misswookie

I LOVE Ikea!! Would have gotten the Kramfors sofa from there - cheap and comfy - if it hasn't already been discontinued. Found out when hubby and I went to Ikea some weeks ago. It was a sad, sad, sad day. And thanks for all the advice on laminates, very very useful. We intend to use white, in fact hubby wants it pure white, but in light of what you said we should really go look at the laminates in person before setting things in stone. Unfortunately our contractor is quite clueless on thicker laminates so we'll have to decide which brand to use and tell him to get it. Oh yah, his carpenter seems unwilling to use thicker laminates. He said he doesn't have the right machinery to cut the thick laminates properly so edges may not be nice. Sounds like bs to me, but anyway that's another hurdle that we'll have to cross later.

This Opennet thing is really vexing! The stupid thing is I already laid Cat 6 cables for a home LAN, but realised the Opennet issue too late - after the wiring has been done and false ceilings already put up. Also the previous owners did not opt for free installation so have to spend $ to get Opennet guys to come install. Too much money, too much trouble, so will be foregoing this entirely. I refuse to have ugly trunking running around after so much effort has been made hiding stuff.

Hi fftw Thanks for the info! Newedge is a product I saw in the Lamitak e-catalogue, thought you might have used it. I should go to Lamitak to take a look and also talk to them. I did ask my contractor about using thicker laminates but neither he nor his carpenter knows about them. When he sourced around he only found 2mm laminates from Formica. Since I have a lot of carpentry/cabinetry, easily >35ft not including walk-in wardrobe, I think Formica would be toooo much unfortunately.

Thanks fftw! Just looked through your reno blog - so the laminates are 1.8mm ones from Lamitak? Are they the Newedge ones? I downloaded the ecatalogue which said the Newedge is 1.5mm, and did not see any 1.8mm laminates. I'm a little confused...

Hi fftw Love your kitchen!!! My hubby and I want to do the same thing too, i.e. concealed appliances. Think the carpenter has challenges finding the right mechanism for the cabinet doors though - are yours from Blum? If you don't mind my asking, how much do they cost? Another challenge is the potential wavy pattern problem with glossy laminates. I was wondering if your kitchen laminates are glossy white, and if so which laminate did you use, how thick are they (1mm? 2mm?) and is there any discernable waviness when you look at the row of cabinets from the side? Sorry for all the questions. Got quite excited when I saw your cabinet pictures!

Either regular tiled roof or polycarbonate. Tiled roof is allowed, but it won't let the light in! So I'd very much like to do polycarb, only thing is whether I want to follow SAF rule #1 and go ahead to do it despite potential issues.

Problem is I can't use plastic nor canvas, although they are easy to take down. Won't keep out the rain very well, light rain still ok, but will leak if there's a downpour like a couple of weeks ago. Water seepage into carpentry (shoe shelves) and bamboo flooring in living room would be very very bad! It seems that they very regularly close one eye to things when doing inspection rounds. But once you ask, they will go by the book and say it's not allowed. I was hoping to just quietly put it in place, but my contractor went to ask the HDB officer yesterday and the officer of course said polycarb roofs are illegal blah blah blah. My contractor's a really nice guy but I could kill him lah, I'd rather not bring such stuff to the officer's attention, asking for trouble only.

Ah ok. No roof there now, so I guess no permit required...? The previous owners just placed a large piece of canvas (at least I think it's canvas) which was taken down as part of our reno. Incidentally, the HDB officer didn't say anything about the canvas during his inspection before we got the keys, even though canvas is not allowed either. Cross fingers and hope that if he comes around for an inspection after my polycarb roof is up, he also won't say anything.

Hi Mickey! Sounds like you made him work hard for his money I think our contractor finds us super mafan also. When we told him over the phone that we want him to replace the floor traps which were already installed, there was a few seconds of shocked silence. Can imagine 3 streams of sweat trickling down his face like in the manga comics.

Hello! I'm not using ID. Save $$! Hubby is picky and I'm also not very easy to please so thought do it with contractor better. Then any design problem is our own pasah, cannot blame anyone. Otherwise spend more $$ to get ID, if we don't accept ID's ideas then we would have paid extra for nothing, plus the ID will also have mental breakdown dealing with us. Anyway, what permit were you referring to? Got the approvals and started work already, except the polycarbonate roof one which we will not submit now. We got keys early Jan, work started in earnest after CNY and now still renovating. Contractor says estimated completion in May. Faint lah.

Thanks - that's the company that gave me the ballpark! The guy told me "industry price is all about there one." Phew, really not cheap. Guess I'll look around some more. Things are adding up, really need to save wherever I can.

Hi coffee_o If you don't mind my asking, how much were you quoted for your roofing and could you pm me the subcontractor who's doing it? My contractor can't do it for me cos of the HDB rules and the roofing guy I went to gave me a $1900 ballpark. Thought it was a bit on the high side given the small area Thanks!!

Thanks for coming back to me so quickly! This really sucks. Afterall, I'm the one who's living upstairs, not some crazy person who'll set the roof on fire or throw an anvil out of the window. But like you said, not getting caught is key! Thanks again!!

Hi coffee_o! First post on renotalk, new EM owner here - looking for information and inspiration for my reno I have a question that I hope I can find some help with. I see that you are going to do / have done polycarbonate roofing over your balcony. I'm interested in doing this too, but over the access area of my corner unit instead. I made some enquiries and was told that HDB will not approve polycarbonate roofing, so I didn't bother to ask HDB and gave up on that thought - until I found renotalk! Now I have hope again! I was wondering if your ID did a submission on the polycarbonate roofing for you, or is HDB approval not necessary? If submission was done, did the ID have to give some kind of reasoning to "persuade" HDB to allow this? I'm just hoping my info was wrong and HDB does routinely approve this kind of construction. Thanks in advance for your help!! And of course anyone else who has advice for me, please jump in.