Site Inspection Woes

We finished our second site inspection today and it was such a relief to finally be near completion of the sale. We had an earlier site inspection last week at which we thought the owners would have vacated the apartment. So it was a bit of a shock to see the apartment still had stuff in it. In any case, it was a nail biter of a week as we tried to check with our lawyer on what to do in case the owners still hadn't moved their stuff in time for the second HDB appointment. I'm just glad everything worked out in the end and we're excited about finally getting to start on the renovation soon. In any case, here's how the empty apartment looks now.

When we were viewing the apartment prior to sale, one of the rooms had a ton of computer parts on the floor. We didn't realize it was covering damaged flooring. Whether that was intentional or not, we'll never know, but  practically speaking even if we had to replace the parquet flooring, the costs aren't that bad so it's still okay.

 Here's a closer view of the damage - which looks like some kind of water damage.

Here's another room which we're assigning as the kids' room. It's the biggest room in the apartment.

Here's the room with the most light which we'll turn into the main bedroom

Extended living room area which will be perfect for the kids' play space

 A view of the community

Another view from the living room

The kitchen

The kitchen view from the dining room/living room

We'll be getting the keys from the lawyer and the 3D designs from the interior designer next week. We're getting closer and closer to our new home. More updates to come. 

Another One Bites the Dust (Video Rental Edition)

I mentioned in my blog previously about some bookstores closing down, but that seems to have just been a small part of the changes in the retail landscape brought about by the digital revolution. It's not just bookstores, but even music stores and now video rental shops are closing down. I guess that's the price we have to pay for innovation.

I embraced some of the changes that have happened. I was actually glad for example that magazines had gone digital and I didn't have to fork out mucho dollars just to read my favorite titles. In fact, I was able to discover some new titles and to subscribe to more magazines because the digital versions were so cheap. Same goes for books. It was a relief to be able to buy the books I wanted and to have them all in one place and to not have to lug them all over Singapore (note I've already moved apartments 5 times in the time I've been here).

I still struggle though in terms of the music and video fronts. For music, I haven't really figured out how to download or buy music digitally so it's a bit of a challenge there. There's a ton of new stuff I wanted to listen to after going to Laneway Festival but when I tried looking for CDs I realized that some of the music stores I knew had already closed down (like Gramophone in Takashimaya) so I haven't bought any new music in such a long while. And now, I'm not sure what we're going to do about our video rental situation since our neighborhood Video Ezy is closing down (I hear at least 2 branches are closing down).

Oh well, there's still time to figure that out.

At least, some good has come out of it since with the closing down of the store comes the subsequent clearance sale and we were able to pick up several titles and create an instant mini video library.

 The best video I picked up was 'Jake and the Neverland Pirates' for my currently pirate-obsessed daughter.

A treasure trove of Charlie Brown cartoons, which is actually for me 

 Some adventure titles which I have yet to watch so might as well buy them. The cost of purchasing these at clearance is anyway the equivalent of the cost of rental (SGD5).

Of course, I picked up some classics as well like Winnie the Pooh, Lilo & Stitch etc for when my kids grow old enough to appreciate full-length cartoons.

So goodbye, Video Ezy, sorry to see you go but it's been a great couple of years. Now, if only we had Netflix in Singapore...