almonddust

Hi There! Haven't been contributing to this forum for a long while.... So sorry. Hope you all didn't forget me... Hee... These few weeks been busy with my wedding preparations & shopping. Finally took our wedding photos last Sunday and lucky to capture the sunset before the heavy downpour. Thanks Gadgetman & S_Pear's hubby for allowing us to pop-in to update on your reno progress. And thanks Alister & wife for sharing ideas on getting the different types of lights and which shop to go for good bargains. Here's a little update on my reno progress: We have recently done with our tiles laying, walls hacking, aircon piping installation, and cement screeding. Next step is to do laminate flooring, electricity, plumbing, painting, glass works, aircon installation, carpentry, and finally the wall papers! Hope all is good and well for all of you too. Yesterday I had an car accident along PIE on my way to work.... Suay my tyres brakes failed on me. Luckily was travelling at 65km on the wet slippery morning. Ended up kissing the car's backside in front of me when the driver jam brake for a chain collision on front of her. She's a very nice lady but I ended up paying her $285 for her bumper respraying & re-knocking. Heartpain as I ended up paying not only for her damages, but also my car damage is $600. Definitely not during this time when money is spent a lot on reno & wedding. Sigh~~~ Glad that both she & her baby is ok (baby was sleeping in the backseat), luckily her car is a 7-sitter and my car didn't bang too hard onto it. Later on I got to know that she's actually an artist and has her own website gallery. I remember somewhere in this thread that some of you said might be interested to get some paintings. Why not visit her website? She got nice paintings there. Here's the weblink for you: www.artzhouse.com By the way, for those going to Sitex tmr onwards (I will be going either Fri or weekends coz my car in workshop now), I'm thinking if anyone wants to post here your items that you intending to get but want to know the pricing. I try to ask for you if it's within my means. Guess it will be crowded as usual. TV, or electronic items also can post. Besides checking out on the TVs & Home Theatre System, I'll probably check out on the external HDD and printers. Please post in the following sample format: Eg. <your username> - <what kind of item> - <brand> <model> 1. almonddust - LCD TV - LG 32LB9R1 2. 3. 4.

First of all, welcome Azura as our new neighbour. Hmm.... Whether TPCRC2 is claiming credit (as per what Azura said), I think that it is within their own internal affairs. What Azura shared is insightful to all of us on how those PA/GRC operate, but let's take it with a pinch of salt. Definitely each organisation has people who plays politics trying to please their boss or do the right thing at the right time. Nothing unusual to have people like that around us. I'm sure we also want to do the right thing in front of our boss to receive good appraisal for our year-end bonus or promotion. Ultimately, whoever who rise up to serve the general welfare of our neighbour is one who would like to continue working with. Time will prove whether TPCRC2 is just talking big but no result. Or maybe he "simply order the staff to do all these" and later claim credit. That, I think we should not be too concern about. What we want is the end-result whether they can deliver their promise or not. Since we are already united among ourselves, if we want to organise things, we can arrange ourselves. Otherwise, we can always go through the proper channel to liase with town council or branch office. In the meantime, if we have concerns about : - Parking issues on Sun/PH - Flea market - Reading class If TPCRC2 wants to follow-up on this, I think we let him continue. Other new ideas or suggestions, we can continue to input via this forum. But let's carry on exercising our discretion if we want to entrust anyone to do it for us. Anyway this is just my 2 cents worth of opinion.... + GST 7% = 2.14 cents opinion

Thanks for sharing your experience! We will feedback this to our ID & HDB and hopefully we can do as planned to hack off the toilet door frames.

For those who had already done up your toilets' bi-fold doors, may I clarify did you remove the existing metal door frame? HDB confirmed with my ID that it cannot be removed as they said that by doing so, they are afraid that it might destroy the water proofing inside. Anyone have the same problem? Hence we have to mount the aluminium frame to the existing metal frame. They are installing the door frames soon. Please advise... Many Thanks!

Hi Happy! Sorry for the late reply. We also have the same experience. At the point of applying for flat, our joint income was less than HDB's income ceiling. But when we submit our loan application recently, our joint income exceeded the ceiling. In the end, it was approved just like that (no appeal needed). I've also called up HDB prior to receiving our loan approval, oic said they will gauge based on "old" income. The new income is to update their records. By the way, we have collected our keys in Sept and our house in currently undergoing renovation. Hope our precedent case will give you added assurance on your loan approval. Good Luck! Hi Ms White, Our auspicious time is given by our shi-fu when we went to shuan-ming. He is a very nice old man and also the FS Master for our Integrated Resorts - Marina Sands. He charges only $50 on shuan-ming. But we top-up another $50 ang bao for him coz he gave us dates on weddding, auspicious timing, guo-da-li, an-chuang, and we also engaged him for our house fengshui. If you need his contact, can pm me. Currently he is in Perth now.

