Week 1, the homework edition

Finding an enthusiastic contractor is a bit like the Holy Grail, our Contractor T. is really on the ball, about as on the ball as I've ever come across. Even so, sometimes I feel like a 'cher, checking that weekly homework has been done. This week, the workers are meant to rebuild new walls, re-lay the piping and electricals, do the waterproofing and lay tiles for living, kitchen and bathroom areas. We'll see when Friday rolls around.

We've settled on the selection of tiles- there are a few late additions that I didn't manage to put in here but generally this is the colour scheme for the apartment. It's very white, dove grey, natural grain wood and matt stone. Lord, I think I'm going through a colourless phase of life. The living room floor, which had to be confirmed first, is one of the white tiles on the right and the right wall (the only full wall)of the living room is a white, textured hollow brick wall.

We sifted through a huge number of variations-of-white tiles and I got overthrown because the textured white tile that I liked becuase of a sprinkling of sparkly bits-it sounds disco but from eye-height the colouring is even and makes the white really pop, wasn't homogenous all the way through the depth of the tile. Contractor T. jumped up and down, insisting it was sparkly when under spotlight (yes but not in natural light!) and it would be a different colour when chipped (fine, fine, fine).

One of the walls, along the powder room and kitchen space, next to the main entrance, will be left in an unfinished textured grey to match the unfinished white one in the living room. This is what an unfinished hollow block wall looks like (not our place, this is a friend's bar in construction phase). We've asked Contractor T. to increase the texture by juxtaposing the position of the blocks against the sandwiched groting.


In the living/dining area, the only real thing that breaks the white is a large pannelled wood cupboard (a bit like the one pictured below except closes completely with wider doors), surface mounted wood panelled light boxes on the ceiling (I'm going to have to laminate these myself, believe it or not) and a wide timber strip inserted in the step riser between the living and dining room. These all match the re-engineered wood used for the stairs and bedrooms. We decided to go with a lighter wood, like the colour of the wood tile on the left. I'm done with Asian darkwood.


The selection of rough grey tiles were the choice set for the regular bathrooms. We chose the rough grey granite, center, top row for the shower wall and floors as it was the most practical and the grey-taupe homogenous tile, second row, for the bathroom floors. Both attached bathrooms are identical, except one has a very masculine vanity wall of 5cm square matt black mosiac and the other a vanity wall of the softer wood grain tile. The beige tiles in marble and sandstone are for the master bathroom.