edenstrauss

Hi folks, Although the case is more or less under control now that we alerted NEA, town council & HDB, I would nevertheless like to share these photographs. I forwarded this to all 3 government entities as mentioned in the above paragraph. And if u have the patience, please read on as I narrate my story of these yukky episodes involving pigeons. WARNING! As gruesome-looking photographs are included in this thread, viewer's discretion is advised because it might just turn over your lunch, dinner or breakfast if you have just eaten.

I think the bangladeshi cleaner whose incharged of that block might be associated with the murder case since he has access to the keys to rooftop. And geez... I'm wondering if the water tank is located directly above the highest unit? If it is, then it must be really scary to be staying in there. Now, I'm having 2nd thoughts of staying at the highest floor... was still planning to buy a flat on the highest floor in the near future

Hi endlssorrow, I've uploaded photographs of YONTAT DOORS under my thread here: http://www.renotalk.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=40652&st=0&p=637251&fromsearch=1entry637251 If u r interested, u can take a look at some of the photographs & read thru some of their practices with clients, esp on installation fees. they've not installed the bedroom door for me yet; supposed to be sometime next week. I'll upload photos of the installation process & the door they deliver to me when they r available. As for toilets doors, I would like to make a personal recommendation of HAN FONG ALUMINIUM @ ang mo kio. u can take a look at 2 other threads I uploaded on what they did for our home.

Hi u r most welcome! Yes I will PM u the contacts of this contractor right away. But if u need ID services, i.e. interior designing, I also can recommend you one really good one, which I dare to guarantee in terms of service & workmanship - becox they've been tried & tested by those in our social circle. jux let me know.

Photographs of the dual-panel kitchen door when installation is completed: VERDICT: We are very happy to have our kitchen door installed by HAN FONG ALUMINIUM PTE LTD becox they did a wonderful job as they've done so for our vanity drawers under our windows! Highly recommended if anybody requires any aluminium doors, windows. They provide shower screens in both glass & acrylic too!

Hi welcome to my thread! I'm so happy to hear from you Yes I know who you are now & please continue to stay in touch with me I enjoyed our mini-reno stint with ah cheong & his team mates becox both my hubby & myself have had such valuable opportunity to learn so many things from them. We learnt many technical things from their team, through the way things were done & explanations given. And indeed, we have the honour to learn from maestros (great masters in their industry) like yourself, Ah Cheong & his team mates. But both my hubby & myself are very sympathetic towards them becox it's indeed manual labour. It involved plenty of hard work. And we marvel at their perseverance in having to commute from JB to Singapore every single day. All in the name of earning a livelihood. They have done us alot of good, not just with their workmanship but we started counting our blessings becox we realised that we were alot more priviledged & fortunate than them. I simply cannot imagine myself or my hubby doing what Ah Cheong & his team mates have done. I cannot even lift up the demolishing hammer, let alone hack off the walls with it. And we also realised that such manual labour has its own life span of worthiness becox aging is a factor too! Nobody can expect an old man to be playing with the hammer anymore so many had called for an early retirement. So we believe that this type of occupation is somewhat shortlived. Poor things! Depending on their clients (owners), it might even turn out to be a thankless job. There will always be all kinds of clients in any industry. So if our renovators are able to do a decent job, we are grateful to them. U would agree with me that reno is very stressful and all the more when we do not have an ID or project manager to fall back on, so I get "hit" firsthand with anything. It's very "xiong" (meaning for hectic & stressful in hokkien language). We were genuinely sorry to see them slogging to earn the $. which is indeed very hard-earned. The guy who built our walls - ah ming, poor man. we saw that it was very tough work. But he was very committed on his job & hardworking too. Very monotonous & manual, involving alot of handiwork. And when we looked at the amount we were billed, we wondered how the entire team earn enough $ at all. Anyways, I still want to reiterate that we are eternally grateful to everybody (yourself inclusive), for making my mini-reno a great success! P/S: To all readers, Please do not underestimate the scale of our project here on this thread becox it involved a great deal of technical skills & connections in getting things right the very first time. And especially we are owners who are still staying in the flat while the reno is on-going AND when our tiling is already in place. Alot of "gong-fu" is required to do such a brilliant job!