Hi Alister, My wall and storeroom door no problem leh. It's zanie98 as u guys were discussing it at her place. So far the defects we found are the switch casing outside the kitchen (with slight crack), window's silicon not done properly outside the living & mbr window. Do remember to check outside the windows too.

Thanks Gadgetman for the valuable insights! !! What you said is very true. Although we have confirmed with our ID on our ideas and budget, in the end we have added more things than what we had initially wanted. For example: Initially we wanted to overlay our toilets, then after seeing ID's quotation, we abundant it and tried to convince ourselves that we could live with the original toilet tiles. But after seeing your toilets which you are overlaying, we changed our minds again and felt it is better to overlay. We went to select our toilet tiles and let our ID gave us a quote. Her quote based on what we had chosen (Wall tiles $3, floor tiles $4.20) turns out to be $3,200!!! That's freaking expensive for us to overlay the toilets! Subsequently we went to re-choose our tiles again (this time, wall tiles $3, floor tiles $2.60) and the final quote is $2,400. I'm not sure whether this cost is consider reasonable or not but somehow our bargaining power is not there liao since we decided we will go ahead with the overlaying. This is not the only thing we changed from our initial quotation. We also like to have a storage cushion-bench by the window, a little settee beside the shoe rack, installation of window grills, and tall unit in the kitchen. In the end, we took them all out. But it does make a difference to get the ID to do a quote for us so that we can decide whether to go ahead or not. Hint: We upgraded our homogeneous tiles to $3.40/pc (ID quote was based on $3). Instead of topping up the difference, we downgraded the bombshelter tiles to $2 ceramic tiles. In the end, our ID absorb the extra cost for us coz the upgraded tiles per sq feet is more than the savings from the downgrade.

Hi droplets, So far not many here responded to the above suggestion to meet on Sunday, and I think many are going for Alister house on Saturday. How about joining them on Saturday if you can? Sorry about it... Hi Alister, Me & my bf would like to join in too. See ya!

Dear Neighbours, I'm thinking.... How about we have a gathering this coming Sunday (say at 3pm)? This gathering (no need bring food) is for everyone who wants to open their house or visit other's house can meet together. What do u all think? Anyone keen for this? !!

Not the Artcool Mirror type. Was attracted by Artcool initially by it's slick & modern design, but after hands-on, the metal cover is really very heavy. Not good in the long run if we need to remove it for cleaning. The supporting hinges for the front panel are pretty flimpsy as it is supported by only the two hinges. In the end, we got the "normal" looking one.

Hi Neighbours, You guys are great! Really amazed by how united among the neighbours are even before we move in. In fact, I like the idea of joining together for bulk purchase to save some money. Although I have bought the bed and aircon, I think I will be keen for the home theatre system. Just some sharing with you over what I've gotten over the past weeks. Bed : Bought Simmons Classic from Ackerman & Smith at the expo exhibition beginning of this month. Thanks to my hubby-to-be who lovingly agreed to get this bed although it's very much out of his $$$ expectation.... hee... Thanks Dear!!! Our salesperson (Jim) is extremely patient & knowledgeable. :good: Not forgetting he is very generous to throw in a lot of good stuff for us. In short we got: - Simmons Classic (king-sized) mattress, with Simmons mattress protector, 2 Simmons Neckcare pillows with pocketed spring, 2 bolsters @ $3,600 - Vicaro 2-Drawer Divan Set with Headboard @ $1,200 Aircon : Bought LG Non-Inverter Multi-Split (system 3) for $1,580 at IMM (Best Tech Air-con - from Desmond). He also gave us $170 service voucher valid for 3 years. We chose this over Mitsubishi StarMex as LG non-inverter aircon is rated Highest Energy Efficiency Ration (EER) by National Energy Agency (NEA) as of 21 Sept 06. Total cooling capacity 25,000 Btu/h (I think Starmex is 24,000 btu/h, correct me if I remember wrongly). Rated EER: 13.32. The higher the EER, the more energy efficient the air-conditioner is. Moreover got Energy Label (3 Ticks) awarded by NEA. Can read up on NEA FAQs for extra info : http://www.nccc.gov.sg/faq/faq.shtm Laminate Flooring : Liased directly with Supreme although we engaged ID. Got the AC5 grade at a very good price coz ID charge us higher. Can pm me if required.

