Finally A Place To Call Our Home!

[iceage 1]

Thanks for the reply.

So hows CNY in the new house ??

My key collection will be on 27th March and I still have not a single idea of things

Wahh Songz,

You are super prompt in your reply. Did not expect anyone to reply me as it is Chinese New Year so everyone should be taking a break from their renovation works

New house ah...Cleaning, unpacking, cleaning, arranging, cleaning, organizing and more cleaning. But at least now there is no more powdery feel when I walked on my floor

Wow, it is drawing near. Must be excited yeah?? have you decided on your theme yet? For me, I find the most difficult part in my renovation journey is choosing laminates, colors and material. But so far, have been very happy with my decisions

So have you purchased any hardwares? oh yes, I must say this in this forum so that others can learn from my mistake. I purchased my entire kitchen appliances from Teka Malaysia and so far no issue with the exception of my hob. Malaysia does not provide town gas and hence all households in Malaysia are using cylinder gas.

So, I happily asked citygas to come fix the gas for me yesterday as i could not stand living another day on my steamboat portable cooker hob anymore so badgered my contractor to get the citygas ppl to come fix it

To my horror, i could not turned on my hob after my pipes are connected because it seems the valves used are different!!

Town gas valves have to be bigger so what to do..I called Teka Singapore as Teka Malaysia does not provide international services

The reply I got from the phonecall was,"Thank you for calling Teka Singapore. We are closed for the Chinese New Year holidays and we will reopen on the 11th February 2014"

i seriously felt like then. Was looking forward to cooking my first real meal in my home and my hob could not be used. So I messaged my contractor whom, bless him, through his contacts, got the Teka technician to come fix it for me despite them being on holiday still

So, a very valuable lesson to everyone out there. If you wish to purchase your hob from Malaysia and use Citygas, please ensure your valve is compatible or else you will be facing the same problem as me.

[iceage 1]

Hi iceage, I am really new to reno, saw ur Reno pics, look good!! I suppose u r happy with the work so far?do u mind sharing the contact of your ID or contractor? Do they help with the dope signing as well?? We just purchased a resale 5rm flat that needs total overall... Need someone experienced to do the Reno job... Would greatly appreciate any help from your and all in this forum! Thanks a lot!

Hi Greenbowl,

What is dope signing? You've got mail! My contractor so far no major complaints bout him. Super patient with me and even entertained me during Chinese New Year, which they are supposed to be on leave for 2 weeks. He has helped me alot on non-related stuff like getting a technician for me to fix my Teka hob which was not functioning, and has been advising us on the length of furnitures to be purchased, like whether a room can fit a King size bed or not or the maximum length of sofa that we can purchase. He has jokingly said that he is gonna charge us consultancy fees soon for all his advices but it all fell on deaf ears

Hmm, I think it will be good if you have an idea what theme you will like for your home and think through your lifestyle with your partner in designing your furnitures. For instance, I got my carpenter (who is also my contractor ) to build a coat's rack in my shoe rack for me. (Of course it is separate from my shoe compartments , in case you are wondering,"Eee...so smelly.. ) as my husband often wears a coat for his seminars and meetings and I dislike hanging his coat back together with my other clean clothes in the wardrobe.

I am having some problem uploading photos in this forum so hopefully I can upload photos soon to share with you

Oh, sometimes contractor or ID might enforce their ideas upon you but as adviced by inthechouse, you gotta be firm on what you want but it is also good to hear their opinions as they are supposed to be more experienced than us, having done up more houses than us. I have been adviced against getting black laminates for my shoe cabinets by my contractor as he has pointed out it will be very evident once scratched but I decided to go ahead with it anyway

All the best to you in your renovation journey. This is fun and unfortunately, also a headache part for us all.. Most importantly, hope everything goes smoothly for you!

[iceage 1]

Yes, finally able to load pictures from photobucket after trials and errors. This is the shoe cabinet. Choose black laminates after reading vanessa's blog Have been warned by my contractor that using black laminates will have more maintenance in future but dang it.. at least it is my choice

Edited February 7, 2014 by iceage

[iceage 1]

The exterior of the shoe cabinet. The laminates matched my study table.

