Makanology

Yes I think all those who have engaged and complained about Alan fell into the same trap - engaging someone who got too popular. I believe in the early days, Alan must have been really solid as a contractor but as his fame grew, he probably got greedy and took on too many jobs at a time. At any point of time, he was doing 10 homes! With that, he couldn't give equal attention to each job and he kept mixing up & missing details. We engaged him last April - June. During the same period, the number of negative reviews were increasing. We kept close contact with his other clients like Soo May, Jaykr, mentos etc to filter out the bullsh*t he told us. That got him scared as he never expected us to compare notes. This is the strength of forums and how it can group people together. We are so glad of the support and encouragement given. The strange thing is to date, we have never met any forumer, not even those that were affected by Alan. A-ha now I hope his legacy lives on distastefully on the forum as it is time that future & new house-owners see the truth of his 'promises' and 'professionalism'.

The black framed shower screen is cool! Also like that you have chosen tofu tiles with black grout for your kitchen walls. You are staying very true to the black & white theme!

Wah hope you can survive our tblog, too long and too much grievance about our contractor. I would prefer our first tblog to be filled with good stuff of our renovation... Oh well, sh*t happens. Hope your renovation journey be very good & smooth-sailing P/S: we are eyeing a Street Fighter Hello Kitty series. What's available now is the plush version but we are hoping a 3 inches vinyl version will be launched also... Crossing fingers & toes!

Oh I love love your kitchen with all the black window frames and how they open up the space. Love your apron sink a lot and also your kitchen cabinets. I can imagine you spending a lot of time in this part of the house

Sounds like a big collection! No wonder you need 9ft display cabinet! Will you be adding backlight so that the full cabinet will be illuminated? Haha we will be staying glued to your tblog to see the end result always nice to meet a toy collector online!

Could this be an industry practice? But for what purpose?

Welcome to RT and glad to know another toy collector! I collect limited edition Hello Kitty vinyl 3 inches and plush 8 inches figurines. My hubby collects Warhammer mostly. What do you collect?

Hi your gut instinct is right. Black would look nicer and if the big wall behind is cream/ light yellow, the black bird cages would accentuate that wall and make it the feature wall! Using warm light instead of white light would complete the whole ambience!

Hi we are staying behind the rather famous 24hr Teochew porridge stall (near to Swiss Cottage & St Anthony). We went to view 2 other 3I units at the condo opposite Bukit Gombak MRT Station also. But we chose our current unit due to the condition & environment of the whole area/ block, profile of residents and the space for a 3A. If you notice, 3A units have squarish living rooms which make it easier to place the furniture and you can still opt for a L-shape sofa. The 3I units, I think are not pre-fab which gives flexibility to demolish walls but overall their layouts are too 'skinny', even the bedrooms.

Hi Trish, welcome to Renotalk and we happen to own the exact 3A layout in Bukit Gombak (来来，nice area! Lol) Yes the walls are pre-fab so no demolishing of walls are allowed. But the space is still pretty manageable and having a store room helps a lot! Can keep all the bulky items eg luggage, vacuum cleaner etc away from sight!

Aki teething now. Buy more chew toys to distract him from your hands and furniture (hopefully not!) Usually after the teething phase, they will my nibble our hands & feet so don't worry, this will pass! Yes we discovered more of the shoddy work left behind by our infamous Alan contractor. It is super sian especially when we think we have finally settled in and then problems popped up. Just an hour ago, we discovered our washing machine leaking - eeeks! A-ha your hubby is following our Instagram account? What is his? Does he post tons of Aki photos?

Anyways inthechouse, you are at the last leg of your renovation right? Jia you! Really happy to hear that yours went fairly smoothly. Luckily your boss and work help

Hi inthechouse, this is Makan. You must be one of the rare few ones who have a normal experience with Alan. Just like Astarz, I was the one who whatsapped Alan regularly to update what his sub-cons completed, PRAISING and THANKING him very, very politely in both English and Chinese. Knowing that Alan reads Renotalk, there was ALWAYS the fear that he will do a shoddy job for us if he realized we were airing his attitude and 'professionalism' online. However, as we approached towards the deadline that he promised but never made any effort to meet, we got desperate and upset at him. He was avoiding our whatsapp messages and phone calls. That was why we took things in our own hands and coordinated the leftover works ourselves daily from 930am - 6pm!

