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cleong

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Posts posted by cleong

  2. Posted

    Hi Learner162, you will need to apply for permit to convert the wash area to be a toilet. And the toilet will be small and lack ventilation windows. While it is a cost-saving measure to retain the flooring they will be vulnerable to careless workers and accidents while the rest of our house's renovation is going on.

    I did kitchen carpentry, built-in wardrobes for two of the three bedrooms, vanity counters for two bathrooms and retiled the kitchen, balcony and bathrooms. I also did the windows, staircase, and balcony sliding doors. The total bill came up to nearly 50k and that doesn't include electrical wirings, nor does it include bathroom fittings or house lights.

  5. Posted

    I trust the ID should be able to give us proper quality this time round, all things considered. Also, I think 2.5 months is acceptable as a time limit I guess? And in terms of quality, I think the ID has been scrutinising the quality recently , as have I - if it's not up to par, I trust she'll rectify asap! The reasons for which I'll explain in the followin post! :)

    Perhaps my experience with my contractor has left me jaded. For example, my staircase was supposed to have finished last week. But because of one mis-cut glass panel, the completion has been pushed till Wednesday, in order for a replacement to be cut and fitted. One glitch and the completion is delayed.

    2.5 months, if properly used from start to finish, is way more than enough for a brand new 4 room flat. But you've said "next week" a couple times on this thread already - I admire your optimism though.

  6. Posted

    Thanks porkypork!

    I hope so too! Wife and I are giving her the last opportunity right now, and we're not escalating things yet since there seem to be progress. Plus, she's taken the initiative to suggest fixing some of the carpentry because some of it was badly done.

    Moving in on the 10th is absolutely essential, since the wife's relatives have been telling us to hold a Christmas party/housewarming since we got the house in September. So from 10th to 20th, we can flag out rectifications, stress test the air con, carpentry, cooking equipment etc, and more importantly get used to the house so we won't be struggling to host a party of 30pax and not know where the spoons are. Thereafter we'll be hosting housewarmings for friends and my side of the relatives (after 49 days, due to my Grandmother's passing) and colleagues.

    So whether the ID's work is good or bad will literally be shown to hundreds of people, just in the first month after Handover. So good or bad, it'll be spread among hundreds of people (conceivably more, since we have friends and relatives who share reviews quite widely). Talk about word-of-mouth advertising!

    If your ID has poor control over her people, things will still fall behind. Be prepared. 4 days is too short for you to move in.

    Try not to let other people's desires spoil it for you. You might actually have to overlook qualitative issues in order to have that Christmas party in your home. But you and your wife are the ones that have to live with the problems for years to come. Haste makes waste.

  7. Posted

    Ya, wife was suggesting postponing to Saturday (so she could help with the installation items as she was unable to get leave for Friday, so it's just me running around on the day), but I was adamant about Friday because:

    1) judging by the way our ID has been working, one postponement will lead to more postponements. Recall the initial promise for handover was SIX WEEKS. It's been TEN WEEKS so far and the end is only barely in sight. If we give her the go ahead to delay some more, we'll be moving in on Christmas. 2011.

    2) all the deliveries have been postponed one too many times. Even if the electronics shop, movers and Serta don't dulan, I also dulan already. In fact, I'm dam bloody dulan. Also, ikea charges $5 per trolley per day past 6 days storage, so pushing it to Sat will incur a $20 fee. NO. By this Thursday, the aircon will be up, so the electrical works and ceiling rectification and 2 coats of paint BETTER BE UP or it's straight to CASE, no passing boss, no negotiations, no payments until they bloody settle everything PROPERLY.

    I will be keeping a very close watch on them in the next 3 days. :horse:

    My friend, I am a fellow sufferer just like you. I don't have an ID, but I have a coordinator. My renovation is actually simple, no fancy deco or feature walls etc.

    My renovation started in mid-September 2010 and is ongoing till now. I can only *hope* that it completes by mid-December. Even so, it would be 12 weeks, double of the original 6 weeks promised to me. Even the fact that I had told them I was getting married in mid-November wasn't enough motivation for them to not ruin it for us (to move in after our wedding).

