My First Renovation Experience

[elin1029 23]

I am a big fan of Ikea expedit shelves. I find them highly versatile and they look really great. Google "expedit inspiration" and you can find lots of different uses for it.

My living room storage is inspired by the expedit shelves. Initially was thinking to just get them from Ikea to save cost but finally decided to custom build.

Bought them for the rooms - in the kids room as well as in the third bedroom for storage of all my stuff, mostly books.

[inthechouse 8]

Nice! Especially the wall colour in the bathroom. It really goes well with the subway tiles and everything else.

[greglhc 30]

What would you do if you saw your pic being used for commercial purposes?

I recently came across one of mine. Although co had approached me for permission, I did not reply but they went ahead and put it up on facebook.

Not sure how I feel..

[elin1029 23]

What would you do if you saw your pic being used for commercial purposes?

I recently came across one of mine. Although co had approached me for permission, I did not reply but they went ahead and put it up on facebook.

Not sure how I feel..

Definitely no no.

Did they design your house? Did they renovate your house? My contractor wanted to put up my photos on his FB, I requested him not to.

[elin1029 23]

Some updates regarding the Blum issue.

So the carpenter came with a big plastic bag of Blum hinges and was ready to replace all hinges from Aro to Blum. Before he started, he said Aro hinges are better because there are four screws holding the hinges to the cabinet frame, whereas Blum hinges only have two screws. Upon hearing that, I found out after replacement, the previous screw holes would be exposed. I was also worried the new screw positions may fall in between the previous two holes, resulting in the new hinges being loosely held onto the frame. In the end I decided not to change the hinges. The carpenter added on saying these Aro hinges are better, he used to use the Blum ones but customers complained of problem soon after, so he changed to using Aro ones. I wasn't entirely convinced by that, but my decision was made more to avoid the exposed screw holes after replacement.

So it's kinda upsetting that I was supposed to get Blum hinges but ended up getting Aro hinges. The contractor agreed to refund the differences but said the differences is not big.

Now it leads me to one interesting observation regarding pricing. When contractors make a high quote, they justify by saying the cost is high because of certain branded stuff being used. If for some reason, the branded stuff wasn't used, they would then say the differences between the branded stuff and the non-branded ones are not big and they would then give you a miserable sum of refund...

Lesson learnt. Make sure you get what you are supposed to get during renovation, before they start work. Otherwise, even if they later agree to change, the changes may introduce more dust into an already cleaned up place, and the changes may affect the look of the place. Even though the holes are inside the cabinets, but I don't really want such imperfections to exists, even if out of sight.

Edited February 25, 2014 by elin1029

[Songz 132]

Sorry to hear that but I would agree on not changing due to the extra holes what will be expose.

Anyway hope that this brand of hinges will be good and lasting.

[elin1029 23]

Thanks Songz. Carpenter gave me his contact and said to look for him if there's any problem.

Now I'd like to talk about spare tiles and paint after renovation has been completed. You almost certainly can find tiles and tins of paint in your storeroom or bomb shelter when they handover the unit after renovation. How useful are they? Does it make sense to keep them? How many of us actually will use the tiles and paint? They are taking up precious space in my storeroom as I converted the bomb shelter for my dogs.

Recently I discovered a chip in the floor tile in the master bathroom that I hardly use. Dunno how it got there. I never did detailed inspection during handover, leaving it to contractor to make sure everything was ok. So anyway I thought now we can put the spare tiles to good use.

The tiler came and was prepared to cut and replace the tile. But he WARNED that the whole room would become very dusty. And there's no guarantee the surrounding tiles won't be affected and everything would look good. In the end we decided not to replace the tile and he used something of similar color to patch it.

So now we have a perfectly good reason to use the spare tiles and we didn't go ahead. Will we ever use them in the future when the house is even more lived in? And the worse thing is, many of these spare tiles have cracks!! Makes me think they are just lazy to get rid of these tiles when renovation was completed.

So I asked the contractor to get rid of the tiles. Now what about the paint? I would like to get rid of them to free up more space too but contractor said should keep. What is your advice?

[Songz 132]

My advice is to keep it the good tiles and paint.

[surfsiderose 1]

Hi, mind sharing your total reno costs? Thanks in advance!

[Makanology 29]

We are keeping our spare tiles and paint too. Surprisingly we found another use for the tiles-put them inside the chinchilla cages and they love it cos it is cooler. For the paint, they come in handy for DIY touch-ups! Best to re-bottle the paint as they may dry up in the original tins. We keep a small bottle for each color only - easier to keep!

[elin1029 23]

Makan, good use for the tiles! As for paint, did you pour into bottles yourself or painter did that? I have six big tins and I hardly could open the lid myself.

[Makanology 29]

Haha the painter disappeared once they thought the job was over... We didn't managed to get them do the touch-ups. Yes the harder you leave the paint in the original tins, the harder it will be to open their lids. We have to pry the lids open ourselves and transferred them into bottles.

[elin1029 23]

Haha the painter disappeared once they thought the job was over... We didn't managed to get them do the touch-ups. Yes the harder you leave the paint in the original tins, the harder it will be to open their lids. We have to pry the lids open ourselves and transferred them into bottles.

You use normal plastic bottles? Pour through a funnel? Sorry ah, I'm quite bad at such thing...

[elin1029 23]

Edited.

Edited March 9, 2014 by elin1029

[Ks Toh 74]

So now we have a perfectly good reason to use the spare tiles and we didn't go ahead. Will we ever use them in the future when the house is even more lived in? And the worse thing is, many of these spare tiles have cracks!! Makes me think they are just lazy to get rid of these tiles when renovation was completed.

So I asked the contractor to get rid of the tiles. Now what about the paint? I would like to get rid of them to free up more space too but contractor said should keep. What is your advice?

Paint you can transfer to small plastic bottles or throw since they will go bad anyway in due course, and you should be able to buy new cans as long as you have the colour code.

Tiles you may want to keep a few good ones. You never know when you need them, and it is not going to be easy to find the same type next time, unless your tile is very common type and colour.