Retrospectrum Meets Modernisation!

[pinkpetter 0]

mmm don't think it's yellowing though .. it's a different tone of white... the one of the right looks greyish.

what a fix. Aubrey If I were you, I'm not sure I would want him to go out and buy... cos if he does... don't know when he will come back. I rem something like that happening at my house... the fella went and never came back that day. Worker's mentality.

hopefully Jason will have better news for you.

[familyof4 0]

cool it, aubrey! I know it's tough, how about changing all the switches like Wendy's suggestion? The elect guy, i assume it's the same guy who did my place, says if I buy, they will change! I hold their words!

Why not call Uncle and check with him? He also know his elect workers giving him headache.

[aubrey 0]

i just hope i wont blow my top at the workers. unhappy workers = shoddy work. unfortunately my toilet tiles are not nicely done tho i did not offend the uncle doing it. sigh.

pet, dont come back never mind. cos i chase jason and uncle, they gotta chase him. i think my scolding is nothing compared to theirs. haiya!! i am gonna relax and cook me some udon mee to destress and enjoy for lunch.

[aubrey 0]

fannie i am too tired so yes. i am more frustrated than angry, dont worry. i feel kinda nua now that i am home. feel like napping actually. no worries i will solve it amicably. i dont want to cause uncle too much stress. he's been a nice dear. (ya maybe can give me his passport photo already.. haha!)

[Smallboy 0]

Yap... dont be stressed ok..I totally KNOW your frustations. I was there just a few weeks ago.

Enjoy your noodles.

Heard the electrical team.... people quit already.

This Ah Tan also complain he working too hard. Seems like he is the ONLY one team doing all the works.

Told my hubby that he got no overtime pay......... still got to work so hard.

He came over late at night a few days ago.

And he said Ah Soon kept scolding people. hahaha... of course we know why they are scolded.

Edited May 21, 2009 by Smallboy

[aubrey 0]

without all of your kind words and help i think i would not be able to cope. very touched! :)

[Smallboy 0]

hahaha... over the course of my reno.... I have drowned down countless cans of COKE ZERO.

That's my de-stress food.

So, rest well, take a breather...... gain more strength to continue on this reno journey. It will soon be over.

Swee Swee.......... take care!

[aubrey 0]

haha ya man, i consumed countless of fast food from the stress, its my comfort food. i am just looking forward to my open house! i just hope my tv console turns out well so those who wants to have a look and copy a little, can come over to see.

i shall turn on bob marley now! *don't worry, be happy*

[familyof4 0]

this reminded me I really need to go and check on my progress today no matter what...supposed to see my false eiling ALL DONE UP, hopefully and keeping my fingers crossed that is is up.

[yowetan 1]

Hi aubrey,

This is my first post here. Alrite, I have been reading most of the T-blogs and you are one of them. After reading all the red hot renovators/contractors or even IDs, I realise those who tag along with uncle soon bound to have some unhappiness.

Please do not mistaken I am here to create trouble; I just curious why most of you who engaged Uncle Soon needs to manage your project together with him? I do understand his package is competitive, however I realise the competitive package comes with a price. Most of you who chose Uncle Soon usually ended up spending most of the time "supervising" and "managing" the mistakes rather than the progress of the projects.

Project management is no easy feast, and I am very surprised most of you are pretty tolerance to Uncle Soon's style and approach. We all can be understanding and be mindful Uncle Soon is busy and really well-accept/recieve by many forumers here. However, if you think paying 20K SGD and above as well as playing a supervisory role yourself. I would say it is a very bitter pill to swallow. The experience is very bad for project management really exhuast most of your private time, and most importantly affecting your work indirectly. If you are just paying 10k, I would say you deserve it; however this is not the case. Most of you spent almost 20k minimum with Uncle Soon, and this is the type of service rendered. I can only say busy is not an excuse; however those who decided to go with him despite knowing his tight schedule really deserves a spank.