Hi Everyone! How was the gathering today? Hope the rain didn't affect much. Do share with us Also thanks for clarifying on the issue of the doors. For people like us (the BE batch) it's really to pay for doors that we didn't want. I could have easily save like $600 (if each door is $200) and use the money to pay for something else. Seems like HDB places some form of discrepancy between the SERS and BE on our interior choices.

Hi Alister, So good! We didn't know and now we are removing 1 bedroom door and 2 bathroom doors. The bathroom door edge cuts my foot and i had to take it away, coz who knows if next time my guest or kid will suffer the same injury. Do u know if i can ask HDB to refund me since i haven't start my reno yet, but have collected my keys liao.

Hi Neighbours, Sorry I won't be able to join in the gathering tmr as me and bf going to meet our BS for gowns selection tmr. Really excited! Hope u all enjoy yourselves and maybe can share in this forum what you all discover Oh yeah... before I forget! Today I was there at Blk C and spoke to one of the contractors. He said the owner of the house (whom he is doing it up) has requested not to have the bedroom doors from HDB. He also said HDB will deduct like $200 bucks for each door he didn't want. But this had to be done before he collect his keys. Aiya.... If i know, I will only take 2 bedroom doors (instead of 3) as I will be hacking one wall down and replace with glass wall and door. So for those who haven't collect their keys yet, maybe can clarify with HDB on this. Hope this helps to reduce your cost if your reno will involve removing one or more doors.

Hi Everybody, So good to have all of you sharing bits and pieces of information so that we can make wiser decisions in our renovations and other matters. I will be confirming my ID maybe tmr as still need to iron out some minor issues. Hopefully can start work soon so that we can move in by Dec or so. Hi sushibabe, I noticed your quotation. Generally it's slightly cheaper than my ID quote. Happy for you leh.... Hence I can only comment a bit lar. Hope it helps u gal... (see those in blue)

Hi Neighbours & welcome the new ones who sign in recently, Long time haven't contribute anything here. Been busy with work, wedding preparations, renovation discussions lately. But occasionally will check in to this forum to get updates. Thanks everyone for your selfless sharings. It's really amazing to learn new stuff from each and everyone of you, and really do hope that as we progressively awaits our turn to move in to our new house, we will still try to keep in touch via this portal! Yes! Tomorrow is an exciting day for us, coz we will be collecting our keys from HDB (finally! !! ). After collecting our keys, we will invite some of our "short-listed" IDs to do a non-obligated site measurement and rework their quotations based on our requirements. From there, we will try to compare their prices again before making our final decision who we will engage. Renovation costs are really getting more & more expensive, with a lot of undisclosed necessity costs. Hence do make sure that you compare with more IDs before you decide. We have personally gotten 7 quotations but will only short-list 3 to 4 IDs for the site measurement and then decide which one to engage eventually. For some of you who are more "pan-dang" for an auspicious start, do remember to bring some auspicious items (eg. pineapples, mandarin orange, bananas, rice, salt, coins, flowers, etc...) when you first enter into your new house. I'm not an expert in this but been getting advices from colleagues and relatives especially they knew that we are going to collect our keys. But don't bombard me if different people got different sayings, so do take my advice with a pinch of salt if you are not those "pan-dang" type. Ultimately just wanna share with all of you my experience and sharings from loved ones.

Hi strawberry pear, How's your girl? Hope she's feeling better now. Also hope to you could pm me the list too, many many thanks to you! Me and FH only started looking for ID recently, so far only got one quote as our busy work schedule has been taking up a lot of our time. Although our search is still at the infancy stage, I must say I'm so glad to have many selfless neighbours here who are willing to share their experience & insights & pictures. Thanks everyone! !! Without all your sharings in some ways or another, I guess I'll be very blur and probably waste unnecessary resources to get things done. Kudos to everyone! !!

Hey M&M, Congrats! I guess you could be the first forumer here to collect your keys this Wednesday. That's so exciting In fact, I just submitted my loan application letter today (I'm also from Blk C, from balloting exercise). So I guess it won't be too fast for me to collect my keys yet. So happy for you! Last weekend, we tried to walk around our block and realised that the entrance to our roof garden was blocked (if you take lift to level 8 and there's a link to the roof garden). Hope they will open up soon. Look forward to hear more good news from our neighbours here! Cheers!

