edenstrauss

Hi indira, U'll hv 2 ask yourself if u r prepared to reinstate both rooms to its original HDB layout in the near future should the need arises. U'll never know; when we first bought this current flat 10 yrs ago, we never thought that we would put the rooms back. Regretted buying such a flat after staying in it for 10 yrs. Different property agents tell us different things. But in my opinion, it'll be very difficult to sell unless there are positive factors which make potential buyers overlook the downside of amalgamated rooms. e.g. the flat is located in town, central, surrounded by amenities, very accessible by transport, etc. I believe that owners of amalgamated rooms should still be able to sell their flats but the challenge here is how much the buyers would be willing to pay for COV. In my previous owners' case, they had to renew their valuation reports three times before they found naive buyers - like us... we felt like kicking ourselves now that we looked back on our decision to buy the flat. The COV was $11k whereas other flats were fetching COV $20-35K. Apart from the offer from us, they only had another from an Indian buyer, offering COV $2k. The flat was move-in condition without any kitchen cabinets although the quality & workmanship of tiling & fixtures were premium. Still remains move-in condition with minimal reno done becox we have intentions to move on in the near future.

Have you tried Lucky Khoon at Joo Chiat? They carry a huge range of sanitary wares.

I actually thought that the Meet the people session at my GRC would finally exist because election is around the corner. The MPs at our place don't show up at all before the election was announced. But, the neighbours reported that they were told by the town council that the sessions have been "dissolved" until the election is over. Cannot believe it. Not surprising if they see their votes dipping over time. *sigh*

Hi sleek, Thanks for the compliments We're glad that you found it amusing!

Post-mortem comments: Jux some mushy remarks over here... He chided me for calling him a silly old man, ambitious freak, smart aleck, etc when he had difficulties in dismantling & reassembling THE MAMMOTH... And eventually saluted him as a HERO on RT after his stunt was successful... He shook his head in disbelief and commented at how fickle women could be with their men. And even snorted like a lizard would with the tsk! tsk! tsk! sound... That was funny... hehehehehe

My bathroom doors are currently covered in plastic sheets to protect them from the dust arising from renovation, but if u would like to take a glimpse of it, please refer to this link: http://www.renotalk.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=40463&view=findpost&p=634843 I would not recommend that you get sandblasted glass doors. If you have decided to get sliding bathroom doors, then go for those that comes with PVC panels. And I would highly recommend Han Fong Aluminium becox they have done a very beautiful job for my vanity drawers under the windows - u can see the photos under my thread on Han Fong Aluminium. The price looks good with customisation & is alot cheaper than the contractors who did my bathroom doors. best wishes!

Getting ready for the BIG day : - Laying Protection over our existing tiling; and - Uploading Raw Materials While we were waiting for the HDB approval to be granted on that Monday, whereby the reno was supposed to kickstart on but didn't materialise, Ah Cheong wasted no time in sending down his staff, whom we nicknamed "Ah-Bui" (becox he was really tall & plump but very young & hardworking) and another foreign worker to lay the ground work for the BIG day - which was to take place the following morning (after the approval was given on that very same afternoon). But both my hubby & myself were genuinely fond of him (we have many nephews of his age) because he is a very quiet worker who goes about getting things done without uttering a word. Quiet, stable and systematic was how we would describe him; and we prefer quiet, diligent workers to those talkative, lazy bones. That's a photo of "Ah Bui" : Corrugated paper (brand new) of a certain thickness had been laid, starting from the groove of our door step, all the way into our bedrooms. It was also extended like a red carpet that ran from the entrance all the way to the passage way where the wall is to be demolished to recreate a door entrance to the new bedroom (which used to be a common room next to the MBR from HDB's original floor plan). Photo of a roll of corrugated paper: Photo of one of the foreign workers putting the corrugated paper in place at the entrance of our MBR: Photo of a long carpet of corrugated paper taken from outside out kitchen entrance Photos of "Ah Bui" managing the taping of corrugated paper inside our MBR: To be continued...