My kitchen. Glass backing can only be fixed after CNY.

Glimpse of my fridge

Edited February 7, 2014 by iceage

[Greenbowl 0]

Hey iceage, thanks a lot! Do you mind sharing your contractor/Id's contact?? Btw, Haha it was a typo... I meant "designing" and not "dope signing"- all thanks to auto spell check!

[OceanEleven 203]

My kitchen. Glass backing can only be fixed after CNY.

White gloss finishing is nice but experience tells me that under light and certain angles, it will look dusty and any scratches will be magnified.

Still contemplating shall we go with it. BTW is that a microwave on top of the oven? Mind sharing the brand, model and cost for the hob, hood, oven and microwave?

[iceage 1]

I saw this during the last week of my renovation and was honestly, had bad heartache when i saw it as I did not change the room floorings. However, there was a gap in the entrance of my bedroom door!!

Was prepared to fill it with grout as I could not afford both the time and money to redo the flooring of my room. and was prepared to live with the ugly grout line that might appear in my bedroom flooring

And then.... the sifu of my carpenters solved it for me! He merely used a blade to slide against the skirting (?) of the flooring and used a hammer, yes, a HAMMER and hammered it downwards and blew up the dusts that settled in the gap and voila!! Now you don't see it!!

Really kudos to the sifu! I was there when he did it and I must say i am really amazed with his workmanship. He is abit of a perfectionist but hey, that's fine to me as it shows how much pride he took in his work and ensured every door and cabinet are fixed well.

[iceage 1]

White gloss finishing is nice but experience tells me that under light and certain angles, it will look dusty and any scratches will be magnified.

Still contemplating shall we go with it. BTW is that a microwave on top of the oven? Mind sharing the brand, model and cost for the hob, hood, oven and microwave?

Hi OceanEleven,

All my kitchen appliances are from Teka but I got them from Teka Malaysia when they were having a home fair and they were all on 30% discount. So far no major issues with the exception of the hob, as I just written in reply to Songz mail. Will pm you the price in awhile

[iceage 1]

Got these 4 pictures in Ho Chi Minh during a trip about a year back and they have been sitting in my storeroom since.

Finally they are able to see some light and be enjoyed..by me.. hahahhaa..

Honestly, I am not a very artsy person but I love the colors in these paintings. Furthermore, I think my place is too woody-white and hence, these 4 paintings added some zest and color to my place (hopefully.. )

Got the sifus to hang drill the holes for me to put up the paintings. Again, did not expect them to put 101% of effort in this as this is something extra and they were about to finish their job for the day. Really am grateful to them for the effort put in.. They even used laser beam to get the bearings right..

The sifu who helped corrected my flooring is the one seen here checking his hp. Even insisted on redrilling the hooks in my paintings so that the hooks could not be seen when hung up

Even using the steel block to ensure the paintings are straight..

This is the end product with my unwrapped sofa. What do you think??

[iceage 1]

My elusive contractor, coincidentally, also starts with K but he is not the famous K in this forum He is helping me to clean up my shoe cabinet but refused to turn his face towards me

I love the grainy laminates that he choose for me for both my shoe cabinet and my study table as they complement my floor.

Ok. that's it for tonight. Will take more pictures when the boxes are gone and glass backings are up!

[iceage 1]

Oh yes, before i retire for the night, thought I should share this on the forum too.

I had my first share of unpleasantness in my renovation journey, though I should not say this as it is still CNY???

But I think must caution all fellow home owners who are shopping for furniture for their homes. I got my bed frame from this furniture shop called Silver River. When I make the purchase, I requested them to change the legs of the frame for me as I disliked it and specifically reminded the salesperson to check that the legs are changed before delivering it to me.

Surprise surprise, they got the legs wrong when they delivered it to me. So I asked the delivery guys how and their reply was," I don't know wor. The store ask us to deliver so we deliver. If you do not want, we will not fix your frame for you."

