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kajua

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Posts posted by kajua

  1. Posted · Edited by kajua

    Hi Kajua,

    Nice to hear tt that light is still as powder-ful as last time. :P

    Btw, your spare bedrms has no cornices to hide the wirings? I was debating whether to do or not for the 2 bedrms and study... Initially wanted to hide them, then after seeing yrs seem it's still ok to do without. Can save me the $. :notti:

    Can i know how where will you be doing the curtain rods? Above the windows or at the top of ceiling/edge? Some of my windows have this height b/w the windows and ceiling... and not sure if ready made 1/2 curtains comes in that size (from ceiling till cover windows). Any idea? :dunno:

    Have you been to their office too? I think i got them to revised till 3rd time liao. But he still put my place as pasir ris instead of tampines!! :yamseng::yamseng:

    Yeah our bedrooms have no cornice, save $$$ :D . Only living, dining and foyer. Thats because the ex-house owner had cornice there also, so we just put back the same location. The curtain rods we already bought from IKEA and they are up. Just ready made ones and saw and join if too short. IKEA ones come with a joining device. Thats how we manage to find such a long one for our living room. For the curtains to save $$ most likely we just buy from IKEA or Courts, and cut accordingly. They have some quite nice curtains there. The Ikea curtains we saw were all full height, from ceiling to floor, we were thinking of cutting them so that it dont touch the floor. Less washing to be done :notti: Maybe you can go take a look. I heard made to order curtains arent cheap, my FH colleague spend 4000 just on curtains at his condo :dribble::unsure:

    Yup we went their office a few times. Its along serangoon road, furthur up from the famous roadside durain shop. Hahaha thats normal lah i think. You just tell him the address put wrong he would change it. We also had the same experience, he put us at the wrong block till we told him!! Sometimes these smaller details he will overlook. The quoted items he doesnt make mistake though

    Hi kajua,

    I just recently signed up with Ideal house too. I like the look of your WC, can you tell me Genova's contacts and how much you paid for it?

    Have you tried out the KDK fan? Is it really quiet and powerful? I am considering the fan you got or the Amasco Twister which is more flat and visually looks nicer. If my living//dining area is as big as yours I will have gone for the new 60 inch KDK that can imitate natural breeze.

    The basin we actually got it from Hoe Kee at Katong Plaza. Less then 100 bucks!! !! But remember to buy the bottle trap. The white white round thing below. It doesnt come with it 2 dollars only Hoe Kee also dont give :notti: Oh yeah the stopper too, you have to buy. We bought the big mushroom head ones :D That cost another 15-20 dollars

    The WC we bought from Genova, www.genova.com . Heres their contact GENOVA INDUSTRIES PTE LTD 58 Bendemeer Road Singapore 339937 Tel : (65) 6299 0222 (5 Lines) Fax : (65) 6296 4831 :D

    Yup, my FH tried the KDK fan. Very quiet. Power wise he says its okay. Can feel wind quite strong at 3. At 1 setting, not so much. Actually we wanted to get the 60" KDK fan, my FH like that one very much also but because the stem is too long, its not approved to be used in HDB flats. :( . We checked the other fans from Fanco, Twister, Amasco, Crestair but decided to go for this KDK because we tried it at one of those old shop house with high ceiling, we can feel the wind. But those other brands even though longer blades and supposedly faster rpm motors, we can barely feel it. Also because my FH say HDB only approve that small KDK fan, the others all not approved because HDB rule says

    " * Weight of fan should not exceed 6kg.

    * Clear height from finished floor level to fan blades should be at least 2.4m.

    * Harden steel expanding bolt should not exceed 8 mm in diameter and penetration depth of steel plug should not exceed 40 mm."

