BlurRhino

Hihi neighbour! which block you are from? Not all walls will require PE endorsement.. Our kitchen wall confirm don't need, in fact i think this is the most common wall to be hacked away in PV.. As for MBR wall, sorry can't advise you here since i didn't hack mine.. Hey thanks ya!

Hi dizyweds, you really going to put so many things in your entertainment room? I don't think a room in 4-room flat can hold so many stuff inside wor..

Confirmed painters will come in this thursday for final coat of painting.. Confirmed this thursday our new house will go through the 2nd acid wash.. Confirmed this thursday night we will go down and do our final wash,, Confirmed this friday my furniture and bed will be delivered.. Confirmed this saturday my home appliances will be delivered.. But confirmed my ID did not confirmed with me the handover date.. He also did not mention at all about collecting final payment.. He only confirmed i have no variation orders at all.. haha.. For those with experience, did your ID tell you that they are handing over on XXX date? Then you hand over final payment? is there a fix procedure coz we dun like to owe people money...

Hihi, we don't need PE endorsement to hack this wall.. But during my research phase, several IDs told me i will need PE to hack and their quote is between $450-$600.

Geeez.. Instead of improvement in my pics taking skills, i think the pics i took have gone from bad to worst.. Doors... We opt out from doors provided by HDB as we don't like the sample that we saw at that time at HDB hub.. We have doubts over its quality and colour (this is before i know doors can be re-stained to different colours ). Anyway so this is in our quotation and Red Audi recommend us his usual contacts.. Knowing that i always like to research things in advance online, he ask me to checkout this firm.. But no matter hard i search and exhausting all my knowledge on how to manipulate the search engine, i cannot find this firm online.. So we decide to visit the workshop since we prefer something we can see live, rather than choosing based on the catalogue.. And its then i realize they don't even have a PC in office so how on earth they will have a presence online??!! Immediately give Red Audi my stare of death and he knows.. haha.. The door for all our rooms.. sorry this is the most presentable out of the pics i take.. Before this, i always thought doors are just installed and that's it.. But actually after installation, it need to be varnished, sand down and varnish again to make it shine, and this process is repeated twice in my case! The solo man who is in charged of doing this take 2 hours+ to finish all the four doors.. Can see really a lot of effort put in to do it.. good! what's not so good is that we are not told they will charged $60 to re-stained our main door to different colour.. We are always under the impression that this is done on goodwill.. Anyway Red Audi have agreed to absorb the cost since he told us its free beforehand.. Before After And a glimpse of our display cum shoe cabinet More to come soon!

Have a smooth renovation ahead lazybum!!

Updates.. A flurry of activities at my house, as plumbers, door installers and electricians all doing their work at the same time.. Adding to that i have installers from LG and Sony installing the TV brackets, so you can imagine X number of bare-top sweating men squeezing in a 4-room flat and add to that the "fantastic" smell of cigarettes and varnish and paint, i almost die... haha.. As the self-assigned site foreman for the day, spent 5 hours at my house with almost 3 hours spent understudying Red Audi, i make a very important decision.. I shall stay put in my job. Coordinating renovation is no easy-money job, beside having to manage different groups of workers with different altitudes to what they are doing, one have to always be on the ball to resolve unexpected issues, and have the stomach to absorb unexpected cost that arise in order to appease poor owners.. like the one writing this. Grumbling time.. TV Bracket installers from LG is but unfortunately i cannot say the same for the one from Sony.. Imagine one person coming to install bracket and wall mount a 46" tv that weight more than 20+ kg.. The tv is to mount in my entertainment room and he immediately proclaim he cannot do it because the fixture wall is hollow.. But Red Audi say that "Bone", which is actually solid wood, had been installed to hold the fixture wall.. This Sony fella then proceed to show us proof that the screws he used cannot be drilled inside, and we believed at that point of time.. He then asked me to sign off an invoice that states that Sony will not take responsibility of damage that results in the tv falling off from the wall, after which he just leave the bracket there, pack his things and leave.. Obviously i am not happy, Red Audi is not happy too.. He call the partition guy who do the fixture wall and him, and told me he will take responsibility to mount the tv securely on my fixture wall.. Now the problem is we are accusing the wrong man.. The furious partition guy arrive later in the evening and promptly make a hole in the middle of the wall to show me the "bone".. Its only when LG installers come then i realise the screws used by Sony is much shorter, that's why it seems like the fixture wall is hollow and he cannot tighten the screws.. Moreover, LG installer used more expensive wall plugs to secure the bracket but Sony used screws and washers.. Even though me and my missus are Sony fans but i am quite sure i will never, ever forget this experience.... Anyway enough of the grumbling, i leave the house a satisfied man as i can say my house is really very close to completion.. Outstanding are just glassworks, touch-ups from the carpentry, windows for service yards, final round of painting, plus 2nd wash and is ready for handover liao.. The wallpaper we want need to be imported so we are praying hard that it can arrived and be installed before handover.. One more week to handover! I am really BlurRhino today.. Forgot to bring my camera so pics will come in the next few days..

