edenstrauss

Once the tiling & hacking works in our kitchen is completed, the tiling team moved on to skirtings for our bedrooms. Photos show the skirtings that need to be replaced on both sides of the door entrance, from the interior and exterior of the newly restored common bedroom: They would also need to replace the tiles at the doorway after demolishing the walls. Photo shows a neatly chiselled gap between the existing ceramic tiles where a wall used to sit on before Ah Cheong demolished it:

After sometime (cannot recall the exact duration), plaster was being applied onto the top of the new cement blocks. Grouting between the skirtings are also done as shown in this photo: Then, Mr Loh used a damp sponge to clean up the excessive cement lining our kitchen floor and parts of the skirtings.

Photo shows Mr Loh taking off the skirting very carefully from the existing cement platform (i.e. before the SNOW storm was done - forgot to include this in my earlier thread): The samurai expression that was inserted into the photo was a candid gesture; all in the name of having fun but it reminded me very much of Mr Loh's facial expression. A man with a sense of black humour. hehehehe ______________________________________________________________________________________ To be continued from where Ah Keong was seen sweeping up the rubble in the last photo in my previous thread, he (Ah Keong) placed 2 wooden planks or were they aluminium (?? not sure) adjacent to each other against the newly modified platform and started filling the "gap" or "slot" with cement. After the "slot" was fully packed with cement, the 2 wooden planks were removed as shown in the photo below: We were lucky that the previous owners had left us plenty of spare kitchen (bathroom) tiles given by HDB when they first bought the flat. At least, they came into use for this ocassion. We had observed that Ah Keong had used a cutter to cut the tile to a desired size (which in this case, is used as skirting lining the edges of the newly extended cement platform). An electrical gadget with a round blade as shown in the photo below was used to "file" the edges of the tiles. Presumably to smoothen the edges. For a smooth finishing at the sides.

DAY 3 (continued): Skirting & tiling The tiling supervisor, Mr Loh & his worker Ah Keong came by at about 10AM in the morning. In fact, Mr Loh dropped by in the early evening on DAY 2 before we called it a day. He came to inspect the area that required skirting & tiling; and also, the cement platforms in our kitchen which required both extension breadth-wise & hacking length-wise. And before he went off on DAY 2, he left a bag of white plaster & some accessories in our MBR along side with the other raw materials which Ah Ming had been using for constructing the hollow blocked walls and installing the door frame. Photos below show these 2 existing cement platforms in our kitchen bearing red markings made by Ah Cheong to highlight to Mr Loh on what needs to be done. These platforms are conventionally used to accomodate kitchen cabinets and the extension is necessary in accomodating to our IKEA kitchen cabinet, which my hubby would be installing on his own later on. Upon his arrival on DAY 3, Mr Loh wasted no time in demolishing inches off one of the cement platforms becox extra space is required for installing a double-tracked kitchen door. The amount of dust that was stirred up was terrible. It was a SNOW storm! And it's a pity that I didn't have the chance to take a photo of Mr Loh being covered in white dust! I was told by my hubby that he emerged from the kitchen covered in white powder! We were told that they couldn't continue until the dust settled so by the time I returned with their lunch, my hubby had installed a heavy-duty fan in the kitchen to disperse the white fog. This was how it looked like when the "fog" in our kitchen was dispersed: And Ah Keong sweeping up & tidying the rubble in our kitchen before continuing with their assignment:

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DAY 3: - Plastering of walls - Installation of Skirting - Switching of doors Plastering of walls Ah Ming prepared the plaster and applied all over the newly cemented walls as shown in the photo below. And how it looks like on DAY 4 (morning): And DAY 7:

End of DAY 2... Ah Ming told us that plastering would be done the following day (DAY 3) because the walls would start cracking if they were applied on the very same day as the first 2 layers of cement.

DAY 2: - Cementing hollow blocked walls (continuation)& - Installation of (wooden) door frame Ah Ming dropped in the following day (Day 2) at about 8.30AM and continued stacking up the second wall with hollow blocks. Then, we left him in the bedrooms to apply cement & do scaling. So there weren't as many wall-related photos to show for Day 2. However, the wooden door frame for our newly created bedroom had arrived. And after lunch, he had dealt with the wooden frame by hammering nails in a "zig-zag" fashion as shown in the photo below prior to installation: He said that this would ensure that the door frame is strongly embedded into the cement. Have a stronger grip onto the cement when applied on during the installation process. (I am so sorry that I had a loss of words to express this process clearly Found it tough to describe the technical process.)

