wind30

on the bright side, it is easily fixable.... My tiler can scrap of some of the grout and put back new ones.... but it is a hassle..... I read about grout sealer too... I don't think my grout is sealed. At least it feels different from my marble floor grout which is smooth.

my newly done toilet wall tile grout is originally white. And now it is starting to change color into brown even though the toilet is UNUSED. The contractor say every toilet he done is like that. grout will confirm change color, nothing he can do. is it true?

yup. My new place is relatively new, around 13 years old. Not a single unit in the development has been rebuilt, partly because the land area is small to begin with, and the orginal layout is pretty good. Any my development was launched in 1997 at a HIGHER price than my purchase price. So people here are usually quite house proud as they spend a lot of money on their houses.... If your estate is very old, you may have some houses in very bad states.....

ya but for me, the killer is upstairs neighbours.... In my old condo, you cannot block up the noise from upstairs of kids running, dragging stuff along the floors. side neighbours are less noisy as kids don't bang themsleves against the side walls, etc. my current unit, the left unit is empty for like 3 years and the owners usually only come back in weekends or lunar new year... The right unit is a old couple with one grown up daughter My condo is right beside the road so the road noise is terrible even though I am at 9 storey. The terrace house has zero road noise as not beside main road. It all depends on the unit. If your unit is beside a main road, no matter how high you are, it is still going to be noisy. To me it was a no brainer. I sold my 99 year EC 1389sqft for around 900k and bought a Freehold inter terrace 1800sqft (land) 2500sqft (built up) for 1.4mil at around the same time. both within 10 minutes walk of each other so location is not that big a factor.

my two cents. I shifted from condo to landed in the past year. My previous condo is right beside the MRT but since I drive it doesn't really matter. For me I thought it was a no brainer to get landed considering the high prices of condo now. For the 5 years I stayed in the condo I only used the facilities ONCE. I am not sure why people say landed is noisier. To me my old condo is MUCH noisier due to the upstairs neighbour. My new place is dead quiet. Maybe because my side neighbours are very quieit? The main pros for me about landed is 1) MUCH bigger space. Now I have space for guest room, HT room, big dining room, TV room, etc 2) more convenient if you drive. and park right outsite the house, no need to carry things up the lift, etc. 3) No upstairs neightbour. This is very impt to me as I had a very noisy upstairs neighbour in my previous condo. The main con 1) the stairs are very tiring. 2) less accesible but stil within walking distance of the MRT (~1km distance)

there is a hinge that close slowly, I think a lot of commercial complexes glass doors behaves that way. My glass doors for my family hall and MBR behaves that way. The shower screen glass doors slams close though. My contractor said he used special hinge for the more impt glass doors.

my contractor is who did my tiles has 1mm or less grout. I think 3mm is REALLY ugly especially when the grout gets dirty. Why will the tiles expand and contract??? temperature changes?? Singapore got no winter leh.

I called a couple of times and they say it is impossible.... I even offered to buy and self collect the cable and get my contractor to install they also say impossible. lousy company.... want to help them save money also cannot.

what I am saying is kitchen cabinet unlike normal cabinets is hard to remodel. Your new cabinets has base too right? so if you want to remodel, you end up with an ugly concrete base right and you need to redo your floor tiles over again. And won't the installation of the wall unit hurt the wall tiles? No drilling? just glue?

hi how big is your place? Mine is inter terrace, Stupid ADT quote me more than $1.5k. CRAZY Anyone decided to buy a normal alarm system with no monitoring? how much is that? Any good shops? I think ADT only serve to pick up phone right? Normal alarm system can call out to many number when it alarm go off. Actually the monitoring service does not seem that useful. 1 ADT Monthly Monitoring Service (c/w 1 Control Panel, 1 Door Contact, 1 Motion Detector, 1 Keyfob) 48.00/mth 36 mths 2 Additional Door Contacts 90.00 2 180.00 3 Curtain Sensor 196.00 3 588.00 4 Remote Commander 250.00 1 250.00 5 Repeater 230.00 1 230.00 6 Installation and Commissioning of alarm system 400.00 1 Lot 400.00