Congrats! n look forward to see your DIY works, please post pics ya!

Congrats reglxt! your house is neat! and your bathroom look very atas!

Red Audi doing the first wash this week so yup, should be soon.. Actually there is a lull of 2 weeks waiting for the carpentry (Carpenter take one month to do my carpentry due to peak season), otherwise i expect to handover end of December lo.. Hey thanks ya! I love east side! hehe.. ya seeing more punggolians around now, think will be more in the coming year as i saw many BTO projects almost close to completion.. Hmmm.. i chose the laminate from a book and the carpenter do for me? we didn't get it separately.. Ya really like this feature wall but abit regret on the size of it.. i told Red Audi i want a small and simple feature wall so that it will not take up too much space in my tiny hall.. So its really small and think after i mount my 42" tv, cannot see the design le.. sianz didn't expect end product so nice otherwise will ask for bigger feature wall, or get a smaller tv..

Haha ya think we really deviate a lot from the original drawings.. because along the way and especially during carpentry meeting, Red Audi propose many new ideas which we have mostly adopt.. I guess that's the reason why i want a ID in the first place, to give me ideas and improve along the way if the opportunity arise.. But its really up to individuals, for my colleague who used him too, his completed product is quite similar to the drawings lo.. So i guess it really depends whether you can accept his free-spirit impromptu ideas, or just ask him to stick to the 3D drawings.. For me i treat it as a value-added service since if we don't like, we always have the final say whether his new idea can be adopted. Bold choice is equivalent to bad choice in the eyes of some people.. Have not show my mum yet but i betting she will not like what we chose. Yea we can't wait to see the final product too!

Continued... During the carpentry meeting, one of the carpentry works that we spent quite some time discussing is our wardrobe in MBR.. we like the laminates that Red Audi used in his 3D drawing for the MBR wardrobe and actually want to replicate the same thing.. But Red Audi propose to use something that is very bold as he believe it will look very nice, but my missus is apprehensive over using a laminate that is so loud.. And based on the small piece of sample that we see during the carpentry meeting, its really hard to visualize on our wardrobe how it will look like. For me i think even though its not a safe choice, i also believe it will look good and moreover my carpenter, the giorgio armani , also approve this choice! so we combined forces and manage to persuade my gal to bravely try this out.. hehe.. In the end, lucky for me, lucky for Red Audi, she loved it! Day and night shot of the backing of our wardrobe.. Actually now the more i look at it, i am glad i make the "wrong" choice of using the very dark tone floor laminates that i feel abit sad in my earlier post.. If i will to use a different floor laminates with more visible grains, then my MBR will look very messy with all the different patterns.. Phew! Front view of our wardrobe.. Red Audi initially suggested doing full height tinted mirror doors, as he say it will look very grand.. But we veto it as we think its very hard to maintain.. dun like the idea of seeing alot of fingerprints on the doors.. Anyway we also think this is a very common idea used by many people.. So he suggested using this black colour laminate that had a very leathery feel.. But himself and carpenter insist that we use something different in between as wood is uneven, and using big pieces of pure black laminates will make it very obvious.. so we break the line by using frosted glass.. To our horror later, my missus parents' cupboard which is at least a decade old, have almost identical design, just with different laminates! and my missus just realise how her parents cupboard look like! haha! So with my retro-modern (totally contradicting here ) looking doors complete with aluminum frame, and the wild-looking laminate that wrap around the wardrobe, i have "successfully" created a Fusion wardrobe. We want a simple tv feature wall which don't take up too much space.. best it could incorporate something i can put my scv box and dvd player so that i can do away with tv console, since we don't intend to put speakers in the hall.. So Red Audi come up with this; The recess areas on the right will be fitted with glass panels to hold the scv box and dvd player.. Simple and nice, great!

Haha thanks! ya from what we see so far, we are very satisfied! Hehe nope.. This Ray you mentioned should be the ID who is quite tall and look quite good.. Red Audi called him the Model of their firm.. lolz! Hehe PM!