    I had already picked up on the slow work progress in mid-October, when I found on several occasions no one working at our place. They assured me it'd be done by early November, so I began demanding a work schedule and setting them incremental deadlines (which don't work by the way). I found that at this point of time, when so many HDB flats are changing hands, the contractors have more jobs than they can handle. Since our renovation contracts don't have an LD (liquidated damages) clause, its hard to obtain financial motivation for contractors to finish the job quickly. Tie the customer down, and take your time to finish the job.

    The sh!t part is that if you insist on pushing ahead with your other plans (such as deliveries and installation of other stuff) you'll just cock up the whole process and make things worse. Things would get paint splattered, damaged, stepped upon, scratched, dropped, you name it.

    They will always come up with excuses - handphone no battery, no stock of tiles, worker fall ill, worker quit, family member died got to attend funeral, got pulled to other project, etc etc etc. You'll hear them all.

    As my flat was a resale unit, I required extensive hacking of old floor tiles. Can you believe it took three extensions of HDB hacking permits spanning two weeks to get it done? Admittedly it was an executive maisonette, but I only hacked the kitchen, toilets, and balcony floors as well as realigned the kitchen entrance.

    Going down daily to check was no use either. I've seldom felt as helpless as this, watching the contractor deploy one or two workers a day to lay tiles, or poke around with a paintbrush. My coordinator could only keep telling me "I will check" when I complained to him about slow progress, lack of labour committment, etc. He didn't do much coordinating as far as I could see, because he couldn't control his resources. In the beginning of November it was so bad my coordinator would not answer my calls or text messages. I had to reach him through a third party.

    Like you, I was suddenly told to get my airconditioning sorted out. This, after I told the coordinator beforehand to give me early notice, and was assured it would be early enough.

    They had crap workers too - one notable incident had them laying out all the bits and pieces for three toilets on the floor (while painting and plastering etc was going on) only to discover that they needed to buy the connecting pipe to the floor trap. I pointed out that the toilet has so many small bits and pieces and you leave it out for people to kick around and later tell me parts were missing from the package? Then as the klutz was packing the stuff up, he dropped a spanner onto the cistern lid, breaking the corner off, right in front of me! I was so livid all I could tell the coordinator was "Change it".

    Then they first managed to break the Open Net socket box, then later completed the destruction by chopping the fibre optic cable where it entered my flat. Final paint finishing is delayed because Open Net's earliest installation date is first week December and the trunking needed to be covered before final finishing can be done.

    I've f*cked them upsidedown when things got really bad, but things didn't change. They still work at the same pace and committment as before. Now I only look upon them with disappointment and disdain. Today I just discovered one of my shower head handles was scratched. Thankfully its not the Grohe one, else I would have more ammo to shoot them with again.

    The only saving grace is that workmanship was generally decent for the tiling (even gaps), carpentry (good workmanship), and windows (save for one bad worker from the window sub-con who was careless with my frames). Defects I pointed out were rectified fairly quickly.

    The upshot of all this is that at this stage, I've held back on making many of my intended purchases as the house simply isn't ready to receive them.

    Good luck with it, its a learning experience and you'll be smarter the next time.

  10. Posted

    Hi,

    I've bought an Ikea king size bedframe and also a Sealy King size mattress. I've belatedly realized that the two might not be the same dimensions. Now, I haven't fixed up the bedframe yet, so I could still return it if I needed, but I really like the design.

    Can anyone confirm that the mattress will fit into the bedframe, but will be slightly "loose" fit? Is anyone doing what I'm intending to do, because I quite like the bedframe.

    Thanks in advance.

  13. Posted

    Thanks guys for the advice! Is it better to engage an ID or just a normal contractor? Anyone has contacts for good, reliable and cheap contractor? We have a budget to meet and so now sourcing for a good one.

    I feel that if you don't need much "design" component then you don't need an ID. But if you are thinking of fancy stuff like feature walls, etc, then perhaps ID has a better idea.

