So we've moved into our new flat - or at least our things have.
With the lease on our furniture storage facility expiring at the end of last month, the Supportive Spouse and I had to transfer all our worldly possessions to our resale unit, even though its makeover was far from complete.
For starters, we realised that the contractor we hired was not delivering. His workmen, I'm sad to say, were the slowest, most unprofessional bunch I've encountered.
One particularly cretinous worker, whom we nicknamed Ronaldo for the football jersey he was always wearing, specialised in singing Bollywood ditties, bossing his colleagues around and basically avoiding almost any work.
He managed to botch almost every task given to him: from painting the rooms the wrong colour, to leaving the instruction manual and accessories in the cistern after installing our brand-new water closet, leading to a watery jam I had to fix myself days later.
To install our rainshower, he sawed the brackets of the bath mixers into jagged edges, and then patched the whole thing up with exposed white tape. We had to call in a real plumber to salvage the mess.
On the morning our movers were due to arrive, our maisonette was still covered in dust.
Tools and paint cans were piled in one corner of the kitchen, waiting to be picked up by the contractor.
In the end, our packed boxes had to be stacked on the lower floor, as the parquet floors of the bedrooms upstairs still needed to be refurbished and sanded.
That night, our family slept on mattresses in the study. In spite of all the chaos, our two sons were enjoying their new home and finding it an adventure.
Lucien, three, was finally reunited with his toys, which had spent two months in storage. I dug out and hooked up the Wii game console for his elder brother, and the six-year-old was content.
The next morning, I woke up and found yellow patches on the kitchen ceiling, a bad sign. I test-flooded the common bathroom upstairs and discovered it was leaking - although I cannot isolate the source. This, despite the contractor's assurances that he had waterproofed the bathroom before tiling it.
We high-tailed it back to our temporary accommodation - the fumes emitted by the fresh coats of paint in the rooms were proving too much for us, anyway. The plan is to air the flat for at least a week before taking the kids there again. Since then, I have been back on my own, to examine the various things that need to be repaired before we could live in the flat.
I walked every inch of the wooden floors in my bare feet, stepping into corners that I would no longer be able to stand in, once the furniture is placed.
I traced the unique grain on each floor panel, and listened to the creaks made by each tread on the stairs. I opened and closed windows, turned and tightened taps.
Obsessive? Perhaps.
But I was getting to know this 30-year-old flat, with all its character and defects, and learning to love them. I decided that there was no point resanding the floors, as my boisterous boys would probably destroy any pristine glossy surface in no time.
The leaky common bathroom will be used as a "dry" toilet - no showers. To rectify the problem would involve hacking it up entirely, entailing more cost and hassle that we could ill afford.
In the meantime, there is still the master bathroom. And there will be time and opportunity to re-do the common bathroom when the kids are grown-up and need their privacy.
After all, I'm determined not to let my possessions own me. A house is not a home if I am going to feel angst over it and let my life grind to a halt because of it.
I gazed at the tree outside our balcony, which sheds its leaflets into my home whenever a shuddering gust of wind frisks it. Here I am, ready to sink down roots.
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