Hi jayque, this is Mrs E aka Makan. U know something? Even for payment, we went out of our way by writing his bank account number on our cheque and dropping it at the bank deposit box for him. Sometimes being nice doesn't mean it is a guarantee that we will be treated the same:( Hope your renovation has completed or if not, progressing with as little hiccups as possible!

Ahh Aki is so cute now! Teething! Hope he is not biting your furniture? But you guys are so patient, teaching him the balancing trick. We gave up teaching our Leia cos we are busy DIY-ing/ rectifying our house due to shoddy work by our contractor. Also because we got lazy

Hi hi how is Aki now? he must have grown quite a bit!

E here, I contacted Ah Meng, the mason master, as he usually works hand in hand with the plumbers and he was shocked to hear that. He will get Ah Beng to call back but apparently still nothing as yet. The pipe connector/adaptor is pretty difficult to acquire here in SG as most faucet sets come with their own tubes ready for fitting. What troubles me is that despite the faucet set comes with everything, they didn't use everything because: 1. Like jus4fun said, they are so used to using their own, using something else makes their work longer and tedious. 2. They switch those parts which are deemed "unnecessary" for their own benefits since we don't need the hot/cold water tubes or even know how to fix it. The best part is that they charged Alan for the "extra bits" used and took ours away just so they probably can "re-use" and "re-charge" on someone's else renovation project. Guess who is paying for it in the end? As we speak, I m trying to find/remember the name of the plumbing company so that i can bring this up to them and get back all my hot/cold water tubes likewise post their name here for reference. Probably after reading this, Alan will probably be laughing at the lot of us for buying from overseas but i ll give him the :finger: because his idiotic plumber started being a smartass and use his own fitting causing all these indirect problems despite crystal clear instructions.

E here, Anyway as I was going to fix the 3M Undersink filtrete system, to my horror I realised that the stupid plumbers didn't use the original parts as intended. They didn't return me the hot/cold water tubing for all three sets of Delta faucets. Now in place, they gave me some cheapo tubing which totally can't fit my 3M tubing due to the difference in screw threads. I went to our local hardware shop and I m on quite good terms with the shopkeeper who told me that the original tubing that comes with it is quite costly and hard to find. Although I did remember telling Ah Beng the plumber that I don't need hot/cold water, but I I didn't recall telling him to use his own and keep mine. Since we are using cold water, it doesn't matter whether both tubes are hot or cold because both can still be used regardless. Bloody dumb retards. Now I have to go hunt high and low for the tubes that fit all because some itchy fingers cannot take instructions and use the original parts and which in turn kept all my hot/water tubings that wasn't used!

Next week is CNY and being avid Taobao fans, we bought our decor from it. Very happy with our purchases Bought CNY decal and DIY the 福 picture with an Ikea frame Chinese New Year of the Horse! by Makanology, on Flickr Love the little horses! Chinese New Year of the Horse! by Makanology, on Flickr The firecracker turned out to be bigger than expected but luckily they have a space next to our 招财Hello Kitty🐱! Chinese New Year of the Horse! by Makanology, on Flickr Now we are ready to usher in the year of the Horse with our colorful little house!

If it is the same batch of mid 50s electricians (hard to ascertain their ages), then take extra note when installing the ceiling fans. We have a simple Fanco ceiling fan for the study and in their haste to finish the work quicker, they didn't install it properly. So time was subsequently wasted for rectification.

Hi, Alan told us before we started our renovation that if we were buying KDK fans, he would prefer KDK guys to install them. He warned that it is not easy to install and balance KDK. That's why we bought Fanco and Amasco.

Hi welcome to the 3-roomer club! Saw that you will be omitting a wash basin for the MBR bathroom. Maybe you may wanna explore putting a small corner basin at the left corner opposite your WC? Having a basin helps so that you can brush your teeth I usually use more of our MBR bathroom while the kitchen bathroom is mainly used by our guests and furkid.

Welcome to the 3 roomer club!