Greek Inspired Beach Home In Woodlands

[crystaltiong 2]

Hi

btw , can feedback how is Alan Tan from Aian ?

Thanks

[Yuooli9 5]

Havent been updating the blog since the Evorich incident.... partly bcos we were waiting for the carpentry works to be done and there are nothing much to update on, and also partly bcos I was too lazy... By the way, we managed to get Evorich to remove the flooring for us and reinstall it again..wont want to go into details, anyway, it has been a bad experience with them...

Now that the reno is almost done and the house will be handed over soon.. i will update on what had been done these 2 months..

Edited February 3, 2015 by Yuooli9

[Yuooli9 5]

Hi

Any update on your house ? looking forward to see your lovely house pics.

Thanks

Hi crystaltiong, here are some of the pics of the house.

Living Room

Love the wooden ceiling beams. We wanted to have them in white initially, but Alan's carpenter, Ah Tan suggested to have them in wood colour. We appreciated his suggestion very much. He was also very patient and meticulous in helping us to decide on the measurements of the blue cabinet doors, and suggested to have it designed in this way so that the doors will not hit the chandelier lights when opened.

Windows grills are installed. The door on the brick wall will be removed soon. We have decided not to have seatee at the windows anymore as we would like more space in the living room.

TV console and shoe cabinet done, with the round edges that we want.

Oops...forgot to take pictures of the glass door and glass wall of bedroom 3. Will upload when I have taken the photos.

Edited February 3, 2015 by Yuooli9

[Yuooli9 5]

Kitchen

The higher counter is for the bar stools. Bar stools yet to arrive.

Edited February 3, 2015 by Yuooli9

[Yuooli9 5]

Toilets

Common toilet

Basin cabinet from Taobao installed. Wall to wall mirror yet to install.

Master toilet

Mirror cabinet from Taobao installed. For this basin cabinet, we asked Ah Tan to duplicate the design that in the common toilet. Handles yet to install.

Edited February 3, 2015 by Yuooli9

[Yuooli9 5]

Master bedroom wardrobe and dressing table

Bedroom 2 wardrobe

Edited February 3, 2015 by Yuooli9

[Yuooli9 5]

hey your toilet bowl cover where to get ah?

hee , i kpo and found in taobao the toilet bowl cover

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=5437205082&ali_refid=a3_420434_1006:1102249311:N:%C2%ED%CD%B0%B8%C7:1859423c758f69c143f7118c9700912a&ali_trackid=1_1859423c758f69c143f7118c9700912a&spm=a230r.1.0.0.NArlPx

Yes! that is the link that I found the toilet bowl cover. But please be mindful of buying the toilet bowl cover from Taobao. Cos the screw that they provide seems to be different from those that we use in Singapore. As a result, we have not installed the cover yet. Still sourcing around for a suitable screw.

Edited February 4, 2015 by Yuooli9

[nicks 0]

Toilets

Common toilet

Basin cabinet from Taobao installed. Wall to wall mirror yet to install.

Master toilet

Mirror cabinet from Taobao installed. For this basin cabinet, we asked Ah Tan to duplicate the design that in the common toilet. Handles yet to install.

Hi yuooli9,

Wow, I almost went to evorich but am thinking doubly hard now on engaging them for my floors! Thanks for sharing your not so good experience even though I can just imagine the anger while you reminisce the entire flooring process!

By the way, I'm actually intending to get the basin cabinet for the bathrooms just like you from taobao, but am not sure which agent to use! How was the delivery for your basin cabinet, no cracks, no chips? Packaging secure? Very worried if the basin cracks or something while on delivery leh... Any advice pls? Appreciate your input very much, thank you!

[Yuooli9 5]

Hi

btw , can feedback how is Alan Tan from Aian ?

Thanks

Hihi, since our reno is coming to an end, I think it will be good to share with everyone our experience with our contractor, Alan Tan

Generally, WX (my fiance) and I are very satisfied with the outcomes of our house reno. We feel that Alan has been very accommodating to our requests, and is always willing to rectify any defects or mistakes made. So far, there is not a single work in the reno that we do not like and have to force ourself to accept. (except for the Evorich flooring.... ).