MBR : Its amalgamated appearance, i.e. before reno This is an awful photograph of a section of the super-huge MBR before its reinstatement to its original HDB layout - it's too huge to be captured in the entire photograph: The photo was taken in the afternoon and with its eastern facing, the lighting wasn't sufficient during that hour of the day; so it looked awful in the photo. Even the beautiful flooring had a "dirty" look. So for those of you out there who had beautifully renovated designer homes, I could understand if u had a jaw breaking experience after looking at my threads with such a photograph! hehehehehe Obtaining the approval of the HDB permit The approval for HDB permit for this minor renovation was delayed too because our contractor, Ah Cheong assumed that the approval would be granted within 3 working days so he submitted on a Tuesday the week before the desired week for renovation. The renovation was scheduled to take place on the following Monday (in April 2011) but we were shocked when he told us that the permit hasn't been granted yet. Ah Cheong wanted to ferry us down to HDB branch office but I called the HDB branch office at about 9.15 AM to find out the status. And the technical officer had gone through the stack of mailers, but there were no traces of approval for our HDB permit yet. He had assured us that it shouldn't be an issue because the HDB Architect required time to do the necessary before approving; he also promised us that he would contact me once he received the approval. And it was really nice of him to keep track of the status for us. He called us up on the very same day in the afternoon at about 3.30pm to inform us that the approval had been granted and that the letter to us owners would be on its way out to the post office.

Interviewing contractors & IDs: We had spoken to several IDs and realised in no time that some of them do not take up such assignments because we did not require any interior designing or the job was not significant enough to beef up their profit margins. And that all we required was just structural alteration works, which left out the presence of an ID in our equation. So we figured out that the best bet is to approach the contractors directly and we interviewed more than 20, including those who were highly recommended over RT forum. Finalising our selection of a cement specialist/ contractor: Finally, we shortlisted a cement work specialist (Ah Cheong) who had been introduced to us by our network of friends. He specialises in demolishing of walls, erection of walls, tiling works, plastering, etc i.e. any renovation works that involves cement. Both his tiler and himself visited us sometime towards the last few months of last year - if I didn't recall wrongly, it was in October 2010. He was unable to proceed in taking on any new assignments as his hands were so full that the earliest we could get into the queue was after the Chinese New Year period in year 2011! He had addressed ALL our concerns and had also mentioned the following which we weren't aware of: a) the demolishing would cause the existing tiling and skirting to crack because of the impact of knocking. b) measurements would be taken up to protect our flooring during the renovation works & to minimise tiling cracks. c) red bricks are not allowed because our prefabricated flat would be unable to withstand the weight of having red bricks being piled ontop of hollow block walls. We were shocked because we had the idea that HDB flats were built of red bricks but he had mentioned that the exterior is but not the interior, which are built of hollow blocks, most probabbly the 2.5" type. He gave us an option of using hollow blocks with either 2.5" or 4" thickness. We chose 4" for supposedly better accoustic properties i.e. privacy in blocking out of noise between the 2 bedrooms. A quotation was emailed to us on a separate ocassion after he had worked out details of our assignment, which included an extension of cement platforms in our kitchen. It will cater to the DIY installation of our IKEA kitchen cabinets later on. In view of other errands in the flat which had to be executed before the renovation e.g. fengshui audit, termination of telephone points, rewiring in both bedrooms, etc, there were delays in engaging him. By the time we tried to get hold of him, we were almost feeling disappointed because his work schedule was so packed that... we were almost left out of the queue Not his fault because his business was so good that we could see from his appearance that he was overworked & totally worn out.

Disclaimer: Permission has been sought from our contractor, Ah Cheong for his renovation 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 contractor. 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. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Hey folks, we finally got to the stage of reinstating both bedrooms. Scenario: When we first bought the flat 10 years ago, we felt that it was a marvelous concept that the previous owners brought down the wall between the MBR & the common room next door. As such, we bought over a flat where the MBR and the common room were amalgamated to form one super huge MBR. However, after 10 years down the road, we had aged and there was also a paradigm shift in our mentality. We felt that it was so silly & impractical of us to have bought such a flat. We paid tonnes of $ for a 5-room flat and only to be saddled with just 2 bedrooms (excluding a studyroom which had tempered glass sliding doors & couldn't be considered as a bedroom in proper). We might as well have bought a 3-room flat instead during our younger days as a newly wed couple! Many who had were such buyers like us, had difficulty selling off flats with such layouts eventually. So we had decided to put back both rooms so that they could be used independent of each other.

