Mansionette Owner

[Jessie 0]

congrast mrsv.......when is your edd?

[Hiera 0]

Congratulation mrsv

[Byr 0]

angel81... my girl is 3 and my boy is in my womb..

Hi MrsSV,

Congras..... Take care of urself while settling the house matters & in renovating e place.

[mrsv 0]

Jessie - thanks, my EDD is around March - Apr next yr.

I try not to exert myself unneccessarily... We were at the house to take a look at how the place is transforming and we're liking it more and more.. hope when it's all ready i can take a few pics and post it here. Im too lazy to create a T blog ..

[LLCC 0]

It's coming to 2 months after moving into my EM & rectification works still not completed

I have happily taken pictures of my place before & during the reno, but I can't seem to find any desire to take photo of the result cos' I'm so tired of the whole thing!

Carpentry work is the major cause; in the process of fixing one problem, they created another problem.

Especially my sister's walk-in wardrobe & custom-built bathtub (her room & bathroom are all black).

I've no more energy left to deal with contractor, so my hubby LL takes over the coordination of rectification works (even though he teasingly went around telling everyone in the beginning that renovation is a woman's job). Thank God for a supportive hubby

This is our 1st attempt at house reno (I don't know if I ever want to do this again), but we would love to share our experience so that you don't make the same mistake we did. Anyone who's doing reno now & keen to see how the furniture & cabinet will look like in a real setting (versus seeing them in big showroom), let me know and I'll arrange a time on one of the weekends.

Rdgs,

CC

[666 0]

wah..which contractor u pick ah...

[Byr 0]

Carpentry work is the major cause; in the process of fixing one problem, they created another problem.

Especially my sister's walk-in wardrobe & custom-built bathtub (her room & bathroom are all black)...I've no more energy left to deal with contractor...This is our 1st attempt at house reno (I don't know if I ever want to do this again), but we would love to share our experience so that you don't make the same mistake we did. Anyone who's doing reno now & keen to see how the furniture & cabinet will look like in a real setting (versus seeing them in big showroom), let me know and I'll arrange a time on one of the weekends.

Rdgs,

CC

Hi CC

Whats wrong and what happen? Care to share.. maybe can chip in some solutions... anyway theres always a way out ....

Cheer up and at least you have LL to help you.. right...

[Hiera 0]

What happened? Care to share with us here?

[mrsv 0]

LLCC, what happened exactly?? this is the final week of our reno, so far it's been ok.. yes no doubt here and there we had to change plans because things are just different when you plan on paper vs the actual house because of things like wall being uneven, lighting coming into house..etc. But so far, I would say I'm very pleased with everything.. the speed, the colors etc.. yesterday our cabinets went up but i had to leave without taking pics becos I was not feeling well. pls tell us what to look out...

THANKS!

[ckhoo 0]

hello,

i am a mansionette-owner-wanna-be!!! hubby & I looking to upgrade from a 5-rm to a mansionette, probably some where in hougang.

but i'm now a bit confused abt the financing. cos i like the HUDC ones and was told tat HUDC flats cannot take HDB loans, only bank loans. also HUDC are valued by banks not HDB. can someone help me and confirm if this is true?

i'm trying to DIY all this myself cos don't wan to pay agent commission lah. jus realised its going to be quite alot of work.

[Byr 0]

hello,

i am a mansionette-owner-wanna-be!!! hubby & I looking to upgrade from a 5-rm to a mansionette, probably some where in hougang.

but i'm now a bit confused abt the financing. cos i like the HUDC ones and was told tat HUDC flats cannot take HDB loans, only bank loans. also HUDC are valued by banks not HDB. can someone help me and confirm if this is true?

i'm trying to DIY all this myself cos don't wan to pay agent commission lah. jus realised its going to be quite alot of work.

Hi If i m not wrong yes HUDC is inDeed privatized Hdb thus Hdb loan may not be applicable. In this instance regular bank loan just like the procedures for private condo etc applies... But for management wise some if i am not wrong is manage by the Town Council still while some under the Strata Title deeds... (sometin like that)

But beware... i think Hudc rice is uslaly higher than EM....

Good luck...

[LLCC 0]

Hi CC

Whats wrong and what happen? Care to share.. maybe can chip in some solutions... anyway theres always a way out ....

Cheer up and at least you have LL to help you.. right...