Alan is an easy going person as in he will try to concede to your request and work on them. Eg, the wavy TV feature wall, arch shapes, arch shape glass door......are things that he has never done before but he managed to get his workers to spend time working on them to get the results that we like. The arch shape glass door took about 1-2 months to make and that, according to Alan, is the most challenging work in our house reno. Although we do not know much about glass making, we can roughly know the difficulty because the degree of the arch glass door has to be very accurate with our arch shaped wall... and we dont know what they do to measure the degree of the curve.

Secondly, he is very cool with payments. Although the contract states that we have to make 4 payments at different stages of the reno, we only make 2 payments. The 1st payment of 50% was made after he hacked our bedroom wall, and we will be making the final payment soon during the handover. For the 1st payment, I was waiting for him to collect payment from me, but he only asked for payment a few weeks later after WX returned to Singapore from a working trip. I guess with cases like contractors/IDs went missing after taking money from house owners, we can have a piece of mind when working with Alan. Also, when it comes to discussing about adding additional items or taking away items, he is not calculative as to keep mentioning the additional cost to us and things like that. Things that he find unnecessary or redundant like changing new toilet bowls, overlaying tiles to existing tiles , even if he can earn the money, we can sense his disapproval.

Thirdly, Alan's workers are very nice and approachable. People worth mentioning are the carpentry guy (Ah Tan), the electrician, the plastering guy and the concrete guy. Ah Tan is a soft spoken guy and will always try his very best to explain to us what can be done, what cannot be done and the reasons behind it. As we do not have the technical knowledge, he will explain in simple terms until we finally understand. As he lives nearby, he will make the effort to come down to meet us at night to talk about things which can actually be spoken through the phone. Things that he is not sure, he will confirm b4 getting back to us again. We are really appreciative of that. As for the workmanship, we are very satisfied and like all the carpentry work in the house. The electrician is also a nice guy who did all our lightings and switches. When we noticed that he has installed smt wrongly (due to miscommunication), he is willing to rectify without showing any black face.. The plastering guy, I think he is known as "Dao sa" (bean paste), is a very funny guy. Always call to check and confirm before starting on any work. Works that are done correctly but we want them to be perfect, he is also very willing to change for us. Then lastly is the concrete guy. This guy I only met him once. He seems very unapproachable at first, but after talking to him, I find that he is just serious and detailed in his work. He will ask me how big I want the arch to be, how tall, how long.. etc. so I have to keep drawing on paper and tell him the exact measurement before he starts. I understand that this is smt that he has never done before, so I do not expect him to make the decision for me. For things that I am not sure and need time to think, he will say, "nvm, u think slowly. If you not satisfied, I can change again." Really like his attitude!

Having said so much about the strengths of Alan and his team, it will be fair to share some of the flaws.

1) Alan can be very forgetful. Things that you mention to him may not be communicated down correctly or communicated at all to his workers. So there are a lot of work on our part. What we did was we drew our house design, with all the measurements etc. and printed out, then pasted them all over the house so that when the workers come, they will look at them and if there are any confusion, they will ask first before they start work. For the toilet accessories, we labelled the boxes and stick tapes on the wall to indicate the positions to install the accessories. As such, mistakes are brought down to the minimum. Most of the time, we communicated directly to the workers, and we make quite a few trips down to our house to ensure that work is done to our requirements. Anyway, Alan has told us beforehand that it will be better if we communicated and meet up directly with his workers and we had agreed on that at the beginning.

2) Heard from WX that the glass door guy is not very cooperative and tried to dissuade us from doing the arch glass door that we want. But after we talked to Alan about it, things are settled.

3) I think the main thing that most ppl will be concerned about is the duration of the entire reno. For us, this is not the main concern as we are not in the hurry to move in. Our reno started in Sept and is supposed to end in Dec. But there are still some touch ups that need to be done and the handover will only be in mid Feb. There are incidents such as the HDB cement screeding, Evorich's flooring that delayed our reno process, but for Alan, he doesn't do work for consecutively 5 days per week. That is for each week, only 1 or 2 days there are reno works, after that the house will be quiet for 1 or 2 weeks b4 reno work starts again. Perhaps this only happen to us because we told him that we are not in a hurry to move in, and then there are incidents along the way when we tell him to stop work temporary first, and our glass door seems challenging to complete....but I think for ppl who are considering to engage Alan, you must be prepared to accept that your reno may not be completed within the stated date. I think this is quite important because if you have to rush him all the time, and when work is done wrongly which need more time to rectify, you will feel more frustrated and may not enjoy the whole process.

