Bumblebee17

@Ando Tadao oops just realized I made a typo error... meant to say the shelter exhaust does look awful Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll do some research on the company... after CNY. It’s quite stressful getting everything for the festive period. Go for gen 2! I think it’s a good investment. Really frees up some time and you won’t have to worry about dirty floors anymore

Hi! The layout of your house is almost similar to mine! Difference is the facing of the bomb shelter. Looks like you are doing pretty extensive reno works. Hope to see more updates soon

@Ando Tadao thanks for the compliment! As for the shelter exhaust it does look awful doesn’t it? We left it as it it because the other opening was already sealed up. Will be hanging a clock there to soften the ugliness

Handover + 3 weeks We finally moved back around 2-3 weeks ago. It was a period of juggling work, kids, unpacking and scheduling workers to come and finish up loose ends and rectifying defects. It was tiring, bruising (really, I’m nursing a number of blue blacks) and definitely not fun. Although most things are unpacked, there are still a lot to do before the house finally become what we envisaged at the beginning of this journey. For now, I’m just happy the boxes are gone and we can walk around the house without tripping over stuff on the floor. Some pictures I managed to take after cleaning up Common bathroom Kitchen Master bathroom Living area Dining area (no dining table yet. The search for the idea set is still on-going. ) Foyer (Pardon the untidiness. Hubs realized the false ceiling won’t be strong enough for the bicycle pole so only hang 1 bike to minimize the messiness. Think about a solution after CNY)

@papermotif thank you! To be honest, we, or rather I’m pretty stressed now. The outstanding list is 1.5 pages long! I still don’t have a definite schedule of when things will be completed so I can’t plan my move back. I’m so like

Common bathroom Cabinet is missing. It seems the delay is caused by delay in delivery of laminate. Don’t know when will it be ready for installation. Shower screen in the common toilet was incorrect. Because of the position of the pipes and window, we actually had a lengthy discussion on where the shower head should be and which type of screen is the best solution. Seems like a waste of effort because ID forgot that we wanted sliding door and we also forgot to put that in the WhatsApp chat group. Conclusion: We asked to re-do the screen. That means further delay. Master bathroom Missing cabinet and a drawer front. Other than that, all seems good. Kitchen and service yard Still waiting for the mirrors, glass partition and other glass works...

Handover day + coming to 2 weeks The house is still not ready to be handed back to us. First round of cleaning and varnishing of parquet are done. ID promised to clear all the other nitty-gritty stuff by today so I took half day leave to “supervise” his workers. I ended up running through the defects and to-do list with ID's staff instead. I seriously wonder when we would be able to move back. Study area and kids wardrobe The downlights look good. Light holders from Diyovation with Philips Hue GU10 bulbs. Lightstrips not installed because they were out of stock. Lucky for me, what I ordered from Lazada were delivered today and I managed to purchase the remaining from Apple Store. Phew! ID's staff were fixing them when we went over for a "visit". Kids sleeping area Also no lightstrips yet. Love the feel of this area. Downlights and wall colour makes it look cozy. Pantry (dry kitchen) and toy display TV console + toy storage Foyer/mud room

Handover day + 2 days 2nd last day of 2017. Instead of moving back, we spent most of this rainy day at our place, sorting out electrical works, aircon and some minor stuff. Aircon ID got his contact to install the aircon back. It took longer than expected because Ronnie Aircon run the wire wrongly, meaning the wiring for living room went to bedroom 2 and master room wiring went to bedroom 3. The guy said lucky it’s the wiring, if the pipes went wrong, then jia lat liao. They changed the wiring, top the gas and made sure we were happy with the work before they left. I really should have just ask them to do the re-piping in the first place. My stupidity cost me extra $550. Need to eat bread for a few months to recover. Electrical works Electrician said ours is old design where it is against regulation to conceal electrical trunking (meaning hide under false ceiling, can. Dig hole and hide in ceiling, cannot). So we told them to use back old trunking as much as possible. New ones to make them as inconspicuous as possible. Communicated via WhatsApp and personally on the requirement and we still end up with ugly new trunkings and incorrect positions . Fortunately, the electricians are really nice and agreed to the changes we requested. And so ID, hubs and I spent the day to discuss and finalize the points and lighting positions with electrician and also tested the cove lights. The only change that required more work is the point at the pantry. A hole was drilled on the side board for a double switch. Problem is this double switch is pointless as it is only a few steps to the other switch. ID was like and decided to remove the laminate, seal up the hole and re-laminate. He cannot charge me as well because it was his assistant’s so-called error. Minor changes We went round the house to look see look see and found some minor “mistakes”. 1. Bomb shelter stopper. It’s entirely useless as the shelter will hit the cabinet before the stopper. Don’t know what no one had the initiative to remove or ask to remove when the kitchen cabinets were installed. 2. Curtain hooks. Also useless now that we’ve changed to blinds. Again no one asked if they need to be removed. 3. Painters kena scolded for painting inside of the wardrobes when it is not required. A happy mistake, this one. 4. ID forgot to instruct bathroom window grills to be removed before tiling. Now need to find a way to patch back nicely.

