DAY 38

The living room floor is completed. So all the floor tiles are done. After a day's break for the Deepavali holiday, the workers finished the remaining area next to the study, built the plinth for the 'island' counter (foreground, above), installed the bathroom doors and tiled the storeroom floor. They've covered the floor to protect it - so glad they've done that - so it will be awhile til we see the floor in all its glory. The bathroom doors are in white aluminium and hollow. I wish we could've had more solid doors but the aluminium one is practical as it's longer lasting, more hardy to withstand the steam and condensation from our hot showers. However, I wasn't too thrilled about the door handles used. We weren't consulted on the type of door handles chosen, and the one installed is a curved one. I personally prefer the straight handles, not the curved ones. But since it's already been installed, we will leave it. I've asked for straight handles for the other bedroom and storeroom doors though.

This was the remaining portion left untiled as of Tuesday. The finished it quite easily yesterday, Thursday.

All covered up to protect the white tiles. I'm happy they've done it, even if it means we don't see the entire floor in all its beauty yet.

Another view from the study.

View from the master bedroom entrance.

The plinth for the kitchen counter.

The bathroom doors have been installed. The door is made of white aluminium (aluminium spray painted in white) which withstands moisture and condensation. The blue is just the protective plastic.

The curved handle which I’m not crazy about.

Samples of the type of door handles I prefer...straight, clean and matt!

The master bedroom bathroom door.

I'm very pleased with this. The contractor replaced this one tile which had a different tone from the rest. I think this was when they first realised that the initial batch of tiles (we used the same tiles for floor and bathroom walls) had a tone issue. This particular one was obviously a different shade from the rest and I noticed this morning that they replaced it. I'm impressed! That's quality control for you!

A tile spacer. This looks like the material used to tie crates and boxes together.

It's essential to keep some spare tiles for future use because we'll definitely drop stuff on the floor and will have to replace cracked tiles down the road.

The storeroom's been tiled too.

Not much change to the kitchen.

DAY 35

MJ, Meg, Sri and I went to the apt after we dropped Em off at catechism. We only had ten minutes to spare before having to leave to pick Em up again. The kitchen tiles were completed today. They looked pretty good. I was afraid they would be too dark. They do look a tad too dark but it's because there's no natural light streaming in with the windows closed and the absence of light fixtures. MJ likes them though. Anyway the kitchen area is small so the dark tiles won't affect the overall mood of the kitchen too much I think. We didn't want to step onto the tiles in case the screed wasn't dry yet. I believe they will tile the living room on Monday, which is also the day most of our bathroom accessories will arrive. 

The tools required for the job: Long bars for levelling the cement screed and shovels for scooping the powder screed into the pails for mixing.

A closer up view of the 600x600mm tiles we bought from Soon Bee Huat tiles. We chose these tiles which are quite rough, though not as rough as the ones we've used in the bathroom. 

These concrete plinths have been constructed for the cabinets. "A plinth is simply a block or slab that supports another structure, such as the base to a column, pillar or stantion." In this case, it's to raise the cabinetry so that it doesn't come into contact with water if and when the kitchen floor is washed.