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Resale 4Ng @ Bedok North

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One of my friends suggested that i share my OCD/anal-retentive quotation requirements so that others can take reference / mock at it.

but hey, if the contractor/ID can tahan 23 pages for an initial quote, it must speak of a certain minimum dedication to his/her job right?

anyhows, no harm and no loss to myself:

1) Quotation Specs and Requirements for potential contractors/IDs (23pg): http://db.tt/tTze1FsA

2) Provision of Colour Scheme: http://db.tt/PZjuZjpO

3) Electricity layout and other misc dimensions: http://db.tt/2wGm2EJ9

The documents are also listed in chronological order, and I guess one thing which sits well and thankfully naturally with my wife and I is that we have the understanding that renovation works is a continually evolving process. Insisting on strictly following original plan would have caused many unnecessary extra costs or even unhappiness between the home owner and the renovation folks...

 

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Join 46,923 satisfied homeowners who used renotalk quotation service to find interior designers. Get an estimated quotation

this is slightly off-topic, but i use a samsung note2 mobile phone, and perhaps one of the most useful features to me thus far is the stylus. I find myself often sketching on photographs to communicate with my contractor over whatsapp. These are truly moments where a picture speaks a thousand words.

my hand itchy and therefore i shall do up a doodle compilation here haha :sport-smiley-004:

8fgu.png
Edited by NSW
 

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the pace of work is really picking up!

Just a week ago or so, it was still (relatively mundane) tiling works. I call it mundane as wet works is rather time consuming but i must admit that seeing a different floor, a floor of one's choice, is really quite refreshing. It is like a dream slowly materializing. I just hope this refreshing feel can last. Either that, or I should consider changing job to being a contractor/ID :yeah:

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this is the master tiler at work. very steady man. and as i squat there and watch him work for a while, can see that his "kaya" is spread "gao gao“. also, both the main contractor and myself have initially decided to lay the longish homogenous tiles in a half-way subway-tile layout but he was explaining that long tiles may not perfectly flat, so laying in the subway-tile pattern risks sharp edges everywhere .. walk every few steps might cut our feet and :~
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Edited by NSW
 

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at the same time, my aircon units were taken down and given a clean-up before relocation and recommission. True to the previous owner's words, the aircon technician verified that the aircon units are still very new and in good condition. however, the same cannot be said of the installation of the compressor, after removing the box up, the following sight greeted us:

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The steel bracket seems to be haphazardly mounted. in fact, the top right hand nut.bolt is already off away from the wall. quite bad. will see what happens here after.
also, new windows! the previous windows, while being white-powder-coated, had plastic corners which had yellowed and stands out as distinct corners from the rest of the frame. also, we wanted black frames for the "front" part of the home and white ones for the "back" and so tada:
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something i am not used to (but am rather happy about) is that these new windows no longer have a middle beam between a pair of casement frames! Makes everything look wider than before!
 

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my initial selection for washing machine was the fisher and paykel 7.5kh top-loading washsmart with the middle propeller shaft. however, one of those days when flipping through home and decor and realizing that my wife took to the "wobble" moniker quite a bit, and promises 3 tick water efficiency instead of 2, and comes at a cheaper price for a larger wash capacity, the choice was obvious.

i grabbed a few good deals at the harvey norman clearance expo sale; but the washing machine wasn't one of them. jerome was able to best the price by a bit with free delivery the next day, on a saturday no less.

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Even though the wobble is slightly shorter than the f&p, i am still worried that there isn't sufficient clearance for my citygas dryer to be mounted directly above the washer:
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so its back to the tiling uncle to construct a shorter mortar base for the washer and fridge. initially, there were concerns that the lower height doesn't allow good flow of water to the gully trap so all sorts of compromise were being proposed. in the end, can be done!
mywt.png
 

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One of my friends suggested that i share my OCD/anal-retentive quotation requirements so that others can take reference / mock at it.

but hey, if the contractor/ID can tahan 23 pages for an initial quote, it must speak of a certain minimum dedication to his/her job right?

anyhows, no harm and no loss to myself:

1) Quotation Specs and Requirements for potential contractors/IDs (23pg): http://db.tt/tTze1FsA

2) Provision of Colour Scheme: http://db.tt/PZjuZjpO

3) Electricity layout and other misc dimensions: http://db.tt/2wGm2EJ9

The documents are also listed in chronological order, and I guess one thing which sits well and thankfully naturally with my wife and I is that we have the understanding that renovation works is a continually evolving process. Insisting on strictly following original plan would have caused many unnecessary extra costs or even unhappiness between the home owner and the renovation folks...

Wow... You spend quite a lot of time working on these stuff eh? Just a quick question - what software did you use for your rendition of the rooms and whole area?

I don't see it as OCD/anal-retentive... I am in the process of doing this as well (maybe not as detailed, but who knows what happens at the end) - it's more of a reminder to myself of what I want and making sure it gets communicated to whoever I am hiring down the road. Of course there might be some changes here and there, whether it will work or not, but it's better than not going into it without any plans/ideas in mind - Then when you get to it and you go, alamak, did not do this or that...

 

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Wow... You spend quite a lot of time working on these stuff eh? Just a quick question - what software did you use for your rendition of the rooms and whole area?

