Close to the end of the renovation journey (if this even qualifies as one), some thoughts on an emo day. 

It is not supposed to be this stressful. Considering I really only needed to do flooring, painting. Electrical works I added in as an afterthought because after looking at the layout of lights in the master bedroom, I realized it will be hard to just install a new fan point without concealing it, and it will be really ugly too. 

So that’s not a lot of work at all. No carpentry, tiling. No designs, and in fact I am keeping most of the things even if there’s a part of me that wanted to redo the kitchen and master toilet too. So I definitely didn’t need an ID to manage things. 

Yet it ended up to be exhausting. Maybe it’s coz my mind thought everything will be smooth sailing given that I planned things out well, or so I thought. And so every time something doesn’t go according to plan I flare up. I panicked. And I crash. 

There’s also a part of me that was sad with the condition of the place - which was a result of not inspecting it closely before taking the plunge. Or maybe even if I had, the lack of experience meant I’d probably miss all these things anyway. Who knew the main door had veneer peeling off? Or the intercom unit is a bit faulty (no sound) and will be my responsibility to fix (rather than the management). Or the fridge had scratches at the back, and the induction hob circuitry will be faulty from lack of use (or so the distributor claimed), and the microwave door had stains IN BETWEEN the glass panels (how did that even happen?), and there’s lots of rusty hinges, and the master bath had some stains on the tiles which don’t seem removable. 

I can go on and on, but each time I discover something new to fix I just die a little inside. Then depending on the complexity of the issue I’ll either get a little more upbeat or die a bit more inside. 

There’s also this stress arising from the fear of being scammed/taken advantage of because of my unfamiliarity with this business. Reading nightmare stories from others doesn’t help. I am constantly under the impression that the people I engage are trying to overcharge me and I can’t tell if quotes are reasonable or not, so I ended up deciding based on whether I still have remaining budget to pay for said works - if I do which is most of the case, I won’t spend too many brain cells on it. It’s my way of coping with it. 

But the stress of it sometimes causes me to lash out, for instance over the painter when he pushed back my paint job by a day. Which was unreasonable on my end when I reflected (even though his attitude could be better and I thought I deserved an explanation at least). The final straw came today when I realized the very likely event that I had to rehack my nicely painted bedroom wall coz the electrician may have incompetently wired wrongly which caused my ceiling fan to trip the whole house. After that I couldn’t even bear to stay in the house for long and decided to give myself a break from it before shit gets mad for the next couple of weeks with all the deliveries and shifting and what not. And mentally prepare myself for the worst. 

I don’t know if shouldering all this alone had something to do with it. Ha, ha. 

I do have to be thankful that all these happened while WFH though. I can’t imagine having to make calls to contractors during work, and be there to accommodate all the various appointments for a wide variety of reasons, most of which should be during workdays. Working on this alone without a partner or an ID meant I would probably be taking time off and leave all the time, but with WFH this was resolved - one of the first things I bought (and by chance too) was a dining table and on days I need to be at the house, I just worked from there. Can’t say I am thankful enough. 

I guess at the end of the day after shifting in, I will still be pretty excited about it but it’s just something I can’t quite picture now. Even a housewarming event and the planning for it if it materializes, sounded super tiring. But we will get there.

Labels: emo, foresque