josephsbs

PARQUET/CARPENTRY & STONEWORKS After the flooring & walls are decided, next is to sort out the woodworks and carpentry stuffs. Instead of cluttering the kitchen with various cabinets/furnitures, we've decided to go plain. We'll just have a long bottom cabinet with washing machine on its left, a "buy from Ikea" cabinet and refrigerator on the its right. What's on the wall is only a chimney hood, some wall-mounted shelves and a wall mounted fan for ventilation, at least for the time being. As usual, bottom cabinet is of laminate finish with ABS trimming, soft closing hinges, etc. As for the top, we've decided to go for Caesarstone quartz that supposedly comes with 10 years agent warranty. My contractor initially tried to push for granite but I stood firm on getting a quartz top So what's so special about quartz countertops? Pic of initial kitchen layout... later amended to do without the Ikea cabinet, bottom cabinet extend all the way to the refrigerator. Caesarstone chosed... 6600 Nougat We have initially toyed with the idea of converting Room 2 or Dining area (false walls & sliding doors required) into a walk-in wardrobe but later dropped the idea, choosing instead to use Room 2 as a Study room with a long Wardrobe running along one side of the wall; approx 11 feet long with a total of 8 doors (4 for me and 4 or me wifey). Room 2 & 3 are supposedly for our children when they grow up but until then, we get to use them. Room 3 still reserved for my kids. This arrangement also allows us to save some monies Except that it is unusually long, there's actually nothing much to share about the laminate finish wardrobe which comes at $260 pfr (market price for a basic unit usually starts from $240 onwards, depending on the design and materials used). The last piece of customised furniture is the vanity top/unit in the master bathroom; we decided not to have any in the common bathroom. Also using Caesarstone quartz, it's a "wall mount" hanging type (about 8" above floor) and using top mounted glass bowl basin. Was considering to use bottom mount basin cos that'll give more storage space in the cabinet. However, decided to stick with glass bowl cos it looks better So where does the parquet fits in? I'm using parquet at 2 places, a "cozy cum laze around corner" platform next to the living room windows and at dining area (due to the missing tiles described in earlier post). While the dining area is more like no choice, I've always wanted a cozy corner where I can just lie down (not on sofa) without feeling the chill from the floor tiles. Reading, watch TV, sun or moon bathing, etc... shiok only lah Will post pics later.

MASONRY WORKS Among the biggest job items in a renovation project is masonry works, or floor & wall tiles to be more specific. Our initial plan was to hack all floors and kitchen/toilet walls and have them changed as follows: living, dining, kitchen and toilet floors ... homogeneous tilesall bedrooms ... parquet or some wooden floorHomogeneous tiles are easy, just have to pop by any of the major tile suppliers' showroom and whoala... lots of choices available, only limited by budget. We went to the showroom of Sim Bee Huat (http://www.sbh.com.sg/) at Toh Guan and spent few hours just looking at tiles; remember to go 2nd floor to take a look at some mock-up designs. Then headache comes when choosing wooden flooring. We checked out solid wood, engineered wood, parquet and even resilient floor (HERF from Evorich) which are supposed to be "pee friendly" but seems some options require us to breaks our piggy bank Not willing to break our piggies, we had to work our sums again and again till the day we finally decided to do otherwise. After we got our keys, our contractor (the one whom we finally selected) did a careful check on the existing flooring and recommended that we keep the existing compressed marble floor. His views were that the floors are still in good condition (a good polish would do the trick to make it swee swee) and no point changing from compressed marble to normal homogeneous tile; even if compressed marble is of cheaper/lower grade marble, it is still better than the usual homogeneous floor tiles. But if we intend to change to better quality tiles, that's another story. For this, I give credit to our contractor for a good piece of advise, helping us save money from not embarking on unnecessary renovations. Not sure about yours, but I won't be surprised that there'll be lots of contractors who would gladly hack up and relay the floor for a quite a few thousand dollars more. Pic showing living room windows and condition of floor... Heeding his advise, we decided to keep the compressed marble flooring and do the following: living & all bedrooms floor ... existing compressed marble tilesdining area floor ... parquetkitchen and toilet floors ... homogeneous tilesWhy then did we change the flooring at dining area? This we kinda had no choice cos after removing the false wall between the dining and living area, that section below that wall is "hollow" (a hole), no tiles. We tried to find similar tiles (previous owner didn't keep any spare tiles) to fill the hole and explored other options such as using pebbles, putting furniture over it, etc. Unfortunately, nothing seems suitable and to our liking. In the end, decided to cut out the area and lay parquet over (approx 2mx2m). Pic showing the hole just below the false wall... Some recommendations to those starting reno soon if doing false walls, remember to ask contractor to also lay tiles below the "wall", i.e. do not leave a hole in case you want to change your design and remove the wall few years down the road. Else, you'll have same problem as I did.if doing kitchen top & bottom cabinets, remember to ask contractor to also lay tiles on the walls behind them, in case you want to change your cabinets to smaller sized ones or removing them altogether without having problem with missing wall tiles. BTW, we decided not to have to cabinets on kitchen walls to have a simple clean look.if doing built in cabinets/wardrobes, remember to ask contractor to also lay skirting even though they can't be seen (behind the cabinets/wardrobes), in case you want to remove the furnitures altogether without replacement in future More to follow...

