Reno journey with Kevin Yap @ Ideal House + Mr See @ Jia Aik

[superp 1]

I benefited a lot from renotalk over the course of my reno journey, so here is my little contribution and review

After renting for close to 2 years in our estate, we finally manage to get a unit that we love. Unfortunately, since the house was coming to 10years, there was quite a bit of renovation needed to be done. We met up with 5 IDs but finally settled with Kevin Yap from Ideal house as my main contractor as he was highly recommended over here and on a blog I chanced upon. For our kitchen, we chose Mr See from Jia Aik as he was highly raved upon when we went to the Blum showroom.

Our place is a 2+s unit, around 1000sqf. Pictures of the the old unit before reno commenced. The old unit had a lot of darker color wood built in and platform beds which I personally dislike.

Some pictures!

[superp 1]

We found out I was expecting a couple weeks before we confirmed with Kevin and Mr See for our renovation, hence I was sidelined to be the supervisor and my husband took over the role of minion aka liaison officer instead.

I was lucky the hub allowed me pretty much free rein in designing the house I thought for a first house I would like a scandi/ minimalist kind of design in the house with lots of space for the kid and perhaps a pet (in the near future?) to run around and play. 

I wanted to go home to an apartment filled with light woody colors complementing some marble prints and lots of white spaces/ furniture. We were lucky our place was on a higher floor so there was lots of natural light flowing into the house in the day.  

I had to turn to the www and Pintrest, Propertyguru, Quanvast and dayre were my best friend for design inspiration as I didn't really have the energy to run around in the first trimester. Snooze was my best friend then.

Pictures in my moodboard!

Living room-

 

Kitchen

Bathroom

Study room

Bedroom

Edited December 4, 2018 by superp
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[Window Film Specialist 4]

THANKS FOR SHARING YOUR EXPERIENCE.

[superp 1]

I was going to post pictures and finished up with a review on our 2 id/contractors (I do like them very much!) but till now (about 1.5months) after staying in, we are facing post reno woes so I thought why not a post on after service sales first 

I am sure everyone notice defects after handover and are scrambling to get the contractor/id to help out. I think a good measure of a id/contractor is not just the during reno but after the handover when you face problems. Minor issues were resolved pretty fast so I wouldn’t dwell on it and honestly after you move in, minor issues like paint touch ups and all are quite the non issue. We had a couple bigger issues (one still ongoing..), I think it’s a combo of only knowing when you move in and luck I guess.. ?

anyway here were some of my more major issues and how fast they were resolved..do take note that at this point I have paid both id/contractors fully already but they were still pretty responsive. 

1. On the day of handover we hired cleaners to help clean the house. Halfway through cleaning, we realized the kitchen floor was flooding whenever a large amount of water is pour into the kitchen sink. That was definitely a huge panic for me since the kitchen cabinets were made of wood. I called both Kevin and Mr See and they came down to take a look. Both came down really fast(less than 0.5hr) to take a look. Turn out that part was installed by Kevin plumber and he would not be in town for a week. Hubs asked could we have another plumber look at this since it does not make sense to be waiting for a plumber for the week. A plumber came about 3hrs later and the issue was the kitchen gutter were choked with reno debris hence the water wasn’t draining off. He was able to resolve it on the spot.

Mr See was very sweet, it wasn’t his fault but because one of the Blum chipboard below the kitchen cabinet was damaged because of the water (probably was flooding for a while but we didn’t know?), and he helped to replace it for us FOC. He definitely gain a notch of brownie points in my book! 

I also definitely appreciated how fast Kevin came down and managed to find a plumber to resolve the flooding issue. 

2. We realized water in our mbr toilet is flowing out from the towel dry area to the vanity side instead of the wet area gutter. Took a video and Kevin came down promptly to check. He got his tiles guy to rectify it within a week and it’s working perfectly now. To be honest, that was a little annoying cos inconvenient for us (dust and hacking) but I do appreciate each time we have an issue, he would take the time to come down and take a look at it and more importantly resolved it for us. 

3. Air con Problems

So this is still an ongoing issue and could possibly be the biggest. We took our air con from Kevin recommendation as we trusted his foresight and figured all air con installers are pretty decent right? Anyway about 2-3 weeks after moving in, I started noticing water dripping down from the mbr air con. It wasn’t a lot but it was there- a small pool of water every morning. We called Sam the boss of the air con company and he got his guy down to take a look the next day. Very polite and responsive guy. Turn out they didn’t insulate one pipe of the air con piping properly but that was fixed and rectified on the spot. The guy advised us that for condo to always use at least 3 bars power and adjust the temperature as everything are concealed under the false ceiling and condensation may occur. Fair point and we listened. 

Hubs requested to change all pipes/ trunking/ insulation during the reno so naturally he was a little annoyed that we are facing problems. 

So anyway 2-3 weeks passed, and I started to realize we needed to sleep with the mbr air con at 16-18degrees 3 bars minimum, which is pretty ridiculous for a brand new air con isn’t it? Called Sam and this time he came down with his worker the next day and spent 1.5hrs testing various stuff. Turn out there was some air con gas leak- perhaps during installation for the mbr and one of the living room units? anyway he top up the gas and we left it as that until the night when we realized even at 16 degrees 4 bars the air con wasn’t even that cold that we needed to use blankets. 

Our is a 5 ticks Mitsubishi starmex 13btu which I reckon should be enough for the mbr...well anyway they came down the next day to take a look. I also called Mitsubishi and they will be sending someone down next week for a joint inspection. Sam don’t think it’s a gas issue that is causing the air con not to be cold cos the gas topped up the day before was still the same so he is thinking could be a Mitsubishi air con unit problem. 

Honestly I’m getting a little annoyed about the unresolved air con issues. And when Sam mentioned it may be a west sun issue that was causing the air con to be warm, ie cos the room is hot, I felt a little disrespected because really isn’t it common sense that 16 degrees 4 bars should be very cold for a brand new air con unit and trunking?! Are they thinking they can get away with it because I’m young and female?

Honestly I felt that Kevin guys/ sub con/ recommendation are all very polite and responsive. The workmanship for carpentry was impressive as well. I have not form my final opinion about the air con sub con guy though- could be a Mitsubishi air con unit issue or smthg else for the coldness. There is also definitely a gas leak in one of the pipes though it could be a small leak. We will need Kevin help for that one because to rectify the leak in the pipes we need to hack a box up unit in the baby’s room. 

Are air con issues post reno common or are we just very unlucky?! 

So anyway those are my major issues faced post reno, hopefully others had a smoother journey than mine! Shall update more here for my final review and peektures of my place

[Shaun Ling 1]

On 11/3/2018 at 8:56 PM, superp said:

I benefited a lot from renotalk over the course of my reno journey, so here is my little contribution and review

After renting for close to 2 years in our estate, we finally manage to get a unit that we love. Unfortunately, since the house was coming to 10years, there was quite a bit of renovation needed to be done. We met up with 5 IDs but finally settled with Kevin Yap from Ideal house as my main contractor as he was highly recommended over here and on a blog I chanced upon. For our kitchen, we chose Mr See from Jia Aik as he was highly raved upon when we went to the Blum showroom.

Our place is a 2+s unit, around 1000sqf. Pictures of the the old unit before reno commenced. The old unit had a lot of darker color wood built in and platform beds which I personally dislike.

Some pictures!

Congrats! and thank you for loving us!