And so, we won’t be able to move back this weekend as expected. A little disappointed but hubs and I kinda expected this to happen. We are ok with a few days delay as long as the reno is done properly. My mum is another story though. Nagging at me already. Update It’s going to be able 1 week plus delay in getting back the house. There’ll be inconveniences but we also don’t want to move in and still have people coming in to work on incomplete areas. Can only pray hard hard that somehow things finish fast fast (without compromising on quality of course) and we can move back earlier. I miss my house! More update When I wanted to change my aircon a few years ago, I engaged the services of this company called Breezy Aircon (they have since changed their name to Ronnie Aircon). They had pretty good reviews and were prompt in response. I also engaged them to do regular aircon servicing. For this reno, I engaged them again to re-run the aircon piping. Like I mentioned in my earlier post, they were very late and almost screwed up the job. After re-running is done, they had to wait for my ID to do the box up before they can install the aircon back. On Christmas Day, they called me up and asked for final payment. But I told them the installation is not done yet. They said but “we are supposed to re-run the piping only and that is done. Installing the aircon is goodwil gesture.” And so I made the payment out of goodwill and trust after I was informed that someone will install the aircon back on Thursday (which is today). In the end, no one turned up and they also did not answer or return my calls. so everyone beware of this company and these 2 guys called Ronnie and Jin.

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The little bot looks nice! How does it clean the corners since it’s round and how long does it take to finish vacuuming and mopping? I’m waiting for Neato to come up with a model that can vacuum and mop too.

Thanks thanks, ID is working hard to make sure my reno fee is well spent. Haha! I bought my Neato during the 12.12 sale on Lazada for about $700+. Foe the automated laundry system, I got the basic model from Steigen.

While all the above have been going on, I was hard at work too! From receiving deliveries of our purchases to running around to buy stuff that we didn’t manage to buy online (track lights and more Philips Hue light strips). Also managed to confirm purchase and installation of automated laundry system and blinds. Insect netting site measurement will be done this Thurs. Have to see if it can done earlier.

6. Common toilet 7. Master room toilet

Carpentry Installation of carpentry and windows started last Thurs. We went over to our place to take a quick look today after lunch. Happened to meet ID there. He said he is going to all his sites to check on progress. Since he is there, we took the opportunity to clarify some queries and also decide on colour for painting. We left the house assured that everything should turn out right. 1. Foyer/mud room - I intend to install motion sensor here so that we don't have to fumble for the switch when entering or leaving the house. (This is the official reason. The real reason is because I watched too much Kdrama and liked how their apartments have motion sensor lighting at the entrance.) 2. Front of TV console/cabinet - TV will be mounted in the middle. 2 side cabinets will house the kids’ toys. 3. Back of TV console/cabinet - 2 middle cabinets for barang barang that we don’t use or use often. Will be quite untouchable because there will be a bicycle pole right in front of the cabinets. 2 side panels will be full length glass. 4. Pantry/toy display - This is where the fridge, coffee maker, dry food, snacks will be. Top cabinets will have glass doors so that our LEGO and Transformers can be displayed there. 5. Kitchen/service yard - Top and bottom cabinets at the kitchen area. Customized so that short people like me and my mum can reach for items in the top cabinet easily. Service yard area starts from the tall units to the kitchen window. Laundry sink will be at the glass block. The tall units will house laundry baskets, detergents, ironing board, Dyson handheld vacuum cleaner, steam mop etc. A section of the glass block will be covered up because the walls were uneven. This was only known during installation. Sad. There are other options but need to wait for the cabinet doors to be installed then can decide.