The M Family's New Home In Seng Kang (the Rivervale)

[Guest melancholic]

Possible to wax or shine it?Just a suggestion

Yup. We will be getting Unimax to polish it up when everything else is done.

[Angel81 1]

Yup. We will be getting Unimax to polish it up when everything else is done.

Think after polishing the floor, it'll look good. And such floors are very cooling, good for sg climate.

[lanesraki 0]

Haha! That's how misleading photos can be.

This is a close up view of the floor.. which is quite poorly maintained.. as in it has completely lost its shine. Just walking around, even when the previous owners were still living there, and the soles of our feet were black!

And not to forget how ugly the floor looks. sigh! But no choice.. no money to get nice flooring and too wasteful to hack anyway.

my current under rebovation resale house is also using the same type of broken marble flooring as yours...

i feel its not ugly ... just not as hip as current homo tiles pattern..

After polishing will looks shining shining...

[Guest melancholic]

my current under rebovation resale house is also using the same type of broken marble flooring as yours...

i feel its not ugly ... just not as hip as current homo tiles pattern..

After polishing will looks shining shining...

Yea... It'll look shiny.. but it's also more difficult to have good colour coordination cos of the pinkish hue on the marble.

Edited June 10, 2009 by melancholic

[Guest melancholic]

Hmm.. thought I'd drop a note here to explain why we're called the M Family.

Well... here goes:

Dad: Malvin

Mum: Michelle

Son 1: Malcolm

Son 2: Matthan

Dog: a maltese named Xiao Mian (who's now with my parents)

And we've got a name that begins with M reserved for a daughter.. if we ever have the $$$ and guts to try for one more.. and are lucky enough to have a daughter.

So.... Now you know why we're the M Family..

http://www.babymilk-cuteboy.blogspot.com/

[Guest melancholic]

What's done so far for my reno...

Hacking of Kitchen cabinets and MBR wardrobe

Hacking of Kitchen wall

Electrical rewiring and repositioning of some socket points and repositioning of ceiling fan from living room to Bedroom 2

Changing of W.C.

Dismantling or old air con and installation of new aircon

today:

Installation of false ceiling and L-box

Repositioning the exposed aircon trunking at kitchen wall

Should be overlaying of kitchen floor tiles and cement screeding of wall

[Guest melancholic]

Thought I'd share some things I've learned through my current reno process.

IDs and Contractors

When you deal with them, never let on that you're a newbie, or that they are the first that you have consulted. They will quote you as high as they sense you can take (based on your intimated budget). And as my postings earlier in other parts of the forum, they will quote you a relatively lower price for the things you have focused on or for things they know customers can compare easily (i.e. kitchen cabinets) and overcharge you on the 'not-so-sexy' part of the renovation (i.e. false ceiling and L-boxes)

Never let some black sheep ruin your image of the ID company (unless the boss is the black sheep). It only limits your choices and you have to fight with other forumers for time with the popular ones listed in this forum.

Trust and comfort level with the ID/contractor is always a must.

There are nice suppliers/vendors out there

It's probably strange to even have to say this, but I guess after experiencing bad ones, it's a nice respite to meet the friendly and helpful suppliers.

Take Suki from Wellmax Metals for example. Forummers had been promoting Eric, but I simply called the main line and this lady Suki attended to my request for quotation for window grilles. I visited the workshop/office and she gave me a rough quote. We arranged for her and the colleague to visit the house in the evening to take measurement and on the spot, she gave a final quotation, (which by the way is 15% cheaper than others like Pang Giap, and even cheaper if you consider that they don't charge GST). All this while, she never asked for a single cent of deposit and it's been me who has been asking her if she wants me to put a deposit down. They've even started fabricating the grille and I've not paid anything yet. Talk about trusting your customer! Yesterday I realised that I needed to install some simple grille at the toilet windows and make some simple shelve for the storeroom. It's a small addition that won't cost much but it would require measurements to be taken. And Suki arranged to meet us tonight to look into it. For her service and earnestness, I giver her a 10!

