Tadah! Finally!

Finally!  After seven weeks instead of the orignally targetted five, here are the before and after pictures of the renovation work we've done:

THE OLD LIVING AND DINING AREAS:

THE NEW LIVING & DINING AREAS:

THE OLD KITCHEN:

(I don't know why this is not rotated properly but I rotated it already.)

THE NEW KITCHEN:

THE OLD BEDROOMS:

 (Oooops.  This one too has the same rotation problem.)

THE NEW BEDROOMS:

THE OLD BATHROOMS:

THE NEW BATHROOMS:

THE OLD MAID'S ROOM & TOILET:

THE NEW MAID'S ROOM & TOILET:

We were able to add a sink in the toilet which didn't have before.  Although we didn't change the tiles, we changed all the other fixtures.

THE NEW LAUNDRY AREA:

There was no laundry area in the old unit.  The occupants had to share a common laundry area among three other units in the floor.  We moved the kitchen door entrance so that we can get the light from the balcony into the kitchen which had small windows and we allocated space for the laundry.  The washing machine is optional for the tenant to bring in but there are provisions for it.  

I have a lot of people to thank for making all of these possible:  a hardworking, dedicated team led by my foreman, all workers and laborers, the driver, suppliers, assistant purchaser and of course my husband who put on the hats of laborer, buyer and driver for this project, my mom for all the freebies (again!) and my dad who is super duper ultra supportive and who gave me this wonderful opportunity, freedom and trust to express myself through renovation.  

R.A.N.T. in Disguise

This is the Spanish Pavilion at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai.  It's also one of my favorite pavilions on the site since it celebrates the temporary nature of the structure to the hilt by choosing an unconventional material that doesn't hide the ravages of time.  Out of all the interior exhibits, this was the one I enjoyed the most also.  I love the artistry and creativity of the Spanish people who worked to bring this to reality.

But this is not really what I want to write about today.  I actually wanted to call this article Disgustingly Pukeningly Ugly to express the huge disappointment over how the spiral staircase in my current project turned out.  The client didn't approve that I moved the staircase 30cm to avoid the floor slab and wanted it to be moved back.  He took over managing the installation and ended up removing six steps that made the steps extra higher.  The original height per step was 20 cm and now, it is 33cm.  This new height is okay if the staircase won't be used everyday but this will be used a lot by a number of people hurrying up and down to perform their duties.  Goodbye comfort and ease.  Hello, treacherous flight.  But there is no use arguing with a client because the customer is always right, right?

The computation for the costing of the staircase was based on each step and I put in 17 steps for the safety and convenience of the users.  Now, 6 steps worth of pesos are wasted on an ego trip.  The other effect of moving the spiral staircase is that the entryway moved thus reducing storage space on the other side of the wall and ironically, this project should be all about increasing storage space.  Plus there has to be an ugly first concrete step to replace the first metal step because the new entry meets the metal at an awkward angle.  So the whole thing is 'bleep' 'bleep' 'bleep' ugly but I do have to think of a way to handle the first step so it looks decent at least.  The whole thing violates every aesthetic sensibility and fiber in my body but I have to slap myself in the face and say this is how the real world works.  Wake up!  Designers don't get their way and can't get their way all the time.  And aesthetic sensibility occurs in varying degrees in different persons and may be non-existent in some.  This is a fact of life that should not only be understood but absorbed.

As consolation, I did learn a lot of things.  I now realize what my architect friend termed a "bastard child" a  pure, harsh reality in this field.  When he is disappointed over how the building he designed turned out because his specifications weren't followed to the letter, he calls the house a "bastard child."  (He's the type of person who's married to architecture, you see.)   Secondly, I learned another unbloggable nugget of truth.  Suffice it to say that hearing about other people's problems makes your own problems miniscule in comparison.  Thirdly. . . . . . ad infinitum.

So to add a bit of levity to this heavy rant, I leave you with a picture of my adorable son playing in the Spanish pavilion.  That should lower my blood pressure and calm me down, right?   Blogging about it might help.  It might also get me into more trouble.

Me and Jet Li

Last night, my dad was trying to convince me to change my profile picture on Facebook because it was blurred and he couldn’t see clearly who it was.  I told him it was Jet Li and a lot of people don’t have trouble recognizing him.  In fact, it fooled some into thinking that I really worked for Jet Li or was married to him.   My dad didn’t like the photo but I told him it had a special symbolic meaning for me and anyway, I upload a lot of family and friends photos so it wasn’t an urgent need.

That Jet Li picture was taken in Beijing when I was covering a conference of top Chinese entrepreneurs for the Business Tianjin magazine where I sidelined as a writer during the time I lived in TEDA, China for five years.  My boss, the owner of the magazine also attended the big event which awarded Jet Li for his work in philanthropy.  My boss is a funny, adventurous, live-life-to-the-fullest kind of guy and we snuck into the cordoned VIP section during the awarding ceremony by walking on the red carpet pretending we were one of the invited guests.  I just followed him and ended up getting a table near the stage within autographing distance from the "autographables."  


When my boss found out that I wanted a picture taken with Jet Li, he egged me to follow him as he went outside and like giddy groupies and pesty paparazzi, we ran after him.  My boss wasn't used to holding the camera so the picture ended up blurred but I was so touched that it was even my boss who took it.  

Since then, it's been my profile picture and I've never replaced it because I wanted it to always remind of my dreams.  Not dreams of working for or becoming Jet Li's wife but of finding what it is I'm supposed to do in this world, making a contribution, a difference, an impact.   There are days when it seems this is a far away, unreachable, pie-in-the-sky dream when failures loom larger than life.  But there are days when a healthy optimism rules and I'll hurdle all the trials.  

Jet Li made a career out of acting but he went beyond and set up One Foundation to help provide relief in disaster areas around the world.   I've always admired people who have a career and who use their success as a vehicle to give back.  But I'm far, far from even getting a decent career so I'm at a loss how I'm ever going attain that dream and be able to finally change my profile picture.

  

Anatomy of a Spiral

This was quite exciting to install: the spiral staircase.  Met with some mistakes - one was easily solved while another still awaits the next day of installation.  The second mistake involved bumping your head into the final landing.  To solve this, we're adding an extra quarter of a circle to be able to twist the spiral ahead, giving the climber the necessary headroom.   Will be excited to report to you how it goes in the next few days.  The installer has to get the additional metal and pipe posts prepared first. 

We got to figure out how to insert a quarter or half-moon landing here.

Or a simpler solution would be to just twist the whole staircase until step #17 lands before a square metal plate landing.  This occurred to me only after churning out ideas and computations about the half-moon extra landing only to be convinced that it still had the same headroom problems.   So I just stared at the pictures longer till the elegantly simple solution came. 

Checking In

Ceiling, check.

 Floor, check.

 Corridor wall system, check.

 Electrical . . . all there except for the connection to the main line which is still under a back and forth discussion.

 The space where the spiral staircase will go, check.

 The landing that will meet the top of the spiral staircase, check.