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mummymantras

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Posts posted by mummymantras

  3. Posted

    How to quietly?

    Unless marry oversea.

    I agree with therat.

    As long as you are legally married in Singapore, I'm pretty sure that the HDB will find out eventually. I believe that their records are tied to the ICA's Registry of Births and Deaths, as well as the MOM's Registry of Marriages. Because, when I went to buy my new flat, the HDB knew that I have two young daughters, who they listed as "occupants of the flat", even though that was not something that I had told them about.

    But if you chose to undergo a customary union (i.e. one that is not legally recognised in Singapore) or if you simply moved in with your girlfriend / boyfriend (and do not legally marry), then it doesn't matter what you choose to do.

  4. Posted

    Am looking to do up the place with an "industrial look", unfinished look on the walls and floors. furniture should be light coloured woods, or vintage looking furniture.

    1) the main challenge i have is how to achieve the unfinished look on the walls and floors. i heard that cement cracks very easily and is hard to achieve a good finish. is this true?

    I suppose it depends how good your contractor is... :D

    One option to get around this is to get flooring that looks like concrete screed but isn't (here's an example: Rustic Screed™ by ADMIRA). Some companies do produce laminates that look remarkably like concrete screed and if you get a halfway decent ID or contractor, he should be able to source some for you quite easily.

  6. Posted

    Hi All

    You can contact Ghazali for cable works. We use him for office Lan cabling

    Realiable and good

    contact him 97333334 , say Freddy intro one.

    Thanks, kunxeno!

    Anyway, I finally found one who does do office cabling as well (it seems like they are the only kind of electricians who understand what structured cabling is and how to set it up). I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he does a good job!

    Thanks anyway! :yamseng:

  7. Posted

    Very nice! :D

    If you don't mind second-hand stuff (i.e. things that probably really are relics from the 70s), you could try Hock Siong - they are second-hand furniture dealers and do have some pretty nice stuff. They deal mostly in furniture from offices and hotels, and some of their stuff is really of good quality and cheap too. In fact, a lot of vintage furniture dealers get their stuff from there, clean up the pieces and sell them at 10 times more to unsuspecting buyers!

    I got some very nice Toto toilet fittings (formerly from the Shangri-La, which recently underwent an overhaul and they sold all their old toilet fittings, crockery and some of their old furniture to Hock Siong) from them. Their condition was still excellent (a credit to the very capable chambermaids at the Shangri-La, I'm sure!) and the price very wallet-friendly (a mere fraction of what brand-new Toto toilet fittings would have cost!).

    Their furniture is also very sturdy (it was made for hotel use, so it was made to survive countless hours of use and abuse!) but usually a little musty. Nothing a good cleaning and perhaps new upholstery can't fix though... :)

  8. Posted

    Evorich told me their vinyl tile is already waterproof. The silicon should prevent water trapping under the tile, less chances of smelly floor. :good:

    You could also try Goodhill (they sell a Korean vinyl flooring that doesn't look too bad). Or Formica itself (they have an excellent selection that comes in 'plank' sizes, for a more genuine appearance).

    In either case, vinyl makes a good alternative to tiles- it's hardy, waterproof, and more wood-like in appearance and feel than tiles or laminate. I'll be getting it in my own home. :)

    BTW, you can also see vinyl flooring in all Levi's stores. So, go to your nearest Levi's and walk around to get an idea of what vinyl flooring is like. :D

  9. Posted

    Thanks for the comment on Point 2. Yea, I'm leaning towards that idea, now that I know what I can get cheaper fans from MY. Still, I was told that each fan point will cost 100 for installation is a turn off.

    Hmmm... $100 per fan point is a little bit pricey. My electrician is charging me $85 per point ($50 to run the electrical point on the ceiling and $35 to install the actual fan). But he's also giving me a further 10% discount on my entire bill, so overall it's less than $85 per point really.

  11. Posted

    So far, talked to a few IDs. A few commented that

    1) If I want to create a door on the study room and move to right a little more will destroy the marble flooring as they cannot hack the marble neatly.

    2) If I want to add nyatoh door frame, it will also affect the marble flooring as they cannot hack the marble neatly.

    That's terrible!

    But are you going to keep all of your marble flooring? According to your floorplan above, your bedrooms will have parquet flooring. So, would it even matter then they'd have to hack away the marble to install a door to the study?

  12. Posted

    Couple of issues not fixed with the proposed floor plan

    2) Not sure whether to put ceiling fan on all the rooms or just that master room.

    3) Not sure if the moving of the main door from facing west to facing south is approvable by HDB.

    Regarding Point 2, I'd say that if your budget permits, you really should put a ceiling fan in all your rooms. It frees up floor place (which is important as you are going to have a lot of people, and consequently, a lot of furniture, in your home) and it keeps fan blades out of the way of naughty little fingers (unless, that is, your kids are already 2m tall...). Also, ceiling fans provide better overall ventilation (in my opinion anyway) than standing floor fans or wall-mounted fans.