    I trawled online property ads particularly for EMs that were nicely done up, saved the photos, and showed them to prospective contractors saying I wanted a design like that, or certain elements of the design.

    Of course everyone has a budget - I don't think anyone would tell a contractor, here, have a go, I have a blank cheque.

  14. Posted

    Hi All! I have recently secured an EM at Tampines.

    Am wondering whether is it cheaper to get a whole renovation package from one contractor for an overhaul of the whole unit OR different work from different supplier/contractor?

    Cheaper to get different suppliers/contractors the cost the savings against your time, effort and stress of managing the works. Unless you're a veteran in project management, and you know the subject well, otherwise you would be better off leaving it to the experts.

  15. Posted

    I want to share my horrible experience with Gain City and my very good experience with CoolServe.

    http://petunialee.blogspot.com/2010/08/gai...-coolserve.html

    The 2 gentlemen are named Messrs Pang Kien Lun and Teoh Gean Keat. I want to make it a point to name them because they are good and honest gentlemen and if readers wish, they could request them specifically.

    I went to Coolserve requesting for these two guys specifically and was told that they were servicing personnel not installation personnel. So they won't do full installations.

  18. Posted

    Mine told me earliest 8 wks but shld be ard 10 wks to be very sure

    When are you starting your reno?

    We had started our renovations on 9 September 2010, the hacking works were originally slated to take three days but ended up taking more than a week. The contractor claimed that the wall and floor tiles in the kitchen and bathrooms were 2-3 inches thick and took a very long time to remove. Now he's projecting to hand over by end of October.

  19. Posted

    These are the reasons why my reno will cost a bomb... :D Hopefully the place will look much nicer after the reno.

    Will be starting the reno on Mon 18/10 while waiting for the purchase of my recess area to be completed. Keeping my fingers crossed that everything will progress smoothly.

    I'm probably a little cheaper than you because I will be retaining the existing marble floor and parquet flooring upstairs, although both will be refurbished/refinished.

    Currently still on target to complete under 50k (excluding electrical wiring) although purchase of white goods such as toilets, taps/sinks put a huge dent into the bank account. Three toilets is no joke.

    Contractor originally quoted 6 weeks to complete, its looking more likely to be 8-9 weeks, so be prepared.

  24. Posted

    Actually I will be switching the location of my shower and toilet in the upstairs common bathroom as well. As the downstairs plumbing is still within my own unit, it is not a problem that can't be fixed with a bit of money. I feel such an arrangement is more logical than having the toilet right at the end. My contractor has also gotten approval for the change of location and plumbing.

    freshpoison77, be aware that the 3Ds that you have got from your ID give you a false sense of space because they show you perspectives that you wouldn't see in first person.

  25. Posted

    The void area needs permit. Some ppl built a display cove/recess area there at the side of the stairs while I'm extending my MBR out instead as I hav nothing to display... :D

    You have started ur reno? Mine can only start nxt mth cos the seller has requested for an xtension of 1 mth... cant wait to start as I wanna move in b4 the yr ends...

    I wished I din hav to do the flooring but the condition **** jialat... so no choice. Do u hav a T-blog? I wanna see ur reno pics.

    Well, hope you get the permit then, because I had considered extending into the void also but rejected on grounds of cost. I had intended to keep the cost down by using almost all of the original layout. I only enlarged my kitchen entrance.

    Renovation started 1 day before Hari Raya this month, they have six weeks to complete (hopefully). I don't have a T-blog because I don't intend to show my home in public domain (sorry). Anyway, right now its just all hacked apart and resembles a warzone in Iraq. You can get a rough idea of the kitchen layout at http://floorplanner.com/projects/19198911-serangoon-em (switch to 3D and pan around!) but I have changed the layout later on with the contractor, so this isn't the most current one.

    Where I saved money on was because the original marble flooring was in really good condition, and wasn't an obiang 80s design. The parquet flooring was a bit worn but I was assured it could be refurbished as well. I also cut down on much of my carpentry.

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