Home For 3. You, The Dog And Me

[JandG 0]

The sewage pipes in both common and master toilets are concealed inside a box-up which is installed by HDB. (Red circle) You can't see the exposed sewage pipes in both your toilets rights? So that means you also have the box-up lor!

So the only time we noticed the brownish stains is when we pushed the plastic grill aside and look inside as indicated by the black arrow..

Anyway, the problem has been resolved.. The chinaman came and hack away all the brownish stains, re-applied sealer, and re-painted the area.. So far the stain hasn't came back yet, but it could be becos our neighbour upstairs haven't taken a shower in his common toilet yet! We shall monitor and see, if the stain come back they will have to go upstairs and hack away his tiles and re-apply water-proofing at the shower area in the common toilet

[JandG 0]

Chpt 3 : Down come the Walls of Jericho

We got delayed. Our reno permit for the hacking of master bedroom wall was approved but the one for the kitchen requires a PE this means extra 450 damage just to hack a thin little wall. Our ID applied, but we had to bugger hdb to get it approved. This takes close to 1 week to settle and it finally gets done on the 18th. The walls go down on the 20th

Bedroom wall devastated



Bye bye kitchen wall

Edited October 12, 2009 by JandG

[JandG 0]

From the 24th - 28th Aug, the following happens. Tiling, electric cabling, plumbing

finally we have a pile of long awaited sand - trademark of reno in progress

Tiler's tools..cement, our living rm tiles, hollow block for the master bath

we quite like our tiler's workmanship. we just don't like his price

'octopus' arms dangling all over our ceiling

[JandG 0]

Quick-Quiz

Guess what this is ?



Turns out this is one of my fave areas of the house after all is done up

Here's a hint.....we will use this too....

[JandG 0]

Chpt 4: The 'disappearing' ID

Wk 3 of Reno. We start to call our ID Mr Invisible. Why ? He is never in sight. To-date, as we counted, he has not been onsite more than 5 times. That's thruout the almost 8 wks reno. Amazing.

We go down more often than him, and luckily too...as whenever the tiler or electrician scratches his head at the planned diagram and proceeds to do the wrong thing, we are there. Can't imagine the amt of leave we wasted on the reno

We were there to check on things like waterproofing on tiles. They normally can't be bothered and either put very sparsely or dun even put any. Because hubby was there, they did a proper job.

Cement base for kitchen. We kept instructing them to put a layer of waterproofing so our cabinets last longer



Wrong Cement screed on whole kitchen



Because we weren't there, tiler mistakenly screeded whole kitchen. He was only supposed to screed one side of wall and not the sides covered by cabinets. $550 boo-boo we have to absorb

Base for cute lil island hob

[Rasp 0]

Chpt 4: The 'disappearing' ID

Wk 3 of Reno. We start to call our ID Mr Invisible. Why ? He is never in sight. To-date, as we counted, he has not been onsite more than 5 times. That's thruout the almost 8 wks reno. Amazing.

We go down more often than him, and luckily too...as whenever the tiler or electrician scratches his head at the planned diagram and proceeds to do the wrong thing, we are there. Can't imagine the amt of leave we wasted on the reno

We were there to check on things like waterproofing on tiles. They normally can't be bothered and either put very sparsely or dun even put any. Because hubby was there, they did a proper job.

Cement base for kitchen. We kept instructing them to put a layer of waterproofing so our cabinets last longer

Wrong Cement screed on whole kitchen

Because we weren't there, tiler mistakenly screeded whole kitchen. He was only supposed to screed one side of wall and not the sides covered by cabinets. $550 boo-boo we have to absorb

Base for cute lil island hob

Hi JandG,

Welcome!! Is your reno completed already? Hope everything goes smooth for you.

By the way, how does waterproofing for the cabinet base make the cabinet last longer? Im puzzled. I thought water suppose to flow downward, thats why the whole kitchen floor are waterproof to prevent water seepage to the neighbour below. How does the water proofing protect the cabinet which sit on top of the base?

Er.. the 'quick quiz'..... is that for concealed water massager?

[JandG 0]

Hi JandG,

Welcome!! Is your reno completed already? Hope everything goes smooth for you.

By the way, how does waterproofing for the cabinet base make the cabinet last longer? Im puzzled. I thought water suppose to flow downward, thats why the whole kitchen floor are waterproof to prevent water seepage to the neighbour below. How does the water proofing protect the cabinet which sit on top of the base?

Er.. the 'quick quiz'..... is that for concealed water massager?

Hello Rasp

My reno shd have 2 wks more to completion. Thanks for your well wishes...

Cement is like a sponge. It soaks up water thru the tiles when u wash the floor. By adding a layer of water-proofing on top of the cement base, we hope to minimise the seepage into the cabinets when they are laid on.

U know the musty smell u get when u open old cupboards esp in kitchen ? its due to damp moisture seeping in from the floor. thats why european kitchen cabinets never sit on floor. they always have legs.

And hehe partially correct...its for our concealed water mixer...

[Rasp 0]

Hello Rasp

My reno shd have 2 wks more to completion. Thanks for your well wishes...

Cement is like a sponge. It soaks up water thru the tiles when u wash the floor. By adding a layer of water-proofing on top of the cement base, we hope to minimise the seepage into the cabinets when they are laid on.

