kyarx

We head out looking for a electrician as our ID insisted on working from the false ceiling first.. It does seems cleaner in this way but squeezed us to urgently look for an electrician and issues with our aircon trucking. We opted not to use my ID electrician as there may be middleman fee. We found 2 electricians. My ex-contractor colleague recommended her electrician, Ah Meng while my SIW recommended hers, Ah Guan. We eventually shortlisted Ah Meng as he is the best pricing wise and he sounded really experienced. Some of the items we did. (I researched in the forum and found the pricing quite good IMO). Lighting pt $28 Install light $10 Power pt (13Ax2) $55 TEL pt $40 20A switch for Hood $50 Relocate Power pt $45 Relocate Heater pt $45 Relocate switch $30 He was also able to provide the pricing right away compared to the other electrician. Here's his picture doing the calculation. Here are pictures of his excellect workmanship. Speakers wires nicely sticked up and all wires labelled clearly. The lighting pts are drawn on the ceiling first to give us the feel which helped alot. The wires are also tubed nicely before the false ceiling went up. Ah Meng's Pro- Tries to save cost for us(e.g. reduce lighting pt, unneccessary power pt relocation). Good workmanship(even my ID commended him). Responsible (called me beforehand to change appt date). Very good pricing. Easy going character. The Cons- He prefers to work alone as he find it quite disruptive to have other contractors around. Quite true as he needs to switch off all power while fixing the wires. Those who are keen, can PM me for his contacts. Highly recommended IMO. Our tiles and sand finally arrived. Window ledge boxed up . Workmanship looks fine.

Another week delayed due to hacking. Our ID confirmed that we need a PE for the permit. Managed to find a PE (Chuang Fern) who worked on one of our neighboors for $400. But later heard from a friend that she could source an even cheaper one at $250! After changing our minds so many times, We finally hacked parts of the room walls to make room for our wardrobes and make a new door opening. The old opening will be sealed up.

What we brought from Gaincity show. Burn big hole big time zzz. Chosen Gaincity after seeing all the positive reviews. True enough, their service has been top-notch on delivery day. Called me 3 days before appt to remind me, called half-an hr before appt time, waited for me to return from another appt for 2 hrs! Overall very professional and good service thoughout. On top of giving out good advices on positioning of the aircon(although we didn't took it...haha) and even has a supervision who came and double checked on the work after the workers has left.

Our Kitchen, floor tiles & mosaic from SBH. The ID was gracious enough to let us pick something slightly above the agreed price. Nah, just an eyeball scan across my bathrooms. Seems okay...I hope...haha Cement screeding by HDB for the Bedrooms. Took more than 2wks of chasing to get them to come. Asked HDB to inform the contractor to call us before coming but guess what? We dropped by on one Sat and was surprised to see a uncle working on the cement screeding. Still miles from world class service...

Defects hunting!! it's really appalling to see the low grades stuff they gave us for the price you paid. We managed to get all the listed defects rectified fairly quickly by HDB. Only problem we had was the new replaced tap. The HDB Ah Beng plumber claimed that the old tap no stock so he gave us a brand new one...but the thread fit was different and his workmanship worse! We even have to call his boss to complaint before he came back to fix it. Even though the workmanship is still horrible, it was much better than the previous so we accepted it (didn't want to see his blackface again... ).

Our reno got delayed for weeks as we seriously brainstormed days and nights for our WIW. Although the layout seems ideal, it is really tough to fully utilise the area without compromising on looks. It's my fiancee's dream to own a decent WIW so we took our time and energy on it. Here's some of the designs we drawed, In the end, we decided to pass on the ID designs and nearly go for IKEA pax after several RECCE trips to Tampines and Alexandra branches. Their sliding doors looks really impressive and huge. But during a unintentional detour after Gaincity show, we signed with ClosetDesign as we are impress by the cost and quality ($1500 for first 5ft, $200 for additional ft+ 1 free item). So far, we have not started wardrobe reno so no comments on their services yet. Some pre-reno pictures.

