House Progress Report Epi 7 (S02) - All in a day's work

Ok i must apologize for my lack of words in my previous progress report..but i just can't find time to turn on my macbook and type a few words here...most of my previous posts were typed on my ipad/iphone.
So here i am typing it this quick (i hope) post in my office PC where there's a 10 min block quota! Gosh...i hope i can finish it in 10 mins...here goes...
On Saturday, we went over to the house early in the morning and saw that the kitchen is already nicely done...and the workers have already taken the liberty to use my kitchen counter top for the first time *yeay* (not!)

Some of you might have noticed by now, that being on a shoestring budget meant that the first thing to go was granite kitchen tops...its all but a dream...but i'm sure one day in my ONE house, i will have granite kitchen counter tops!!! anyway, we are using 2x2 tiles for the top to "emulate" the look of granite top :P

its still dusty and dirty but can you see my reflection there!!! it's sooo shineyyyy!!!! ♥♥♥ somehow, i'm just so proud of my kitchen counter top but on Saturday i saw one of the worker sitting ON the top while talking on the phone...oh welllllll....

just for fun, here's a photo of our washing machine that was kept in the washing area all these while...

now i could actually use it as a blackboard (or rather dustboard). can you imagine the condition if we were to actually live there while all the renovation is going on? that is why i am once again ever so grateful for having people kind enough to offer us a place to stay during our time of need *sobs* so touched :'( and it has been 3 weeks and counting! and still they have not finished...

and this is the common bathroom...wall tiles are halfway up...

i am quite ashamed to say, i didnt care much about the common bathroom..all i cared about was the master bedroom bathroom cos i foresee myself spending a lot of time there...yes i do love the bathroom a lot :x so the choice of tiles for the common bathroom, i did not play a big part in the selection...so if it turns out ugly, you can't blame me...but if it turns out pretty...you know my "influence" was in the tile selection :P

beige walls and sandstone-like floor (not up yet) but lookie...purple waterproofing!!!

never knew the waterproofing agent is purple! whee...so pretty! for the house renovation noob (i was a noob too until recently), waterproofing is a very very important step when renovating your bathroom (esp high rise) as it makes sure that your neighbour downstairs might not have a waterfall in their bathroom. so it is essential the contractor applies at least 2 or 3 coats of waterproofing. important!

ok now let's bring you to my fav part of the house 'x'

water heater is up, stock cock is up...now i realize the important of concealing wires and pipes...if you buy a new house, there is no way you will spend money to redo all the bathroom tiles just so that your water heater piping is concealed...but with a second hand house, no problemo!

ahhh..my lovely toilet 'x'

i know this is really weird, i don't know why i can't stop gushing about my toilet! and i love that divider wall too! (have i mentioned it before? 'x')

this here is the bidet tap...my choice! (mine!mine!)

the stock cock...shiney! you can see my reflection :P

sorry, i don't know why there are so many photos of the toilet bowl..LOL!

the tap at the sink which is also my selection! :D

and the little hexagonal corner next to the sink...hmm still thinkng what we should put there, perhaps a cabinet...i foresee another trip to Ikea

but we found a defect that day...

i never knew that part is made of plastic! i thought it's supposed to be ceramic too....hmmm a little turned off, but too late to do anything :(

someone getting all worried about his never-ending-flushing toilet...

well i guess if i would love the toilet so much, HE would love it even more since he is going to spend a lot of time there :x

the window in the master bedroom...

After that, we went off in search of ceiling boards for the 2 bathrooms. initially, we thought of doing plaster ceilings for the bathrooms but the quotation came up to be around rm400 for a 42 sq feet ceiling area which I think is unnecessary money spent in a space where no one will ever think of looking at the ceiling. So in the end our contractor recommended us to use ceiling boards. The current ceiling boards are the asbestos type which apparently causes cancer and has been banned. So our only choice is to use these newer types of ceiling boards called the "Armstrong". Again, another jargon in the world of house renovation. I was like what???? When our contractor told us to look for ceiling boards called the Armstrong. He even flexed his muscles while telling us the name of the ceiling.
Not to fret, nothing a little googling couldn't help. It's actually a brand of ceiling board made of those fiber materials which is both affordable and safe to use.

