its nook at the press of a button. We loved to play with that one too! We would deliberately pull the cord to the farthest we could and then run back to the machine to press the button just to see how fast and furious the cord snapped back to the body!

But it was a heavy monster. 

Before we got tired of playing with it, we were willing to lug the heavy nozzle that was attached to a wriggly and bulky hose around. By and by, the novelty wore off and gradually none of us wanted to play with it anymore. It became even lonelier when the button to recall the cord spoiled. 

After that, I was never keen to get a vacuum cleaner as the bulk and clumsy part of our vacuum cleaner was better etched in my memory than its ability to clean the floor. None of us was keen to get one actually. No one ever mentioned anything remotely about getting a vacuum cleaner. We stuck to Magiclean wipes for many years.

After I got married, I went with the wipes too for many years. Dry wipes for sweeping and wet for mopping. But it was labour-intensive and I found that they were ineffective floor cleaners. William and I often fought over who should clean it. It got to a point where I gave up fighting and let the floor be - dusty and full of hair. I still tried to Magiclean it using the dry wipes but it could only get rid of the obvious dust and hair. You know the floor is not quite clean even though you have cleaned it. Quite depressing.

The decision to get a vacuum cleaner was sealed last year when I renovated the girls' bedroom. Magiclean wipes just don't cut it when it comes to cleaning up the invisible sawdust. For a few weeks, I kept having that irritating feeling of minute particles stuck to my soles. Every time I felt the sawdust on my feet, I whipped out my Magiclean sweep and wet wipes to wipe the floors, but they were no help. It was like a never-ending chore.

My kind neighbour lent me her corded Dyson vacuum cleaner to suck up the sawdust and it was a lifesaver, but I still did not like the bulky hose and the restrictive cord. That was when I made up my mind to get a Roomba.

I had been looking out for iRobot sales for a long time but I was also concerned about the fact that the older models were using bristles or brush rollers. They pick up hair but the hair gets tangled on the bristles which you have to spend time disentangling them by the bin. I shuddered to think that I could end up picking hair out from a brush for hours. It may be fun when you do it once or twice but it becomes very painful to do it every time you run the robot.

So when iRobot's Singapore exclusive distributor held a sale at the IT Show 2015, I decided to go and take a look.

I was pleasantly surprised to know that the latest model then, Roomba 880, had rubber roller brush instead of bristles. It's supposed to suck in the hair as well as fine dust, what with the hepa filter to capture very fine dust.

The demonstration also included showing Roomba sucking up a $1 coin and 50-cent coin. The promotion had the desirable robot going at $1098. I thought it was pricey as my budget was about $500-$700, but since I had been thinking about getting a Roomba for so many years, I decided to grit my teeth to get it.

At the same sale, quite a few people were looking at Braava 380t. It was also a new product then and was priced at an attractive $450. I was impressed with its intelligent ability to mop systematically and decided to buy it together with Roomba 880.

Both robots came with some freebies. For Braava, an extra detachable mopping device, a piece of sweeping cloth and two more pieces of micro fibre cloth were given; and for Roomba, an extra hepa filter and an $80 voucher for accessories.

Roomba 880

Roomba comes with a few cool features such as a remote control, the ability to schedule cleaning from Monday to Sunday, 2 lighthouses-cum-virtual walls that either guide Roomba to the rooms you want to clean (lighthouse) or block off Roomba from the rooms you don't want it to enter (virtual wall).

But I stopped using these features after a few times as I really just need to carry Roomba to the room I want it to clean and start it running there. As simple as that. How lazy do I need to be? I also realised I don't need the floors to be vacuumed every single day, so I stopped setting the weekly cleaning schedule. Another reason for me not to set the schedule is because I find it a bit eerie that a robot is coming out of the room on its own. A case of watching too many horror flicks, I know, but ...

The first time I ran Roomba, a red light indicated that the bin was full when it was half done. I was surprised that it was filled so quickly. However, I soon realised that my living room must have been so dusty and filthy that Roomba was filled up that quickly. After that, the rate that Roomba's bin was full gradually decreases. At first, it got filled up at the end of one run. I had to clear the bin every single time I ran it. Nowadays I can wait for a few runs before it's filled. It tells me that my house is getting cleaner by the day!

The best thing about Roomba is its ability to go under my bed. For so many years, the floor under the bed was very dusty. It was hard to reach the centre under a king sized bed! And dust built up at an incredible rate. I always dread to look for things under the bed as I would expect to see a thick layer of dust staring back at me.

With Roomba, I am happy to look under my bed! No more dust, and even cleaner than when I had Magicleaned it!

One thing, though. Although Roomba sucks in some hair, a lot of hair tend to roll around the sides of the roller brushes. I have to remove the brushes to get rid of the hair that would be rolled up in a coil. However, even though I did not read anything about that, it doesn't bother me much as removing coiled hair is definitely easier than removing tangled hair from bristles. If I had known that such was part of the maintenance required, I would still have gladly bought it.

Unlike some of its competitors, Roomba starts out  cleaning the floor in a circular mode. As it moves in an expanding manner, it inevitably hits something and changes to a haphazard mode. There are areas it over cleans and others it touches and go, and yet others, misses totally. However, it cleans about 90% of the floor area and I am more than happy with it. It actually cleans better than I do!

When it first came home with me, we were all amused at how Roomba was moving. I said it behaved like a human being who is capable of finding its way while Coco thought it was like a blind dog running all over the place and getting itself trapped under a chair. It also pushes light objects left on the floor such as curtains and shoes. Once, it played with Coco's dirty laundry and left it outside the bathroom. I said in jest that Roomba was getting to be more and more like a man.

Braava 380t

I adore this little guy. It's absolutely quiet and goes about its work systematically. I have read that it has a dry-mop function but most of what it does is to push the dust to the sides of the room while its ability to mop is similar to wiping the floor with Magiclean wipes. It doesn't scrub the floor like the legendary Scooba but it's more efficient and energy-saving (literally) than human effort.

I just need to:
1) pour a little bit of cleaning solution with water into the pro-clean reservoir pad, which is a fancy name for the detachable mopping device that contains the solution
2) stick the damp cloth on the pad
3) snap the pad onto Braava's main body
4) place Braava on the floor at a corner of the room
5) put the Northstar Cube, the guide, on a table, and let the system run

Braava is primarily a wiping device, so you need to make sure the floor is vacuumed or swept before setting it to work. Otherwise, the cloth will be collecting lots of dirt under it and it will bring the dirt everywhere it goes.

Unlike Roomba's haphazard moving pattern, Braava maps the room and cleans the floor methodically in a back and forth manner. When it hits an obstacle, it usually moves around it and continues with its systematic cleaning.

It is shorter in height than Roomba and goes under the bed too! Guess what? Like Roomba, it cleans better than I too! I could not reach the nooks and crannies under the bed but Braava can!

Verdict

I think there isn't a better invention than Roomba and Braava. I can't imagine my life without them ever. As for now, I list them down as life's essentials, like a washing machine. When these two guys bid me farewell, you can be sure I am going out to get their more advanced siblings. 

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!"