elin1029

It's laminate. Wanted to do spray painted cabinets but my contractor says it's harder to maintain.

http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?spm=a220o.1000855.1000800.d1.PVJo7h&id=14650069059&bi_from=tm_comb The lights look OK to me, but then I'm usually poor at inspecting items.

http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?spm=a220o.1000855.1000800.d1.PVJo7h&id=14650069059&bi_from=tm_comb Down lights were from the electrician. I didn't look around and compare prices, so I might have paid a higher price for them.

I think it was overlay. You have dogs too?

ptqbe, thanks. There is carpentry but minimal, only in living room and kitchen. The renovation process was slow. We started hacking 12 November and handover was 17 January. I didn't do many things, there was much down time throughout the whole process, workers came in at noon rather than early in the morning. Year end is especially bad time to do renovation. If I had a choice, I would avoid this period.

Found it in one of the pictures. The name of the tile is Fronda Musgo, and not too ex, at 3.40 psf.

Thanks, I take that as a compliment! But those stock photos wouldn't have Similac and a mongrel in their pictures, would they? Will try to dig through my renovation file and see if I can find the code of the tile.

The living area, in daytime and nightime. I can't decide which one I like better because they present a very different mood. Haven't got time to fill up the rest of the shelving units yet. When I started researching for the renovation, I googled "interior design" and one of the first images that turned up in results was the following and I fell in love with it. I wanted to achieve the look, and then I designed the rest of the house based on this image.

It's from Hafary, I think it's from Spain if I recall correctly. It was a last minute selection because my first choice was suddenly out of stock when some hotel or restaurant made a big purchase and my contractor didn't reserve the tiles after I've confirmed. Probably for the better because this tile turned out great.

Thanks. The kitchen fan is a Vento Fino 2, available in SG under Amasco. But I purchased mine from Tampoi Lighting in JB. Read my post above on the danger of this fan.

As requested. The dogs area comprises the service yard, the bomb shelter and the yard toilet. They are confined to this area when no one is home, otherwise they get free roam of the house. This is the bomb shelter converted to dogs room. There's a taobao light for them too. The yard toilet is where they *should* pee in, where they get washed after dog runs, and houses the pails and mops. Two sets of pails and mops - one for cleaning up the pee because the little old one is on heart medication and pees a lot due to medication and she pees everywhere because she's blind. The yard toilet door is removed and the toilet bowl removed too.

Thanks. These are the classic subway tiles.

Yes, quite high considering carpentry work was kept to a minimum - no walk-in-wardrobe, in fact no carpentry at all in the rooms. I saw other renovation by the same contractor at a lower cost with lots of carpentry works, and I asked my contractor assistant if they marked up the cost just because it was a condo unit. She said yes, because of the concealed pipes and wirings in condo units, they might encounter surprises during renovation. (but trust me, when they encounter surprises, they would charge additional to fix it). Also, condo ceiling is not standard HDB height, so carpentry work is more expensive because they need to customize (??? - doesn't make sense to me, isn't carpentry work to be customized to start with)

Thanks. The pendant lights are from taobao, let me know which one you are interested in and I'll share the links.

Thanks. It's a condo unit with three rooms. Reno cost under 70k not including furnishing and appliances.

So my project was managed by his assistant, a lady. I am now glad it was her and not Mr K. She was very detailed and careful about the renovation works. She offered great design tips and practical solutions. Credit should go to her for helping to fine-tune my design. If I had known her earlier, going to her direct would have been an option, at a lower cost too! Here's the design I drew in October before renovation started in November, not drawn to scale of course. I'm pleased the house turned out looking quite like what I had designed except for the carpentry details.