    Regarding Point 3, I'm not so sure that they'd allow something like this. They're rather anal about the position of front doors, and I remember reading in a much older RT t-blog that another Renotalker also tried to alter the position of his main door (because of feng shui reasons) and HDB turned down his request. I can't recall how he resolved the matter... or indeed whether he ever did in the end... :unsure:

  13. Posted · Edited by mummymantras

    Welcome to RT!

    Your new place still looks pretty good... much better than most of the pre-reno pics we usually get to see! ;)

    The wood-framed folding doors that open to the balcony and the wooden treads and banisters on your stairway also look fairly decent. :good:

    Best of luck on your reno! :D

  14. Posted

    I work from home and I need an electrician who can rewire the flat I've just purchased. In addition to all the usual requirements (lights, ceiling fans, power sockets, etc.), I also need him to be able to set up structured cabling (Cat 6 cables) for a home computer network (the flat is 13 years old and doesn't have it currently).

    Does anyone know of a good electrician who can help me with this? Thanks!

  16. Posted

    bedframecurve.jpg

    I love your bed frame! Elegant, uncomplicated and practical! :good:

    Could you tell me how much your ID charged you for the construction of this (you can PM me, if you like)? I'm thinking of having something similar made for my master bedroom (as it has a slightly odd configuration). However, all the IDs I've spoken to charge rather a lot for carpentry, and so I'm torn between having a bed frame custom-made by my future ID (expensive but no wastage of space) and simply getting one from a furniture shop (possibly cheaper but it won't exactly suit the room). :help:

    Thanks!

  18. Posted

    Picture of the day... we found both items in the cupboard during the carpentry stage...

    740371dc.jpg

    Ha! Ha! Ha! They're obviously very important. What carpenter would want to be without his feather duster and liquid paper, after all?! :D

  21. Posted

    Also did a little shopping over the last wkend. Purchased the OTTO mercury WC initially (as shown in pic) but changed my mind after which as it was really too costly. Although its really a nice WC.

    toiletaccessories.jpg

    It does look really nice! So now you have ... no ... toilet ... bowl? Interesting! ;)

  22. Posted

    Hubby said gave chance till we see the 3D. Nothing of my colour scheme ok! Not even my theme! Not even whatever tiles he proposed...Hey, was it even my house? Last straw, ID said 3D will never b the finishing product n stated artist impression...Sorry lor, I take it as, might not b 100% but at least 80%! Else draw 3D for fun is it???

    I told ID I lose confidence in him n he now he turned the table. Became nasty n sarcastic n said must pay for 3D etc...Well, tks for showing yr true colours...Do you know that we do like u alot despite yr layout wasn't fantastic? Even tot of giving u chance...But the lies u spinned. U said same carpentry factory but different workmanship...Well, well...Sorry but I really cannot accept it...

    Poor thing!

    Yeah, I met an ID like that fairly early on in my search as well. At first, she seemed fairly nice and appeared eager to take on the job. But the layout plans that she came up with were just weird... to us anyway! Things were located in rather strange places and the final quote was quite a good deal above our stated budget. So, we explained to her (in detail) why we didn't like her ideas but that we were willing to still consider her as our ID if she could re-do her suggested layout for our home. That's when she turned nasty (and childish). She whined about "how much she had already done for us" (huh? really? other IDs did more - including AutoCAD designs free-of-charge - and they never complained even when we turned down their ideas), that these layouts were simply a "demonstration of what she could do" (er... if what you can do is not what I want or like, then why should I hire you, right?), and that she "didn't like to be nagged at / told what to do" (excuse me?! is this your home or my home? considering how much I'm paying you, I think I have the right to be slightly fussy about my future home!).

    Sigh... Anyway, it's lucky that we learned early on that we just weren't compatible. It would have been much worse had we actually hired her to work on our home, only to suffer much more grief later on. :good:

  24. Posted

    the ID immediately responded & assured us that he will look into it and get back to us soon...

    So, did the ID get back to you or are you still waiting to hear from him? ;)

    I had the same problem with several IDs who I contacted. They either didn't appear to be paying attention (they forgot very basic things that we asked them to include) or they made too many assumptions / tried to force their opinions on us (they had strange visions of what our home should look like that we completely disagreed with and were unwilling to change it to suit us... very odd!). Many also took forever to reply (or simply never replied!). Sigh...

  25. Posted

    Applause for our "luck"! Something wrong with the green wall yet again. There is a 15 cm gap all around the side of the green panels when it should cover the whole wall!

    Sigh. ID said it's the green wall guy who screwed it up, green wall guy said it's ID who screw it up!

    Whoever screw up, we as the owner pay for this mistake.

    The panels will be left in our house and Greenology will refabricate the wall for us.

    Oh dear! Poor thing! Your beautiful green wall still isn't ready!

    What about the rest of the defects? Has your ID rectified those?

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