Long (diy) weekend...

Over-estimated myself and under-estimated the amount of work involved for the diy project I took up this holiday weekend lol. Had a flash of inspiration while surfing on Pinterest the other day and decided to order myself some wall stickers from Qoo10 which I used to makeover the bedroom door. $30+ for a new look, which is only 10-15% the cost of a new door. Will make do with it until the bank account recover from the renovation, haha. :P

 

Here's the before and after of our bedroom veneer door. Quite happy with how it turned out. Even the mom thinks it's nice - she actually asked if we can do it for her place (3 bedroom doors! Just kill me!).

Diy is actually highly therapeutic but boy, it's a whole new ball game when it takes such long hours lol. It's so much work trying to remove the backing paper, paste the sticker onto the surface and making sure there are no air bubbles beneath it! And all done by me, myself and I too! Unfortunately, I couldn't completely eradicate the air bubbles no matter how much I tried, but it's not too obvious (thankfully) cuz of the random wood print and texture of the wall sticker. Matt surfaces hide flaws a lot better than glossy surfaces do. :)

Managed to clean up the insides of the platform bed and the kitchen cabinets with my Mom's help today. Still pending windows cleaning which I'm totally not looking forward to... They're simply CAKED with dust and grime. It's gonna take a lot of hard scrubbing.

Electricians were over at our place this week, installing the doorbell and fixing the ugly trunking for one of the bedside lamps. (Perhaps I've picked on their work once too often, the electricians actually knew to send me photos before leaving to make sure I approve of what they'd done lol.) Partition guys have also finished up the pelmet above the sliding glass doors, outside the kitchen. Gonna check with the ID tomorrow on whether it's ok for me to arrange for the painters to come back this coming week for retouching.

Changed the date with 65daigou to deliver my sliding doors on Wednesday night instead, just in case the carpenters decide to come back this coming week (so they can help with the door installation, fingers crossed).

Also got a call from Grafunkt this afternoon - my beautiful TV console has arrived! Need to find time to head to the Millenia Tower showroom to see if there's anything else I want and whether I can hit the $2.1k mark for free delivery. Otherwise, delivery is $85 which I think is an absolute rip-off. Haha.

So many things to keep in mind and settle!

I is for IKEA & Inspirations

Hopped over to IKEA Alexandra yesterday for some furnishing recce and was really inspired by some of the smart decorating ideas they had in-store. Wasn't very fond of the crowd tho - it was just absolute long-weekend madness.

Finally found the E27 3.5W warm light bulbs that I needed for the 2 bedside lamps. The original ones that came with the lights were in 2 different colours! (Just goes to show you again that you can't trust China products/sellers too much - they have no quality control whatsoever - they just throw in whatever and hope you don't complain) The bulbs at IKEA weren't cheap, but after already wasting money on 2 cheap ones that aren't of the right dimensions from Qoo10, I decided to just go with what I can see in IKEA rather than buying blind and risk getting it wrong again. Even if the price is double what it is. :(

Also scored this awesome Ryssby 2014 lamp shade (in birch) that was originally priced at $119 for just $20. :D I was already eyeing it 6 months ago when I first spotted it at IKEA, but $100+ for a lamp shade seemed like a bit of a splurge back then, so I couldn't convince myself to part with my money. But $20 now??? How to resist!? I willingly handed it over this time lol. Probably priced to sell cuz it has been discontinued and they just want to clear their remaining stocks pronto. But doesn't matter to me, pretty is pretty even when discontinued hahaha.

Gonna be the replacement for the Japanese shoji paper one (also from IKEA) I have up in our foyer right now. It may not be immediate cuz that one still works, even if its pretty old and tattered as you can probably tell from the pictures...

 

Other plans this weekend - vet today with Bailey and more diy goodness (with some cleaning thrown in, if I have time) tomorrow at our new place! :)

Update: Just got a notification email from 65daigou this evening that my Japanese sliding doors are in town! :D Earliest available delivery date is actually next Tuesday but with work being as busy as it has been lately, I'd much rather not take the risk of not being able to make it home in time, so I've arranged for delivery on Friday night instead. Can't wait to see those doors!

2 birds with 1 stone!

After 2 long days of work this weekend (and a multitude of body aches and pain lol), I'm happy to announce that we are almost completely insect-proof and cat-safe now (minus the kitchen and bathroom). :D

Spent both days diy-ing insect screens I got off Qoo10 for the living room, foyer and bedroom (5 sets of windows in all) with the help of a very kind friend. They look great, if I may say so myself. :3 Such a great sense of achievement right there, heh heh. Hello wide open windows (with new/oiled hinges), goodbye insects! 

Living Room

Foyer

Bedroom

Terrible backlight in the photos cuz it was early evening by the time we were done, but true to what you see, they're almost close to invisible so I think it's pretty darn cool. Can't stop admiring them!  ♥

Update [04/08/15] : ID was over at our place last night checking out the glass work from last week and planning the final bits for partitioning work. He actually thought I paid someone to install my insect screens! Wahaha. Needless to say, he's well impressed with my mad diy skillz. :P

The fixed glass panels for the kitchen half-walls have also been installed this week, so that should be the end for glass works I believe. They also changed out the rubber tubing on my bathroom glass door to swing both ways just as I requested, yay!

