Morning of Easter 2012

Our yellow multi purpose room

This Easter is special… its the day that I stop major reno work .. and so this is the state of the house reno and its going stay this way for about 2 months.. We are taking a break from reno and will be gone sailing… our annual pilgrimage to Tioman.

Temporary kitchen setup

Its still about 2 weeks to departure, and now we are full swing into sailing preparations. Moving sails on and tools off Calliste, stocking up food and fuel… etc. Going on vacation like ours is alot of work to begin with… and then 10 days of island fun.. this time, Calliste will be gone for couple of months, hence more prep work..

Fridge in its place! Yes!

Around the house, we will be picking up the pieces and doing little finishing touches when we can, but not much. Its feels like camping out, but much more comfy now with the fridge in its final position, altho the kitchen top is not even started. A temporary kitchen just to get us by… Notice the portable single induction stove and kettle?

Doors and A/C are in!

With the doors installed and keeping the A/C ‘ed air in and saw dust storms out, my very blue bedroom is pretty much done..

Meal corner in our bedroom...

 

Yes, we still need paint on the doors… details! Blar! I am just so anxious to get this over with… I keep thinking that its done!

And a little eating corner in the room… like a studio. A little radio set tucked away in the corner, easy music while we relax in here.  Things are slowly getting better around here…

Some dust settling over at my great reno project

2nd floor landing... thats done!

Soon I be done with “reno” talk… I hope. This took much longer than I anticipated. sigh… balancing my work as a engineer and doing my most of own reno and managing people that I hire occasionally… its driving me nuts.

Before, workshop for this reno project

For some reason, hiring workers that are any good has been difficult. They either dont have the right tools, or are just bent to finish it quickly and move on to the next job, leaving me to either clean up their work or clean up their mess. .. and sometimes a tool goes missing… lemme see… 1 screw driver and 1 hacksaw is missing… ya, little annoyances…

1 almost done wall in the future multipurpose room.

Anyway, its coming along, slowly and surely.  Soon this messy workshop will become the multipurpose room, which will be a dining cum lounge cum guest quarters. This is partial transformation thats already done. Yes, its yellow! Bright and cheery. Yes, the stairway is pink! I love vibrant colors for this apartment.

The laundry area.. works in progress

And look, a wash basin setup in the laundry area. Yes, its going to be yellow too… when I get to finish the painting..

Foyer and MPRoom separated by a translucent wall..

I thought it was fun to use the frosted polycarbonate material for the partition wall separating the foyer and multipurpose room.. Me thinks me staying over kinda guest wont like it as much as I do… .. hee hee hee…

Temporary kitchen separated from reno by unused polycarbonate sheets.

We moved the makeshift kitchen from our future bedroom into kitchen! Finally… but still its temporary… The dish washing sink and stove base is not yet constructed… well… we were busy with other stuff alright. Yesyes.. my fault, I grossly over estimated my ability to do things … I thot it was cool to go sleepless for a month and finish all this stuff… yeah right… I thot again..

The finishing touches on our future bedroom

Well, I guess I have to be realistic and live with my faults and recognize my limited “abilities”… 

Now that the A/C is in and we are finishing up the door jambs, we be moving into our very blue bedroom soon… I cant wait! How many moons have it been since I started this reno! Argghhh!!

… Looking forward to the shopping days at IKEA, splurging on furniture and appliances that I will realize later that I didnt need  … soon it will be time for that… and then… Yes! its over!

Been working!

Very large window grill

Work more, write less… thats what happen. So in the last 3 weeks that I was “new post less”, have routed electrics and lights to main bedroom and painted the walls. … means I still have electrics to route and more LED lights to install. ..

One of the many crazy things that I do and call it a hobby...

Okay, so we completed building the mega window grill and ready for install. .. by a professional window and grill installer with very long extendable ladder. The ones that I have wont cut it. Thats why we are not installing it ourselves and besides, we dont want to violate a serious building code. I mean it will be a serious offence if our mega window grill slip and fall downstairs, causing injury to others or ourselves or damage to public property… resulting in citations, fines and whatever.. and we can avoid this by simply letting the pros do it… get it!

Another partition wall in the making..

Then we started on the framing for another partition wall that will seperate the foyer from the multipurpose room. This room would be the workshop, entertainment and guestroom…. depending on needs of the day… so how do we work in all these non-similar functions into a room…. we’ll see..

Its fun watching... for a change

… oh.. I am so tired from all this working… planning, buying the materials, doing the work.. just sometimes, I wish its easier to get what I want… so here I have… a pro painter! Thats something isnt it… and I can just sit back and watch…

.. not much progress….

One more corner done...

We were sicker than dogs in the last 2 weeks! Coughing until we hit the ground, crawling over to the bed. Lethargies, whatever and everything. .. Looks like we’ll miss some stuff going into Easter Sunday party…

Removing unintentional paint. Its quite easy.

I wonder why we must go thru this suffering … is it becos we dont rest enuf otherwise.

Well, but here we are, rested and getting back our strength… and already moving on with some successes.

