ngunadi

Finally, GainCity managed to do some "magic" and approve our request for early installation. Tomorrow is aircon installation day. yaaay.

Actually, the painting is the one that will finish by this week. Not the reno Carpentry should be up by monday/tuesday. Then electricity work on monday. Then aircon and touch up. Then it's done

So have you received your quotation from Lina? How's it?

Reno - day 17 - 25th March 2010 Not much an update but painting job has started. They would complete the job by this week. Lina asked the painter(s) to work through the weekend. Maybe I should drop by with biscuits and milo.

IKEA is the initial idea. But after checking the cost, 1 inner drawer cost around $90++ (u know how IKEA works, u add this and that). For a similar price, I could have gone for Blum, well-known european brand for ard $70-80++. But after so many considerations, i decided not to use Blum also. I just ask my carpenter to add the internal drawer with his own material. The cost breakdown is: Stainless Steel Rack 900 2 $ 90 Inner Drawer with normal track 600 4 $ 40 Inner Drawer with normal track 900 2 $ 50Inner Drawer with normal track 600 4 $ 40 The stainless steel one is for the drawers below the stove. This is used to store the pots and pans. The rest would store those plates, bowls, etc. and also act as food storage.

Erm ... the mismatch tiles are the whole toilet wall tiles. So, including hacking and tiles cost, it's alot. The kitchen tiles are meant to be like that. No other choice

For me, I use inner drawer for all bottom kitchen cabinets

Nope ... just simple and practical with budget in mind Hope all would turn nice.

Yeah, she's doing my place. Should finish by end of next week. Both my wife and I quite like her. There was a hiccup due to miscomm (on her tiler part and our part of not able to speak Chinese) regarding the toilet tiles arrangement. But this could happen to anyone. However, her work is on schedule and could be even faster. I also notice that she's not picky and reasonable. Few notable instances: - Some cornices in our MBR dropped and some are missing (previously a bedroom fixture). This might be because we did some hacking on a bedroom fixture. She helped us to do the same cornices FOC. - After we hacked the half-height kitchen wall, we forgot to quote this to be part of work. She helped to find the similar one and put it back for us. Although this area is very small but it's still nice. - She helped to talk to the PD Door and negotiate a package with guardian lock for us. She might/might not get any profit for that. I suspect, she didn't.

It would be a red flag for me. We only confirmed our contractor few days (less than 1 week) prior to start of the reno. When a contractor/ID (or even anyone) is telling me something like this, I know he's desperate. Maybe you can nego for better price with him.

My fren yet to pass it to me. I think it's around $18.

Need to buy fire stove for move-in procedure. Master Chang said beach road and chinatown should have. Anyone knows which part of beach road sells this? I could go and buy it after office hour.

My friend helped me to buy @ chinatown. So confirm, chinatown has this

Reno - day 15 - 23rd March 2010 Living Room - New Grills We love the new window grills. Living Room Partition The living room partition is up. Strangely, the house "feels" better once the partition is up. Effect of fengshui or self-fulfilling prophecy ? Anyway, I want to change the door color to lighter brown, totally dislike the current brown black color (you can see in the background from the picture above). But if we paint the door, it won't be nice. Anyone has a suggestion for this?

Reno - day 10 - 18th March 2010 MBR Toilet - Shower Area Initially the shower area was not correct. This one is already fixed. The tiles placements were not correct, there was a miscomm between us and our contractor. We wanted to put the white tiles "vertically". But since the damage is done, oh well. We'll live with it. Kitchen - Missing Patch We hacked away the previous half-height wall. And we couldn't find the similar tiles for its size (33x33). So, I decided to get a similar tiles with different size (30x30). Hence, the different grouting. Most probably, we'll cover it with some rug.

I feel it's wasted to throw away the grill because it costs few hundred dollars. So, in meanwhile, I leave it be.

Personally, I would not be buying sofa from fair price. They are not a furniture shop in the 1st place, so I won't trust their quality. Anyway, I am also going to the S&C furniture this saturday. Are you going ?

I have managed to make my contractor + carpenter confused by either choosing IKEA/Blum/Normal ones. I have decided not to use any of IKEA or Blum drawer/track. I instead opt for the normal ones that the carpenter provide. Reasons are cost and I can always change it another time. So my kitchen would be using: - Doors for all the cabinets with inner drawers, except for 1 column of drawer. - Soft-closing for all the doors. - Stainless steel drawers/baskets for under the hob to store the pots and pans. - Standard inner drawer with standard track for the rest of the cabinets. And, i think it's NOT worth it to pay over $200 for Welmi baskets. Why? As much as their have a super grade of stainless steel, it's useless because you will not put any wet items in drawer right? You will dry your plates, pots and pans before you put on top of the drawer. So, your basket would not be in contact with water at all. Why bother with stainless steel? However, I would suggest you use the song-cho brand for the dish drainer for the same reason as above.

I will try to upload some pics today. Quite busy lately And I didn't change the window grill lock at all. I decided to try to open up the lock, so the grill would be left unlocked (DIY method ). I think you should postpone change the grilles because changing the grilles can be done anytime. We gave our contractor the floor plan, some details drawing regarding toilet vanity top, partitions and tv panel. My wife would come with the 3D drawings. However, since we don't have any fancy designs, the 3D drawings are not essentials. If you contact my contractor, i think she could help on those things also.

Why is your acid wash so early? Usually acid wash is done towards the end of the reno. Although it usually be done before the installation of solid surface (otherwise it'd take too long).

I don't think IKEA is a very high-quality product. I would post more in my t-blog about the prices once they are confirmed. But I suggest to steer away from IKEA. Go straight to BLUM or standard stainless steel basket.

That is the whole idea of this forum. You can post your design here and people can advise you about it. Good contractors also can advise you on basic idea. I just feel the cost of getting an ID is too high.

Hi vicenzo70 I am interested to get an amplifier and a decent sound system. I am not so keen to get the 5.1 speakers because I would not have space to put the rear speakers. I would be using it for music/movie/games (general usage) What combination would you suggest? Or, should i get a soundbar instead? Hopefully the whole set is less than 1.5k or max is 2k.

I need to change my window grille lock. Anyone knows cheap contacts to do job ? In total, I have 9 window grille lock.. Brother ossify ... u got contacts for this?

If you are thinking about IKEA Kitchen cabinets, please think twise 1. According to ossify blog, their solid surface is not high quality and pricey. For $115/ft run, you might as well get LG. 2. Their wire-basket is $25 and only from metal. You might as well get some stainless-stell ones for similar price. 3. Their RATIONELL basket is supposedly from blum (although 2nd rate one). However, it's more expensive than original blum ?? (yet to verify). Their 600 mm drawer set is around $90-100. Blum's 25 kg one is around $75-80 ?? (all these need to be re-verified). I thought if i use IKEA for my kitchen, i could save money, but actually it's not.