Here's the scope:
21 February (Sat) - I noticed some hairline cracks along the right side of the feature wall that our bed was against. I didn't think much of it. As long as it doesn't worsen, who cares? I did not check on the other side of the feature wall since they are only hairline cracks and I thought they are common.
23 February (Mon) - Kitty found out that the hairline cracks I discovered 2 nights ago became a big gap! Quite a shock since its become so jia lat within a span of 2 days!
Crack from the 2nd quarter onwards
Close up view of the 2nd and 3rd quarter. The crack along the bottom part (pic on the right) is not as jagged though.
Even though only hairline cracks were spotted along the upper part of the feature wall, Kitty didn't want to take the risk of sleeping in the Mbr. I was telling him for all we know, we would make the headlines in The Straits Times "Newlyweds Die as Feature Wall Caves In On Them In The Middle of the Night". Lol.
As we didn't know how to dismantle the bedframe, we proceeded to shift the heavy king sized mattress into the guest room. Who would have thought that we would be the first occupants of the empty guest room! The mattress was freaking heavy. Thankfully there were handles at the sides to hold on to! Kitty covered the bedframe with white plastic sheets lest the wall collapses and ruin it with dirt, tile chips and cement.
Getting in touch with the ID firm that did our renovation was a pain. Apart from fixing an appt for the tiler to come down to take a look, we had to do everything else by ourselves. After we got the tiler's hp no. from **sy (the person in-charged of doing our reno), we had to make arrangements with the tiler ourselves, as **sy always promised to call us back but didn't. Either that, or he doesn't pick up his phone. He never reply our smses too. You can imagine how liasing with him was such a pain! Thankfully we managed to get the tiler's contact no!
We contacted the tiler and arranged for him to come down on Wednesday night. Better get him to come asap before the wall collapses, lol.
25 February (Wed) - The tiler came to our place at 7.45pm to check out the situation. He said it was the first time he encounted such a problem. According to him, his workers must have used too much cement when they were installing the tiles on the wall, such that over time, the thickness of the cement plus the weight of the tiles weighs down and causes the crack. He was at a loss how to remove the tiles without having everything come tumbling down. I suggested having 1 worker to remove the top tiles while 2 other workers support the bottom tiles to prevent them from tumbling down.
27 February (Fri) - I left work at 4.30pm and went home to wait for the tiler and his workers. They came at 5.30pm and started to lay cardboard sheets over the floor to protect our laminate flooring. I helped out by providing a ladder and 2 stools for them. Liew, as they removed the top tiles, chips flew in all directions. I was so worried about the glass door that was just next to the wall! Luckily I made Kitty remove the TV and DVD player too!
The pics above show the tilers in the process of removing the tiles.
After 45 mins, this is how the wall looks like:
The room was freaking dirty. The men packed up the broken tiles and packed them into canvas sacks. One of them asked me for a broom so that they can sweep up the remaining chips. I told them we only use the vacuum cleaner, lol. Just as they were wondering how to clear up the mess, I suddenly remember we have this broom that Kitty used to wash the toilet last time. Haha and I managed to find it in the storeroom! The pole was not attached to it though (don't know where Kitty chucked it), but the men were saying, "nevermind lah, better than nothing lah!" Wahaahhahaha! So they cleared up majority of the mess, but the house was still very dusty n dirty. I didn't know what to do except to wait for Kitty to come back from work. I tried not to move around the house.
Haha, it is during such trying times when I realise the advantage of having a man in the house. He tabao-ed dinner for me, and proceeded to clean up the mess. That took almost 2 hours!
28 February (Sat) - We were given the option of replacing the tiles at no cost, or topping up to do something else. We decided to do wallpaper instead, thus the tiler came in the morning to smoothen the wall with cement.
The removal of the wall tiles brought along other problems:
- the paint on the ceiling got dirty and the edge of the ceiling wall uneven due to the remnants of the feature wall cement on it.
- there is a gap between the laminate flooring and the original wall cos of the feature wall that was removed. The thickness of the feature wall used to fill up that gap.
We had to call the guy who did our laminate flooring and arrange for him to come and check out the problem. Luckily we still had his hp number! As for the wall, we decided to buy white paint and DIY. Bought a 1 litre can of Nippon Vinelex Matt Plus white paint, 2 paint rollers, 1 brush, roller tray, sandpaper and masking tape. Since there are water marks on the ceiling in the WIW, I asked Kitty to repaint the ceiling in addition to patching up the ceiling wall in the Mbr.
Kitty patching up the edges of the ceiling
Ceiling at the WIW, look at the watermarks.
Kitty the painter did a wonderful job! No more watermarks!
In the afternoon, we went to Europa to view wallpapers. Decided not to order from **sy's sub-contractor for the wallpaper as dealing with **sy was such a pain. I rather source on our own! We spent 1 hour at Europa choosing wallpapers. It was so hard to choose, but we finally decided on a purple wallpaper with texture. The guy will be installing it for us this coming Sat! Heartpain, another $700++ gone. Just when we are are saving for our US trip!
Yay Kitty completed the painting yesterday. Now we are left with fixing the floor (closing up the gap by filling it with laminate skirting) before we can install the wallpaper. If everything goes as planned, we'll be able to move back into the Mbr this weekend. Yay!
- Phebe
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