So Armstrong searching we went...we were brought to a deserted warehouse stacked up full with these boards.when our contractor brought us there, the bf whispered to me "this looks like a place where people normally get murdered in movies" -_-"

A box of these contains 10 pieces of the boards and it costs around rm160. Initially our contractor told us he needed 12 pieces and the seller refused to sell loose pieces to us so it meant that we have to buy 2 boxes (20 pieces) just for the extra 2 pieces!

The frugal auntie within leapt and said "no!" when I heard that. I'm not going to buy one whole cos just to get milk! So the bf told the contractor to just reuse the asbestos board for the remaining 2 pieces and guess what? The 2 pieces were just needed to cover up the tiny small areas in the bathroom -_-" lucky for him we decided to buy only one box or else I would have skinned him alive if I found out he made us spend another rm16o for 8 pieces of ceiling board which we are not going to use again! Moral of the story?? Do not trust every word your contractor tells you!

House progress report ep6 (S02)

Oh gosh. Im getting a little lazy in documenting the house progress. But in a nutshell, the master bedroom bathroom is coming along nicely...I'm loving my soft close toilet bowl and the divider between the shower area and toilet :) I can already imagine putting a cabinet somewhere there.

The kitchen counter top is done too with our 2x2 tiles. Now it's time to call up the cabinet guy to come and do the final measurement and also the kitchen hob n hood people.

As you can see, they've just hacked off the tiles for the outside bathroom. At this rate, I guess it will all be done by next week! Yippeee

House Progress Report Epi 5 (S02)

Today is the last day of our tenancy at the rented house. As much as we dislike staying there...we have been looking at this view for more than a year, it holds some memories

packing and moving house is a REAL pain in the ass!
 i am never moving again (at least for the next 2 years :P) this is my 2nd house moving in 2 years +/

this is how the bathroom looks like now...everything is coming along pretty well

and here's the kitchen....

so finally we returned our house keys to the landlord...
even though our stay there wasnt entirely pleasant, but i have developed emotional ties to the house :\

here's the bf carrying the last batch of stuff down the stairs...kinda symbolic :)

House Progress Report Epi 4 (S02)

Day 4 of renovation...our contractor told us to buy "stock cock" for the bathroom, or at least that was what i heard (not trying to be a racist here, but he's an indonesian...and try to imagine someone who is not english educated saying that in heavy indonesian accent). And we were both left puzzled as to what the hell is a stock cock...it sounded kinda vulgar to say the least.LOL

Being an IT person through and through, i actually googled for things that sounded almost similar to that. I searched "stock cock" nothing...searched "bathroom stock cock" and finally i get the actual thing. It's actually a stop cock and its the tap thingy that sticks out the walls of your bathroom! NOW i know...so stop cock shopping we went

with prices ranging from rm65 up to rm350. and since we are on a shoestring budget, we chose the cheapest one :B this shiny little fella costs RM68 (discounted up to RM55)

pretty and shiny enough! i insisted on these push lever tap thingy instead of the conventional turn tap. I requested to have all these push lever tap for all the bathrooms and kitchen sink :D so that i can still turn on the tap with dirty or soapy hands ^_^

today being the last day of september...its also actually our last day of tenancy at our rented house. and of course that means, lots n lots of last minute packing! arghhh...the things we accumulated over the period of only 1 year and 4 months...

extended our stay till tomoro...so we will pass the keys to our landlord by tomorrow nite at the latest. with the new house still in a not-so-liveable condition, we had to move in to a friend's house :P thank God for good samaritans

brought some stuff over to the new place just now and saw great progress!

this is how the master bedroom bathroom looks like now!

white wall tiles (with subtle horizontal lines) and a strip of black checkered tiles around the whole bathroom. if you are wondering what inspired this design, this post might help. lol! well at least i can have a piece of the kuching home here with me in Penang :) i initially stubbornly insisted on having the exact same glass mosaic patterns as the strip but it was too expensive (much to the horror of the bf). one strip of the glass mosaic costs between RM30-RM48! just the strip alone would cost us RM300++

and also if you noticed the wall thingy, that was also a compromise :( i asked the contractor whether he could do these recessed wall thingy to put shampoos and stuff....he said "BOLEHHHHH"

"tapi! tambah duit la"
"berapa duit??"
he said "rm200, sebab banyak kerja"

still, i wanted to proceed with it cos i believe it would be a good investment...no need for those hanging bathroom caddies that will grow black yucky mould in no time! EWWW...

but alas, it wasn't to be...cos finally he said since our bathroom walls are not very thick, the recessed thingy can only be around 2 inches deep which would practically render the whole purpose of having it moot! so i reluctantly let go of the idea and that was when he suggested a wall to separate the toilet and the bath area!

the toilet bowl would not get wet so often and i get a wall thingy to put my stuffs! a compromise is reached! :)

this is how our sitting room looks like now...whopee doo, things are piling up!

and here's the kitchen, not much progress except that all the cabinet doors have been completely ripped out.

hello you pretty wall tiles! :)

kitchen sink has also been installed...lookin good!

so tomorrow onwards, we are going to be homeless :( sobs...it sucks!