This 2 days was amazing.. From virtually emptiness one day and to see our dream home shaping up the next day is nothing short of amazing! Its really very true that only when carpentry take place, then we can see that renovation is really taking place.. hard to put that feeling to words. haha! Carpentry was initially planned to start from Thursday onwards but it was brought fwd a day.. Good and bad actually.. good thing is we have been excited over the carpentry works for the last 2 weeks so to start early means that we can see the final product earlier.. but bad thing is we taking friday leave so that we can see the carpenters in the thick of action, but looking at their inhumane progress made in just 1.5days, i don't think we can see much action tmr, more likely we will just be appreciating their final works.. Going back to Wednesday... Delivery time~~ photos courtesy from Red Audi. Actually my carpentry is not as much as i think.. thought should have much more lor. Red Audi was camping at my house almost the whole day because he say that carpentry is like going for major operation, and he is the surgeon so he gotta be around at the same time adding to the mess, Kronotex which we engaged for our floor laminates had to do their installation on Wednesday as well so its really two major works going on the same day.. Kudos to the floor laminates installers, they complete their works in less than 4 hours! I was shocked when Red Audi called me during lunch to tell me that my floor laminates are completed.. Know its quite fast for installation but didn't know its this fast lo.. Great! But abit sad with the floor laminates i chose.. I chose bourbon oak for its dark colour so that i can match the theme for my MBR and entertainment room but the end result is a little disappointing.. Its too dark then cannot see the grains clearly, although it match the paint we chose for the rooms.. But the laminate my gal chose for the study looks very good in actual and she is proud of it! haha.. By right the plan was for carpenters to unload all the carcass and their barang barang on wednesday so didn't expect much to be done when we visit our nest at night, our objective is more to see the completed laminate flooring.. We are dismayed when we see our house fully light up at 10+pm from the carpark and was thinking whether should we ask Red Audi to bear the electricity bills since his people must have forgotten to turn off the lights when they left.. But to our astonishment when we reach our house, 2 carpenters are still working! haha.. Seems like the people Red Audi engaged like to work late (except the tilers ), as i also see his electrician a few times when i went for night visits.. But abit paiseh to have people working so late to do my house lo.. Many thanks for their efforts! More pics and more naggy narrating from me tmr lo! hehe..

we like clean-cut WC too! but we really bust our budget by too much so have to take this item away from our reno plan..

Well then i guess its worth the wait! and i think what your contractor mentioned make sense, to do the pebble wash after all the stuff are in, coz i can imagine the delivery ppl will drag their way in lo... thought about microwave and toaster oven, we still cannot find a good place to put lo... hmmm.. think after my kitchen is up, will put pics and ask the forummers here for advice..

Great! what i mention earlier might not be correct since i didn't hack the service yard wall so this might be do-able. But like what froggy mentioned, cooking activities had to be limited to the original kitchen but i guess that should not be a concern for you, right?

Updates... Its been some time i had update on progress to our little house but really, its nothing much to update.. haha.. we are just waiting for carpentry to start which is later this week! yeah! Anyway thought i should also share some little happenings at my house to complete reno journal of ours.. In order to cut cost, instead of asking carpenters to fabricate a feature wall for us in the entertainment room, Red Audi ask the false ceiling guys to do a box-up so that i can have a fake "feature wall".. He ask me to paint it with plain colour coz he have something special planned for this feature wall.. a gift to us to quote his words.. haha! hmmm.. but wondering what he will do lor.. Apologies for the poor quality of the photo, didn't know it will turn out so blurry, will take again and repost. We absolutely find this ugly when we first set eyes on our kitchen, in our opinion the yellow tiles are very old-fashioned and don't match the theme we have for our kitchen at all.. So we changed to this! we didn't replace those on the left as it will eventually be covered up by our backsplash.. and also to cut down on the cost of making good lo.. the grouting is yet to be done for the tiles. Hehe Red Audi only show us these two designs of wallpaper and we immediately shortlist for our living room.. simply love it, especially the one on the left.. but he told us to hold our decision until after carpentry, so that we can see whether it will match with the overall theme..

ohh.. thought from your earlier posts and pics seems like your house almost done, how come only ready by early feb?

I think the wall between the kitchen and service yard is considered as exterior of the house so cannot hacked wor..

haha floppy u should put a before and after pic so that readers can see the contrast! anyway see your nice nice WC make me feel like changing mine too... hmmm..

Your house look very comfy to stay in lo! Congrats to the completion of your reno and your coming wedding ya!

Hey bro, check with you since your air-con is slightly concealed in your false ceiling, how do you plan to do servicing in future? Think you have not much room to take out the cover?

PM you!

Haha that's why i cant do sales! hmmm.. when i signed the contract they claimed that their best quality laminate is of AC5 standard.. but it was not stated on the contract, instead it was stated tropical hardwood which is their best quality after i query the salesperson.. I find it strange at that time why he never put down AC5 but since i was assured that this is their top range which he quoted me, i didn't probe further.. After my recent research, i realize the AC5 standard that they mentioned is only self proclamation and their laminates are never certified AC5.. anyway you just need to take a look at a AC5 board that are properly certified and you will know the difference... Feel like kicking myself for not doing sufficient research before signing lo.. But then again i think AC5 is probably overkill for moderate home use, but who don't want the best for their homes, right? Haha think coming week will have more juice to update, as installation of my floor laminates and carpentry will take place! hehe actually after seeing Kerio updates in his blog during the carpentry stage, we take one day leave to see the carpenter in action as i think it should be very interesting! wahaha!! Hihi! PM you!