    THis is the only one that fullfill the criteria. The rest all more then 6kg

    A lot of those selling fans will show you the PSB sticker and say its HDB approved cause of the sitcker but we found its not true. PSB sticker means it safe to use in Singapore. Doesnt mean approve by HDB

  2. Posted · Edited by kajua

    tomorrow starting work on carpentry!zz:P

    so far nothing much was done to the house, lights are up with electricity, shower screen installed, main door lockset changed and painting touched-up....

    lights taken before electricity was connected:

    P1050434.jpg

    P1050430.jpg

    P1050435.jpg

    P1050441.jpg

    P1050444.jpg

    house painting

    living room

    P1050446.jpg

    MBR

    P1050448.jpg

    balcony

    P1050447.jpg

    study room

    P1050507.jpg

    MBR toilet

    P1050506.jpg

    basin (same for both MBR and common toilets)

    P1050509.jpg

    shower set in common toilet

    P1050510.jpg

    toilet bi-fold door

    P1050505.jpg

    kitchen door (free from steven becos he cannot tahan us using the old door 8|)

    P1050504.jpg

    Yeah... it's very bright. I can vouch for that. I cant tahan if my dad happened to remove the cover for washing. Too bright till i left the rm to do something else. :P

    skywolf, got to agree with you. the light is really bright. hehe... which is good!zz8|

  5. Posted · Edited by kajua

    Hi Celest,

    It looks like carpentry work should start soon for you. :good:

    We are still in the midst of selecting ID. :(

    About Ideal house, Steven doesn't have much ideas to propose. Mainly is when I asked then they answer.

    Did he go shopping with you for tiles and stuffs? Did they provide you with any ideas and how colors should combine? :unsure:

    I am sure I will be a very ngiao person when the reno will start. :P

    Yup yup . Our carpentry should start soon. Our electrical left that big box near the door to put up. Dont have that box all the lights installed but no power!:notti::dancingqueen: So now if we go to the house in evening time must bring torchlight :notti:

    Today my FH just went to the house after work , he walk around with a torch light to see to check for progres while I was out with my colleagues :notti::notti:

    He says our basins are installed, locks changed, shower installed, WC installed, sliding kitchen doors installed, bi-fold doors installed, curtain rod installed :dribble: the big patch of paint Steven say he will get the guys down on Saturday to fix it and paint/varnish our doors

    Yeah when talking about the quote Steven is a bit quiet. When we first met him, I had the same impression (my FH thought he was okay though ) . But I guess design ideas is very subjective. In our case, we knew exactly what we wanted, so there was nothing much for him to design. Steven just did it according to what we told him. He stuck to our expectation and then help us jazz up with his color scheme suggestion, laminates usage and tiles combination etc etc. That I found he was quite good and daring in their usage. We had the same experience as hobbes during tile selection, Steven, Max and the Hafary sales guy (Simon i think) was running around matching tiles to show us :D . The best was he found a way to let me use that lime green tile i loved!:notti::dribble:

    Truth to say initially when I saw his 3D designs, except for the MBR layout, I didn't like it at all. But my FH said it seems quite nice. So we went ahead with it and now after seeing it done (except for the carpentry), it actually turn out very good. So I guess somehow I was lucky I trusted his taste. But then like I said its quite subjective

    I think in your case maybe you need to tell him your expectation and then ask him to propose ideas lor. He did tell my FH previously, his design from dont know which place got posted in magazine before, so I guess he has ideas but I guess he is those type that will try to fullfill your expectation instead of the other type of ID that will use your house as a blank canvas for them to draw and then see if you like it.

    -Celest

  7. Posted · Edited by kajua

    I learn today that to inspect house MUST go during the morning when it's nice and bright.

    Initially today went down because over weekend we went to see the house , saw a small crack on the cornice, wanted to add new power socket and also today was delivery for our hob, hood and oven. Told Steven about it on Monday, so he say he will meet my FH in the house today.

    My FH (stay nearby) walk over to hawker center eat breakfast (saw TCS Lee Jing MEI and Zhen Shi Mei fliming) then walk over to our house. He say Lee Jing Mei and Zhen Shi Mei quite pretty and sweet 8|8|

    While waiting for the delivery and Steven, he walk walk look look around the house. WAAAHH morning can notice more things we didnt notice when we were there on Saturday afternoon.

