A Meeting Of East And West In Tampines.

[joyousonline 0]

congrats on the new addition to your family! it's interesting to read on your progress. though it's frustrating, at the end of the day, i think it's worth it!!

it's scary to have to spend so much on the reno.

[RimBlock 0]

Oh yes. very scary.

We were determined not to take out any loans this time as we have only just finished paying off our previous loans for the first place we bought 3 years ago.

So far we have succeed although the credit card balances have gone up but, shhh, we wont mention that for now .

I try not to think what else I could have spent that money on .

Now I only have to worry about the massive home loan .

Yes I agree. I also think it is worth the effort as for most people it is the one most expensive set of work you are likely to do in one go on your property and so it is nice to get it as right as you can afford as you will be living with it every day for, if the Government has it's way, more or less the rest of your life.

RB

[RimBlock 0]

After a day at home.....

The networking is sorted out. Using my awesome strength it seems I was pushing the blocks in to the jack body too hard. Placing these blocks in the just closing the butterfly back clips provides enough force and all the living room connections are done to wall boxes in the living room and to a patch panel in the study. Kitchen two to complete tonight then that will be the downstairs complete. Upstairs will be a bit more of a challenge.

Things seem to still be going a bit wrong.......

The glass wall is up with both sliding doors working. We still have to apply the frosted glass film to the bottom 2/3. To install the door they had to hack in to the cornice and now there is an ugly black hole where the glass goes through. Henry is trying to come up with an idea to hide the ugliness.

The solid surfaces are in the master and upstairs common toilets but it is white and grey.... Whilst we agreed that the black tops would not look so good I was under the impression that it was going to be changed to a sand like colour matching both bathrooms. The white and grey just looks wrong to me. The plumbers have also come and fitted everything. Great service from them.

The boxup of pipes is done in the common upstairs toilet but the door is bowing outwards at the centre of its height.

The kitchen is complete apart from the granite counter top. My biggest problem with it is that the space for the dishwasher had a 5" gap down the side. The dishwasher is meant to be slid in to a hole in the cabinets with a 1/2" on each side. I really do not know how this can be fixed. I need to check the measurements I gave Henry to make sure they are correct before saying anything though. I have no reason to believe they are wrong.

The main colour for our master bedroom is just wrong...... The original design was for a mid intensity pink but it was suggested to use something lighter or the room would be too dark. The colour chosen is a lilac which really doesn't match the deep red and black of the 'feature' wall. Not sure what can be done about this one either......

Oh well. Singtel in tomorrow so I have to dig out their router from the boxes and hope the phone lines are ok.

Electricians doing last fixing today for kitchen and replacing a few sockets (a two to a three gang as they didn't have enough at the time). They are also doing the main distribution box and the lights for the stairs up/down cove light. We have bought two led T5s for the up and my wife chose two standard T5s in blue (????) for the down. Not sure how the neon blue will go with the light yellow walls but had to agree in order to get the "signoff" for the led T5s . She wants it to be a feature, I am just not sure it will be a nice one....

Oh well, as our old ID used to say...." there are no such things as problems, only new challenges."

Now on to Henry to chat about the above.

Hopefully with internet at home this weekend I will get round to taking some more pictures. Still really loving the projector. My youngest was watching Dora the Explorer on a 100" screen last night. Dora was bigger than him .

RB

[csingeu 0]

Hopefully with internet at home this weekend I will get round to taking some more pictures. Still really loving the projector. My youngest was watching Dora the Explorer on a 100" screen last night. Dora was bigger than him .

RB

Woah! I'm eager to visit you to see how you wire up your projector, screen and also your sound system.

[RimBlock 0]

Woah! I'm eager to visit you to see how you wire up your projector, screen and also your sound system.

Will check with my wife for free time over CNY holiday.

RB

[RRK 0]

Hi RB,

I've noticed you have a dishwasher in your kitchen. How are you planning the drainage and the water supply as the HDB flats only come with outlets for the sink and washing machine.

Thanks and love your blog!

RRK

[RimBlock 0]

Hi RB,

I've noticed you have a dishwasher in your kitchen. How are you planning the drainage and the water supply as the HDB flats only come with outlets for the sink and washing machine.

Thanks and love your blog!

RRK

Hi and thanks RRK.

THe dishwasher is under the counter to the side of the kitchen sink. As the tiles were redone in the kitchen the plumber laid 4 runs from the main drainage pipe.

1. Sink

2. Washing machine

3. Dishwasher

4. Floor drainage.

All are within around 1 meter of each other and under / inside the cabinet concrete base with pipe connectors / channels for the waters access.

