lachesis

NO!

Yeah. We were warned about GC - but we were attracted by the extended warranty. Just to arrange a date for installation, I had to speak to THREE different people. Person #1: Called sales guy. Sale guy says due to the Expo weekend, the leadtime for installation is 2 weeks! Said we should call the installation guys ASAP. We also told him we need two trips , he said it's an extra $80 for the 2nd trip. Person #2: Immediately called the installation guys. Thankfully, we got the date we wanted, but they said for the 2nd trip, it's $80 BEFORE GST. WTF. Told them their sales guy said it was $80 Nett. They said ok. Person #3: Called out of the blue a few days later to confirm the installation date. I asked about the 2nd trip - they said "it's not reflected in our system". WTF x 2. I told the guy off - 'you're the THIRD person I'm talking to and you still didn't get it right'. By this time the hubby and I were getting very bad vibes, and just decided to cut our losses. Then the biggest bombshell: Hubby called the GC hotline this morning to call off the installation. If you call before 11am, you get the maintenance guys, who apparently can't take instructions for installation, and for some reason, can't forward customer instructions to the installation guys. They said hubby had to call the sales guy. Hubby gave them the instructions anyway, telling them that this is the customer giving GC instructions, and if they show up on the appointed date, it was their problem. Hubby said he would call the sales guy out of courtesy. The sales guy said - yes, GC's service sucks and HE IS QUITTING. The bad vibes were now full blown alarm bells - good thing we had decided to cut our losses. LOL.. well said hubby! Just drop the cookie - there are better cookies to be had elsewhere.

Mini-Drama of the Day - "Your water heater is not a sellable model..." This morning, I got a call from Parisilk HV, where we got the water heater ... TEN MINUTES before the delivery was supposed to arrive at the house. The tow kay neo told me that the water heater guy said the model I had ordered, Joven JHT35, was not a sellable one, and if it turns out to be the wrong model, he won't be able to take it back. Tow kay neo tells me there is another model, JH35, also a horizontal storage tank. The only difference is JHT35's water pipes are at the bottom of the tank, while JH35's are at the side. Choose one, tow kay neo says. Pipes at the bottom, pipes at the side??? So it's Jaskel to the rescue. No diff he says, either one is fine. This conversation takes place in between sets of push-ups at the gym... I then call Terry (aka Terry84) from Parisilk HV. He's very friendly, and in between bicep curls he explains that the pipes below doesn't work if the water heater is to be concealed in false ceiling. Also, using a more sellable model means parts and servicing are not an issue. So the JH35 it is. PHEW. On hindsight, it was actually very nice of the tow kay neo to take the trouble to call about the water heater model. She could have just delivered it without asking. Terry also managed to arrange for the heater to be delivered in the next half an hour, so as not to delay our plumbing work! But all this was superceded by another mini-drama.. the arrival of Plumber Jr. Hope mummy and baby are doing well.

Ooooh.. step down in common bath and MBR bath done.. Kitchen and common bath tiles are looking nice. Must say thanks to Jaskel for explaining Tiling 101 to us. Heh heh. I spy a mortar base - the beginnings of my kitchen cabinets, where the hubby and I are going to cook up a storm. Awesome! Going to see laminate samples this weekend.. after that it's GO GO GO for carpentry!

Hahah. I love that show. Not only does the home get a makeover, the family gets to go on a vacation while the house is being done. Hmm, don't think 10 workers is the norm - probably a once-off b'coz there were a few things going on at the same time. "I feel the need... the need for speed..."

Hey hey, Thanks to T-blog, it has been decided that the hubby will dust our crystal dining light.. T-Blogs rule!! Nice dining chair pix you posted! Still searching for a suitable one to match my existing table... High back, brown, cushy, wooden legs... didn't know it'd be so hard to find... Hey, is Cece okay? She got into a fight with a street cat? She's allowed to roam outside? I dare not let my two roam out of the house -they wouldn't be able to find their way back! Hahaha. Or they might get cat-napped. Tinker has claimed the coffeetable at my PIL's as his own. He keeps jumping onto and slides off it togehter with the crocheted-lace table cloth! My MIL has changed the table cloth to a plastic one and has stuck it down to the table - so that Tinker does do his slide and scratch the table in the process. Oops. Looking forward to more pix of your reno!

Heya! It's been a while - things are really shaping up nicely! Must say your kitchen is really unique and modern, and the carpentry at your main entrance really does justice to the length of the room. Btw, how big is your ceiling fan? Love the colour. Heh heh. Notice that you haven't really posted photos of the other rooms - keeping them for a big unveiling? Can't wait. p.s. Hope the wedding plans are coming along as smoothly as your reno!

