floppy

seems to me that the contractors had ran out of wall tiles and had to make do with what they had in stock. it's either that or the tiler had a sudden inspiration to attempt a 'mosaic'-look (but failed miserably) to spruce up the look. yup. it's a tap on the toilet bowl. every time you flush, a portion of the water (18%) will flow through that tap before ending up in the toilet bowl below for the next flush. guess it's meant for us to wash hand or something the whole ideal is to go in line with eco-friendliness (re-use) as the precinct is meant to be eco-friendly (first hdb's green mark platinium award). p/s: personally, i find it less than useful

haha. yah, guess we can't always expect everything to be perfect. the toilet is probably hdb way of making sure that the law of polarity is at work. i'm a simple and boring person, so my house theme would be to ensure that everything is stripped down to its most simple (essential) and boring (fundamental) form.

Having collected our keys and having taken a look/inspected our new home, these are our initial thoughts. The Good We’ve heard countless horror stories of HDB’s construction in the past. Thankfully, for our new place, the construction and workmanship are generally acceptable. In fact, we have found very little defects in the new place. Most of the defects are minor and they could be rectified quickly and easily. The only defect that we’re a little concern with is the hollow timber skirting. I’m not sure whether if it’s the way timber skirting are done, most of it seem to be hollow at regular interval. On the other hand, am I a little too fussy (paranoid)? Overall, the main contractor for this project, Kay Lim Construction, seems to have done a good job, not just for the housing units but for the precinct’s general surrounding as well. The Bad The pet peeve we have with the unit - the house is too damned small! The size of the newer flats is really a rude awakening for people who are used to living in our parents’ much bigger dwellings. Sadly, with the exception of buying a resale or a private apartment, there’s nothing we could do if a new flat is what we are after. The Ugly While there are very little defects in terms of construction and workmanship, we really have to question the design sense of the architect/contractor/tiler who approved the toilet’s design. IMHO, even plain wall tiles would have looked much better than this. If this is their idea of a postmodern design, I’ve got to say, they have failed pretty badly.

hi darth vader, thanks. took a peep at your t-blog, looks interesting. will definitely shortlist them for consideration. however, got to be honest, we are currently opting for contractor and not id due to budget constraints. my wife and myself have spoken to a number of contractors, including some hot favourites so far, among all those that we have spoken to, jaskel impressed us the most. as of now, we are still waiting on his quote as we won't be able to commit without seeing the 'figures'. understand that he's quite busy, hopefully, he can squeeze some time and take up our project

yup... from the group buy. thanks for the group buy as well, i manage to save quite a fair bit (of time and money) there! won't be starting reno so soon. still searching for contractor, and waiting for contractors to get back to me.

Some time ago (way before the keys were ready), I came upon Google SketchUp. It was a wonderful and easy tool to pick up. Combined with a library of plugins and 3D warehouse, it can be as professional and true-to-life as I wanted it to be. The basic Google SketchUp is definitely good enough and it had helped me to come up with a 3D rendering of the unit that I had chosen. These images helped as I could now visualise how the items/design I wanted could all come together. Top View Isometric Views

i would like to knock down a similar piece of wall for unit at treelodge as well. let's hope it's hollow too

thanks, and you too, i'm looking forward to see a nice reno for your vista.

The project consists of 712 units of Premium flats housed in seven 16-storey residential blocks. There are 98 units of 3-room flats, 600 units of 4-room flats and 14 units of 5-room loft units. Like (almost) everyone else who donated $10 to the HDB lucky draw, we were aiming for one of the 14 units of 5-room loft units. Unfortunately, our queue number was rather large and we had to missed out on those units. Still, we are happy with what we had got and pleased with the unit that we had selected eventually. Floorplan

As a quick reference, here are the links to this t-Blog sub-sections: 1. Floorplan (3D top and isometric view) 2. The good, the bad, and the ugly 3. Pre-renovation pictures 4. Coming soon 5. Air con layout plan 6. Akan Datang