U know the musty smell u get when u open old cupboards esp in kitchen ? its due to damp moisture seeping in from the floor. thats why european kitchen cabinets never sit on floor. they always have legs.

And hehe partially correct...its for our concealed water mixer...

Hihi JandG,

2 more weeks to go... will pass in a wink. Can spend your xmas at your new place.

Umm.. I got your point, but water will flow downward, so I doubt the water will seep into the cabinet on top. Most of the time, the 'musty' smell is from underneath the kitchen sink due to high level of activity (washing etc) and the water from the sink seeping to the cabinet via pipes below the sink, through the gaps between the doors, backing support etc. Anyway, its good to have the precautions to rest your hearts. Im just curious, if there is any extra charge for the bases waterproofing?

[JandG 0]

Hihi JandG,

2 more weeks to go... will pass in a wink. Can spend your xmas at your new place.

Umm.. I got your point, but water will flow downward, so I doubt the water will seep into the cabinet on top. Most of the time, the 'musty' smell is from underneath the kitchen sink due to high level of activity (washing etc) and the water from the sink seeping to the cabinet via pipes below the sink, through the gaps between the doors, backing support etc. Anyway, its good to have the precautions to rest your hearts. Im just curious, if there is any extra charge for the bases waterproofing?

Nope...no extra cost...the water proofing cheap cheap one la...

Yeah...finally can have Xmas at my new place...

[~BBtBB 0]

Hi JandG

Love your island. We wanted to build one that extends to the dining area but gave up the idea due to appliance placement contraints.

Looking forward to see the completed cute island!

[elane1311 0]

look forward to see your completed pics.

J&G, actually my ID also never really appear and my house reno was ON and OFF..eg: LBOX was up then 1 week later, electrician then start work. I think that's because i did not inform him a dateline so he really takes his own sweet time till finally i told him MUST COMPLETE by this date!! then he started to get panic. Lucky thing was he stayed near FC so each time when he was called up, he came.

[greenpeace_sg 0]

till now i haven't got a clue why you think your reno experience is a bad one... coz everything looks fine le..

[JandG 0]

Quick quiz results

YES its a concealed shower mixer....and the first major mistake made on site

We've explained at least ten times to our ID that we bought a concealed mixer and we wanted a space cut out next to the mixer to store shampoo/shower foam bottles. But..becoz my ID didnt tell the tiler what the space cut out was for, they happily did this

mosaic laid out wrongly inside too narrow hollow block



with this size, the space cut out would be less than 4 cms (can't fit a Dove bottle!) but hubby was onsite during lunch time and just in time to instruct them of correct dimensions like this

correct dimension hollow block space cut out



then we had to re-do the mosaic on the outside like this



our concealed rainshower head



imagine if my hubby had not been there...would we have to hack away and waste more exp mosaic tiles to correct this...or i would have to live with a useless hole in the wall too small to put any shower bottles....things like this makes us mad! Edited October 14, 2009 by JandG

[JandG 0]

Chpt 5 : Of Elephants

Nxt up aircon trunking -no not elephant trunks . We got our Fujitsu Sys 3 Inverter A0YA24LAT3 with 12k blower for master bedroom and 9k for the study and common room. And a Fujitsu Sys 1 Inverter A0AR18JC with 18k blower for the living room. We engaged G**nCi** for the installation as everybody says their workmanship is good. But.....

No pix here as that day of installation we weren't in the mood. They sent in a team of banglas with a malaysian supervisor. the malaysian guy looks like he knew what he was doing. unfortunately, after he discussed the running of trunking with us and speaking to his banglas, he mumbled something abt having to go somewhere else for short while and......disappeared!

The banglas started drilling and hacking away. we stayed till lunch time, they were still drilling around so we went to get groceries and lunch. when we returned, to our horror, they put up the trunking in the common room at the wrong place! we have false ceiling over the area and cannot place it above the door. they had to re-locate it and there was a huge hole in my wall the kind huge enough to contain all those huge armaflex tubes...

for the study, they put the blower much too far out..it had the trunking almost the length of the entire room...why couldnt they put it nearer the door ? we had this re-done.

also, the water pipe trunking was smack in front of the doorway outside the master bedroom door. thus, when u look from the living room, u can see the huge box smack in the middle. why couldnt they put it behind the beam ? we also had them re-do this and drill a hole to the common toilet for the water pipes.

banglas also cannot count for nuts. trunking instead of measuring the length and cut correctly to fit the length of wall or corner, they joint and patched little pieces of trunking to make up a whole line so it looks like many many uneven pieces joined together. those that can be hidden i dun care. but there were many i couldnt hide...so ugly!

it was finally 6 plus in the evening when the malaysian dude finally show his face. we were like telling him all the problems and he went around inspecting the work. even he couldnt take it and he realised they connected it wrongly, ran trunking wrongly as it was too bulky, some parts didnt even have the armaflex tubing. so he scolded them and starting cursing at them. i mean to me, its not the bangla fault its HIS for not being there!

after hacking out and re-doing, patching, opening up and re-running it was abt 8.45 pm! What dinner ??

We were super pissed with GA*%CI** for this experience...as we paid 80 bucks to 2X installation we specifically told them DUN send us banglas next time!

[JandG 0]

Quick Quiz 2

What are these little mounds for ?

Edited October 14, 2009 by JandG