gimz63251073

woah, "design and technology" class? Fond memories of sneaking to canteen during class....best class to fool around and not study...haha.. haha... i checked out plywood before on wiki. Plywood does not expand and contract as much as solid wood, its strong and much cheaper. There are outdoor plywood with water resistant glue which can withstand rain and shine. These would make the cabinets more expensive. Certain parts of the cabinets are not plywood, its just chipwood covered with 2 thin layers of wood. But i guess it all boils down to cost la, good materials don't come cheap. Plus most importantly is how u maintain it. Honestly, if your floor tiles, wall tiles...etc all these don't last a lifetime, no need to get furniture that lasts a lifetime.

i believe there are a few kinds out there in the market. The kind suitable for kitchen and toilet floor is the rough kind... I remember it takes just one day to spray and one day of "no walking" on it. No hard scrubbing for a few days as well. So just spray and go for short holiday ba... hah... Kitchen should be ok, just need to shift out the fridge, washer, etc... Its meant to be hassle free mah... The best thing is no grout lines to clean... wifey's number 1 obsession is clean grout lines.

im trying to achieve the glossy white effect...u know when u spray a thick layer of acrylic paint, it gives a very glossy look and smooth to touch. ... those PU sticky paper...water resistant..? Available in art-friend..? Maybe i will try the PU paper if all else fails...haha... baby said it can be sanded down and repainted. Shall try oil based paint to see if its better...

how timely, i thought they just raised tariffs.

i think most rough tiles will trap dust... but yes grey tiles are better... Frankly ur kitchen looks really bright. Even if you use dark grey floor tiles, it will just make it even brighter as focus would be on the nice green cabinets! my floor is epoxy sprayed with mainly grey and some black and white freckles. Good thing: Its hard to tell if floor is dirty due to all the freckles. Bad thing: u cannot see any ants/hair on the floor. u will only know how dirty it is when u mop the floor.... which is really not a very good thing for lazy people like me. my 2cents: the person cleaning the kitchen should be the one choosing the floor tiles instead...hahaha...

ok...do note the below is for reference only ah... i compared quotes between contractor and direct sub con. 1. Carpentry for kitchen - saved around 30%. 2. Electrical - comparing quotes availble in renotalk and my electrician. saved 20% or so. Not directly comparable as i bought different switches. 3. windows - never ask contractor to quote but he marvelled how come so cheap. u can get the list of licenced window installers from HDB website. 4. door - not directly comparable as the contractor quoted for fire rated door. i reckon around 20%. Doors are one of the easiest to outsource anyway... 5. laminate - contractor quoted for same ac rating to match the price. but still went to sub con as they have the design we liked. 6. spray flooring - different brand but looks and feel the same but contractor's is more ex by 25% or so. 7. air con - almost all contractor will ask u go and buy urself. Unless its those freebies thrown in due to packages which i tend to avoid. 8. painting - contractor quoted $900 for matex paint (3 room flat) . Painter friend quoted $700 using better paint Vinilex. Ended up had to use contractor's painters due to some screw up. Wasted $200... Not sure if i missed out any.... but if u have the time, do source around for quotes and check if its worthwhile to self-manage. Do note that u have to go and open the door for the sub-con, check his work, etc. Generally, its better to space out ur work schedule so that u have more time in between for rectifications. This also means that u cannot be in a rush to move in. Cheers!

i think u can paint urself if u want to....or get painters to do it for u.

its of course possible to get all seperate contacts like window makers, plumbers, electrician...etc. When u engage a contractor, he just coordinates all the different groups of people for you, same thing. Its just knowing the sequence, whether u know who to engage and how much money u save. But do realise that by self coordinating, u are open to risk of one group of sub-con spoiling the works of other sub con. Like plumber damage tiles...then u got trouble liao...as they will play taiji... Unless u have a lot of time, don't even try to coordinate yourself. Me and wife did the coordination ourselves for electrical works, carpentry, air con, doors, windows, laminate flooring, spraying of tiles, door and window grilles. Saved a fair bit, spend a lot of time and vommitted quite some blood. But its still worth going thru as we learnt quite a lot of stuff along the way. Not for most people as its really too time consuming. PS: no such thing as specialist when renovation is concerned. U would learn along the way, many just anyhow do...

Picked up a free ikea used table from a kind renotalker. Had to do some work to it as the laminate was stained and scratched. Realising that i cannot save the laminate, i decided to flip the table over, i.e. use the unpainted side as the top. Putty up the used holes and sanded it rough for preparation. Spray painted it with 1.5 bottles of paint: All looking good...but the impatient me flipped the table top over while paint is not dried yet and now all my hard work is gone to the drain... the nice white table is now stained with newspaper marks and is so disgusting... im totally sad... Baby consoled me and offered to help me salvage it over the weekend.... im keeping my fingers crossed....

Hi hi! From the floor plan, it does look like u want to extend 2m (or one third) of your living room right? So rougly u are left with 4m of kitchen. (8m if you consider both sides) Taking away pipes, areas for stove, oven, fridge, washer, sink etc.... not much space left. Not sure if the plans are drawn to scale, but its always good to do to scale since u already settled on the electronics part... For example: Length of one side = 4m Witdth: Sink = 100cm (include allowance) Fridge = 85cm (assume big fridge for frequent cooking) So techinically u are left with 2.15m of work top space for preparation. Would be enough i think. but hey, my kitchen is even smaller (due to no top cabinets) and we can still chuck everything away nicely.... just need to constantly remind ourselves not to buy things we do not need. on a side note: For old flats with rubbish chutes in the house , i would say better not cover up the chute with bottom cabinets. My flat went thru rubbish chute fogging and tiny creatures ran out through the sides while chute is closed! Imagine if the area is boxed up....they would surely have made it their home..