New doorways into the new bedroom

Just finishing up the doorways here. Didnt know it took so much energy to put in screws… we still get light headed quite easily.. so we take it easy for now. Must be the lack of food for the past 2 weeks…

Window grill building... on site...

And then, now feeling much better… ready to do bigger things… literally… The plan is to build the aluminium window grill.. its 8′ x 12.5′ …

So, 1st the grill, then fill the screen modules later. .. maybe after Easter…

Progress!

Me at my new site office... across the room

I wish we were done… but I can only say that we made good progress. … and we are likely to finish just before Good Friday, and hopefully we could have a Easter Egg hunt party … Plan is in the works. ..

Framing a partition between future bedroom and kitchen.

This is me sitting in my new “site office”… also temporary kitchen. Well at least 1 corner in my very blue future bedroom is done. Also testing the daylight LED here. Daylight looks alot better than warmwhite against this very vibrant blue wall and partition.

Oh, how do you like the white wood frame/trimmings?

At the foyer... painting station.

While I am collecting egg shells… and keeping them safe… we’ll be finishing up this partition between my future room and the kitchen.

The other completed corner is in the foyer… yes its PINK! and some Lilac white. Colors that I have done so far are Sassy (pink), Lilac white, Harmony (blue) from Nippon Easy Wash and Premium Odorless range. Yes, I painted the ceiling with this pricey paint too. I insist on good quality Nippon paint only.. Nippon should reward me for being such a good return customer since 1990.

… and yes, I use Bordelac Innosence on wood doors and Pearl Grey on railing soon to go on. Partition trimmings are coated with Timberlac white..

After 4 days of work!

The beginnings of a partition wall.

While everyone were enjoying the long weekend. … Lang and co were working on reno…

Its a quiet neighbourhood, so we try not to disturb the peace… with our machining noise that is… we try… but when its raining heavy and ringing thunder, thats our chance to quickly saw up some wood for making this partition wall.

Wall painted while still on the ground.

Assembly is not so noisy.. phew. Painting is nice and quiet… I love the painting part, cos its the finishing part of a project. Its relaxing and its very visual… especially when I choose such bold colors to work with.

And now the wall is up.

And here it is… we have a lift off .. from the floor that is..

Pushing it up is easy.. its very light, plywood and block board construction.. to be filled in with foam for soundproofing, then screw in the other side.. After front side is up, the rest should be easier to fit.

And after this partition, there’s still 3 more “fake” walls to build … and the list of other things goes on.

Back to DIY reno

As it was before

Back to my new and un-finished place… sigh… after a great month long vacation from this work… .. now where did I stop?

Yes, the stairs… then there is the ceiling that needs alot of work.. and the walls need paint and the kitchen needs too much attention… One day at a time… one project at a time.. really gotta learn how to pace myself.

Cementing over the slippery old tiles

The stairway… lets tackle that one 1st. I ripped the old wood laminate flooring … only to find it glued to 24 yr old tiles that are already popping in some places. To remove the tiles or not…? 

 Nah, only the popping ones and then cement over. I hired some cheap labor for it, and it turn out to be quite a nightmare. Cementing over slippery old tiles is really tricky, plus its definately difficult to get wet cement to stay in shape.

BTW, notice the dark blue wall behind the stairs… got some more cheap labor to help with painting inbetween times.

And my mini utility truck..

Re-working some spots myself… sigh… Me, I can fix that myself. Sigh…

Look… I gotta go get me own bag of cement too…

Resin over canvas.

After getting cement down and allow to dry for 2 days, add 2 coats polyester resin. Then cut canvas and lay over, and 2 more coats resin. …

Not as smooth as I hoped

That was quite a chore. The canvas bubbled up! Why? maybe the cement was still quite wet underneath… dunno. Rework…

Map of pacific ocean near Marshall islands..?

Using the Fein tool, cut from the base of the bubble and lift away the “peaky” canvas. Find jelly like resin below… what does that mean? … Then resin over again, big time, make sure it fill up smooth…

Thats the Fein tool..

Then sand away the “atolls” and get ready to paint… My plan is to paint over with 2 coats epoxy… Bought NA4, indoor protective floor coatings by Nippon… we’ll see how that works out. .. but later… now, still grinding away. ..

Alright! So I have been busy!

Half reno'ed flat.

Am physically in Arizona right now, on business and vacation. House reno, put aside for a month.

On site office setup.

This is where we stopped. A bit of cleaning and alot of putting things away. Wire still hanging from the ceiling… still a mess.

tiles being delivered

This is where we are…. and I had hoped that we be all done before this trip… HA!

This roll of polycarbonate is going to be my new roof over the kitchen

Far from it! But, its okay. MamaCat, Smudge and Snooze are staying in there with daily cat care giver… Our junk have a home… thats all that matters eh ..?

Some pix from the reno. Tiles being delivered and look at that crane! One man show! … Poor tilers, they had to go carry it up… no lifts to 2nd floor…

New roof material came in a large roll. It was so difficult to get into the flat… so we let it sit outside for a few days…