Actually, before we engaged Alan, we have read some negative comments about him on Renotalk. However, after our 1st meet up with him, we find that he is someone whom we can connect to, compared to all the other IDs and contractor that we met, and his quotation is within our budget, so we decided to give it a try. Till now, we did not regret our decision. Well, no one is perfect, and with Alan and his team, we feel that the number of strengths exceeded the number of flaws, making the whole reno journey a smooth and enjoyable one. If you are the type who is willing to take a very proactive role in ur reno, have ideas that other IDs or contractors do not dare to do, and you and your partner are not in a hurry to move in, then you will be happy with your experience with Alan and his workers.

Edited February 4, 2015 by Yuooli9

[Yuooli9 5]

Hi yuooli9,

Wow, I almost went to evorich but am thinking doubly hard now on engaging them for my floors! Thanks for sharing your not so good experience even though I can just imagine the anger while you reminisce the entire flooring process!

By the way, I'm actually intending to get the basin cabinet for the bathrooms just like you from taobao, but am not sure which agent to use! How was the delivery for your basin cabinet, no cracks, no chips? Packaging secure? Very worried if the basin cracks or something while on delivery leh... Any advice pls? Appreciate your input very much, thank you!

Hi nicks,

I guess you can still go the Evorich showroom and take a look first. Maybe I was just unlucky. Actually that time when we went to the showroom, we met a nice guy, James, who introduced the different floorings to us. But we did not sign the flooring on the spot. Instead, we signed it with Kenneth at the Expo fair and encountered the bad experience... If you want, you can try looking for James in the showroom. hmm.. if not, i think other t-bloggers, such as ocean eleven, have taken other brands of vinyl flooring which is cheaper too. You can go to his blog to take a look.

for the basin cabinet, I got Peeka to buy for me. I was told that Peeka charges by volume and not by weight. That time I got Peeka is because I did not know how to go about buying it directly from Taobao as this basin cabinet only go by 物流 and not 快递。I think if you buy directly from Taobao will be cheaper. So ended up including the shipping and delivery cost me about $400+ which is almost the same as basin cabinets sold in Singapore. But since I cant find such design in Singapore, i think it is still worth it. For the packaging and all, it is dependant on the Taobao seller. For my basin cabinet, it was very securely packaged in boxes with wooden crates. Everything was intact without any cracks or chip off, even the mirror on the mirror cabinet in my master toilet is still in one piece.

Edited February 4, 2015 by Yuooli9

[crystaltiong 2]

Yuooli9

Gd to hear from u again ... My reno gg to start with Alan soon ... juz that i find that some items of his prices are quite expensive .....

Carpentry guy is Ah Tan? I thought its ah Gui which bashful had used....

Can share your mirror cabinet link from taobao ?

Thanks

Edited February 4, 2015 by crystaltiong

[fjklrc 0]

hi,

Nice reno.

I m looking for a contractor, do y mind to PM me Alan's cobtact ?

thks.

[crystaltiong 2]

btw , how much is yr induction cooker ? thanks

[Yuooli9 5]

Yuooli9

Gd to hear from u again ... My reno gg to start with Alan soon ... juz that i find that some items of his prices are quite expensive .....

Carpentry guy is Ah Tan? I thought its ah Gui which bashful had used....

Can share your mirror cabinet link from taobao ?

Thanks

hi crystaltiong,

You can try asking Alan for discount, I think he will be willing to reduce his price.

Yes, the carpentry guy is Ah Tan. I have heard of Ah Gui in renotalk, he is quite popular. But no, we din get him, and also didnt request for him. I think Alan assigned Ah Tan to us cos he lived very near to our new house, more convenient.... luckily Ah Tan turns out to be quite good too.

My mirror cabinet is the same link as the basin cabinet. I tried to enter the link just now but was directed to a page saying that the item has been moved or removed. If you want, you can try. here is the link:

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.355.1nS1Jw&id=39167749362&ns=1#detail

Otherwise you can try searching for the keywords, 马可波罗浴室柜 蓝色卫浴柜欧式橡木吊柜洗面盆浴室柜

All the best in your reno with Alan!

[Yuooli9 5]

hi,

Nice reno.

I m looking for a contractor, do y mind to PM me Alan's cobtact ?

thks.

Hi

Have PMed you!