Welcome our new neighbours to the forum! Thanks for the pics ChineseStyle! I agree, the toilet colour combi is a bit so we thot of overlaying it with our choice tiles. According to our ID, how it will be done is that they will drill some small holes on the existing tiles and then "clip" the new tiles on top. It sounds a bit unbelievable but they said they have done it before and no problem so far. Basically 5 points will be drilled on each existing tiles (ie. 4 on each corner and 1 in the middle). We just worried that by drilling the small holes it will cause cracks and in time to come, the clips may not hold on to the new overlaid ones. Just spoke to HDB officer, for those who is employed, need to submit latest payslip. For self-employed, submit latest Notice Of Assessment can liao. Here's another piece of info for those whose joint household income (JHI) is more than $8k: At the point of exercising your Option To Purchase back in yr 2005, if JHI is below $8k, of course HDB will allow you to buy their flats (that's why we are gathering here today). But since 2yrs have passed, if now JHI is above $8k, they may have to review your income eligibility and access if they can still grant the HDB Loan to you. Or they will advise you to obtain loan from banks. This piece of info is from the officer who is in-charge of my application.

I haven't receive mine leh... Anyway, i guess better wait until the Lunar 7th month is over then more auspicious to collect keys and step foot into our new house Today just happened to drive passed our blocks and saw some aunties and uncles and 1 young kid sitting at the void deck of Blk C, discussing something.... We purposely made a U-turn again and saw them walking inside. Aiya...

Hi my dear neighbours, It's really exciting to read all your postings again... Been busy and travelling. But it's so amazing to see how fast Blk A is processing now, and constructing it's crown. I do hope it finish faster so that we can move into our new house for CNY. And Meowie49, thanks for sharing the great photos . Me and my fiance were guessing how the "given" tiles and sanitary wares will look like, and almost clueless when we had a discussion with an interior designer. Your pics were great and timingly. It does help many here to incorporate it into their renovation planning and budgeting. By the way, I read that some of you (or your neighbours and friends) already received letter from HDB about collection of keys in Sept. I'm wondering for those from Blk C, have you all received yours? I haven't got mine yet (I'm from Blk C and Balloting Exercise batch) and wondering if we are also collecting in Sept?

Congrats Jen T! Soudezne, Sorry to hear about your lost floor plan.... mine is blk C, yours is blk A rite? Maybe u can give like your unit type number and maybe someone who happen to have the same unit type can forward it to you. Sushibabe, I want to eat the chillicrabs too!

Hello Shivan, welcome! Thanks Ikoice for the info. I've checked mine (blk 79C), also in 4Q/07. Gosshhh.... so excited!

thanks for all your sharing! so glad that i'm not the only one feeling this way. Starting a new home, and entering a new phase of life are part and parcel of life's progression. Although it seems like money can be the main source of concern for most of us, i'm reminding myself that this is once in a lifetime experience so learning to enjoy every moment of it! Since our new house are basically either 4rooms and 5rooms, have you all thought about how to make use of each room??? I think for newly weds (like me!), I intend to convert one room to study, and another one for guest (or future kid's room). My proposed studyroom will have a part convert to warerobe coz the master bedroom can be rather cramp to put a big warerobe. Does anyone here planning to put a bathtub into the masterbed room toilet? We are exploring this possibility but hesitated because the length of the bathtub will be quite short. Hence would like to hear if anyone is planning for it.

hi sushibabe, droplets, Darry, Bethel, gui99: thanks for all your advices. from what i gather, preparations roughly takes about 1year. initially was thinking maybe prepare 3-6mths should be sufficient but seems like may be too rush. me & my bf only thought about it recently to get a wedding date from a fengshui master. do u have anyone to recommend? for those who are getting married soon and at the same time getting our keys, it's really like a big financial commitment happening all at one time. Imagine need money for wedding, paying for the remaining downpayment for the house, then renovation works, after reno must pay for tv/bed/fridge/washing machine/etc...., How i wish the toto $5mil prize this friday can be mine... haha.... then no need to feel so stressed lor... as i see my new house getting ready bit by bit each day, i couldn't help but feeling excited and yet, feeling stressed. Or am i the only one feeling this way???