U can try contacting Han Fong Aluminium from Ang Mo Kio. They have beautiful workmanship & are reasonably priced. best wishes.

Here are extra shots of him dismantling & putting away our super-King sized bedframe measuring at 190cm x 200cm. It was our matrimonial bed which we bought from Barang Barang in year 2000 when we first got married. It was made of solid wood and is so sturdy, heavy that we used a DIY trolley to wheel its headboard into the same bedroom which is currently housing THE MAMMOTH. Both of us were itching to replace the bedframe when we visited furniture retailers but there was simply no chances becox it's still doing well even after 10 years. It looked brandnew without any scratches, scuffmarks. No cracks at all even though my flat is subjected to the hot afternoon sun.

And the accents of THE MAMMOTH at its new location, including Crabtree & Evelyn's drawer liners which had a thick waxy layer on the reverse side, which would last for a very very long time without disintegrating: IKEA's MALLA series of boxes and storage systems with compartments for storing away some of my towels, pillow cases, accessories, etc: And finally, my clothings, bags, haircare, etc To pen-off in conclusion of this stressful episode of relocating such heavy furnishings, we are keeping our fingers crossed that this will be the first & last time of attempting such dangerous stunts.

Here comes the HERO's photos while he nailed them in place: And there comes the railings for clothes, which were indeed made of very very high quality stainless steel. Not only were there no rust spots after 10 years in a bedroom that is frequently airconditioned & with a toilet, it was able to withstand the weight of all my clothes which were bursting out of THE MAMMOTH: My hubby installing the sliding doors: The wooden paneled doors had to be adjusted on both sides using allen keys to that the drawers at the centre compartment could be drawn out easily without crashing into the metal frame of the sandblasted glass door. But while he was at it, he shoo-ed me out of the bedroom as my nagging & fussing was too much of a bad distraction. So no chance for taking any snapshots of it. At last, the finished product: THE MAMMOTH reinstated at its new location!

Eventually, he sent me down on an errand of buying tea for him. And when I returned from the trip, I was surprised to see that he managed to rectify the alignment of The MAMMOTH's frame. So here comes the photos of the installation process... My hubby's attempt in realigning the vertical panels flanking both sides of the frame: Managing to get the alignment rectified: There were "roofing" gaps seen between the boards on the back of the frame and its rooftop as shown in the photos below: But this was easily solved when my hubby adjusted the boards in sliding them upwards and nailing them in place with tiny nails - they looked really fine in dimension.

The installation process wasn't as terrible & scary as the dismantling of The Mammoth. However, it wasn't a breeze as well becox it wasn't as straight forward as we thought it was. After my hubby set the base down onto its new location i.e. in the existing common room where the storeroom door opens from within, we realised that it was odd that the top of the cabinet couldn't be aligned to the vertical panels that formed the frame of The Mammoth. This is the photo of the top of The Mammoth where you can see that there are metal screws sitting on it. My hubby had explained to me that those metal screws served as the male components which will hold the vertical panels together to form most of the wooden cabinets frames. Anyways, during this process of dismantling & assembling, we were both so stressed up becox The Mammoth was so bulky and heavy and this was indeed my hubby's first attempt in doing such stuff. I started nagging at him becox I didn't agree to a DIY stunt in the first place. And it was a terrible relief when he managed to crawl out from under THE MAMMOTH after it was "timber-fallen" when he told me to push it down. I felt that he should have hired a professional instead. So during his stunts, it was also a session of shouting matches between the 2 of us.