    Saw the pipe lay by Citygas, they badly chipped/crack the edge of our tiles!:jawdrop::P Got one hole there that they try to patch with plaster but did a lousy job of it. The pipe clip they put in that hole, cause hole too big and plaster lousy can easily pull out!:jawdrop::curse:

    Also , the water pipe which was laid before they lay the gas pipe, they pull out of the holder to lay their pipe!:bow::( Pull till the screw holder (err is it call that? that red thing they put inside the drilled hold) also yanked out of the wall!:D Leave it dangling there!:notti::curse:

    End up my one armed FH (he injured his one arm) knock the water pipe back himself!! :curse: Lucky knock back still okay

    Then my FH wander around checking the paint work. Generally okay but he saw a air bubble underneath the paint :curse: on the wall of the MBR. WHole house just that place 1 air bubble!:notti::(

    Anyway by that time Steven and Max came liao. They also got the cornice person to come down to patch the cracked cornice. Not bad, we tell on Monday, Tuesday he get people to fix

    My FH told Steven the faults. Steven say will try to patch back the tile for us . But he say the tile wont drop off or what due to the crack. My FH knock knock say the tile quite okay. The paint bubble he put a masking tape say he will get people to fix. Then Max very funny, he check it liao, then he start to scratch at the paint. My FH also scratch. End up Max and my FH 2 of them keep scratching and peeling off the pain at the air bubble area. Like 2 kids Until one big patch drop off :notti::notti:

    Hopefully they can fix it....at least they didnt try to cover up the problem and agree to fix it.

    Reno really learning experience , learning everytime we go to house waht to check

    Anyway next week we getting our carpentry then 2 more weeks HANDOVER!:yeah:! : :good::good: hopefully that is :notti::notti:

  8. Posted

    When we were looking for washer, we saw the Straaten washer at Courts. Very cheap less then 400 for a 7.5KG one

    We asked the Harvey Norman staff they dont carry it but they say its a Dutch brand but made in China. Maybe gotta check some dutch websites

  9. Posted · Edited by kajua

    Okok... Had spoken to Steven y'day... now waiting for re-quote.

    Had anyone done platform using parquet? The cost was like WOW! After i asked then i realised they are using Indonesian 'you-mu'...

    Waaahh parquet!:good: Have'nt see many people use that these days..most people using laminates...thought dont know if laminates can be used to make platform, since I guess the below is hollow. How big is your platform?

    Doesnt parquet scratch easily? Or least thats the impression i get

    "You-mu" sounds like teak if I am not wrong. If it is teak...whoa that be awesome

    -Celest

  10. Posted · Edited by kajua

    We were also quoted for our excess areas. In our case it was quite a bit more because we changed the laminated flooring to homogenous tiles.

    For us, we were initially quite surprised by it. But my FH (since he holds the purse strings) was okay with this because he says new houses and old houses are so different in size of rooms, so he felt it was reasonable as he guess (assumes) their package was for new flat units which are really small compared to our resales of 20-30 years. He said the way they measured is by looking at your floor plan and the dimensions given by HDB on it. So he didnt think it was too unreasonable if they charge extra if our house was bigger.

    For new houses and old houses the size is a whole lot more different. Our parents 4rm (official size 92) 30 year old flat appears huge compared to some we saw at Sengkang (also official size 92) or other places. 5rm in the new estate are smaller then the 4rm my parents been staying in for 36 years. Also new houses the area includes the service yard while old houses didnt have such a thing.

    I dont think this can be considered hidden charges if they are shown to you in the quote. Its in plain sight so how can it be called hidden?

    Hidden charges would be those not listed and then they give it to you in the final bill , things like you assume free installation and never ask, then end of the reno, they give you a bill for installation charges etc etc

    But I think if you are not sure on the quote or uncomfortable with it, it might be better to either clarify or in the worse you dont like how they quote (which happen to us for a few other ID) we just totally dropped them.

    As this concerns a place we been staying in and also a fair bit of our savings, I think most important gotta be comfortable with it before signing. So when in doubt, clarify or dump them, that was the practice we used when we went through quotes.

    Just IMHO

  11. Posted

    Good day to all!

    I am about to sign up with Ideal house for my reno works. Will be taking their resale package as I m almost revamping my first abode.

    Like to check with forummers who have already engaged them. What is the sequence of operation that your Id with Ideal House will propose?