House Progress Report Epi 3 - We moved in!(S02)

I iz back with part 3! Lookie tiles are all up (in the correct orientation)

whee...proud of our tile choice. at least the kitchen wall tile choice is alright...can't wait to see the whole thing assembled. A little nervous and anticipative at the same time, one wrong move and its forever man! (well maybe not really forever per se) I ♥ the kitchen wall tile so much that i wanted to use it for the bathroom wall too. yes thats how uncreative i am!

thought of taking a artsy fartsy photo of this little tool that helps to see whether a line is straight or not (dono whatsis called) on our kitchen countertop tile...

i love the kitchen counter top tile too (60x60) cos its black with specs of gold...can't wait to see it on the counter! ^_^

and here's the toilet (as of today)

and also, the bf's mom told us today is the last "auspicious day" to move in, after that, it wouldnt be too auspicious anymore.so we were supposed to go to the house and boil some water to symbolize that we've moved in!

so here we are, boilng a kettle of water on top of his PC table which is on top of my bedside table :)

so i guess we've...MOVED IN!!! (symbolically)

cement packs...(yeah i was too free)

the kitchen coutner top with the old cabinet doors all ripped out

that's all folks! stay tuned for epi 4 for more interesting and dusty escapades with ME!

House Progress Report Epi 2 (Season 2)

Ola!

Day 2 of our renovation...nothing much to share cos when we were there during lunch, there didnt seem to be much progress except that the bathtub is now totally out! goodbye pink bath tub, unfortunately we can never be together in this tiny bathroom...perhaps another house sometime in the future...

while having lunch, someone had to draw out a plan of the master bedroom for his mom cos we were seeking advice on where to place the toilet bowl :x

i am not particularly superstitious, but since we are already ripping out all the toilet bowls,etc and reassembling them might as well la

 and lookie...tiles are here! whee...

we really had a hard time deciding on the tiles...but thank God we only had to go to one shop to fulfil all our tiling needs. lol. helpful staff, great discounts...could never ask for better. Since we are not from Penang and have only moved here 2 years ago, it was really hard for us to look for shops that sells all these stuffs that we would never think of buying (tiles,toilet bowls,sinks,etc).

here's the address if any of you in Penang are also doing renovation work to your home :)

Enyxion Enterprise
818Q Jalan Rumbia, Sungai Nibong Kechil, Bukit Jambul
11900 Bayan Lepas, Penang

04-642-6818

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Updates :  i was wrong about the "nothing much to share" part...cos when we went back there last nite at around 9pm, we were in for a "surprise"

ta daaa...

nooo...its not that the tiles for the kitchen walls are already up...

its...

it was supposed to be arranged horizontally, not vertically. lol!
when someone saw it he was like "OH SHIT" and i couldnt even tell what was wrong... :x

so we called our guy and he went back in 15 mins time :)

while waiting for him, took another photo of the master bedroom bathroom...toilet bowl fully dismantled...if you look closer at the pipe its........

tiles being washed in the other bathroom...i love this tile!

our guy back at work at 10pm...poor things...but oh well

luckily the tiles can still be salvaged cos the cement has not dried completely yet!

while waiting for them, i rummaged around n took photos of our bathroom accesories which arrived that afternoon. here's the bidet spray...

the bathroom basin faucet...

and the bathroom sink itself!

before this, i never knew that buying a bathroom sink means buying the sink, faucet , bottom pipe and the push button thingy where the water flows out of the sink separately! i thought it all came together :\ needless to say it all amounted to quite a small fortune for just one bathroom sink (RM77 for bathroom sink,RM50++ for faucet,RM28 for the push button thingy whre water flows out,RM4 for the bottom pipe)

while messing around, i saw this box with the lady lying seductively...

its actually a tile cutter...why do we need the picture of the sexy lady? beats me