With regards to aubrey renovation experience, I can only fully sympathize with your awful experience. Most of the contractors are behaving such, and usually they have several "projects" on a singular day. They got to rush to their timeline, and they usually dun commit unless there is someone "Foreman" or "Supervisor" (Some wld call the project coordinator on site to make the call; coz all jobs/items are chargable). In this scenario, you are the foreman most of the time, supervising them. Hence, these group of contractors regardless electrician or carpenter would not bother with your request, unless you have the paper documentations. 1 piece of advice - whenever you decided what needs to be done/carried out; please get jason/uncle soon to counter sign on that piece of drawing together with yours; to verify and confirm they have read, and understood your intention and idea. I understand this may be too fark up in a sense, however you need to document it black and white; so as they will not chut pattern with you. This is to safeguard yourself against such "busy" contractors/renovators.

The many blogs I read, and the countless experience from most of you have somehow and somewhat revealed the quality of service. The service quality rendered is questionable without doubt, though the workmanship is average. I wouldnt say Uncle Soon workmanship is good, nor his design ideas are fabulous. There is still a noticable gap in design knowledge from the professional IDs, however it can be easily offset by the competitive pricing package he offers. However, the level of service rendered is questionable and it is certainly not worth the money.

I believe aubrey has suffered mentally and physically running this project management show, and your initial happiness has slowly evolved into pool of unhappiness and doubt.

I would strongly advise you to call up Uncle Soon, buy him a tea with a BIG bao sit down together with him spend a good worthy 1-2 hour have a good talk with him. Bring all documents (drawings, specification as well as your Le grand switches set) with you, have an ambicable discussion. Please make sure your discussion will concluded to something; and let him sign on the paper once discussed and confirm.

Last but not least, I certianly urge the rest of the people who are keen in engaging Uncle Soon, please think twice before you award the job to him. Uncle soon is afterall a man, not a god.

Thanks.

[fondue_ 1]

We signed up mainly was due to the flexibility, price factor, and the feedback given previously seems good.

We won't know what we are in for till we are in it, isn't it? You can either look at the situation as a half glass of water or half empty glass.

What has been done is done, lesson learnt and gotta move on.

[pinkpetter 0]

wah yowetan.. that's a very long post. I'm not sure about how Aubrey feels exactly...

Just wondering if you read the other blogs... people who had IDs... they were stressed during reno too and they had mistakes to be rectified too... It's not just us. Although some more and some less really.

ANYONE WHO DID NOT HAVE A SINGLE MISTAKE IN YOUR RENO PLEASE FEEL FREE TO BOMBARD ME!

For myself, it was a personal choice. That statement about the 10k and 20k... what if I told you that my reno would have cost 45k in another person's hands? And in Uncle hands it's only 25k? I couldn't fork out that extra 20k even if I wanted to. and 45k wasn't the most expensive quotation.

Service-wise, you really have to divide it out.... Uncle really tries his best to provide good quality and service. It's his bunch of workers who vary from time to time. Like Ah Wei the carpenter is a good carpenter... while some others are crap (and got fired).

Maybe for Aubrey and the rest you all really felt very very stressed with Uncle's way of doing this. I was ok. I enjoyed the process of designing and managing the workers... making last minute changes whenever i wanted cos Uncle wasn't there and I was managing them in a way. The people who gave me stress weren't Uncle and his men.

I totally agree with the last paragraph though. I hope people who want to sign up really read through carefully and get more quotations before you decide. It's not a sit back and relax kind of journey.

Edited May 21, 2009 by pinkpetter

[familyof4 0]

I learnt alot from lawry's updates before. his was designed by some well-known ID and lotsa hiccups and not really fantastic design ideas too! It is just a matter that probably Uncle gets too famous, expectations gets higher and thus when things happen, people tends to notice his faults more than the good.

Wendy did mention the Goods of uncle and of cos there are also areas that needs to improvements.

Uncle's quality can actually be better than some IDs I must say. Not all, but some. Not to side him, he is seriously looking into managing the projects more actively. Since we have choosen him due to that 5 figure difference in the price, we just got to keep a watchful eye.

Designs wise...Uncle's customers will usually have the concept as we do not reallyr ely on Jason or uncle to come up with ID standard of designs.

[yowetan 1]

wah yowetan.. that's a very long post. I'm not sure about how Aubrey feels exactly...

Just wondering if you read the other blogs... people who had IDs... they were stressed during reno too and they had mistakes to be rectified too... It's not just us. Although some more and some less really.

ANYONE WHO DID NOT HAVE A SINGLE MISTAKE IN YOUR RENO PLEASE FEEL FREE TO BOMBARD ME!