RB

[RimBlock 0]

Oh how I love my new drill. Generally a higher model than the contractors and you know what they say about boys and their toys.....

I installed the door bell yesterday. We bought a wireless set much like the one we had on the old apartment. One button and two receivers (one for down and the other for upstairs). I took the old one off, marched and drilled a couple of holes and put the new one on. Hmm, not quite straight but then drilling is not an exact science.

I then selected a place for the first receiver unit (chime), carefully drilled another hole (oh this drill makes it so easy), put in the rawl plug and screw. I then attached the chime and went to the front door. Pressed the switch and nothing..... The range is listed as 15 > 20 meters.... I took the chime off the wall and moved closer to the door. Now it was working.... moving further and further until it stops, about 1 meter short of where I drilled (which was well under 15 meters) . Moral or the story, make sure you test the chime before drilling holes in your lovely new painted walls . Never mind, a bit of filler and paint and no one will ever know.... well apart from you guys and girls . Oh I also found a sticky pad in the box for the button so I didn't have to drill and screw it in outside the main door. Mind you, if I had found that straight away then I would not have used the drill and what would have been the fun in that .

RB

[RimBlock 0]

Also worth a mention... My bag with missing network cable tester magically reappeared in the apartment while I was out taking my youngest to school. I suspect it was located and someone dropped it back for me. It was not there before I left and it was my wife that noticed it before me also commenting that it was not there the previous day.

Two cable testers now

RB

[RimBlock 0]

And then there was internet.......

The Singtel guys came today and everything is running ok. I still need to run the network cables upstairs so will use the powerline adapters for the bedroom for now.

I managed to move some of the furniture around so the piano, table and study room bits are in more or less the right place.

I will charge my D-SLR tonight and try to get some good(ish) photos tomorrow. Boxes still everywhere though .

RB

[mae29 2]

And then there was internet.......

The Singtel guys came today and everything is running ok. I still need to run the network cables upstairs so will use the powerline adapters for the bedroom for now.

I managed to move some of the furniture around so the piano, table and study room bits are in more or less the right place.

I will charge my D-SLR tonight and try to get some good(ish) photos tomorrow. Boxes still everywhere though .

RB

Hi, RB

Like yours, my boxes are still lying around everywhere in the house.

You are lucky that SingTel came & you have Internet. My children are not so lucky as we subscribed to M1 fibre broadband & leadtime is 8 working days.... I was extreme busy & didn't have the right time to do the application earlier.

Waiting eagerly to see the pictures... I'm too tired to upload mine though.

[RimBlock 0]

Hi, RB

Like yours, my boxes are still lying around everywhere in the house.

You are lucky that SingTel came & you have Internet. My children are not so lucky as we subscribed to M1 fibre broadband & leadtime is 8 working days.... I was extreme busy & didn't have the right time to do the application earlier.

Waiting eagerly to see the pictures... I'm too tired to upload mine though.

Hi Mae,

I had to hassle my wife to call them as the account is under her name and then had to wait for a week before they could come but the service was very good and to my surprise there was no confusion as to what I was doing having the routers (modems) in one room and connecting to the set-top-boxes via my own network. They needed to update the firmware on one of the routers and there was a faulty network cable but other than that it all went fine. No issues so far with the hangs and 'service unavailable' that plagued me in our old apartment seeming to have disappeared. Only issue is that the Rukus homeplugs which transferred between the router and the bedroom in our old place seem to have failed and I was going to use them until I finished the networking upstairs. Now I will need to get some new ones for the time being as the upstairs networking will not be completed in the near future. The kitchen networking will be finished in the next couple of days though.

I took some pictures yesterday but have not transferred them yet to my PC. I forgot how wide my D-SLR lens is so I can get nice wide angle shots much better than the camera phone shots I have been doing until now.

I will try uploading them tonight if they turn out to be ok. If not it will be out with my tripod and remote release so I can get longer steady exposures. Will take one or two with the projector running too which will def need a tripod to avoid blurriness.

RB

[RimBlock 0]

Right, some more pics. Excuse the mess, unpacking with a couple of screaming kids running around and pulling toys out of everywhere.

The new front gate and door.

View in to the living room.

Lightbox on the stairs (blue lights below).

Closer view of the lightbox.

[RimBlock 0]

The kitchen (worktop still to come).

View two.

View out (my ladder in the way from filling my network trunking).

[RimBlock 0]

Living room rear wall.

Living room front wall.

With projector screen down.

And somehow our youngest sneaked in there.

Shots of upstairs to come when I have taken them along with shots of the projector in action, the study room and dining area.

RB