TEN workers?!?!? Heh, that's a lot. No wonder I was in for such a pleasant surprised when I dropped by on Friday. Haven't been able to go up to the house much during the day (finish wotk at 6pm, rush there 7pm - already dark outside ) So much had been done! - Kitchen partition walls - DONE - Wall tiles for Common Bathroom - DONE - Kitchen wall tiles - almost 100% DONE - Waterproofing for bathrooms - DONE - False ceiling @ Living room - DONE Yeah! We both thought City Gas was coming later. Hmmm....The 'highly dangerous' work requires workmen to wear a motorcycle helmet? The last minute design in MBR Bathroom was also slowly taking shape. Heh heh. Can't wait to see the tiles go up! Think this the area I'm most excited about, thanks to some creative design thinking by Jaskel Oh, we dropped by on Sat also. There was one lonely working pouring water into the bathrooms to check the water proofing: As we were leaving, he was using a big brush to brush liquid cement onto the ktichen floor - that's the water proofing for the kitchen? Love the F1 Pace Jaskel - GO GO GO!!! Keep posting pix also! I look forward to seeing them, esp since I don't get to drop by so often in the day. Oh, and do remind the workers to help themselves to the water, H20 isotonic drinks and biscuits we bought for them. I told the guy we saw on Sat about it - he seemed very paiseh to take.

.. (dbl post)

Actually the common area was bought by the previous owner (or maybe even the owner before them) - the area was already included by the time it came to us. And yeah! Finally the hacking is done, and we see sacks of grouting and tiles. Heh heh.

They say Singaporeans love to complain a lot, but sometimes it seems that's the only way to get things moving... Sent HDB a not so nice e-mail on 21 Sep to ask why after THIRTEEN days, one of the hacking was still not approved. On 22 Sep - a HDB customer service officer says she will forward my mail to the Technical Officer in charge of my block. On 23 Sep - I forward my e-mail to HDB to the TO to ask him to cal lme ASAP. On 24 Sep - TO calls to say some documents have just been sent to HQ (who had queries on our hacking), and we should hear something on Monday (27 Sep). The application was submitted on 8 Sep - and the docs were only sent to HQ around 23/24??? On 27 Sep - I call TO in the morning to ask for status update. He's not in the office can't check. I try again at lunch time - must have called him at least five times. Finally at 2.15pm he calls me back - hacking approved. I immediately call Jaskel to tell him - HACK IT AWAY NOW! At 5pm the hubby calls to say, all hack away liao. Great job Alex & Jaskel! Sometimes, you just gotta get your hands dirty and 'COMPRAIN'!!!

Yikes - 4pm sharp. Must be really tough man.. hope it doesn't delay your HO. Sigh. What to do.. Yeah man, totally agree! So, no point in getting upset over mean or petty people. Take a deep breath.. OOOOH.....PEACE Donch worry - I will call him 1st thing Monday morning and start chasing. I already laid it thick on how this is causing delay, inconveniencing my neighbour who has children who need to study for exams etc etc. He said the approval 'shouldn't be a problem' - but I will just keep pestering him and talking him to death. You eat too many blue pills, walls all fall.. LOL.. Keep it up!

Alamak - does this mean we'll be eating a lot of bak kut teh from now on?? i'm sure Jaskel will think of something. - hulksmash it off with a sledgehammer?

Of Cable Management, Electrical Works, Lights... and late night Bak Kut Teh Met with Jaskel last night to settle our biggest headache - ELETRICAL works. Hubby and I had been scratching our heads for a while on how to plan for the electrical points, SCV points and most of all, running RJ45 cables in preparation of Open Net. Our estate won't get it till 2012, but since we're rewiring the house now we have to plan for it. The biggest nightmare is the study -we have 2 CPUs and 3 monitors, on top of a printer/scanner, wireless router, cable modem - that's a LOT Of cables and wires to manage! In our old place the CPUs sat on the floor - ALONG WITH THE SPAGHETTI-like MESS OF WIRES... It was the PERFECT trap for dust, hair and cat fur. But Jaskel solved all our cable management woes with one swift stroke of his ball point pen - by hiding them in our study table! You're a genius dude! Don't lose that drawing of the study table! Buying your 'blue pills' from the 7-Eleven nearby really paid off! Too bad it was a bit lao-hong... 5 hours later - after settling electrical and some of our carpentry designs, Jaskel brought us up to see the lighting effect of the downlights and LED at Darkfear's & Marsbars' place. VERY NICE!!! The carpentry workmanship was also very swee. We were considering LED lights since the beginning, but couldn't really picture the effect. After seeing the real thing, we're going to go for it, but it all depends on Jaskel's quotation... HINT HINT If we leave it to him, he will turn our house into a carinval - he and his multi-coloured LED that he wants to put everywhere! Luckily he didn't recommend to put it inside the WC By now it was past midnight, almost 1 plus already... and being typical S'poreans what did we do... GO FOR SUPPER. Ended up at Balestiar for late night Bak Kut Teh... yum yum... where Jaskel regaled us with reno stories from his experieces over the years. We were quite saddened to hear some of the 'horror' stories from recently.. it's really not easy to do what he does. Before we knew it, it was 5.30am! My eyes lids were starting to droop already... Today we both look like panda... Jaskel - I'm going to buy the eye mask for dark circles and charge it to you SKII one.. don't play play! But seriously, thanks for the late night soiree Jaskel - it was fun. Next stop - choosing laminates

Hey hey, The designs look good. Nice choice of neutral, soothing colours... great choice to give that feeling of calm when you get home after a hectic day at the office! Looking fowrad to the real thing.