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First purchase... Air Conditioning The existing unit came with a Panasonic non-inverter system 3 aircon (master bedroom and 2 rooms); tested and they look and worked well. Unfortunately, I have a big issue with the layout of the cables/pipings... they're simply ugly and obstructive to furnitures. And so headaches: To keep the existing good condition aircon system, or spend on a new inverter aircon system? After much deliberation, we decided to redo the whole cooling for the house, mainly due to the ugly pipings. I want the pipings to be out of sight as far as possible and, not obstructive to furnitures... they're going up Aircon for living room or just the rooms? Tried asking around and found supporters in both camps. Eventually took my wifey's choice to have aircon for living room as well, since we're at top floor and it could be quite hot during "summer".On the recommendation of our contractor, we contacted Kaisoon Aircon and purchased the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries System 4 (3+1) with: 1x SCM803x SRK251x SRK60upgrade to Armaflex class 1 insulationsteel stand for outdoor compressor unit (they say can reduce vibration/noise)trade in old system 3 aircon for 3 years parts warranty5 years workmanship warrantystandard MHI warranty applies Frankly, we made the mistake of not doing our homework enough when changing the aircon. Kaisoon's pricing isn't the cheapest as we realised few days later that some vendors (including Gain City) offered lower prices for the same MHI System 4. Consolation is, the price is lower than that of Coolserve. At the moment, I'm just hoping that the extras we paid could be "compensated" by good workmanship from Kaisoon. bo-pian Added: Now that the aircon is up and running, I have to say the Kaisoon did a good job installing the aircon, but after being f***ed by my contractor real good. Whahaha... yes, my contractor f***ed the KS people real good for almost messing things up. We had a piping plan/design which was discussed and "endorsed" by their manager but the workers came and strongly recommended the easier/uglier way of laying the piping. WTF! Good thing I dun have to do the f***ing, my contractor did it and got things done. If you were to see the pics below, you'ld realise that my aircon pipes are mostly "out of sight"... that's the "neat" design we wanted. Added: Many of our friends are asking why we didn't get Daikin... I was really tempted, but decided to go try MHI as the specs looks really good, money for value stuffs. The aircon vendor also mentioned that Daikin parts could be rather expensive, could be an issue when the warranties expire. Added: A friend told me that the price I paid was not a "kotok" price, just that I'm not enjoying the current promotions given by other dealers... sigh.

Finding a renovation contractor/ID is the next tedious and tiring phase... it indeed is After a few weeks of deliberations and meetings with about 5 contractors/ID, we finally decided to hand the project to the contractor that renovated for my sister few months earlier. We were lucky that some of the ID brought us to see their current projects so that we could have a better idea of their deliverables. Recommendations from friends and RenoTalk forumers is one thing, a major factor is my familiarity with this contractor's sub-cons' workmanship, both good and bad ones. With this in mind, we made special requests which the contractor agreed (on gentlemen's agreement, no black-n-white though). For example, I specified that we wanted the same subcon that did the tiling and carpentry works for my sis's unit but a NO NO for the subcon that did the plastering and painting job. Having agreed on those and the quotation (after a few rounds of revisions), we signed on the dotted line. Added: Some forumers have PMed me for my contractor's info, thus decided to put it here for easy reference. M Image Interior Design & Renovation 280 Bukit Batok East Ave 3, #01-335 S650280 Tel: 65606800 http://www.mimage.sg/ (boss is Mr Michael) Among the first thing to crack our head after appointing the contractor is "what theme or designs we're looking for?" After a few discussions with wifey, we decided on something really simple but cozy; we kinda like those country resort feel but not too "woody", also nothing too grand or too modern that makes the house difficult to upkeep. Thinking back, I'm really lucky that my wifey and me have similar thoughts about the deco we want, that kind of feeling when we step in after a hard day's work. I've heard of couples disagreeing about what they want in the reno and had many days of arguments over that. I'm a lucky chap Personally, I'm a wood fan... ok, solid wood furnitures to be exact so we'll be expecting may woody looking furnitures instead of colourful ones. Many of the furnitures we see at malls/shops are made of MDF nowadays and I've decided to minimise them in our place. After surfing around, I think that if we look around enough, there could still be affordable and reasonably priced teak furnitures around. Burmese teak are definitely out of my budget, Indonesian teak is good enough as long as the workmanship is ok. I've also targeted some furnitures made of the more economical materials such as Nyatoh wood.

