We’ve stayed at The Minton for almost 11 years now: and it doesn’t feel like it’s been quite that long! The last time I did a post-renovation post was 7 years ago, and blogged here. So, it was about time to do a reflection on how the apartment has fared since then, and the numerous things we’ve had to fix and replace along the way too, and get started on refreshing the house at this point. Generally:
There are several items in the house that have continued to fare very well, and still look like they were newly installed just today. These include the brick wall in the dining room, and also composite wood decking at our front and back balconies. In fact, the latter still looks so good that several neighbors have inquired about what we did to keep it in a pristine state, while the others decks they’ve installed in their own apartments have shown significant wear and tear. To be honest, we really didn’t do anything different: apart from just mopping the decking every week, and also being careful about having sharp objects run over the decks.
Most of the carpentry works have also fared well for the most part, structurally at least! These include the large TV console in the living room, the reinforced book shelves in the study, and the king-sized bed frame in the master room. A few laminates have shown peeling: including in the customised shelving in the dry kitchen, and also cupboard doors have come loose in the children’s toilet. Hinges also seem to be a common point of failure especially.
Light fixtures though have been failing from age periodically. In the last 11 years, we’ve continually replaced our lights in the house – the downlights for instance seem to only last for around 4-5 years before they significantly dim, and likewise for the fluorescent light tubes in the living room.
The invisible grills have shown degradation though they’re still otherwise functional: the plastic tubes that cover each metallic grill have disintegrated in a few places, but the grills themselves are still holding fast.
The solar film we installed around the house are also in varying states of condition: they’re still mostly in good shape though a few spots are peeling off. Fortunately, our unit doesn’t face the morning or afternoon sun for the most part, so it’s unlikely we’ll replace these when their condition worsens.
The curtains and blinds are in varying states: the living and dining room curtains are great, since we bring them down every now and then for washing. The timber blinds in the master room are still good though looking a little worn. The zebra blinds in the children, work and study rooms are are fairly worn but still functional – though the study room blinds are particularly dirty because it used to be the guinea pigs’ room! The roller blinds in the master bathroom also need to be replaced: the pulley system doesn’t work very well anymore, and the shower stall blind is also badly stained. Most significantly, the front balcony waterproof blind system has taken a huge beating because of rain and wind over all these 4years, and the guide hooks have long loosened.
So, in short: for the first two months of 2025, these are the works we planned, got started on and completed so far:
Study: Replacement of the zebra blinds
Master bedroom: Repairing of hinges in the TV console
Master bedroom stall: Replacement of the roller blinds
Master bedroom toilet: Repairing of the roller blinds
Dry kitchen: Repairing of laminates
Children’s toilet: Repairing of cupboard hinges
Master bedroom; Replacement of wardrobe downlights and bedroom private lights
Children’s bedroom: Replacement of bedroom private lights
Toilets: Silicon regrouting of edges and replacement of toilet seats
The biggest – and costliest work by far – was the regrouting of our flooring. From the start when we moved in in 2014, we observed the unusual grout design in our type of units: specifically, it was fairly wide between the homogenous tiles, and we realized that over time, the grout will discolor and the grout lines will become increasingly obvious and yucky. That was pretty much exactly what happened, and it’s this year we finally decided to do something about it. Ideally, re-grouting and any kind of flooring work should be done before occupants move into a new apartment, but better late than never!
There are many companies in Singapore that do re-grouting of marble and homogeneous floor tiling, and the preferred method seems to be marble gum polishing. After obtaining on-site quotations from a couple of contractors, we eventually settled for one company at a cost of about $4K to do marble gum polishing for the living and dining room, standard re-grouting for the kitchen, entrance foyer and guest room toilet. The work took 3 days, and went something like this
Day 1: Removal of old grouting. This generated a tremendous amount of fine white grout particles and dust.
Day 2: Grinding and leveling of the floor surfaces. Liquid mixtures were used, so parquet flooring entrance areas need to be protected.
Day 3: Polishing.
The project took 3 intensive days of work. The grout lines are largely invisible now unless we look really hard, and the polished homogenous tiled floor feels marble like now. Further on notes of this re-grouting project:
The workers from the company over the 3 days did a fantastic job and were a joy to work with.
Communication with their well-meaning supervisor though was really challenging because of the language barrier. Made me nearly puke blood.
Moving the extremely heavy upright piano from the living room was a real challenge and caused some surface damage to the parquet flooring.
The polished floor while looking really nice now meant our flooring now also loses a bit of ‘character’ (?). Sure, the former grout lines were ugly, but it was a kind of ugly we got used to… mostly (?!?!).