After many meetup with the IDs, we decided to go for the one with the best quotation and feel. We were quite worried about the nightmarish experiences of some users here so we really probed every detail. But now on hindsight, there will still be a few tiny details which you or the ID probably can't plan for or missed. It's really important to even take minutes of your conversation with the ID whenever possible. The quotation is impossible to contain all that details. After shortlisting, here's our "final" quotation after a HUGE numbers of revisions(we are still taking items in & out after reno started...lol). We outsourced some of the apparrently more expensive items and gave up some non-essential items. Showed my list to a ex-contractor friend and she was shocked by it. Masonry Work Supply & lay floor tiles & skirting for living, dining and store room $3480 ( 600 x 600mm, $2.90 - $3.20) Supply & lay floor tiles for kitchen - $950.00 Construct kitchen- cabinet base, fridge and washing machine base $380 To make good & plaster at master bedroom entrance wall $180 Seal up existing passageway with hollow block c/w plastering $280 Plastering Work Supply & install false ceiling & L - box for living & dining $1700 Supply & install light box at MBR (partial only) $280 Carpentry Work 20ft kitchen cabinet promotion package $1288 Additional top & bottom kitchen cabinet c/w abs trimming in laminate trimming (L 11ft) $1320 Design & fabricate feature wall in laminate finishing for Bomb shelter c/w shoe and display cabinets $1600 Construct partition feature wall at TV console area $780 Level up window border area with partition board at BR2 and MBR $200 Plumbing Work Labour to install mini spray and accessories $100 Labour to install kitchen sink & tap $80 Supply & install inlet/outlet pipe for kitchen sink and washing machine $150 Glass Work Supply & install 2 nos 10mm thk tempered clear glass shower screen for 2 nos bathrooms $960 Supply & install floor spring 10mm thk tempered clear glass swing door at kitchen entrance $720 Supply & install 6mm tempered spray paint glass panel $550 Miscellaneous Work To paint whole house using ICI emulsion paint (any 5 colour choices except all-in-one) $1400 Acid wash for whole house $200 Supply & install solid surface worktop for kitchen top (L 11 ft) $825 Haulage fee, sand, clearing of debris $900 Hack MBR entrance wall, door & open new door entrance $400 Yup. Good eyes.

Some of the designs that inspired us. (the internet is your best friend, don't waste money buying magazine like we did).

1. Postponed our key collection to Sept 16 as the original date falls into Chinese Ghost mth... 2. Started to shortlist potential ID contractors by sourcing at Renotalk and renoshows. Some of the reno firms we talked to, > New Furniture Design Construction (newspaper ad) > Designer Guys (recommended by Supreme salesperson) > Innerspace (show) > Extract Living (show) > M Image (colleague's recommendation) > Space inspiration (show) We tried avoiding the 'big' boys as we felt they charge a premier price which is not justify IMO... Lesson learn - It's better to have a general idea of the design you want first before approaching the IDs (we wasted weeks due to several changes just on our wardrobe design). - Have a standard excel list to easier compare the different quotations. - Pictures tell a thousand words. We found it so much easier to show our ideas to the IDs. It really helped.

After reading and gaining so much from all the posts in Renotalk, thought we should share on our reno experiences too. After balloting for 2 incredible yrs, we finally gotten our dream home (queue no.8... feels almost like striking 4D Haha)! Here's the floorplan,

Spoke to my contractor and he confidently insists that he only earned $100 from this...on the other hand, he did mention something like the workers will help to clear debris so guess I just have to go along with it. zzz

Oh no...think my contrator chop my carrot. Mine flat is just 5rm, need the sand for just living rm and kitchen only. Anyone knows where can I get sand direct?

Is it too expensive to pay $900 just for sand??? Called HDB and informed that they no longer provide the service and referred us back to our contractor. :