Opening A New Chapter Of Our Lives ... 2nd Home In 7 Years

[Chunky Monkey 2]

We bought our 'new' home moons ago. The seller asked for an extended completion (16 weeks) and we agreed since we were in no hurry to take possession of the place. And we had thought that with the extra time, we could use it to plan our renovation etc. I can't say we were able to optimise the time we had in our hands ... there were days we are enthusiastic, and there were also days we were cursing ourselves for buying a 'new' home and making a big change in our lives.

In the end, the seller asked for another 3 weeks' extension because of the Ghost Festival and also because his new house was not ready yet.

Fast forward one month, and renovation is finally picking up speed. Mind you, hacking alone took 3+ weeks. And during this time, it was depressing. I felt like the workers were destroying the place and there was literally nothing left, except the support beams. I felt nothing but a sense of bleakness, and I actually became scared that we were actually going to do this without the help of a ID (swallow lump in throat)

I will post pictures as I go along ....

[papapiggy 0]

Just hang in there bro. Good things just don't happen overnight.

[applefreak 1]

woo finally get to see pix of your renovation

[Chunky Monkey 2]

woo finally get to see pix of your renovation

Be prepared to be scared. I will post some pictures of the hacking work a couple of weeks, and you tell me if you'd share my fear too, applefreak.

[renoGirl 1]

Looking forward to seeing pictures of ur new house too!..

[Chunky Monkey 2]

^^ thank you, renoGirl. It's still the early stages .... I will post progress reports along the way. I think the soonest handover would still be in Dec.

[Chunky Monkey 2]

Here's a picture of my attic that I stripped down. What you see is actually the roof timber support. We demolished all the walls, flooring, partitions, walk-in bathroom ... you get the drift ... everything.

The ex owner used the attic as his master bedroom. I have to say it was very built up and as a businessman, he believed very strongly in FS, and as such, space was not optimised. He had all the designer stuff in there, but too bad, it's just not our style.

[applefreak 1]

wow it must be really fun to be able to strip everything down

and rebuild it the way you like

am sure the end result will be exactly the way you want it to be

[Chunky Monkey 2]

^^ Admittedly yes, but it burns a big hole in our pockets too. The damage is phenomenal.

[Chunky Monkey 2]

Here's a view of the Living Room from the Patio. The debris have seen been removed. I just haven't taken updated pictures yet.

[Chunky Monkey 2]

Here's what the kitchen looks like after it's all torn down.

[applefreak 1]

the demolition has begin

[MaCe 3]

wah welcome to renotalk!!!!!

[Chunky Monkey 2]

It's a Black Friday for me today.

I am aghast that there are dishonest contractors around. Firstly, I required my City Gas pipes to be relocated because I am going to have an island in my new kitchen. The first contractor found by my main con quoted me $1200 to do the job. I was totally shocked and I called City Gas to verify; only to be told that they have now outsourced the jobs to the private sector. So basically consumers are at the mercy of ridiculous pricing. I asked the customer service rep if she knew of the ballpark price of such a job, and she said it should be in the range of a few hundred dollars. That answer made my blood boil.

I asked for another contractor in their approved list, and he went down to my new house to meet my main con. I was then told that the gas pipe cannot be concealed under the kitchen floor tiles. And so for the purpose of my kitchen design, I should not use City Gas but to fall back to using a gas cylinder instead. Wait a min, I thought. So the 1st guy was going to do an illegal job of concealing the gas pipe and then charge me double the price?! I was also told that submission to City Gas is needed for alteration of gas pipes. And I thought to myself, what was the 1st contractor going to submit? A false submission?! Enough was enough. I told my main con to seal off my City Gas pipe, and that I am not going to use it. Still fuming.

Second bombshell ... we have an existing solid wood cabinet which we would like to move to our new place. It has a width of 142cm. And therefore, we asked my main con to build an enclave of 145cm (this is in the door way), so we can fit this cabinet in. After the brick wall's up, and plastering done ... guess what, the actual space in this enclave is now 140cm. Looks like the workers placed the bricks at exactly 145cm, without making provisions for the thickness of cement and plaster. Duh. Do I need to kill somebody, or what?! So what do I do now? Get the contractor to chisel out some part of the beautifully plastered wall? MAN! Such wasted efforts and energy. Why can't people get it right the first time!

Thirdly, I asked for a quote to install a set of 3 pieces of top-hung, frameless glass partition, separating the living room from the kitchen.

1 fixed panel + 2 pieces of sliding glass panels. 70cm (width) x 280cm (height) x 1cm (thickness).

And how much was the quote I got?

5 bloody thousand! Daylight robbery! Why do people do this?! Just because it's a renovation boom market right now? It does not give them the right to fleece homeowners or be there to con them! I must be a dinosaur who still believes in honesty and integrity. Doesn't look like these people have it anymore.

I have no choice but to call and ask a few glass merchants directly myself. And I am going to fax them the dimensions and get a quote by fax in return. I cannot let them quote based on site visit. My mum tells me that the moment they see that I am overhauling the whole house, contractors will want to fleece me. I am disgusted.

[renoGirl 1]

Anyway for your reference, I also got a fixed glass panel and 2 sliding panels dimension 2.4m x 2.1m in my design. My quote was 2k.