To illustrate how good the quality of The Mammoth is even though it is 10 years old, these photos show the 4 drawers which are lined with glass panels on the front:

This photo features the supposedly heavy-duty rollers of the sandblasted glass door of The Mammoth: We discovered that the strip of dust-guard (not sure what it's known as but it's for keeping out lizards & whatever that would crawl in between the gaps) lining the sandblasted glass door is peeling off as the glue holding it there had hardened and disintegrated with age. So my hubby had applied a thin layer of Kangaroo brand glue which is also commonly used by carpenters for sticking formica boards onto wooden furnitures. The glue quality seems to be pretty good becox the dust guard had a sturdy hold onto the metal frame & thus far, it hadn't peeled off yet:

This was how his shorts looked like after he successfully dismantled the mammoth of a wardrobe: I'll nickname this giant wardrobe The MAMMOTH becox of its size Here are photos of some components of The MAMMOTH after it had been taken apart by my hubby... The 2 panels of wooden sliding doors: The sandblasted glass panel (sliding door) which still looked beautiful without any stains even after 10 years: The base and sides of the wardrobe:

After covering with all our furnishings and personal belongings with Nippon's Plastic Drop Cloth as illustrated in the following thread: http://www.renotalk.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=40270&st=0&p=632883&fromsearch=1entry632883 , we moved on to one of the most difficult task of bringing down the wardrobe which we bought from Barang Barang during their good old days in year 2000. This was a feat accomplished by my hubby becox it was a mammoth of a wardrobe even during such times - at 94"(W) x 86"(H) x 27"(D). I almost have to dial 995 for an ambulance when he was stuck below the cabinet frame when it landed directly on him after he commanded me to push it down with all my strength!!! And the quality and workmanship of those days were relatively impressive becox they lasted for eons. It was nothing like the IKEA quality that u see in their showrooms now becox our version from Barang Barang back in year 2000, had a very high threshold for heavy weights. When it was first delivered to us by Barang Barang, the furniture establishment had to mobilise 1 installer and 2 assistants to get the item installed manually with powered drills in our extra-large MBR (master bedroom). Now that we have decided to restore both MBR and common room to its original layout instead of its amalgamated state, we were compelled to relocate this giantic wardrobe. My hubby had decided to take a risk in taking it apart on his own. I had my objections becox it was dangerous & it risk damaging my wardrobe. I had also questioned how this is possible becox none of us had carpentry experience. And I wished I was able to take photos of him bringing down the giantic wardrobe but I didn't have any chances as my hands were required to help him out during the dismantling

Hi toonie, I think there are very high chances that your carpenter may not want to accept such an assignment becox they would prefer that you use their materials completely. But you can still try to ask your carpenter if he's willing to do it.

I think you'll either have to live with it or take risks in removing those stains. If they are already denying & disclaiming all responsibilities, chances are they will ignore your calls since you've paid up already.

You should alert your renovation contractor on those stains and request that he remove them instead of doing it on your own. If those stains couldn't be removed, he might want to consider replacing the tile, that's if it is possible.

I went to the Serangoon stadium yesterday. Don't even have a chance to make it to any of the exits/ entrance. It was so packed that... maybe if I'm like the hero in the recent movie "Thor" then I can fly in to watch the rally, with Thor's signature black chuny hammer So we jux loitered around for a while then left. Jux found these rally speeches on WP's website... http://wp.sg/wpge/news/video-gallery/ I noticed that the sound system for their rallies are pretty good. Also saw their blue truck with WP red flags driving around at Jalan Besar this afternoon. The microphone's sytem is not bad too!

Curtains from Spotlight should have a laundry tag sewn on. As such, it should say on those laundry tags as to whether the curtains could be washed with water or dry-cleaned. There is no "cure" to what's happened to your curtains so the only recourse is to either continue using it in its current state or dump it. p/s: Even with those that says dry cleaning is required, regular maintenance is required becox once the dry cleaning is done say, only, after many years of usage, the black-out curtains will turn up with "holes" on the reversed side where the blackout material is weaved in; and you see plenty of "twinkle little stars" all over the curtains. We intend to go for a double track; one strictly for a blackout piece and the other a thinner piece of curtain with designs on the fabric. The hotelier's style of blackout curtains.