DAY 33

I didn't know what to expect today but it's reasonable to expect some work to be done daily, however little. But what I saw this morning when I went to the apt stunned and bewildered me. My nicely tiled floor was GONE! It was hacked away and the house looked like it did two weeks ago. When I arrived at the foot of the block, I saw two huge bags of debris, exactly like the ones I photographed and posted when they cleared the debris from the house two weeks ago. I thought to myself: this can't be from our unit because there wasn't that much debris left to fill these two humongous bags. So for a moment, I wondered if there was another unit undergoing renovations but I was doubtful. I didn't think much about it and proceeded upstairs. I hadn't noticed as I was opening the gate that my nicely done flooring (part of it anyway) was gone. I did a double take after I opened the gate and faced a bare, empty, raw floor. I couldn't understand what had happened to warrant such a drastic action of re-hacking the floor again. The contractor had applied for another hacking permit from the HDB for works from 11 - 13 Oct. I msged the contractor to ask what happened but he did not reply to me. Hrrmphh! What's happening?!

I can almost hear my neighbours groan.

Crazy lah! 

The debris bag is ginormous.

DAY 2

It looked like a war zone today... I thought they were going to save the floor but it looks like they decided to hack the entire floor. I guess it's easier to hack everything than to try to match up with the old flooring. The house was full of rubble. My sympathies to our neighbours for having to put up with the drilling and hacking for those three days. I dragged my pajama-clothed daughters to the house but didn't stay long for fear of having them breathe in the fine cement dust. The kitchen walls had been taken out. All the wall tiles in the kitchen and balcony were removed. The built-in cabinets in the study and kitchen were all removed. It was quite a sight.

One daughter was awed, the other, disinterested.

We could not walk around the house, so we just stood at the entrance corner and shot pix.

Kitchen walls facing the living and house entrance where demolished, rubbish chute also removed.

The debris in the kitchen.

Another panoramic view of the war zone.

DAY 1

What lies behind the door?
We opened the door with trepidation, not knowing what to expect after the first day of hacking.

We popped by the apt at the end of the first day of renovations to see what was happening. I had come by earlier in the morning to drop the greeting cards under our neighbours' doors - the ones provided by the HDB to help new owners to break the ice with their neighbours - introducing ourselves and informing them of the impending renovations. We've not met any of them. Their doors are closed all the time, all three of them, and I had to slot the cards under their doors. HDB provided three cards so I gave one to our neighbours directly opposite us, to the right of us and below us. I wanted to give inform the neighbour diagonally across from us too but had no more cards to give so I left them out.

The HDB-provided cards which we dropped under the neighbours' doors. I thought the cards are a very good idea. It allows you to pen a message too! Well done HDB!

The flooring is supposed to be saved, so that we lay our tiles over it to save some costs. I guess that's why only certain portions were hacked. HDB only gives us three days to do the hacking, from 9am-5pm so all major noise producing works have to be finished within the three days, which isn't a lot of time if you have quite a few walls to hack!

The balcony wall tiles were stripped, as well as the floor. Balcony glass door was also removed.

The cooker hood and kitchen sink were dumped there.

Another view of the living room with kitchen entrance on the left.

The study.

The master bedroom. 

Another view from the master bedroom. On the left is the bathroom and on the right is the living.

The bathroom in the master.

The kitchen.

 A last look before leaving.