I also enjoyed my shopping experience with Anna from Univonna (Furniture Mall branch). She's ever accomodating .. even though we went down 3-4 times to look at the sofa.. take up her time.. and still didn't buy. Only at our last trip there did we confirm and purchase a sofa set. Even then, she tried to do her best to give us a decent price, while keeping calm as my 2 boys tore through the showroom.

Electrician

If you intend to change the socket/switch box, never let the electrician charge you a lump sum to change it. The electrician that my ID uses wanted to charge me $750 to change all the socket/switch boxes in the house, inclusive of purchasing the Legrand Mallia range of switches. I said no, and that I only wanted to change those that were obviously visible, which amounted to about 20 of them and asked him to charge me the labour cost while I purchase my own switches. The end result? Labour cost $120. Legrand Mallia switches from Choo Chiang at AMK Ind Park II - $86.80

Another tip.. for condo, the wiring is concealed. That's why they charge $50-$60 per wiring of each lighting point. But.. many charge this amount even though the wiring point is at the false ceiling! This electrician charged me $40-$45 per point (can't remember). Reason? He charged me the price of non-concealed lighting points as the false ceiling would cover all the trunking. For this, I must thank Kelvin for working with his electrician to lower the cost. Even some reputable contractor in this forum didn't charge me fairly for this work in his quotation.

[Guest melancholic]

Yay! The ID has gotten the Aircon trunking fixed at the hacked kitchen wall.

And my false ceiling is up as well. These photos aren't that clear as they were taken from my handphone. I'll post the photos taken from my digital camera another day. Those photos showed the electrical wires hanging all over the place..

This is the false ceiling at my MBR.. sigh.. the air con couldn't be adjusted lower.

This is the false ceiling at the living and dining rooms

Hope there's more progress to show soon...

[worldangel 0]

For your reno, did you do any hacking of tiles and retiling?

[Guest melancholic]

For your reno, did you do any hacking of tiles and retiling?

Hi worldangel,

Nope. We're short of cash.. so not redoing the toilets.. so no hacking.

For kitchen, we're just overlaying the floor tiles and cement screeding over the existing wall tiles. Hmm.. the only hacking done to the kitchen wall tiles is the protruding portion as seen in the picture below, under the green tile. it's a country style tile.

This is to make the cement screeding easier.

The reason why we chose to do it this way is to save money. Once we put the kitchen cabinets, and the glass backing between the top and bottom cabinet, there isn't much wall left. One wall has been hacked to put tempered glass in between. So the remaining little wall space will just be painted over after the cement screeding is done.

[Pinklady 0]

Your ID really sounds like a great guy. no additional cost to the aircon trunking and the electrician also. gd leh u save on the reno, u can buy better quality furniture pcs to put in your home!

[Guest melancholic]

Your ID really sounds like a great guy. no additional cost to the aircon trunking and the electrician also. gd leh u save on the reno, u can buy better quality furniture pcs to put in your home!

Hi Pinklady.

Yups! And I hope it stays that way until post reno!

[Guest melancholic]

Woohoo!

At least I see some more progress in my reno.

The kitchen wall has been patched, and the aircon trunking hidden. I must say .. the cement screeding is quite well done.

And here's the U channel to hold the 10mm clear tempered glass:

[Guest melancholic]

Cement screeding for the kitchen ... over the existing wall tiles completed

Kitchen floor tiles overlaid.

It looks good completed, with the black grout also. But I wish I was there to document the whole process and see if their overall workmanship is really up to standard.

coming up this week... my window grilles and painting and carpentry I think...

[Guest melancholic]

One more good thing about Kelvin I didn't add... quite a bit of the reno stuff was sourced by myself but Kelvin kindly agreed to co-ordinate all the installation even though they weren't his own people. for example, for the window grilles, I sourced them myself from Wellmax and instead of asking me to be there to monitor the installation myself, he volunteered to make sure that the installation is done properly... and this despite me lowering his profit margin with my hard bargaining.

I'd say.. so far.. thumbs up to his professionalism.