? don't you have a kitchen cabinet base? It is concrete base right and so you cannot really tear down your cabinet unless you do major reno. For my dry ktichen, it is not tiled and I have stainless steel backsplash. The bottom of the cabinet is elevated concrete base and also not tiled. For Wet kitchen, it is concrete structure and aluminium cabinet. Only the exposed wall is tiled.

so it is standard NOT to have skirting behind built-in stuff right? provided both the capentry and skirting is done at the same time, ie by developer. Of course if you do carpentry after hand over, you have to cut out the cabinet to fit the skirting.

thanks for the reply so now I know it is normal to put up skirting first. Actually, for the EC which I bought last time, when I tore down one of the built in wardrobe during my reno, there was no skirting behind too. I have worked with my contractor before 5 years back and we had quite a good relationship. She even used our place to place adverts on magazines. So in the end, I just accepted her solution. I think the end product is almost the same either way.

I have not paid her much but she say it is impossible as she have to tear down everything and do the skirting... she say she will give me the marble skirting to keep so if next time I decide to tear down the carpentry I can add the skirting myself. That should be ok right? Putting up skirting is very simple anyway. And she say it looks better as the joining is smoother, you don't have to fill up the gap with silicon. The skirting is curved and you have to cut the cabinet to fit the skirting and there be an ugly joining line.

Hi people, I am doing marble flooring that comes with skirting. For places with built in furniture and feature wall, is it the norm to lay the skirting first then do the carpentry? My contractor decided to put in all the carpentry FIRST and only add skirting at the exposed wall even though I EXPLICITLY told her not to. now she says no solution. Cannot take down the carpentry and only will add skirting on the remaining exposed wall. She says this is the norm for all her projects. I am worried next time I change my carpentry, I have a wall without skirting.

update... now my reno still not completed. don't really like the contractor. A lot of things say cannot do. examples, 1) bathtub tiling I want to do a floating tiles I saw in magazines (ie there is a small cutout at the bottom so the foot print looks smaller), he say cannot, scared the tiles fall off. 2) change roof tiles but left behind my old insulation rock wool. 3) staircase railing cannot join even for simple 90deg turns. My staircase landing is flat with no steps. 4) I asked for schedule at the beginning he say don't have as long as can finish in time by early april. now say maybe cannot finish by early april. 5) give black face everyday. If not because he was recommended by his sister who did my the woodwork for my old condo (that was very well done) I would never has gotten him. And he is not cheap either.

what insulation did your contractor give you? can tell me how much was your reroofing quote? Mine was around 20k, german roof tiles. My contractor says his quote only include the new insulation sheet which he installed on top of the existing roakwool and most new roof does not use rock wool. He just left the old rock wool there as he thought the condition is ok.

I spend $20k to change the roof tiles for my terrace but I realised that they kept the old rock wool insulation which is very black and yucky. My contractor say they only changed the insulation paper. My place is around 15 years old. Is it the norm that they kept the old insulation during reroofing? any problems with old rock wool insulation?

wow this is REALLY cheap. My reno wetworks is costing me $160k. And woodwork/electrical/aircon is costing me 90k. my land area is 1800 sq ft too.

guys does bosch oven have sale?? I saw that the bosch had some very good discount for their induction hobs sometimes in sep last year. 2099 going for 1299. Any ideas if there is any sale coming up or going on?

hans grohe comes in chrome right? Is chrome that lousy?

my air con contractor embedded my aircon pipe by cutting a 2.5 inch grove into my concrete support column. He say it is ok. But to me it look really dangerous. Is this the norm? or should I get a PE to look at it.

We are looking for a pyroclytic oven, either the brandt FP867XS1 or the ariston OP 99 . the prices are around the same so which one is better? the OP 99 seems to be a very new model. Anyone know as a brand is brandt or ariston better? brandt is from france right? Ariston?

my contractor includes costing for shower curb, vanity top, shower glass frame.

actually I was asking why his quote is more expensive than others, and that was what he tells me. He is using epoxy for grout. He does waterproofing bottom, top before lay. And then after lay waterproof one more time. His quote is 21k for around 700sqft of marble flooring including skirting.