One of the lessons I learnt regarding reno is that getting a contractor with good service attitude doesn't guarantee that things will get done smoothly. It's more crucial to engage a contractor who is the boss himself, or really has the say in things. My contractor is the Account Executive whose company has various teams - Wet Works/Tiling team, Plumbing team & Carpentry team, etc. The Wet Works/Tiling & Plumbing teams are ok. But the carpenters have attitude problem & bulit things without thinking whether it make sense or at least confirm the correct measurement. At the very least, they could have been more careful when fixing the wardrobe & wooden sliding doors cos' a few were badly scratched up after the installation and we had to insist they replace them. And the carpenters only turned up once a week, so we have to wait one week for reactification work to be done. If they forget to bring something, we have to wait another week. And the supervisor & workers are all staying in Johor. They usually arrive at noon time (earliest 11am), finish work at 6pm (latest 7pm) cos' they say they have to rush to beat the jam to get across the SIN-JB custom. The supervisor is hardly around to oversee the carpenters. The carpenters take instruction only from the supervisor & not the contractor. Then we found out why, the supervisor is also a shareholder of the reno company, so our contractor has no power against him (to get him & his team to work more deligently). The carpentry team can make faces (standing behind my contractor's back) when we reproached our contractor for not finishing things on time and for shoddy carpenty work, can you beat that? I feel so sorry for the contractor, but LL & my sister say we should feel more sorry for ourselves since we have to endure the grieve of waiting for them to correct their mistake & complete their work even after we've moved in for 2 months!

The very last bit of carpenty work left now that need rectification is my sister's walk-in wardrobe - the design is such that one side of the wardrobe is for hanging clothes (inside the walk-in wardrobe) & the back of it acts as a feature wall for mounting the LCD TV (outside the walk-in wardrobe). Instead of building 2 layer of wooden backings such that the wires for the TV can be hidden in between the 2 layer of wood, they built only 1 backing such that the wires come out from a hole & get in contact with the clothes in the wardrobe & run all the way diagonally down to the bottom of the wardrobe where there's a space for the wire to be connected to the back of the SCV box & DVD player on the bottom rack. A neater way would be to let the wire run vertically down & drill another hole on the wooden back to run the wire back into the SCV box & DVD player, but then drawer beneath the hanging compartment at the bottom cannot close completely cos' the wires are blocking at the back.

Guess some carpenters can only build standard wardrobes & cabinets, and cannot handle custom designed stuff since it needs more logical & creative thinking. On hind sight, we should have insisted that they run through their plan on how they propose to build the thing with us before they go ahead & build it, instead of assuming they know what to do just because they didn't ask us any question.

And we learnt that our contractor is also renovating his house & the carpenters has went ahead & installed the feature wall in his house when he told them not to install yet cos' he has yet to tell them how he want to integrate his sound system. In the end he has to reap off the entire feature wall & rebuild & pay double for it (his carpentry team refused to compensate him). Guess their relationship is strained as a result, and we're caught in between their "politics". The more they don't cooperate with our contractor, the more our contractor will get scolding from us, and the carpentry team enjoy seeing him suffer.

But for me, I'm just happy I have a bigger house, new furnitures & bathroom accessories, oven, etc. I'm thankful & feel blessed. Just wish we didn't have to meet such nasty people.

[666 0]

Wat a poor excuse..beat jam?

jam will start building up from 4, in fact if they leave at 7pm and go to checkpoint..they be stuck there for a long time.

Guess those msians love the jams everyday.I got stuck one time at woodlands checkpt on a motorbike..i nearli died of carbon monoxide poisoning..really wonder how they can survive.

[Arahawak 0]

Hi hi.. How's the search coming along?

Been really busy recently with the travelling and reservist... my wife and I decided to stay put with my mums for the time being so we stopped our search and observe the market now.

We decided that it prob not the right time to be committed to loans as now the economy is quite volatile. Also we lost quite abit in our investments.. haha

Congrats to all who had gotten their dream homes.

Mine will have to wait but I will pop in once awhile.

[LLCC 0]

Wat a poor excuse..beat jam?

jam will start building up from 4, in fact if they leave at 7pm and go to checkpoint..they be stuck there for a long time.

Guess those msians love the jams everyday.I got stuck one time at woodlands checkpt on a motorbike..i nearli died of carbon monoxide poisoning..really wonder how they can survive.

Same here, I always wonder how they can survive those obnoxious carbon monoxide day in day out. Very few bother to put on the mask to cover their nose & mouth.

Perhaps it's cheaper to employ Malaysians & hence the quotation I got from this contractor is much cheaper than the other quotes I got.