Ambitious me reflecting

It's been a while since I last visited my little old attic.

Did quite a few things: got a new sofa, painted a few walls to light beige (or is it 'biege'?), prepared and celebrated Baby's birthday, took pictures for my sister's friend.

And now, I find myself getting ambitious. I feel like changing our dinosaur CRT TV to a 55" LED Smart and 3D TV. While on that thought, I felt like changing my study's doorway curtain to a tempered glass door. Then I thought about renovating the two toilets which have been in their original state since 5.5 years ago. And just yesterday, I was 'inspired' by the renotalk's renovating blogs on building a shoe cabinet, and perhaps with a satee. As I am typing away, I scant the pathetic state of our study and thought it could use some decent built-in study tables and cabinets.

I even took concrete steps to find out exactly how much these things would cost:
1) 55" LED Smart and 3D TV - $3000 - $4500
2) tempered glass door - $600 to $1000
3) renovating two toilets - $5000 x 2 = $10, 000
4) shoe cabinet - $1000
5) study renovation - $1000 - $1500

About $17k I need.

Meanwhile, the glass door and the shoe cabinet seem to be more achievable - if I stop travelling for a while.

But I have a problem here: part of my study's wall is made of partition board - a 'legacy' left behind by the contractor from hell. He had promised to make a concrete wall so that I could install a door next time, but since I was only going to install a door 'next time', he could not be bothered and put up a partition instead. So it would not be strong enough to hang a top-hung door.

Yeah, I could have spent all my travelling expenses on my long overdue re-renovation, but I didn't want my parents to be too old before they could go travelling. So yeah, travelling over renovation is the less of two evils. Nothing to regret about. Furthermore, William wasn't quite interested in getting his acts together, so I didn't think it was worth it to spend money to let him enjoy the the benefits as well.

Marriage is probably my biggest regret. Or rather, marriage to him is my greatest regret. I have wasted much time, money and energy on this marriage, and in the end, we are back to square one.

He has started to give me allowance - in the hope that I don't go meet up a long-time chatfriend, but how much, how much time have we wasted! When I read through the reno-blogs, the houses are clearly the works of two persons. Not one. And they are always working together, hand in hand, not against each other. They work for the benefits of each other, incorporate the likes of each other, and are always on the same line versus the ID or contractor. Not like us at all. I felt like I had to fight both the contractor and William all the time. It was William and contractor versus me. How ridiculous! Of course, in the end, we lost. Because William paid the contractor almost in full even before he started any work - a sure sign that there was something wrong with the contractor. He did it so secretly that it was too late to do anything when I knew about it.

Then he took half a year to renovate the flat, and handed it over to us incomplete. And nothing was done to our satisfaction - from the uneven tiling with wide gaps, to the erection of study's wall, the building of the false ceiling, the brand of paint, the erection of the platform, even the skirting ... nothing, absolutely nothing, was right.

More than 5 years have passed, but the thought about the shoddy workmanship still stings.

It was meant to be a brief update about what I have been up to, I ended up talking about the unhappy reno history. What's the matter with me?

It's PSLE marking - the days I look forward to for the entire year!

I will update those recent bits bit by bit.