Finally, we've got a place we can proudly call our home, our love nest. In some sense, finding and deciding on this resale unit isn't really easy due to our desired criteria, as below: 5 room corner unithigh floorunblocked viewnear MRT but don't want to hear the MRT screeching sound whenever they pass bynear amenitiesLuckily, we were not bothered about existing renovations as we were prepared to re-renovate "everything", thus the focus falls on location, as long as the unit is not structurally modified/unsound. After few weeks of looking around, we found and settled for a unit that met our requirements; not ideal but that's what we can get our hands on at that time. It's a top floor unit, having the good of not having to experience inconsiderate upper floor neighbors (dripping laundry, floor noise, etc) but the bad of having sun-baked roofs or even water leakage (this we can get town council to resolve). Seriously hoped the dual-layer "sun friendly" roofs of newer HDB flats works well. Well, a little homework says we're safe cos we can get Town Council to come plug the leak, as compared to having to negotiate with the owner of the floor above us... a little tricky if they are not so cooperative, very tricky when it comes to who pays for the repairs. After another few months of waiting, we got our keys from HDB. Yippieeeee... we're really exited and looking forward to move in. But standing in front of that, is the 2nd largest financial commitment since our marriage, renovations of the Love Nest. Added: Forgot to mention the block is only 5 mins from Boon Lay MRT and all the shopping that's next to it... Jurong Point Added: one of the few things cool factor of the unit... really nice view

went down to hoe kee to check out the very attractive blanco XL9 promotion yesterday but unfortunately, it is too big to fit my kitchen design... sigh

yup you'll find blanco sinks only at hoe kee cos they're brought in solely by hoe kee. i just burnt a hole in my pocket at hoe kee yesterday. initially plan was to get the stuffs i need from a few places/brands such as crizto and genova, but my wife was too tired to run around so decided to take the "plunge of faith" in hoe kee's stuffs/prices... total damage $1.7+K. had wanted very much to buy the made in germany blanco sink but settled for a made in china oulin 8901 (webby listed it as Roz but it's acually an oulin) cos could find a blanco that's suitable; wanted a 2 bowl (1 big, 1 small) but the XL9 is simply tooo big.

Anyone using the Brinno PHV132512 Electronic PeepHole Viewer？ http://www.brinno.com/html/PHV1325.html Saw it at Groupon (still on) and became rather interested ^_^ Feebback or review... anything will be helpful. TIA

like mrheng mentioned, there're restrictions to hacking and tiling works (full height windows too) and a permit from HDB is required. the sub-con you engage should be able apply for you... unless you get the dunno who/where unlicensed sub-cons ba. engaging oneself as "main-contractor" (aka DIY) to renovate one's own house is feasible only when you have the time to coordinate and monitor the works done by the various sub-cons, apart from the know what, where, who, when, how, etc. i did a partial DIY cos couldn't commit the time yet want to keep the budget down. the ID and myself worked out a mutually agreed scheme: (a) i provided the design (internet has lots of ideas/samples), including first cut drawings; ID gave some recommendations along the way. there're many free/paid 3D interior design software available but i decided to invest in US$49.95 for the "Live Interior 3D Standard Edition" (good enough for a DIY project). http://www.belightsoft.com/products/liveinterior/stdedition.php (b) sourced and negotiated with my own contacts such as: ... system 4 aircon ... kitchen bottom cabinet worktop (finally settled for Caesarstone classico quartz) ... lightings ... kitchen & toilet fittings/accessories ... windows ... plastering, painting & wall papers i find the sub-con, they coordinate with my ID. even when i didn't engage/buy from them eventually, their prices are useful as benchmarks for negotiation. here's the tricky issue. having slashed the ID's profitability, i'm also worried about whether the renovations would be done properly or if cheapo stuffs would be used instead. apart from being specific (e.g. i specified to use Legrand switches/sockets, ), i decided to cut some slack and accept the ID's quotes for items/jobs as long as they are reasonable (around there kind of thingy). give some and take some lah... pp open door do business sure must earn something one ^_^ just sharing what i went through... quite tiring but learnt lots from the exercise

Hi Tim, I'm looking for a System 4 (3+1) Inverter R410 aircon system. Could you please recommend/quote me a few options for my 5 room HDB flat. Went GC yesterday and was told that: ... better to get a FCU with around 18-22k Btu for the living room ... use 0.5" Armaflex class 1 insulation, copper pipes BTW, what's the difference between Mitsubishi Electric and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries... which is better? Thank you