    Reason I am asking. My Id (shall not mention name) will be hacking the house first after I told him my mom's preferred dates to 'dong4 tu3'. He then suggests we go buy tiles first before he comes out with 3d designs. He says he will try to match with the tiles I have chosen. I am quite concerned about this sequence of work cos I have yet to see the proposed design/ space planning for the house. It seems like jumping the gun. Knowing I am terrible with colors & conceptualization, I might pick the wrong things to create the effect I wanted. However, if this is usually the way it usually works, I have no qualms about it. :dancingqueen:

    Need advice from fellow forummers. Thank you very much in advance!

    That was how it was for us also.

    After choosing the tiles based on his recommendation, the tile shop salesman recommendation and our own preference, the Id will draw the 3D design using the same colour and design of tiles that we selected. That way we were able to see if the tiles we chose gave us the effect we wanted. Otherwise what he drew would be too vague an ideal. But before we went to choose tiles, he would give just a layout diagram of how he propose to layout the house. Wardrobe goes where, Cabinet goes where etc etc

    I think you can ask your ID after tiles selection, if you have 2nd thoughts can you choose again just to be on the safe side.

    -Celest

  12. Posted

    You gave me away! :(

    Now cant ask for more free gifts liao :rofl: But seriously i cant ask for more since what he give me is already a lot... Better let him make some...

    Oops .... :notti:

    He was telling my FH, "Waa you all so kai fang, everything also tell"

  13. Posted

    Didn't know steven was released early. He told us Tues too. And he buzz my cell on Tuesday too.

    Painting liaoz... all carpentry should be soon ya...

    So happy for you!

    Thanks Darrenelle :good::~

    Yup yup, Steven told us most likely they will be doing the 1st washing of the place this week, followed up carpentry installation.

    We are taking delivery of our oven and stuff next tuesday, so after that most of the stuff should be in. Hopefully they manage to get Citygas to run the pipes, Steven mentioned that we missed one appoint. I think they need it up before the carpentry can go on

    Fingers crossed the carpentry is good ..... cause Mr K thread got people mention their carpentry had problem, eventhough Mr K rectified it

  14. Posted

    Saturday went to show the house to one of my FH overseas friends. Saw they were painting. Think the 2 painters were Indonesian or Malaysian malays cause he speak I no understand, I speak english they reply in what sounds like indonesian :good: We chicken an duck talk

    Anyway they were painting the undercoat. It looked quite good . Think it was 2nd coat some more . 4-5pm on a Saturday they were still working .

    Monday late afternoon went back the house to sign and pay for our basins and lights and taps. When we reached the house, was shocked to see they almost finish all the painting :dribble: Except for the varnishing of the room doors.

    The painting was not bad. Not perfect but most were in line and only 1 or 2 blotches here and there :dunno:

    Met Max there to tell him where to put the lights was quite shocked to see Steven there also . Last time he told us his reservist was until Tuesday. Seems like he got release early, I guess would be noon on Monday and he was at the house at 4pm :dribble: My FH say he siao on :good:

    Anyway they painted our main door white color, the gate also. My FH wanted the dark wood color, so called Steven he say can change if we wanted. So we told him to change it to brown color :good: Gate also change.. Brown door with white gate would look very weird.

    Showed him the cracked tile also, he said he will check with tiler if it can be changed, if can ask him to change for us. Anyway we told him if cannot never mind cause its behind the washer .

    Cause of budget constraint we bought our rain shower piece by piece instead of 1 set. :D

    1 whole set would cost us about 300+ (since we wanted the slim shower head). We bought mixer , diverter, shower head, hand shower and shower arm all seperately. Asked Steven to ask him plumber cut us a length of stainless steel pipe to connect diverter with the shower arm . Saved about $150 in total :dunno:

    Oh yeah we told Max we heard about his customer in the forum and told him we even know which free gift he give , even to the model of the hob and hood. :P He was so shocked . :dunno:

  15. Posted

    i suppose they will mend the crack? thanks for sharing. 1 thing to note when my turn comes. =)

    I am not sure if it will be mended or can be mended. You can see fine crack lines radiating out from the place they drill. The tile itself is still mostly okay.