Yes I value precise communication and want to leave nothing to the likes of "oh i thought you don't require this that etc..". I use SweetHome3D, freeware and easyware haha. http://www.sweethome3d.com/index.jsp

[if you have large amounts of ram (i am running 16gb) you may want to grab the java standalone version with a java x64 VM and run with larger memory; makes the rendering process way faster.]

Despite having a slight background in SolidWorks I can't seem to get started on GoogleSketch; and I do not have the legitware for 3DS / Autocad etc...

 

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d0z.png

I communicated my concerns regarding the super tight clearance to my contractor and really nagged my contractor to request for the citygas people to check and double check if the dryer can fit.

In a nutshell, they didn't. And they didn't care a hoot. with the gas outlet placement like that my vertical alignment sure super out one lorh :furious: Somemore they blind blind follow SOP, following the ceiling to lay their copper pipe:

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they cant tell that my ceiling is badly slanted meh?? :angry2:

Shot a firm, demanding and almost-but-not-quite mean email through the citygas webpage and wow, my mobile phone rang within an hour. They will bring the dryer up and offer rectifications sometime this week; i'm letting my contractor handle this part.

Meanwhile, water piping and the mosaic tiles for the toilet went up, and our water-closets arrived! We liked the round round type of 1pc water-closet and it seems that this Hoe Kee is perhaps the cheapest that we can find.. if you know of other cheaper ones with 3tick water efficiency I DONT WANNA KNOW #ostrichHeadInGroundSyndrome :sport-smiley-018:

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In shifting the storeroom and extending my living room we ran into the problem of the support beams running amok in that vicinity. The quick wits of my wife presented an ideal solution which can turn the corner in a more featur-ey corner. the parallel beams can possibly make the living room seem longer too, save for installing a full-wall mirror there,

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The discussion started off with us using marker and doodling straight onto the walls during a site visit. once the dimensions were gotten i went back to permute a nice set of numbers which can result in equally-spaced beams of equal width with a symmetrical placement of downlights and knowing that the support beam itself cannot host a light.

Also a quick check with the carpenter reveals that laminates will not stick well to partition boards for the long run. We were advised to go for wall paper if we wanted a wider selection of the colours of the parallel ceiling beams, or just to paint them brown.

While we are on the topic of the ceiling, i also sketched in some requests for rounded edges which i hope contractor can realize...

Edited by NSW
 

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lb7v.png

Originally we selected 3 wood-grain style longish tiles of different colours (white-washed, beige and brown) so that the rooms can have a strand of uniformity while having some differences. however, the brown one went out of stock and hafary said it was EOL/discontinued! So I went to the flat, got the tiler to cut a token piece for me to do comparison with, and off to soon bee huat we went.

plastering started soon after and the whole house is starting to look smooth, sleek and rejuvenated heh. however, the newly erected wall between my TV and study room starts out with 9cm at the bottom skirting and reaches ~11cm at the top. its very visually obvious and I am very upset:

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altho while kaypoh-ing around the mortar base for the kitchen cabinets, i cant help but wonder about the position of this drain pipe outlet as it seemed too close to the rubbish chute for comfort. So i took a photo, annotated it and quickly asked the contractor:
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Turns out it was really a mistake. It was rectified within one work day.

I guess the lessons learnt here is that vigilant monitoring will allow us to spot mistakes as soon as they occur. Its like health and prevention of illness lorh, the earlier the detection the lower the cost and the better the chances of a complete recovery...

 

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my wife and I thought it'd be good if we could wash up at the same time in the morning and hence we originally wanted something similar to the ikea double-bowl sink:

odensvik-double-wash-basin__0096411_PE23

But our MBR toilet turns out to be minuscule even after the 2 feet extension. So we are going to try out the idea of having a circular basin with 2 taps and with us standing at right angles to each other:

75t.png

Shall wait and see if it turns out well hehe.

 

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Work was halted for a day on Monday 8th July for my contractor and I to go through electrical points.

lucky for me, i did my homework over the weekend and came up with this!

k7mk.png

so within ONE DAY, by Tuesday night when I popped in for a quick look, ALL the electrical work is completed. However, my contractor is going to add a VO if $300 on the basis that the relocation of the DB box requires longer wires. Hoping my carrot head is still intact :dunno:

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also spotted: the materials for the false ceiling and L-box:

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also the recess area (about 10cm width) will be sealed, so as not to leave too many "holes"
Edited by NSW
 

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Meanwhile,

I wrote a rather strongly-worded email to citygas wrt to their disappointing first installation. The CSO returned the call and arranged for the 2nd visit with my contractor directly. The moment of truth for me: will the dryer fit above the washer?...

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SWEE SWEE LAH! :thumbs up:
the harvey norman guys also arrived with my expo clearance sale look hehehe :notti:
v7jb.png
Edited by NSW
 

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the partition board guys came up and proceeded to seal and make flat my walls before starting work on the roof

j3of.png

have requested for the corners of the Lbox to be rounded and was told that manually rounding would not yield consistent results. cornices were added to these corners.

they also went on to create the false wooden beams but when they started measuring they quickly highlighted that the structural beam isn't parallel to the ground! the wall side is actually lower. my contractor was literally cursing and swearing at hdb unit with so many parallel faults here and there


byn6.png

Edited by NSW
 

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yea, that is the problem of resale flat, my ceiling and walls are uneven as well

 

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