After waiting for more than 3 years, our flat in Punggol is finally ready. I am probably one of the first owners to collect the keys from the project, even though I won't be able to start any renovation until November 2010 as I will be away on holiday. Nevertheless, with the keys to my flat in hand, I'm now able to detail my renovation progress in this t-Blog. A little introduction about the project: Treelodge@Punggol (Chinese: 绿馨苑) is Singapore’s First Green Mark Platinum Award Public Housing Project. The Eco-Precinct was launched in March 2007 under the Build-To-Order (HDB) Scheme. Located in Punggol New Town, at the junction of Punggol Road, Punggol Drive and Punggol Place, Treelodge@Punggol is just a few minutes’ walk from the future Town Centre, Punggol MRT/LRT Station station and the Punggol Bus Interchange. An artist rendering of the project:

blue does go with black and white, it depends on the shade of blue. the blue for the cabinets would have been ok with black and white if the black/white picture and room is predominantly white.

yah. those pictures look kinda familar

the 2 things i hated: 1. the fugly looking tiles in the toilet 2. the louvre windows in the kitchen they are so fugly looking.

first thing first, i hope you understand the extra interest (1%) on the first 20k doesn't flow into oa. and without knowing the full details of your cpf details, i can only say you are not entirely wrong, but not entirely right. you may still end up with no extra savings (or extra earnings) from the additional 1%. from cpf: "In addition, an extra 1% interest will continue to be paid on the first $60,000 of a member’s combined balances, with up to $20,000 from the OA. The extra interest from the OA will go into the member’s Special or Retirement Account to enhance his retirement savings." the keyword is combined balances. which means if your smra (special, medisave and retirement account) > $60k, you can actually earn the extra 1% from those 2 accounts alone. cpf provided some examples on these calculations. so, if your smra is about 50k, you can only earn the extra 1% from 10k in your oa. the 10k could double up as your 'set aside from rainy days' fund. anything else can be used to reduce interest loan.

there are a lot of good learning points from your t-blog.

1. if you are not an 'investment' type of person, and 2. if you have set aside enough for rainy days, then yes, it is better to pay off the hdb loan rather than incur higher interest for the loan.

provide us with additional 4d inspiration

i know the suggestion is silly, hence, it was placed there for a purpose. unless reuel is a man of importance (probably not), it is likely no one will be able to give you an exact answer of his whereabouts at this given time. there may be ways of tracking him down (phone records, bank records, etc) but how is that different to a manhunt? the tools required may not be the same but the resources required to track him are equally demanding and the same. perhaps, what ica did not say out clearly is this: your case is under investigation, reuel is placed on record as having 'possibly' contravened the national registration act ("all man is innocent until proven guilty") and an officer (mdm chua) is assigned to investigate. should reuel be found guilty, he will be charged accordingly (whether they find him or not is another matter altogether). as much as you want to, ica also couldn't provide you or anyone with his address (assuming they have an ideal in the first place). think of it this way, would you mind if anyone pay a visit to ica or the relevant authorities and by simply producing a letter or email, able to find out where you live, what car you are driving (and possibly the licence plate number), the names of your parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters (and pets, if any) and any other information they deem fit? it is silly and we know it couldn't/shouldn't be done (but if you can, please help me find out the whereabouts of gong li - i'm a big fan of hers). therefore, the request to ica to provide you with the address and/or directly contact the credit company is not straight forward and simple - it is a non-starter to begin with. p/s: i don't work for ica nor see the need to defend them, but i thought i could offer you another angle to see things (btw, i do understand how these organisations work). if you would like a better service than spf, pay ica a visit, i'm sure they wouldn't mind offering you a cup of coffee or tea.

actually, out of curiosity, what do you want them to do? prosecute reuel, unleash the dogs and mount an islandwide manhunt for reuel?

rightfully, i should say new phoenix park. thought all the secretive personnel are from there

use some kerosene to wipe. the glue and stain will come out in no time. just make sure the room is well ventilated.

wah. hubby working for yog?

phoenix park?

if it's just a screw, before tightening, apply some loctite. available at homefix and good hardware stores. use red if you don't intent to remove the screw and blue if you want to remove the screw.