OMG! CNS!

lights usually can buy urself, not an issue at all. Unless u want a certain ambience which u need advice on what lights to get, then u might want to ask them to tag along. Tiles - many would go with contractor to choose their tiles. Its very common. U can go with their recommended shop or not its fine. Other fixtures like soft close mechanisms, electrical products like switches and power points, it depends on your contractor and what price he can offer. If u are talking about building material like cement, bricks, sand etc.. i think better leave it to the contractors since most consumers would not know what and how much to buy. U probably end up getting chopped by the shop anyway. Typically most people just throw everything to contractor as they are already bogged down with buying furniture, electrical, electronics products, etc... Saving money on renovation can be achieved by: - using cheaper products - opt not to do the "extras" - DIY (seperate electrical, carpentry, doors, windows, tiler) --> but u must have time to coordinate and know how to check for cutting corners. Rule of thumb, check places where u would not normally see. - DIY (using your creativity to re-cycle old furniture and hence saving $$) The ultimate DIY case is go to renotalk.com and look for a thread under "bigfatfish". Cheers!

mine is about $200 or $180...can't remember le. Doors u can try Yontat. If i remember correctly, they quote me is $260-$280 for semi hollow bedroom door. Electrical pricing u may have to try to dig out info from the renovation works category. Carpentry is the most tricky...u probably have to get another contractor to quote u for it for comparisons. Cheers!

if its just one or 2 units asking for that price, they are just trying to max their gains... if its a whole bunch of them, PAP calls it market forces. or maybe there is just a good reason for them to make such a demand.

does not cover the whole window panel? i would think they might have measured or done the blind size wrongly... im not sure what u mean by roller blind have gaps in between? Do u mean that they give u 2 panels of blinds for 1 window and hence there is a gap in between 2 blinds?

HDB builds flats in tens of thousands... no worries on losing the deal on the perfect flat. better get bank LO to check how much loan u can get before getting the OTP. Troublesome if loan amount is insufficient...

uhh 4 tyres would be soo big....for a sooo small house... too many projects but too little time and space to do... it was a little too late that i discovered the website which shows plans on how to construct your own bed, sofa, chairs...etc... but im interested in doing this: http://ana-white.com/2010/03/plans-simple-...-can-build.html i always wanted a billy bookshelf, one that does not warp. Not i can use plywood to do it.... so many exciting projects there to play with... haha... but most probably will only work on it later in march...too many things to handle now...

well to be really frank, such practices are not standardised within the community itself even. i.e. my wife parents and my parents all have different "rules to follow". each adapted from what was being told to them and what they gather from friends and relatives. so imagine that singaporeans who are of the same race have cultural differences...hahaha... congrats on getting your keys!

lizards are immune to insecticide...i wonder why. once a lizard fell into the kitchen sink, no matter how much i spray, the lizard still bo chup the insecticide. the only thing is that the insecticide made the sink slippery, so the lizard could not run out. cockroaches are disgusting... my block did fumigation not long ago, so many dead bodies lying around all over the place. The cockroaches also like to lay eggs along the walls of the rubbish chute. I spotted and removed 2 eggs already, but the cockroach laid them again, at the same spot some more...... argghh... pek chek...

i think lizards eat cockroaches and some other pests. So when u have a lizard problem, u would probably have a lot of other hidden pests. Or u have fruits at altar attracting lizards... When i was doing renovation, there were tons of cockroach eggs behind kitchen cabinets and there were quite a few very very fat lizards. Now that we got rid of the eggs and cockroaches, lizards are no longer seen. Alternatively u can get the glue for catching rats, stick some biscuit crumbs on it and u would be able to catch some lizards. This can control but cannot exterminate. Cheers!

we had considered the induction hob before. Cons from reviews we gathered: - reviews are that its not as easy to control the power as compared to gas (need much practise and trial and error) - the heat does not "cover" the wok if you do frying, so hob is more suitable for "ang moh" cooking. - cooks faster but more expensive than gas - induction cookers are costly and HDB has limitations on the power supply Pros: Easier to wash and looks very sleek. Said to be less smelly We ended up using a gas cooker after weighing our options, really depends on your lifestyle. We used the portable induction cooker for steamboat and realise that it is indeed not easy to control the temperature...but for steamboat its still manageable.

the bowls n plates are good....managed to carry one back only. no more hands for cushions...what a waste... apparantly they are supposed to have a grille pan on sale as well at $18, usual price is $35. But i can't find it...u saw any...? oh yes anyway, i found that SJ glass do mirrors as well...u might want to call them for a quote. (google-able)

Congrats! hows the ceiling fan issue...? Hope its resolved...

Tyre coffee table (Work in progress) Finally managed to secure a good priced glass from SJ Glass through a renotalk member. 74cm round shaped, 5mm tempered at $50. Its much cheaper than what was quoted by other glass makers. Arrived to pick up at their workshop, found out that they do showerscreens, mirrors, etc. Forumers interested can try to google for them. (yes they are google-able) Got the glass from them, acceptable quality. A small portion of the round edge was not so round though, but ok for me since its not noticeable. Saw a small flaw though. A little portion was chipped off...discovered it too late.. so will just live with it ba. Sneak preview of tyre. Still have to fix castors and polish the tyres first before its completed. got 4 tyres here. actuallly 2 tyres would be "coffee table height". So i would have 2 extra. Maybe would use the other 2 tyres for other purposes like growing plants...? Merry christmas!