Will post more information soon!

Our house is a humble 4rm resale flat, 101sqm and 10 years into the making. Floorplan:

The previous owner changed the living room into an L-shaped design, exposing the window which allows for wind to pass thru our house. We thought this is

a great idea and would retain this feature (besides, changing it back costs money..)

To meet our budget, we finally decided to do the following items:

- Hack and change tiles in both toilets

- Carpentry: Kitchen cabinet and master toilet vanity table

- Piping

- Service balcony casement window

- Painting

Other things

- Electrical works

We bought our accessories @ Adamas (Jalan Besar)

Other considerations:

- Poh Seng: Service and price ok

- Royal Fanco: Service and price ok

- Asia Excel: More expensive..

- Poh Joo: Service not that good ...

- Hoe Kee (Jalan Besar): Lousy service...

The reno work started: 16 June 2011

Edited June 29, 201115 yr by tace

Hacking began...

Casement window

My wife visited the house in the afternoon and realised that the floor protection did not extend fully into the living room. She immediately called Donny, though there were some delay, it was eventually laid.

Edited June 16, 201115 yr by tace

I popped by our house at night and realised that there were workers sleeping there.. Is this an usual practice?

I popped by our house at night and realised that there were workers sleeping there.. Is this an usual practice?

No, it isn't. Never had workers sleep at my place before, and I've gone through 1 renovation and am undergoing another. You should check with your ID/contractor.

what if the workers bring gals into ur flat and have mass orgy? they are not supposed to stay there overnight. talk to ur ID/contractor on this.

if u stay nearby, to play safe, add another chain & lock at the end of the day and unlock the next day.

I popped by our house at night and realised that there were workers sleeping there.. Is this an usual practice?

wow!

Welcome to RT:) wish u have a smooth Reno ahead.

Welcome to RT:) wish u have a smooth Reno ahead.

Thanks !

I talked to my ID and he said that they worked until pretty late last night and there were no spaces left in the lorry (due to transporting of hacked

materials), so they had to sleep there. He assured me that it will not happened again.

Tiling starts next week, will check by at night again.

Went to our house tonight. No one's there . Took a few pictures:

Master toilet. No lighting..

Common toilet

Casement window. Kudos to Donny, he managed to install back the grille for us! One contractor we talked to said we couldn't keep the grille so we didn't expect it to be there, pleasant surprise.

Kitchen space. Look at the gas pipe leading to the service balcony (right side). As we did the gas/water/elect transfer from the previous owner, our gas was not turned off. We had to call the powergas guys down to turn off the gas + removal of the unused gas heater. They couldn't remove the gas pipe that time as it was concealed behind the cabinet. It costs us > $50 (gas turned off + heater removal) for the first time. We would be calling them down again to attach pipe to stove + turn on gas, that's another > $50.. if we want to shorten the pipe, since we are not going to use the gas heater, we would need to pay another time of $50! zzzz...

Edited June 17, 201115 yr by tace

Would not be complete if I don't post the before pics:

Master toilet

Common toilet

Kitchen Cabinet

I am currently comparing the differences between 2 famous (or is it just 1, LOL) brands of paint. A quick poll (sources confidential) revealed that majority of the ppl used Nippon, only a small handful used Dulux. A quick search on the Internet, particularly from posts in Renotalk seemed to indicate that Dulux is actually more expensive and provides less "features" than Nippon. In particular, this post is really funny: http://www.renotalk.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=38545&view=findpost&p=614756.

So I decided to do a simple price comparison and the features (do let me know if I am missing out some types):

Paint price (5l), from hardwarecity:

Dulux Pentalite: $50

Dulux Wash & Wear: $62

Dulux All: $70

Dulux Light and Space: $65

Dulux Mouldguard (for ceiling): $52

Nippon Medifresh: $65

Nippon Odorless All in one: $70

Nippon Easy Wash: $65

Nippon Vinilex 5000: $50

Nippon Vinyl Silk: $60

Not avail: Nippon Odorless Easy Wash.

One glance and you can see that they are really similar in terms of price... LOL

Features-wise:

Similar:

Dulux All - Nippon Medifresh - Nippon Odorless => better grade?

Dulux Wash and Wear - Nippon Easy wash => "washable" feature .. actually some of the other types also advertised washability. Mid range.

Dulux Pentalite - Nippon Vinyl Silk - Nippon Vinilex => Lower grade?

Difference:

Dulux Light and space -> reflects light more, makes room brighter.. other than that, pretty normal

Dulux mouldguard -> for ceiling, good for toilets

Summary:

- Price not much different (apple to apple)

- Features, Nippon seems to deliver more bang for buck, especially for lower grade. Otherwise, quite similar.

- In essence, choose what you like: Fat man wearing loincloth or cute hairy dog.

Edited June 17, 201115 yr by tace

Congrats on your reno. Wish u a pleasant journey.

Congrats on your reno. Wish u a pleasant journey.

You too bro!

Thought that there is no work done today, quite surprised when I saw all the lights and switches missing! Had to use my iphone's led light to take a quick peek. The toilets' floor seemed to be covered in cement. Electrical trunking all down.

Decided to call the gas guys down... get rid of the ugly gas pipe. Didn't manage to post the pic of the other end of gas pipe in previous post, due to

pic no. limitation