The Best Friend (BF) and I cleaned up The Shithole using Chlorox bleach. Despite warnings from BF's then-boyfriend (now husband) Cockles, we didn't use gloves or slippers. The soles of our feet turned white and our hands started peeling. We forgot that bleach is used to clean hardcore stains and industrial shit. We were happily on all fours scrubbing the mosaic with not a care in the world. We had amazingly white feet for a week.
We decided to go retro with the place. Actually, we did not have much of a choice as the apartment was in its original condition circa 1970s. Short of gouging out the mosaic floor, we couldn't think of anything else. Hence the mammoth task of scrubbing the mosaic clean.
Blue and yellow (think Ikea) were the colours that we both liked. And being the cheapos that we were, we figured that we could get green by mixing blue and yellow paint so effectively we got three colours with the price of two! Such mathematical geniuses! We went to the hardware shop nearby to "cham-siong" (negotiate) with the uncle.
Me: (bats eyelashes) Uncle, I want the cheapest yellow paint got or not?
Uncle: Got got! Got Kangaroo paint.
Me: (looks dubiously at big can of paint with a kangaroo on it) You sure or not it is yellow?
Uncle: (happily patting can of paint) Sure yellow! Use to paint road one! Draw the line. Yellow what!
Me: ...
We settled on tried and tested Nippon paint and unleashed our creativity / insanity on the poor walls.
Living room:
We used square shaped kitchen sponge to sponge in the bloody squares. You can tell where we weren't concentrating because the squares would become oddly shaped and the lines uneven. It was fun at the beginning but after the second row, we started cussing like sailors.
A little bit of madness in the kitchen...
Being skint, I asked my dad's electrician friend to help us install the new lights forgetting that I was about 12 years old when he did work on our house and he was already quite elderly then. Electrician Uncle was about a hundred years old when he plodded up the four flights of stairs to the apartment. I thought he was going to fall off the ladder. He was very frail. He didn't do a very good job (one light is still hanging precariously) but he charged me only $50 for changing and installing eight lights! What a steal! (even though I was really afraid that Electrician Uncle would electrocute himself or worse...)
I think the BF and I had a whale of a time making The Shithole less of a shithole. We learnt that we are teachers for a reason... we are definitely not interior decorators.
Chippy was our first pet! We got him online thanks to the BF being very internet savvy. We used to lie down in front of his cage just teasing and poking him. Initially we thought that he was a she. During one of the school holidays months after we got him, we were lying in front of his cage talking to him and he proceeded to whip out his genitalia to clean it. We screamed and screamed. Poor Chippy didn't know what hit him. We felt a bit cheated.
Things have changed since 2002. The BF has gotten married and she has a dog (Hi Flash!) and a child (Hi DN!). I have two cats and a funky book shelf.
Even though these walls have seen some pretty bad shit, it's in this place that I've loved and lived. I'm happy.
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