I asked them what do they mean by that, as I still wanted the legs to be changed. They said they will just leave the bed frame on my master bedroom's floor like that!! Needless to say, my started looming but i kept my cool as their rudeness was starting to piss me off. My hubby was already and I got him out of the bedroom so as to talk calmly with the delivery guys

I called the salesperson on the spot and he told me to get the frame fixed first and he promised to change the legs for me after CNY, as it was the last day of working before they close for CNY holidays

Imagine my when they asked me to sign on the delivery order chit and written on top of the delivery order chit was 2 words.. DISPLAY SET

By then, I could not kept my poker face straight and immediately frown and asked them, what do they mean by display set?

Again, they shrug their shoulders which just made my blood boil even more. I called up the salesperson again and he said they wrote wrongly,as they must have meant DISPLAY SET COLOR. Cannot be display set bla bla bla. Ok fine. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and asked him to double check, which he promised to do so and to give me a reply the next day as he claimed to be very busy that day

When the delivery guys left, i was left with a naggin feeling (call it women's instinct if you must but sthg just did not feel right). I suggested to my man to go straight to the showroom to see if the frame is still there. If it is still there, I can accept his story of the store ppl writing it wrongly on the delivery chit but wat if the frame is no longer there?

My hubby was agreeable as well and we just shoot straight down to the show room.

Guess what??? The display frame was gone!!! I immediately requested for the salesperson to see me straightaway and him with questions while still trying to keep a lid on my temper. He paled when he saw us as he did not expect us to be at the showroom to check the frame and promised to give me an answer the next day as he sort it out with the warehouse ppl

The next day, he called and gave us 2 options. 1) take the display frame and he gives us $150 in return for the display set and 2) they will deliver a "brand new" frame in late march/april

After much consideration, I decided to go for option 1 as i have lost all my trust in this salesperson and furniture shop and am wary of the quality of the "brand new" frame that they promised to deliver

A very valuable lesson to all new home owners out there. Please learn from my mistake. My first mistake is paying the frame in full before delivery. Never, ever pay your furniture in full before delivery. Have yet to collect the $150 from them yet so will update again if they fail to honour their promise.

This furniture shop have some bad reviews but i still decided to go ahead with my purchase as i could not find the frame elsewhere.

Sigh.. so there goes my first taste of hiccup in my renovation process. Hope that others will take a leaf from my book and if so, then it is worth to share.

[Songz 132]

The pictures sure add a lot color to the living room.

The dining seem a bit too close to your study area it seem

As for the bed, i think you choose the right option and thanks for sharing (At least the bed frame is not unstable or etc if you look on the bright side)

1 more thing i like to check is that how big the difference are the Teka appliances cost compare to singapore ?

I am actually thinking of getting Teka or Alpha brand stuff for the house.

[iceage 1]

The pictures sure add a lot color to the living room.

The dining seem a bit too close to your study area it seem

As for the bed, i think you choose the right option and thanks for sharing (At least the bed frame is not unstable or etc if you look on the bright side)

1 more thing i like to check is that how big the difference are the Teka appliances cost compare to singapore ?

I am actually thinking of getting Teka or Alpha brand stuff for the house.

Hi Songz,

Thanks for the kind words on the paintings. Was having 2 minds whether to put them up then decided to heck it and go ahead and do it. Glad you think it is nice

The dining table and sofa were pushed closer to the study on purpose as Gain City was delivering both my fridge and washer then

Will pm you on the price of Teka appliances from JB. I did not check Singapore price by the way so no idea how much the differences are

[Songz 132]

The house is really coming together ^^

Although there are some minor hiccups but all are solved nicely

By the way I haven purchased anything yet (*sighz)

Any suggestion of brands and etc ? LoL ... (*Actually thinking of getting either Teka or Alpha appliances )

[OceanEleven 203]

By the way I haven purchased anything yet (*sighz)

Any suggestion of brands and etc ? LoL ... (*Actually thinking of getting either Teka or Alpha appliances )

Personal opinion, buy what you need, Buy base on purpose and pricing. Then base on aesthetic.

Sometimes too much ingredients spoils the soup. Likewise, too many choices makes decision difficult.

I always brain wash myself this way, once I buy this model, dont bother with what other brand/make can offer. Focus & Forget.