born_again

any particular estate and area u shortlisting? Cos different estate, different areas have different layouts for the EMs.

no choice cos sometimes we gotta listen to the elderly. Can reno if get the keys b4 ghost month right but they said must start before ghost month n continue work thru out ghost month.

yalor very heng. Most people replace the WC. Really wanted to remove the bath tub and replaced with shower screen but no budget as we would need to hack the floor n wall tiles plus re-do new water proofing. So we voted out of it. Sellers also seldom used it as they only stayed for slightly more than a year. Hope to be able to re-do the toilets in the near future.

wow, u can relax abit as your kids are already in poly n uni and few more years n u can start getting allowance from them. hmmm....maybe the company is linked to RHB. By the way, which company is it? 3% fixed rate loan quite attractive.

hey, u bought decals too? from online? which website cos i'm still looking around for cute ones for the kids.

ya, they do mix with all levels n diff schools too. We got no choice as we dont have time to coach the boz and oversee their homework so put them at after day care for the teachers there to supervise their work as well as to do assessments. My boz also learn extra spelling from other schools plus they get to socialise with others. The day care also bring them for excursions during holidays so its a good thing as they get better concessions since its organized by the child care. I've withdrew my eldest from day care this year as he has to stay back almost everyday. Thanks to both of u. We were really worried as the plastic clip holding the glass vanity actually broke and the whole thing was very shaky. Hubby went to many hardware shops and Sim Siang Choon, and even to shops selling glass and finally managed to locate a pair of stainless steel clips of just the right size. Got the plumber to install for us. My contractor even told us that it can cost as much as $400 for that glass vanity so it'll be a pity if we had to replace it. My contractor knew we wanted to cut cost so he kept asking us again n again if we really wanted to replace the WC as the one seller bought was branded n costly but we're not comfortable to take over the WC and we had already set our eyes on the black WCs which I called it 'or kim' (black gold cos **** is gold). Hahaha.... 3 days to scrub the grout lines....really body aching all over. Buy those super firm and cheapo toothbrush from provision shops at 50cents as its much better than those we used cos its really firm. Think we bought about 6 or 8 toothbrush from the provision shop aunty.

i think so. For both times, we didnt request boxes from them as we either bought our own from Shalom movers or became garang guni in the estate and started packing way before we contacted Helping Hand. We walked around the estate and look for discarded boxes (lucky to have rich neighbours in the estate buying new electrical stuff). We also asked from provision shops and they gave us boxes.

ya, some of their wood stuff really CMI. But their TROFAST is very solid. I bought it for our study room to store all the story books and placed 2 printers on top of it. http://www.ikea.com.sg/catalog/product_dis...999580-29302227

how u find helping hand? My family engaged them twice and we're very satisfied with their services.

yup, i fell in love with it when i sourcing around for hob for old house and simply cant forget it after seeing it at citygas showroom. Its so much more ex then hobs in the market but i think we're paying for the technology of the inner flame and its also easier to clean. Just renovated my new place and again I bought the same hob.

ya, toilets and kitchen reno most costly as it involves wall tiles, floor tiles as well as water proofing. As its a 20 yr old flat, i'm not sure if its good to overlay as some contractors wont advise on overlaying to avoid problems in near future. I've heard of cheap reno works by those companies that advertised 3 liners in classified acts every day and nasty stories about these companies so i rather steer clear of them. Not sure if others have tried them. These companies have plenty of hidden cost and heard of some who vanished after taking a deposit from owners. I would suggest u try to get a few quotes from IDs, contractors to better gauge the pricing. If majority of the quotes are 2k + - to do up a toilet, would u be daring enough to reward the reno project to one that promised to reno it for less than 1k. yes, we cant change the WC position due to the hdb piping. I always wanted to do up shower screens for both toilets but due to our super tight budget, I forgo shower screens and channeled the $ to do up only the necessary. Reno is really not cheap and all these $200, $250, $300 etc really add up to huge amount. i realised there's no grilles for the whole unit. Do u intend to put up grilles? hey, the toilet floor and wall tiles doesn't look that bad. At least its in very good condition. When we bought our EM 3.5 yrs ago, we did an overhaul as the toilet wall and floor tiles were barely there.

glad u like your rinnai hob. I got the one with the 3 burners. Love it so much and easy to clean too.

oh, i thought 707 is good as i used it previously. Old house was using another brand and really sucks so this time round choose alpha.

same here. I got 2 X black / silver. Wat abt yours?

yup, after all the recession is not over and the 2nd wave just like H1N1 is expected to be worse. Dont like me, learn the hard way. That's y, this time round, we stick to our budget and just do the necessary and we're so glad we didnt take any reno loan.

just do what's necessary and if the rest can wait then do it next time.

Welcome to renotalk! Wow, nice view from living room, in fact all the rooms and totally no block. Ur place is in such a good condition and need very min. reno. Wat kind of reno would u be doing?

Hi, dont care about what the agent said, moved on. Most of the time for many people, the buying and selling can never be perfect. As u read all these T-blogs, reno itself also gives plenty of headache as well as heartaches. But at the end of it, we enjoyed the process and be happy with our very own new place. Cos most importantly we must be happy. Once again, congrats and hope to see many pics of ur place.

depending on where's the new shower head located. Might require some re-piping

ha, think your stains not as stubborn as mine. We tried with the bleach (green bottle) but it didnt help much. Anyway we already cleaned up the grout lines and make it white again. But its a good website to learn some cleaning tips. Thanks.

Thanks. U tried it before, how's it? I have tried several other products in the market and so far found a good one. It really helped to clean up the 20yr old dirty grout lines for my new place but bodies aching after we took 3 days to clean up.

only 3 instead of 4 rivets? Is it a case of contractors shortchanging us? Luckily u're able to get the contractor to rectify. as for the bomb shelter issue, I heard its quite common and it could have gone missing during your reno time unless u're not the first owner. My friend also had to get it replaced when she sold her flat the other time. Hope u managed to get the supplier by now otherwise do call up HDB for contacts to another 1 or 2 suppliers.

ya, i agree with u. I think opting for paint would be so much better and maintenance wise is also easier. Homo tiles looks nice but really difficult to maintain especially if there's heavy traffic at home. We got much more expensive homo tiles for our old place and really disappointed with it. The grout lines really get dirty so easily. Being the clean freak, I bought all sorts of floor cleaners n mops to clean but just cant get the shine....stains here and there. I even restored to using hands to mop but still cant get the shine

yes, homo tiles really difficult to maintain which is the reason y I would never ever do homo tiles again. Always feel frustrated when I look into my old house as the flooring really CMI and always envy my neighboring units as their ceramic tiles looks so clean and shining. must be extra careful when using the 'magic sponge' as that particular part would become whiter than the rest of the tile. Can see it very clearly especially if your unit has the sunlight shining in.

I see u having problems with wall papers. Previously we also had wallpapers for our headboard featured wall and the TV featured wall behind the WIW. Simply CMI as its really not easy to do a good job and the person doing it must really be skilful. Furthermore, the company also told us that our humid weather is one of the culprit and the glue must be very strong to hold the wallpapers. The ID got the wall paper people to do it twice but still CMI so we opted for laminates. Yes, Laminates that we use for our wardrobe, kitchen cabinets. 2 colour tones for the TV featured wall in MBR (sorry the photos quite blur as snapping the photos before officially vacating it. Love the feel of wood grains and also easy to maintain too. Was very challenging as few months b4 we sold off the place we did lots of cleaning as my girl was too artistic. Draw on the 'wall' almost every other day. laminates for the headboard and tempered glass. (sorry posted pics in your blog)