The Flat

Salam my lovelies,

We have been living at The Flat since Deepavali of 2011. Seeing Facebook Memories from the time we received the keys to furnishing and adding some final touches to The Flat brings me fond memories. Back then, I was so much more confident in my choices, and resilient in dealing with interior designers, delinquent contract workers and bouncing back from it all to delivering The Flat satisfactorily.

I did all that while Girl was an active 16 months old and The Other Half was still working 12 hours a day for 4 days in a week. We had no helpers and I remember driving Girl home one evening at 5:30 p.m. after seeing off the contractors for that day. She cried and threw a tantrum in the car from exhaustion and there was once the 3 of us walked from Corinthian to Hampshire en route dinner at Ampang Park to peep at our lovely wallpapers and lights. I was definitely younger and had more energy...

The reason why I am noting this journey with The Flat is because I am out of "fire" or courage and need to find that brave old me. 

We are in the midst of searching for a suitable main-contractor to help us with some maintenance and upkeep of plaster ceiling, door frames and wall. The plaster ceiling has suffered some leaks from the central air-conditioning leaks over the last few years. In the last 6 months, the leaks have finally stopped but left some unsightly watermarks. We were in a quagmire about replacing the central air-conditioning or not before repairing the plaster ceiling. So far, it appears to be working well and we just have to take the plunge at some point to carry on.

Our door frames have been the worst nightmare for us as they left paint bubbles that cracked and released fine dust which we have covered with wallpaper for "interim" measure. It trapped all that fine dust since 2012, and 6 years of interim measure has been working so well for us. Now, to replace the door frames will mean cracking wall and floor tiles which we are not ready to finance. It looks like we have to resort to conventional ratification of stripping, sanding down and repainting of the door frames. 

The wallpapers in all bedrooms and living/dining areas will be removed in the process of us repairing some cracks and concealing some wires. We seem to find external wiring with white PVC tubing covers done by the air-conditioner installers when we replaced 2 units of air-conditioners for The Kids' room disturbingly unsightly. That will call for the walls to be repainted. Our wallpapers have hit their lifespan, but they were the loveliest way of concealing settling cracks on our walls since 2011. 

On a positive note, we have found Floor Depot to be still the best fit for all our flooring needs (cracked and chipped marble to be covered up with laminated floor boards) but that is the last item on our top to bottom sequence. We can only book and lock in their current sale price once we confirm the main-contractor next week.

In the past week, we have met 4 different possible main-contractors who showed up at The Flat for an assessment. All the leads came from Kaodim but we cross-checked their reviews on other websites and apps too, just to be safe. We are likely to select the one with the best review, albeit more pricey as the best and honest opinions have come from that fourth and final appointment today. The Other Half and I share the same sentiment that we may have to pay a small premium for the best possible outcome with the team who seem to understand our concerns and targets.

Wish us luck!