Thanks Makanology and Asking4Help. The reason for this blog is not to bash Mr K though. He's a nice person and it's no fault of his that he's so busy. I wanted to share what I went through so that others who are thinking to engage his services can make an informed decision. He is now quite different from the Mr K that was highly raved about previously. For example, he doesn't bring customers to tile shops to select tiles, at least not in my case. His electrical lumpsum doesn't include unlimited power points anymore. So anyway, he seemed really busy and didn't seem interested to take up my project. Maybe I should have taken the hint and gone to someone else. But because I didn't follow up with the others, and key collection date was approaching, I was a bit stuck. When renovation was going to start, he told me his assistant would be managing my project because he had more than 10 projects. I was like, huh? but I paid a higher price for your services and you're handing the project to someone else??? Then I might as well go to another contractor? But he reassured that he would still oversee the project (after note: he didn't really) and the workers would still be the same people (after note: not true). He told me to go to tile shops to select tiles and then tell him the code. As a newbie in renovation, I would really appreciate some help there as there were so many different tiles in the shops. Ok, he's a contractor, not an ID, so fine, I shouldn't expect such service from him. That's why credit of the design of the house doesn't go to him. He never helped with any part of the design at all. So renovation started and the progress was excruciatingly slow. They blamed it on the working hours restriction but I thought it was an excuse because when I visited the unit sometimes at 9am, 10am, 11am, no one was there to work. I guessed with so many projects running in parallel, they sent the workers to each unit for a few hours each day so that they could inform the customers that the workers were there and work was in progress. So the "fast" of "fast and good" was not valid anymore, what about "good"? I was a bit worried if "good" might be affected too. With so many projects, the workers might be pressured to produce work, so would the quality of work still be good? And with so many projects, they might have to outsource some work to other teams of workers (not their regular ones who had produced excellent workmanship as reviewed by forumers before). In my case, the electrical works were passed to another team of electricians. This team was quite expensive and I had to top up quite a significant sum of money to use them. When carpentry was installed, I didn't think the workmanship was excellent like what his past customers raved about. I confirmed with his assistant that it was a different team of carpenters. So contractor also not him, workers also not the regular ones, then I might as well engage another contractor at lower cost?

This was my first renovation project. Before this I was totally clueless about renovation and as I was going to do this all by myself and I've heard horror stories about contractors and renovation, I wanted someone I could trust to do the renovation. Also, I had a tight schedule, not that I wanted to get the house ready by Christmas or Chinese New Year, but I had to move out of my previous place end of November and I had two dogs to bring along. One a medium sized mongrel and another a 15 year old blind and deaf dog. It would be very challenging to rent some short term place that will allow dog(s). Even family members don't want to take my dogs in So I went through the forum and came across the highly raved about Mr K. I was attracted by the reviews of him being "fast and good". I was not crazy about his works, but since I knew what I wanted for the house, I just needed a contractor to help me bring my design to life. He seemed to fit the bill - fast and good. But I thought I should contact other IDs/contractors for quotation and I did. I got quotations from Weiken, Spacious Planner, La Bonne Vie, Renzz and Jiawei of TWCS. However, my mind was pretty set on Mr K and I didn't really follow up with them for discussions. Jiawei was my second choice but he is horribly bad at keeping appointments. He cancelled meetings last minute several times and we didn't manage to meet up at all. Anyway, from the quotations, Mr K's was the highest, even more expensive than ID's. I knew I was paying more, but I wanted "fast and good". (to be continued)

Thanks Eno. Sappyd, will pm you. But take note that this fan is actually quite dangerous. It's very powerful despite its small size even at the lowest speed and because there isn't a "cage" to contain it, the consequence can be disastrous and bloody if one were to walk into it or raise his/her hand into the fan. Previously it was installed by the electrician further out, I had to insist they shift it further into the corner. Even so, I will keep the controller so its use is tightly controlled.

Nobody uses PPR pipes? I searched renotalk forum and from the various discussions it seems PPR pipes are cheaper than copper pipes, like half the price. Hmm... somehow I was given the impression that PPR pipes are good and expensive and I had to top up quite a sum of money to replace existing pipes with PPR pipes. Anyway, I made the final payment yesterday and my renovation has officially completed. Some outstanding works, but no urgency. I would like to share my thoughts and highlight some experiences from this renovation process. My contractor is Mr K.