Post-script (DAY 1): Ah Ming had 2 of these rods with a flat underbase for scaling down freshly cemented walls. One of which is made of wood and the other aluminium. He had explained to us that the wooden version is no longer produced and cost alot more than that the aluminium version. However, nothing lasts foreover becox repeated scaling would thing down the wood. So it is indeed a precious antique to him. The aluminium version could not be used forever too. Both versions had lifespans.

It was time for Ah Ming to knock off by the time he completed applying 2 layers of cement on one side of the hollow blocked wall. Take a look at the chaotic state of the MBR at the end of the 1st day : However, we were pleasantly surprised that Ah Ming had taken the initiative to clean up the MBR. We witnessed how tough his manual job was throughout the day and told him that he need not clean up since reno work is still in progress. However, he insisted on cleaning up the room before he packed up and left. He had explained to us that Ah Cheong & all the team members would always make an effort to clean up "the mess" for owners (before calling it a day) when they are living in while the renovation is on-going. And just take a look at how neatly packed the MBR is after he cleaned up the place! 5 stars for him!

Once the hollow block walls are completely stacked up with cement, Ah Ming started to apply the first coat of cement as shown in the photo below: After a first layer of cement had been applied very generously, Ah Ming used an aluminium or wooden "stick" with a flat base to scale down the cement. We observed that as he did that, some of the impurities e.g. small pepples started falling off, which left holes in the cemented walls. Another coat of cement has been applied generously over the first layer. Those "holes" or "gaps" left by the pepples or stones which were taken out during the fist scaling process were also covered with this second layer of cement. Then, Ah Ming repeated the scaling process to smoothen the cemented wall. This scaling process is then followed by cleaning off any cement staining the beams and existing wall with a damp sponge.

After setting up the green strings that are held in place by nails on the sides of the walls, Ah Ming started to construct new walls with the 4" hollow blocks. Hollow walls getting stacked up... Photo shows one of the walls being fully stacked up using cement and 4" Hollow blocks:

It's very quiet over here in Pasir Ris, can barely feel any election fever. But I'm really interested to see what happens tomorrow to all the constituencies who are contested by WP! Must sleep early tonite so that got strength to watch the news must be very interesting. If there are recounting of votes in view of disputes or ambiguity (e.g when either party lose by jux a low percentage of votes), then the announcement of results would cross over to the wee hours of the morning. :D

Unless your geomencer suggested that u do so, otherwise, u could have figured out very easily just by asking around. Those shops that sell prayer materials e.g. joss sticks would tell u nobody renovates during the Ghost Festival and during Qing Ming as well. Or you could check with any chinese temples. Quite a handful of contractors would even turn down assignments that take place during those times of the year.

Take bus 33 from Bedok Interchange & tell the driver that u want to go to the famous Guan Yin temple at Joo Chiat. After he tells u to get off at the relevant bus stop, u will see Lucky Khoon directly across. Black signage with red words.

Fabricating of (hollow-block) Walls After Ah Ming extracted sections of the existing ceramic tiles, we took pictures of his beautiful handiwork and if you refer to the photographs below, you would notice that he had put up green strings held on by nails at all 4 corners where the new wall would be constructed at. Ah Ming explained that it was to ensure that the walls are upright and straight while he built them up. One of the nails embedded at the top of a wall below the beam, holding on to the green thread: He had also been very considerate in wrapping our power points with corrugated paper to prevent cement from staining or choking them up

When we first met Ah Cheong for a site visit at our flat, he did mention that it is not necessary for fabricated hollow block walls to be sitting on the ground with existing ceramic tiles dug up. However, we were "kia-su" (a hokkien slang for not wanting to lose out) and we're not sure since when we acquired the idea that ceramic tiles were slippery and the wall wouldn't hold well. Likely to be through a couple of construction firms who were building bungalows. Even though Ah Cheong assured us that the wall wouldn't collapse becox of its weight, we still wanted to create more friction on the ground so that the walls would be built on a extra strong & stable "foundation". So we stuck on to our own idea and were billed for it of course The worker who was given this assignment to cut out the ceramic tiles and build the walls was Ah Ming. He stepped into the picture while Ah Cheong was chiseling the rough edges of the new doorway after the demolishing was completed. And like Ah Cheong and "Ah-Bui", he took extra care of our ceramic tiling and even our electrical switches. Sand-STORM : And with the adamant decision to have the tiles cut prior to building the hollow block walls, a SAND STORM was inevitable! Ah Ming flipped up one of the pieces of wooden board in our new common room and used that as a make-shift door to block out as much dust which he warned us, would be terrible while he cuts out sections of the ceramic tiles where the new wall would be built on. Look at poor Ah Ming slogging the ceramic tiles out! During the lunch break, we heard him forcing out the dust really hard from his throat - no phlgem was heard but my hubby said that he was forcing out the dust. And we didn't blame him for cleaning his nose at the emergency staircase after he ate his lunch. Photo shows the aftermath of cutting the ceramic tiles: Just look @ the dust!!