For myself, it was a personal choice. That statement about the 10k and 20k... what if I told you that my reno would have cost 45k in another person's hands? And in Uncle hands it's only 25k? I couldn't fork out that extra 20k even if I wanted to. and 45k wasn't the most expensive quotation.

Service-wise, you really have to divide it out.... Uncle really tries his best to provide good quality and service. It's his bunch of workers who vary from time to time. Like Ah Wei the carpenter is a good carpenter... while some others are crap (and got fired).

Maybe for Aubrey and the rest you all really felt very very stressed with Uncle's way of doing this. I was ok. I enjoyed the process of designing and managing the workers... making last minute changes whenever i wanted cos Uncle wasn't there and I was managing them in a way. The people who gave me stress weren't Uncle and his men.

I totally agree with the last paragraph though. I hope people who want to sign up really read through carefully and get more quotations before you decide. It's not a sit back and relax kind of journey.

Hi Pinkpetter,

Thank you for your insight, I appreciate that. I must say you are very lucky few to enjoy the service rendered by Uncle Soon.

The purpose of my 1st post wasnt directed at Uncle Soon, however I just hope to bring across a message to the fellow forumers who wish to renovate their house in near future. There is no free or cheap lunch in this world and I am well assure everyone knows that very well. Frankly speaking, I am somehow motivated to engage Uncle Soon's service for my newly purchase home. However, I decided to scout and learn more before I venture into something that may potentially set me 20k to 50k poorer.

The reason why I quote you being lucky is - you are the first few to recieve good service from Uncle Soon. When there are overflow of order and jobs, there bound to have delays and hiccups along the way. This is something which everyone needs to understand and accept it.

BUT, there is something which I could not convince myself. Its the project management portion. Yes, this is our house. We have the full responsibility of it. However, why are we paying for? We need to understand why are we paying and what are we paying for. This is accountability and transparency. If we spend a hefty sum for a renovation/contractor job yet we need to perform the project management/foreman supervisory role, I will feel sad.

My role will be a potential client who expects the contractor/IDs to do to my specification and requirement, and my requests are not to be ignored. If I gone spend my time, take annual leave to supervise the renovation work regulary I will feel very worried and it is a big concern.

Please remember you are paying someone to perform a job. You are not taking advantage of them. You pay for their workmanship, service and quality. You dun pay and do free supervision job for them.

Your family time and your job matters most - for the former gives you the strength and motivation, and latter gives you the financial muscle to carry on. I am sad to know that most of us have neglected that and spent most of the time in supervising the renovation work which dutifully belongs to the scope of work for the renovators.

There are many forumers here, whom I believe feel very "paiseh" or "shy" away from renovator's mistake and problems, for they felt the renovator/contractor already did their best. Granted this reason as vaild, but I seriously find aubrey has been shortchanged. If its something irritating warrants an attention, I personally feel Uncle Soon should turn up instead his assistants. As a consumer, we shouldnt take such things lightly, becoz the renovation done will be with us for some time. This is something we cannot "chin chai" and take for granted.

You are paying in tenth Ks, not just a few dollars.

How much a contractor being paid a day, I believe most of you will roughly know. We are definitely not shortchanging them.

Thanks.

Edited May 21, 2009 by yowetan

[pinkpetter 0]

I feel guilty taking up space in Aubrey's blog. Aubrey, please forgive me.

I just want to say... it's our own choice. And it'll be your choice too whether or not you want to take up Uncle, knowing the circumstances. That's what this forum is for... for us to inform each other. I think except for Native and lushbelle (who weren't very active here) that time, I was mostly left to my own to experience Uncle's way of doing things. (he was also busy then.)

Now that everyone knows that the situation is like this, and still sign up.. then that's a choice made. Nothing to regret about. Then have to make the best of things instead of wallowing in "why didn't I choose the other guy..."

Then I hope in your case, you will seriously consider and re-consider engaging Uncle... if you are not prepared to do some project management. Like I always tell others, most importantly, we must feel comfortable with the person doing our house...

haha and for your info.. that month of december... is the one time of my life I spent the MOST time with my parents... I couldn't wait for it to end.......................................................... *pull hair out*

Edited May 21, 2009 by pinkpetter