More photographs of the installation process:

As we had a very good experience with HAN FONG ALUMINIUM PTE LTD who customised & installed our vanity drawers below the windows for our flat, we bought our kitchen doors from this company. (To view photographs of vanity drawers by HAN FONG ALUMINIUM PTE LTD, please look at the following link: http://www.renotalk.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=39552&st=0&p=625118&fromsearch=1entry625118) I would also wish to take this opportunity to highlight to ALL readers that since we are not experts from the industry, please do pardon us if we had made erroneous deductions of equipments/ products used by the aforesaid company. Here are some photos of the installation process: Actually, I'm not sure what this gadget is known as but he used that to hold the "stopper" in place & there were nails on the stopper after the "stapler gun" was used. We noticed that there were some spots & stains on the frame of the kitchen doors & were pleasantly surprised when the assistant to the installer had taken the initiative to polish the aluminium frame with Autosol prior to mounting the doors onto the track.

After the wrathful episode of a "SNOW" storm being stirred up in the kitchen as shown in my previous thread below: http://www.renotalk.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=40463&view=findpost&p=636252 We were able to install a double-tracked kitchen door at long last. For the benefit of readers who haven't read about the "SNOW" storm created in my kitchen, I wish to repeat myself here in that the cement platform (in our kitchen) was in excess length-wise. And because there weren't enough space for a single panelled kitchen door, we had to install a dual panelled version. This requires a wider sliding track since there are 2 panels of doors sliding across it in the same direction. As such, we had engaged our renovator, Ah Cheong & his team to demolish inches off the existing cement platform so as to accomodate to the double bottom track.

Disclaimer: Permission has been granted by Han Fong Aluminium Pte Ltd for their installation works at my home to be featured in this thread. Kindly note that this thread is strictly for the purpose of sharing my humble & objective views of works and services provided by the aforesaid company. And not an advertising platform. Reader's discretion is therefore sought when viewing this thread. In view of issues pertaining to every individual's privacy, facial identities are witheld from the photographs featured in this thread. Thank you for your kind understanding.

I think the market has cooled off quite abit. try to get the best deal. But do take note of the "history" of resale flats. e.g. be wary of those flats with freshly or newly painted gates & doors - there are chances that they might have been harassed by loan sharks. check the neighbours' gates, including those directly above & below. Those loan sharks are alot worse than ghosts according to a friend of ours who had bought both of such flats. have u ever thought of applying for a new flat from HDB? If u can, try to take advantage of that. We were dumbos, didn't & were told that if we were to sell off this current one & purchase a flat direct from HDB, we have to pay levy becox of the first-timer's subsidies applied to our current flat. *sigh*

If you are referring to General Electric (GE), I believe that silicon coming from this brand ought to be reliable & good. I'm not sure what you are using it for but the contractors, Han Fong Aluminium, who installed my vanity drawers & kitchen doors had been using General Electric's silicon glues. They looked good to me. As for what versions they represent, I have had no idea as I'm only a layman & a client. All I noticed was that those white tubes of silicon uses up really fast!

**removed due to unauthorized contents.

If you can, try to get one that doesn't require a restoration of rooms. Unless there are special reasons like you really liked the flat or it's near the amenities or say, parents' home, etc. In fact, I couldn't help it even till today, but regretted purchasing this current flat. We were the silly ones who fell for it when the rest shun or we weren't clever enough to pick up signs of its lack of popularity among buyers when the other Indian buyer offered a $2k COV. It goes to show that the Indian buyer was very property-savvy: at least, he knows what this flat was worth *sigh*

I would like to add this other used furniture dealer who buys & sells 2nd hand furnitures. However, I have never bought anything from them altho' I've sold some furnitures to them - didn't fetch much though... but understandable becox they need to mark up & earn from those items too. New Best City Furniture @ 6289-3711

If you aren't sticky about second handed furnitures, you could try buying them from such shops. They do have good bargains from time to time.

Hi indira, I PM-ed u Ah Cheong's contacts already. Have u bought the flat u've mentioned earlier on? The one with amalgamated rooms?

I am also intending to get blackout curtains but I wouldn't get those which is a 2-in-1 like what u bought from spotlight. I'm going to get curtain makers to do it separately. Meaning that the blackout layer would be independent of the actual curtain. It could run on another curtain track or be attached to the actual curtain using velcro. If the quality for the blackout material is good, then it should last for a very long time even after it has been brought down for washing.

