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The house is really taking shape!!

Getting Craftbrick from Craftstone Malaysia Hi All! I know I (this is Edwin btw, the wifey insisted i blog this myself -_-") mentioned in my previous post that I will be posting something on our experience getting craftbrick from Msia. Thus here it is!! Sorry for the long wait though.. FIrstly, you must first know that there seem to be two different companies called Craftstone (You can try www(dot)craftstone(dot)com(dot)sg and (dot)my) Though both looks almost identical, the showroom and factory are in different locations. The company that most sg homeowners deal with is the .sg one, which has a office in Singapore as well as a factory/showroom in Malaysia (Jalan Air Hitam). We have seem different people do it differently, for us, we decided on the following option: Purchase craftbrick from Msia and ask our ID to provide tiler to do it. Initially our ID quoted us about 4K to do the brickwall (Full height 2.8m x 4.5m length) using craftbrick that can be purchased from Hafary. We almost fell of our chairs! We wanted to try stucco wall, coz it cost less than half (our ID quoted 1.8k). However, after some helpful info from renotalkers and some research, we decided with this option. The tiler would cost me 1.7K and the craftbrick from Msia would cost about S$600. Almost 2K worth of savings from the initial quote from brickwall and only about 500bucks more than stucco! Lets do it!! So.... first you need to contact the msia office and tell them which craftbrick you want. Serene from the msia office was very helpful and responsive. You can choose the colour you want from the .sg webite (CSI-***). You might also want to check with your ID/contractor how much would it cost for labour. Generally 1 box will cover 1m2, so you need to do your calculation and order accordingly. Remember to factor in about 10% for wastage. You might also consult your ID/contractor for how much is needed. At the point of my purchase, 2 months ago, it was 110RM/box. With the good exchange rate now, you'll probably save alot more! Upon confirmation of your purchase, you have 2 options. One is to ask for delivery from Msia to Singapore or delivery within JB (Of course you can drive all the way to their outlet to save even more). Delivering to singapore will cost you SGD250. However, delivery within JB (used to be free ) is 150RM (about SGD60!). We decided to save more money and asked for delivery within JB. We asked them to deliver to the Shell Petrol kiosk right outside the custom checkpoint and did the transaction there and then. You can tell them its the Shell along Jalan Yahya Aldatar. Here is video on how to get there after custom: Here comes the tricky part, getting past custom. I was going to purchase 14 boxes, thus i thought it would be better to get a friend with car along. 7 boxes each car. manageable, your suspension won't die on you and getting one more person in you get more tax relief (at singapore side, SGD150/pax relief). Even the tax singapore is pretty ok, 7% only what. What is tricky is msia... I manage to put 4 boxes in my car boot, and decided to put 3 boxes in my back seat. This prove to be a mistake. The msia custom saw the 3 boxes and stop me and my friend. They claim that it is taxable (although we insist that it was for personal usage), they started to fish for bribes and after a some negotiation, I gave up. Paid a "compounded fine" of 200RM and drove off (Still cheap la..). Sooo... my advice if you are getting it yourself, is to try getting all the boxes in your car boot. If you want to avoid all form of trouble, just pay the SGD250 for delivery to Singapore i guess. So that was the whole experience! Hope this helps!