Love Nest @ Casa

[theitsybits 0]

Day 52

Finally, some updates.

Finally got a fan and a few stools for the home. That was my little nook for the afternoon while waiting for air-con to be installed.

View from the air-con ledge. It was a very sunny and hot day!

Living room air-con up and brick wall touched-up.

Guest room/baby room air-con.

Study room air-con.

[theitsybits 0]

Day 52 cont.

MBR air-con partially concealed in false ceiling.

Added 2 ledges in MBR toilet for shampoos etc. It was still half-done and will have a cement finish.

And one more ledge for common toilet.

Many thanks to Kevin for helping us add these ledges!!

Carpentry work was supposed to be delivered end-July, but isn't ready yet. Haven't gotten any confirmation when they could actually deliver by national day despite chasing chasing chasing and more chasing. It's really driving me nuts.

Edited July 26, 2012 by theitsybits

[BoBochacha 0]

Hi, your place is looking good and slowly coming together ! I'm sure it will be more spectacular when the carpentry is ready. Hopefully it will be very soon !

[ZiezLisa 0]

I REALLY like your brick wall feature! Nicely done!

BTW could you PM me K's contact too?

Thanks in advance!

[theitsybits 0]

Hi, your place is looking good and slowly coming together ! I'm sure it will be more spectacular when the carpentry is ready. Hopefully it will be very soon !

thank you thank you..

i really really hope it's soon..super frustrating to keep chasing and still not knowing when it will be delivered..cannot plan the other deliveries and our schedule too.

I REALLY like your brick wall feature! Nicely done!

BTW could you PM me K's contact too?

Thanks in advance!

hello, thanks! i really love it to,but i guess it's catching up in sg too..saw many shops and other homes having similar brick walls..

are you preparing for reno too? pm-ed you his contacts. =)

[ahlipz 0]

I guess that there will always be some minor hiccup during renovation...

Just be positive

[ZiezLisa 0]

hello, thanks! i really love it to,but i guess it's catching up in sg too..saw many shops and other homes having similar brick walls..

are you preparing for reno too? pm-ed you his contacts. =)

Yep yep !

But sadly.. my budget is very tight

Hope you don't mind telling me how much is the total cost of your renovation? (excluding carpentry)

[theitsybits 0]

Yep yep !

But sadly.. my budget is very tight

Hope you don't mind telling me how much is the total cost of your renovation? (excluding carpentry)

i guess it really depends on what you want done, whether yours is a new BTO with flooring or resale..if you place comes with flooring, you can save quite abit since flooring and carpentry is usually the killers..

it's also possible to save some money when choosing materials.. e.g. laminates over tiles or china solid top over granite top..but of course you may sacrifice some durability too..

the huge chunks of our renovation is from the flooring for whole house, hacking 6 walls, overlaying 2 toilet walls, 2 brick walls..we also changed 3 toilet doors and chose solid wood doors over PD or Bi-fold doors.

[theitsybits 0]

i'm really getting very sick and upset with everything. it's been 5 weeks since we first got carpenter to come for measurement..5 full weeks since K finished all other works..after chasing and chasing, they finally came 3 weeks ago for measurements and expected completion date is 2-3 weeks later, which is end of July. Now that July is ending, there's no news till we chased, chased and chased. We are told that it will take ANOTHER 2-3 weeks from now.

It's so frustrating. I've been postponing all my deliveries again and again and having sales people calling, telling me that my deliveries have been postponed for too long. I can't even give them a date when they can deliver because there's no definite date for carpentry completion. Everything is put on hold and I'm getting very weary of renovation and want everything to end soon. I have no mood for anything.

What I'm most afraid of is that 3 weeks later, they will tell me that it'll take another 3 weeks. I'm fuming because we have informed them that we wanted to complete renovation before the 7th month 3 months ago. We gave them so much lead time, so much leeway and buffer! I'm even more afraid that when the carpentry finally arrives, workmanship is bad or if there are any issues, it will take another many more weeks to resolve. I really can't take this. And we wanted the house to be ready, so that we could do up the place and do our pre-wedding shots in there. At this rate, everything is going to very rushed the last few months of the year and it's really driving me crazy.

So much for giving MIL face and agreed to use relative. Look what happens now? It gave us nothing but so much frustration and made the whole renovation so unpleasant.

Edited July 28, 2012 by theitsybits

[sunsetsky 0]

Hang in there.

[theitsybits 0]

Hang in there.