Partition folks coming in next week according to the ID and then it's probably time to arrange for the painters to come back for touch-ups. Also pending the return of our bathroom cabinet mirror doors, which were taken out to fix the visible glue defects at the edges. Hope they can do something about that!

Final stretch of the home run...

Improving by leaps (literally) and bounds

Mid of this week, 2-3 days into her initial jab of cartrophen, you could already tell Bailey was feeling much better. She's hanging out with the family in the living room, spending most of the nights in bed with me and running around the house like she used to. Also jumping up to bed with no apparent difficulty. And waking me up at godforsaken hours in the morning to let her out of the bedroom - my morning call today was at 5:36 am lol.

Here she is right now, just chilling out in her designated sofa seat. Brought her in for her 2nd jab last night and met a friendly guinea pig owner who lived about 2 streets away from my parents' place. A very nice lady who struck up a conversation with me while waiting for her pet to be injected. He has pneumonia and needs a daily jab. Pretty tough for the both of them. We ended up chitchatting for a fair bit and sharing a cab home together. But she insisted on paying for the cab so it was more of her giving Bailey and I a free lift! Positive thoughts for a warm, kind soul - hope her pet gets well real soon.

Have also been playing with the little comm kitten who just appeared on the scene (our block) a few weeks ago. She's super manja and likes to follow me home and sit in front of our door lol. She's very curious about Bailey, but knowing Bailey (who's not so friendly with other cats) I try not to let them come into too much contact. Thinking of sterilizing and then rehoming her but not sure if I want to stress Bailey out by introducing a strange cat into her territory (cuz the kitten would need a place to recuperate from her sterilization which could take anything from 1-2 weeks for female cats)... Gonna sit on it for a bit.

Just look at how adorable she is. Pure white with a pink nose, pink paws and a perfectly straight tail too! :)

Old windows are bloodsuckers

ID called me up this afternoon with a status update after the aluminium guys came by.

Keyword: CMI.

Really cannot make it... The windows and door (also my poor heart at hearing the cost lol) are goners. All the hinges on the front metal gate (2 sets) and 4 of our top casement windows (3 in the bedroom, 1 in the foyer) have gone to hell and need replacements. In fact, according to his subcon, most of the window hinges are close to their ends and he recommends a complete change! But my ID knows I've gone way beyond my budget for this renovation and have asked them to only replace the ones that are truly spoilt, while servicing (oiling out) the rest for now.

Damage: $80 per window hinge & $70 per set of door hinge (upper and lower)

That's half a grand (almost) strolling out the door... Also half of our fridge. It's starting to look like Bailey and I may have to live without a fridge for the first month of moving in. And beg for food while we are at it, hahaha.

Useful tip from ID: To maintain the lifespan of your hinges, spray it regularly with WD40 to prevent rust.

Ole parquet, dear parquet, how I love you so!

Dropped by our place this afternoon (Saturday) to check out the parquet work and also secretly keep an eye on the glass installers to make sure they don't scratch up our revarnished floor when putting up the sliding glass doors for the kitchen.

Opted for a matte (low-gloss) varnish. Absolutely adore our brand new (looking) floor! ♥ Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike gloss in furnishings? Haha. If I have (sorry) I felt the urge to reiterate. :P 2 tiles replaced, some skirting added to the external left wall (partition) of the storage cabinet (left image below) and a bit of it removed from the external right wall of the kitchen (right image below). Pictures taken before the work was done.

 

The 2 large sliding panels and tracks are also up, but the smaller fixed panels have to be brought back to the workshop cuz they were too big apparently. I didn't realise the glass doors were so heavy until they asked me to try it lol. No wonder I paid a pretty penny for it - 10mm glass is pretty solid stuff. Didn't bother with pictures since it's not completed yet.

The partition guys were supposed to be in on Monday but are now on hold until the glass guys get their work done. And the painters can't come in for retouching until the partition guys finish their part... Domino (delay) effect lol. Good thing our move is planned for late September. :P

Aluminium guys due in this coming week to service the windows (and door) hinges!

New senior citizen in the house

It's official. Bailey has just attained senior citizenship. :(

We went to the vet this afternoon (had to wait 2 hours even WITH an appointment, doh!) and she has been diagnosed with arthritic changes in both her left hip and knee.

I was told to fast her 12 hours before her appointment so that she can be sedated for her x-ray. But Bailey (being the scaredy cat she is) was paralyzed with fear and got through the entire x-ray without it! 

Paralyzed old lady little girl in her carrier while waiting for the doctor

Unfortunately, there is no cure for arthritis. All we can do is give her health supplements to slow down and help her manage these joint changes... For now, she's on bone/joint (glucosamine) and nerve (neuroforte) supplements, painkiller (meloxicam) as well as a weekly jab (cartrophen) for the next month which (according to Dr. Heng) binds to cartilage and will hopefully improve her condition. 

The good doctor has also advised to start her back on fish oil... I stopped giving it to her for the time being cuz the one we have is huge. We have to cut it open and squeeze it into her food each time, which she doesn't like - turns her nose up at her food, this diva. So I may have to look around for smaller ones that I can just feed to her directly (ie. throw into her mouth), rather than these giant human-sized soft capsules at the moment.

We are due back for a review at the end of August, when we ascertain whether to continue those cartrophen jabs and the interval between them, should we do so.

Hope we see some significant improvements by then!