LOL... Love this movie - regret not watching it twice! Nice choice of flooring colour. Looks bright and breezy, esp in your MBR as you have two sets of windows! And the colour matches the window frames too... The more I see white painted doors, the better they look Decided against staining ours - just go for wihite. Can't go wrong. Heh. Eh, quick upload your 'never revealed' 3D pics!

Hey hey, things are shaping up really nicely! I LOVE your dog's new house... kawaii! Good to know that Sierra's service is good -we should be ordering ours soon! THanks for the tip on the cushions.

Haha.. Ne0, cannot be so undiplomatic lah. Does not bode well for future neighbourly relations. Why can't everyone just get along, be reaonsable, considerate and understanding right? PEACE Oi oi - I was just being my expressive self. Wasn't meant to be a template. Can't help it if other people like my letter

Thanks for all the photos! It's been a crazy week at work - can't drop by the house in person, but your photos are as good as being there. It's so exciting to slowly see all the old stuff being HULKSMASHED away. Mwahahaha Haha.. Any takers?? @Darth vader - You the MAN...lol. Maybe can try using the FORCE on him... @JCase - You are so right. Common sense is NOT common at all! @Fencer - sounds like a great idea. The letter will go "Dear neighbour. I just bought the house next to/above yours. Reno will commence on [date]. It WILL DEFINITELY be noisy and dusty during the day. If you are working the night shift, please switch shifts with someone, or find somewhere else to sleep. Please declare on the form attached if there are any leaks/cracks/defects that are already existing in your house. If we do not hear from you, we will get a HDB TO to come and inspect your house before we start our reno. We look forward to a cordial neighbourly co-existence with you. Thank you. Warmest regards, Your new neighbour" Hey, thanks! Glad to see things are progressing well on your side, aside from the little boo boo with the bathroom wall. Your tiles look nice..and the green hopper is d.a.m.n funky! Heh heh. I hear you on settling furkids in a new place. Our younger one, Fifi hid behind the computer table for DAYS and only ventured out at night when everyone had gone to bed. She's much better now. The older one, Tinker took to the place with no problems - he's lived here before as a kitten, and has now claimed the coffee table as his. Think his only complaint now is he gets picked up and carried around a lot more than he would like to be, b'coz my SIL and MIL like to play with him. LOL. But back to reno - yeah, hopefully things can be resolved, esp with a HDB officer intervening, and we can just focus on doing up our place. Something tells me it wasn't the previous electrician who put it there, but HDB... Can't wait for the weekend - it'll be the end of a yucky work week, and can go up and see the house! 1am liao - TGIF everyone!

@Ne0 - yeah, very exciting You'll have to wait a while to see the harmonious tile selection. Hee hee. @kor69 - your turn will come soon! I also can't believe it's been 5 months since I started this t-blog. Oh no, so then how? They want you to do the plastering of walls for them for free?? The ceiling one not allowed, so they shouldn't be asking you to fix right? Like darkfear said - they Hulksmash - too strong already!

Wah, very efficient 1st day of hacking! Gone is the bath tub... whoppeee.... The hubby dropped by at 5.30pm, and bumped into your worker. The worker mentioned that the hacking can be completedin 3 days. YAY. The worker also mentioned that we're still waiting for approval to hack the MBR wall. Thought it was approved already? Yup, will be careful if we're dropping by. Can't believe that after months of seeing such photos, it's finally our turn. It's so surreal! Heh heh.

Actually we're starting on Monday, b'coz of the long weekend - oh, have to go and update the signature. Haha. More excited than anxious.. finally going to start!!! Haha.. thanks guys. We're going doing it simple... hope we don't dissapoint! Definitey gotta buy blue pills for Jason - he's gotta make sure reno go sui sui. That and panadol also...

LOL. Actually, just like us both you and wifey are posting, so you have 'equal' voice mah. You can just do what the hubby does. Reply and say "LIES!!!" and then stay silent on the topic. *note to self #1 get hubby to buy a feather duster *note to self #2 get hubby to ust feather duster to sweep sweep weekly

Hey, congrats on survivng the packing! Heh heh. Now at hacking stage already, so yeah, wet works will be next Thought your hammer/sword artwork was hilarious! So sayang to hack away. Haha. Looking forward to more pix and updates.