[theitsybits 0]

Carpentry Update

We went down yesterday to get an update on our carpentry status since they were unable to meet initial July dateline and have not been replying our emails/sms/calls. We needed to know what was the completion status, scheduled date, reason for delay etc. 3 weeks ago, they told us it'll be ready in 2-3 weeks, and now, they are telling us another 3 weeks more. With the negative reviews on forums and delays, we really needed some answers. We can't just sit down here and wait and pray that carpentry would arrive some day right?

Let's just say that it was really a horrible experience and no customer would want to go through this.

- The carpenter assigned to our job says that it will take 20 more days. And if he is sick for one day, it will take 21 days. If anything happens to him, well, it will take god-knows-how-much-longer. These are things that they cannot control. We were told that the 'best carpenter' was assigned to us, and they were already rushing our job. Only kitchen was completed after 3 weeks. If not happy, get someone else to do. What did we expect them to do? Kowtow to us? Basically, if the carpenter changes his mind and say he needs another 30 days, there's nothing much we can do.

- We were seemingly at fault for chasing them to meet the deadline they initially committed. We were told that we were too calculative and making a big fuss, and that it is not a matter of life and death, so what if it takes a few more weeks? Although we were not in a rush to move in, a deadline committed was a deadline committed!! 5 weeks for carpentry is ample time, and they weren't even apologetic about not meeting the deadline.

- I told them that we were busy, and do not have time to keep chasing them to get work done. I was told that I'm not the only one busy, they are also busy, no time to reply emails/sms although it was been weeks since simple questions like what is the expected completion date was asked.

- They got all defensive and aggressive when we mentioned that they had very bad reviews with lots of delays on forums, and that we were very concerned.

- When I laid out all the facts and timelines, I'm being questioned that 'if I think I'm very good' and that nobody but god is good.

- We agreed that they should work on vanity for toilets first, so kitchen and vanity could be delivered and installed for my plumber to come.

And there were all that drama and tears, pulling in all irrelevant things into the picture. Playing dirty when they can't give any satisfactory explanation nor solution.

Lesson learnt: You can never try to reason with unreasonable people. Whoever is older and cries first win.

We have no way of ascertaining that our kitchen is indeed done. No way of getting them to meet deadline 20 days later. Chasing doesn't help, and with that kind of attitude, there's just nothing much we can do.

Just when we thought we agreed on the sequence of works, they called to say that our shoe cabinet laminate is out of stock. They were supposed to work on our toilet vanities first! And 2 of the few laminates we chose were OOS.

My heart went cold.

Edited July 30, 2012 by theitsybits

[orangecrab 0]

oh dear... i'm so sorry to read all of this... you must be awfully stressed.

would it help if u went thru ur MIL to get to them so they will get off their butts?

Also, about your furniture, if the stores can't hold anymore, what if they just deliver to ur home with the furnitures all wrapped up? I'm not sure if it's a gd or bad idea... but considering that carpentry shouldn't be too messy cos everything is pre-fabricated, maybe it's ok?

Otherwise, can rent a personal storage, and ask the carpenter to bear the charges.

hope things will pick up and end soon, nicely.

hang in there. *hugs

[theitsybits 0]

oh dear... i'm so sorry to read all of this... you must be awfully stressed.

would it help if u went thru ur MIL to get to them so they will get off their butts?

Also, about your furniture, if the stores can't hold anymore, what if they just deliver to ur home with the furnitures all wrapped up? I'm not sure if it's a gd or bad idea... but considering that carpentry shouldn't be too messy cos everything is pre-fabricated, maybe it's ok?

Otherwise, can rent a personal storage, and ask the carpenter to bear the charges.

hope things will pick up and end soon, nicely.

hang in there. *hugs

thanks my dear..but both of them said those things, most of if by MIL..like we're making a big fuss out of nothing, like we are making things difficult..like it's normal and all contractors/IDs work this way..it was just quite horrible

i heard your reno is starting soon! don't worry, you're in good hands..who knows you might complete reno earlier than me..

[BoBochacha 0]

thanks my dear..but both of them said those things, most of if by MIL..like we're making a big fuss out of nothing, like we are making things difficult..like it's normal and all contractors/IDs work this way..it was just quite horrible

i heard your reno is starting soon! don't worry, you're in good hands..who knows you might complete reno earlier than me..

Hi,

Sorry to hear about your predicament. So, has any payment been made? I know it's tough not to burn the bridges esp when recommended by the MIL, but if this carpenter doesn't appear to take you seriously as their customer, I would have just moved on. If nothing is delivered onside, I wouldn't even pay them a cent. Maybe I am a little 'chao kuang' but it sure sounds like a frustrating experience!