Removal of Debris After the foggy episode with dust arising from the demolishing of walls, there is another sand storm coming our way! But before I move on to tell about more about they continued to stir up a sand storm, Ah Cheong took the lead in sweeping up the debris that flew off track from the huge pile of debris. He then delegated the removal of debris to another foreign worker and "Ah Bui". Chiseling I'll like to mention here that becox Ah Cheong had demolished the wall by hitting at the area ABOVE the skirting running at the bottom of the wall (adjacent to floor tiles), he had used a chisel & hammer to carefully knock off the skirting lining surrounding the demolished work site, that's if they had signs of cracks, etc. You could see here in these photographs that he was also making an effort to neaten the uneven flooring arising from the new entrance. Raw of course with seasoned cement that was buried under the fabricated wall for the past 15 years! We were anticipating cracked tiles & damaged skirtings but only the sides of flanking the new doorway had ceramic skirtings that chipped off! The damage was minimal and to us, negligible. What a pleasant surprise! Excellent demolishing work!

Hacking of wall continued... A pile of debris autographed by the "killer" hammer which I couldn't lift up, no matter how hard I tried to. I wondered how Ah Cheong managed to lift it up! Now, both my hubby & myself knew where Ah Cheong got his gorgeous biceps from! he-he-he-he-he... We observed Ah Cheong running to the common-room-to-be through the MBR's door throughout the demolishing exercise. Not sure what he was looking out for. But, we saw him gathering up the pile of debris - as a buffer to more debris as the demolishing take place?? Some were thrown into the gunny sack but some were stacked onto the existing pile of debris. We were so overwhelmed by the amount of dust fogging the living room that we could only guess what he was doing. And my hubby also reminded me to suppress my talkative genes so that Ah Cheong could conserve his energy for demolishing the wall Jux look at the amount of dust flying in our flat by the time he completed the demolishing of the wall to create the entrance to our new common-room-to-be!!! I hope that the photo has clearly captured the foggy atmosphere in our living room. It was a real nightmare becox we're still staying in the flat while this is happening!

The arrival of the BIG DAY! DAY 1 Our contractor, Ah Cheong, rushed over from another on-going project to our flat in the morning and pasted the HDB renovation permit outside our flat. Without further delay, he started demolishing the wall with the red hammer that I couldn't even lift up! The noise was deafening by our standards. We stood at a distance while he started knocking just above the skirting. He was poised as if he was playing golf, but what a dangerously heavy "golf" club he was using! And soon, a small hole was seen as the debris started falling onto the wooden board that was laid on the floor inside the common-room-to-be. As he went on knocking the wall, the hole got bigger as more debris accumulated on the ground which was protected by thin sheets of wooden board. The demolishing was conducted bottom up and he switched from the golfing posture to a top-hacking gear as you could see in the photos below:

All neat & fully equipped for the BIG DAY the next day!

Then, they started bringing in the raw materials & equipment; which could be seen in the photos uploaded as below. 4" thick hollow blocks, sacks of cement, plasters, sand, etc. Uploading the hollow blocks inside our MBR: Photo of gunny sacks for containing debris, huge red spade and a red hammer weighing tonnes (for demolishing the wall to restore entrance to a door): Photo of the hardworking foreign worker sweeping the corrugated carpet after uploading all the materials in our MBR:

Continuation of ... Getting ready for the BIG day : - Laying Protection over our existing tiling; and - Uploading Raw Materials Now you can see why we call him "Ah Bui" just by looking at this photo And relatively thin sheets of wooden boards (brand new) were brought in and placed at the locations where cement mixture is to be prepared and where the demolishing would take place. "Ah Bui" taping the wooden board to the MBR's floor: Placing the wooden board where the debris would accumulate when demolishing of part of the wall takes place the following day:

Flats at Clementi don't come cheap. Especially if you compare that area to Jurong. A friend of ours sold hers (just across the mrt station) at $485k for a 4-room flat & the reno done was very long time ago when she first got her flat thru HDB so the style is already outdated. High COV.

Hi heyhoe, I would definitely be continuing with this thread. It's just that I'm taking longer to do so & upload the photos becox I'm pretty busy lately. So stay tuned