    Anyway next time we go check will bring a torch light and maybe take a picture.

    Maybe have to check with the forumer who posted about Mr K plumber cracking their tiles, how it was rectified

    -Celest

  17. Posted

    Went down to our nest on Friday (Good Friday holiday) figuring since it was public holiday, no work being done so we can look through without getting into the way of the workers...

    When we reached there, saw the windows open and radio music coming out from the unit . Thought what happened....open the door saw the worker doing up the cornice :jawdrop::jawdrop: at 4-5pm on a public holiday!:notti:

    Sigh no more look through to our hearts content without getting in the workers way :D:notti:

    The tiles were done!! The gap between filled up liao...nice and white...though i think with so much work going on still, gonna turn brown eventually....The gas pipe and water pipe were also laid and mounted

    Read from another posting in the Ideal House thread about how Mr K plumber cracked quite a few tiles putting up the pipes so went around checking the tiles. Was a bit worried

    First tile we checked...CRACKED!:):) Though minor and quite hard to see cause using white tiles with line patterns but cracked still. So panic!!! So hurry and check the rest....lucky only that particular one cracked :notti: The rest all no cracked at the pipe holder there :D . So only 1 out of all, not bad....

    My FH notice that the one that was cracked the drilling was done to the middle of the tile (no choice due to position of pipe), while the rest of the holder were done between tiles or near the edge. Maybe thats why it cracked

    My FH says that cracked tile is at the washing machine area and will be hidden behind the washing machine, so most likely we wont ask them to changed. But gonna check with Steven if can ask his worker to be more careful...lucky the black tiles in MBR toilet not cracked cause cracks there will be very obvious

    Anyway still got to mount my taps and stuff...fingers crossed

    :drunk:

    -Celest

  19. Posted

    Think sometimes when ID get too popular and start believing in their own hype or the promotion they get in forums, they forget who is the person paying. They start to get too arrogant or their head swell. I rather get a humble one then a arrogant one irregardless how good they may be.

    I feel since you are the one paying, you should get to decide what you want. They should give opinion if they want but never hard sell or pressure clients. We are the clients after all.

    Anyway there are still other good ID/contractors who are good and still humble, I am sure you can find one. Don't get discouraged

    Good luck in your ID hunt

    Cheers

    -Tomas

  20. Posted

    Hmm...listed below r some of the key items:

    Hacking

    - Balcony

    - Study room (1 wall as i'm still keeping the area...jus reducing the size)

    - Kitchen/Service balcony (partial wall linking kitchen & svc balcony)

    - MBR/Bedroom 2 (partial wall linking MBR & BR 2...for WIW)

    Carpentry

    - 4" ht platform

    - 6ft TV console

    - 6ft x full ht TV feature wall

    - 12ft x full ht HS feature wall

    - 4ft x full ht Shoe cabinet

    - 11ft WIW

    - 5ft feature wall for wardrobe entrance with swing panel door

    - Vanity cabinet for MBR toilet, Solid surface top, wall to wall mirror panel

    - Kitchen cabinets (additional from FOC ones), solid surface worktop

    Tiling

    - Living room/Dining room (part of package)

    - All bedrooms (part of package - laminate)

    - Overlay wall and floor tiles in both toilets

    Others

    - 11ftL x 7ft ht fixed tempered glass for study area

    - 30ftL frame up beam structure at dining area

    - Bi-fold door wif glass panels for kitchen entrance

    - L-box and 32 PLC lights ****/dining room, MBR, WIW

    - Shower screens for both toilets

    - Change to solid doors for 3 bedrooms

    Is this considered a lot of requirements? :unsure:

    !! !! :D:jawdrop::jawdrop::jawdrop:

    Its not a lot of requirement but I think its a expensive requirement.

    Whoa you did more then 44ft of carpentry :jawdrop::jawdrop:

    The amount of glass work you are doing also alot. These 2 together with hacking are the more expensive portion of any reno. I just did 1 glass shower screen for my MBR toilet, it already cost me almost $500.

    Now I think I know why your quote was so high :D You might want to cut down on the carpentry and the tempered glass stuff if you want to reduce cost.

