Reality bites

Some friends are also doing renovation for their new BTOs at the same time, so I get to compare notes quite a bit. 

And I’ve come to one realisation: you simply need to do a lot more renovation (and spend a lot more $$$) with a resale flat – for similar results!  In my case, I needed to hack all tiles in every square inch of this flat, replace all existing electrical wiring, replace all piping and remove all fixtures. 

Talking about hacking,  I did not anticipate the sheer amount of fixtures (wardrobe, cabinets, cornice!) that needed to be removed – and the numerous holes that are left all over my walls at just about every location!

For example, take a look at my service yard..

…see the number of holes that need to be patched up just here alone? 

Another offender is cornice: after removing cornice from just about every area and room in this flat, I am left with many many more holes and uneven walls.

I knew that all these pimple-like imperfections, even after some cementing and deft paintwork, can never be overlooked by my eyes. So in the end I had to top up more $$$ to plaster the entire house (whatever is not tiled).

So if you are doing viewing for resale flats, you might want to consider the additional cost of renovation if the flat has a really large number of fixtures!

Terrific tiling

Really loving the marble style tiles that I chose for the bathrooms. I am glad that I’d gone with larger format tiles for the bathroom walls because the marble effect is almost seamless!

Tiling in all the rooms have also been completed, and here you can see the skirting too. Notice the rough looking part of the wall above the skirting??? No matter, everything will be plastered away!

As this flat is on the top floor, both bathrooms were spared from having any large pipes. Alas this is untrue of the service yard – it has 2 pairs of large pipes in either corner! I wondered what the hardworking tilers could possibly do to make these corners look pleasant?

Turns out that I need not have worried..

Yes, they did some sort of overlaying for the areas around these pipes – so they are now much less troubling looking!

Cement base for the kitchen cabinets (including sink) also done. Apparently not everybody thinks cement bases are necessary these days, but I prefer to be on the safe side.

Did you know that if you want to make a “half glass wall”, you need to first demolish the entire wall? A new nugget of knowledge for noobie me. The newly constructed “half wall” is ready for plastering, painting and, eventually, a translucent top glassy half!

And so after two whole weeks the tiling works in this 104 sqm flat are complete!!!

Up next should be plastering of the entire flat!