This is how one of the fabricated walls & the door frame looked like now (20 days from completion date of fabricated walls i.e. DAY 23 of reno start date): [Note: walls in the photos looked distorted becox of the angle in which they were taken based on natural lighting in the bedrooms. Actual walls were upright & very straight as seen in earlier photos in this thread.] There are another 10 more days or so to go before we could prime it for painting. But we will be shelfing the painting of these walls further becox we still cannot find time to DIY painting & many other stuff in our flat yet. We're also waiting for the "joints" to crack, which until today, we haven't seen any yet. So to play safe in ensuring that the wall is further aired dry, we shall wait beyond 1 month before we start painting. And this gives us time to stretch our muscles & relax too! (We'll also upload photos showing how they looked like eventually after they've been painted. [photos pending upload] Meanwhile, I would be starting a new thread on bedroom doors & door knobs from Yontat Doors & Hardware Pte Ltd. For those who are interested in reading up on this new thread & looking at some photographs of their doors, please visit my thread at this link: http://www.renotalk.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=40652&st=0&gopid=637288entry637251 And I've been talking about installing sliding kitchen doors from Han Fong Aluminium in this thread. Please refer to these links if you are interested in taking a look at what Han Fong Aluminium has done for us: http://www.renotalk.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=40661&st=0&p=637398&fromsearch=1entry637398 (Topic: Vanity Drawers By Han Fong Aluminium Pte Ltd) http://www.renotalk.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=39552&st=0&p=625118&fromsearch=1entry625118

Payment was then collected over weekends after he had inspected what his team had done for our flat. An extremely busy but responsible person. Post-Renovation Advice: He had also given us post-renovation advice and we are very grateful for having benefited from his initiatives. (A) Timing of painting fabricated walls Ah Cheong had strongly recommended that we paint the newly fabricated walls a month after its completion by Ah Ming. That's if we could spare the waiting time - we could since it's DIY. As this would allow the walls more time to "cure" completely. I imagined that since it is freshly built, after the water evaporates from the walls, they would definitely start shrinking abit. And that is when we will actually know how good the quality of the fabricated wall is... (B) How to deal with cracks at the "Joint" edges Ah Cheong had assured us that there will be no cracks coming from the smooth & flat surfaces of the fabricated walls except the edges where the fabricated walls are "joined" to the existing (HDB) wall when the wall cures (contraction as most fluid contents would have evaporated from the walls by then). We are to use brown silicon (I saw it in hardware shops & it comes in the form of a brown putty that's used for sealing up cracks in walls; also shown in NIPPON's online videos) to mend the cracks at the "joints" prior to repainting it. http://www.nipponpaint.com.sg/advice/diy-painting-tips-videos/mending-walls [photos pending upload - still waiting for those "cracks" @ joint areas to appear] © Using an oil-based primer And he had also given clear instructions that the wall must be painted with an oil-based sealer prior to a fresh coat of paint, etc etc etc. We decided to purchase a 20-litre calibration of NIPPON's Vinilex 5170 to prime the fabricated walls in the bedrooms, all the rooms & the ceiling. We are hoping that the painting would last longer even though the old coats of paint turned patchy after 8 years of application. [photos pending upload - had it stored away deep beneath other stuff... out of reach at the moment. but once it's been "freed" from the mountain of items, will upload a photo of it here] Our verdict for Ah Cheong's services & workmanship is SUPERB & EXCELLENT! And should we require reno services in the near future, he would definitely be a top priority in our list of renovators.

Hi securitycamera, I would like to know the country of origin for your security cams. thanks.

Now that Ah Cheong has finally completed our mini-renovation, he had arranged for his worker to drop by at our place a couple of days after to clear away all their personal effects such as equipments, unused raw materials, etc. The worker was very careful when clearing away heavy stuff. And he did a very thorough clean-up of our MBR prior to peeling all the corrugated paper off our floor tiles.

The door installer was called in at the last stage of Ah Cheong's renovation at our home to dismantle an existing HDB door from one of our common bedrooms and re-install it in the newly restored common bedroom. This same door company who was supposed to send down an installer, provided the door frame earlier on. However, it was quite a pain making this door company have their installers keep to their appointments when we required a switching of door. Anyways, the door installer reinstalled the door for us and since he did a decent job when he finally arrived, it is case closed but we would avoid using this door company in the near future. As for the replacement of our bedroom door, we have decided on Yontat Doors & will be starting a separate thread on this. So keep a look out for it if you are interested in reading more about our shopping trip for wooden bedroom doors

Photos of new skirtings... The contrast is quite minimal when the new tiles were used as skirtings. Because Ah Cheong had done a very good job in demolishing the wall, none of the existing floor tiles require replacement apart from the skirtings that were flanking both sides of the new door frame as seen in the first 2 photos under post #29 of this thread. In fact, we were left with 3 pieces of spare tiles!

The final outcome of the tiling at the entrance of the newly restored common bedroom as shown in the photo below: A similar looking ceramic tile was bought by us after searching through with many tile shops. The new tiles had a similar print to our existing tiles but it has a cream-coloured base and a pinkish undertone to it. However, we are pretty happy with the outcome because the difference between the existing tiles and new tiles weren't as obvious unless visitors peer at them very carefully.