    All we did were the kitchen cabinet and 7ft wardrobe

    But I must say with so much glass and custom built carpentry , I think it will look fabulous

    -Celest

  22. Posted

    darrenelle, if you want I could send you our quote then you can use it as a reference. Just give me your email

    Saturday went to the nest :~ to check check....they are still doing the tiling for the floor....

    The room tiles were completed!:jawdrop: The skirting also. The 2 tiler hand washing the tiles :~ . Dunno why they do that when the house still need to reno...

    Good to see the shiny shiny floor...I didnt know we choose such reflective tiles :~ Can actually see the reflection of the blue blue sky clearly

    P1050352.jpg

  23. Posted

    hobbes187, same situation as darrenelle, we r being quoted ard 50k+ fm Ideal House oso. :curse:

    Of cos, to be fair to them, this is just their initial quote...b4 any bargaining and adjusments.

    Then again, we r just thinking...the initial quote is this high...how much lower can the quote be? :furious:

    Think you need to get quote from a few ID/contractor and give them all the same requirements.

    If all the ID/contractor quoted you about the same price range, I think you would know its a reasonable quote and also you would know if your budget is a reasonable one for your requirement. I think in darrenelle case, they got a few quotes all 47-54k, so for their requirement that would be the range.

    For us when we first looked for an ID/Contractor, Intradesign quoted us 46k, GPlan told us for our requirement and flat size no 60k it cannot be done :) , then Earnest Design also told us no 40k no can do. But we keep asking others for quote (total about close to 10 quotes), the rest were all less then 40k but also higher then our initial estimated budget of 25k for the work. So we knew what was the reasonable budget for our reno and just worked on those who quote us within our range.

    Make sure you get itemized quote if possible, that way you compare. We had a few ID who quoted us less then 30k, very close to 25k we were quite happy. But then when we broke down the quote and compare it item by item, we found quite a few items missing from these quotes. When we estimated the cost of the missing items, it also added up to 30-35k.

    -Celest

  25. Posted

    Oh i see... I called Kenneth just now... said he's tied up till end Mar and to call him back in Apr. Was wondering shd I call up other ids from Ideal Hse. :dunno: Or is he worth it to wait? :dunno: :dunno: Bcoz we are not in a hurry.

    Its up to your personal preference I think.

    For us, we initially wanted Kenneth too but he was busy. We even asked his buddy who is a friend of us to check with him :( . When we read in the forum about how good he was, initially we were also thinking about whether to wait for him or not since our wedding was 1 year away. But in the end we decided to give the other ID from Ideal House a try because of 2 reasons

    1. Kenneth was too popular :furious: Thats bad cause means if we get him, we will be sharing his time with a number of other couples. A lot of them in fact, cause at that time we heard he was handling more then 10 reno at 1 go. So we didnt know how much time he would have for us if we got him. He is good but he is human after all and there is only about 16 hours a day.

    This issue was demonstrated to us as at that same time we were also getting quote from Patrick of Ho Bee. Another super popular one. But because Patrick was a 1 man show, helped on the admin side by his wife, it made it worse and clearer to us the pit falls of getting a popular ID/Contractor. When Patrick was loaded with renos (near the end of last year, think 14 at 1 go), we had to wait for many days sometime a couple of weeks just to get a response from him. Anytime we had queries, we called his wife and she relayed it to him and then we wait. When he cleared up his portion of the reno (think he take cares of wet works, then Ah Keong take care of carpentry), then his response became very prompt.

    2. From the forum, we read that the work crew of Ideal House, irregardless of which ID from Ideal House was in charge was good. So since whatever ID we get , as long as from Ideal House, we figured the work crew would be more or less the same gang, so the work quality would be the same.

    Of course the icing on the cake was that we got along quite well with the ID that we talked to. His response to our queries was very prompt. Also when we went holiday in Krabi and told him which date we will be able to discuss about the quote. On the exact day, then he called us. So shows he really does listen to us :( which we think is good. Also he worked as a team, so we get 2 of them . So if one goes reservist or leave, we can call the other !!

    -Celest

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