Mission (Almost) Impossible - 25K 4Rm Bto Renovation

[celztang 1]

Hi jez,

Tried to pm u but ur mailbox is full. Was wondering whether u can share with me ur contractor details? I am looking for a contractor who specialises in carpentry work. Thanks

[graphicj75 0]

Hi Jez,

Your design is very awesome and very well thought off. You must put a lot of efforts & love into it. I agree with you that carpentry workmanship is one of the most important aspect in renovation. It really sucks that we had to pour in so much of money into renovation. I looking for a reliable contractor and was wondering if you so kind to let me know the contacts.My email is graphicj@singnet.com.sg Thks God bless

[jez2014 16]

Hi Celztang:

I tried to PM you but your inbox is also full. I've cleared some space from mine. You can try to PM us again.

Graphicicj: SORRY! We composed a message to you, but didn't press send button yet! Thanks for reminding us. Anyway I will send when I can. Somehow t-blog message does not work well on iPhone. Need go home use laptop :/ Note that I do not reply by email as it opens us up to spam. Thanks

Edited January 7, 2015 by jez2014

[feidxeno 0]

Good luck with the reno ! I will be tuning in to your progress !

Can't wait to see the results !

[jez2014 16]

Our Renovation Begins!

Guest entry by the Spouse (part 4)

The wife watched Madagascar as a kid, and she LOVED the movie.

Ever since then, she has been pestering me to go on Safari in Africa. Her top three wishes are:

1. Hear a lion roar

2. Watch a zebra(s) gallop across the savannah

3. Laugh at a hippopotamus relaxing in the river

Being the budget conscious person I am, for #3, I offered her a bathtub and a mirror.

When she got angry, I promised to take her to Hafary. Close enough to Safari lah... hor?

First Stop: Tub!

And this brings me to our first renovation project. The bath tub!

It might sound strange that the bathtub would be the first project, but apparently, it is quite normal to settle the tub early. You see, the pipes leading out from the air con unit are usually placed in the toilet nearest to the compressor. The condensate (water) is allowed to drain into the nearest available drainage hole.

For BTOs these days, the compressor is at the air con service ledge, which is at the master bedroom. This means the nearest toilet is the master toilet. The nearest drainage hole is also the one in the master toilet.

Bath tubs are usually for the master toilet only. So I'm sure you can see by now...

TL;DR (Too Long, Didn't Read) version: Your bath tub fights for the same hole as the air con pipe.

Bo pian. Some holes are more popular than others

Timeline

You may have already read in this post that we managed to practically STEAL a bath tub for $99 (usual price $300 and up). The installation of the bath tub proved to be much simpler than we thought. Here's a timeline of what happened after that.

Early Dec 2014: Select and confirm bathtub tiles

Early Dec 2014: Air con man had to come to lay the piping first (air con man uses the hole first)

Mid Dec 2014: Plumber came to fix the pipes for the tub (plumber gets to use the hole second... eeyer )

Mid Dec 2014: Tiler came to lay the tiles we selected.

Finish.

 

It was so quick, it became somewhat anti-climatic.

 

The bath tub came quickly. The air con man came quickly. The plumber came quickly. Every one came so quickly I started to suspect that Pfizer was having a Viagra sale.

Process

But anyway, here's some of the jucier details.

In early December 2014, our contractor took us to Hafary, to view tiles. Hafary is an amazing place. Here are the top three amaze things that amazed me!

Amazing(!) 1: SO many types of tiles!

There must have been like 1,000,000 tiles! One million. MEE-LEE-ON! Rows of tiles. Colums of tiles. Tiles on top of tiles. Piles of tiles. Walls and walls of tiles. I never touch so many tiles in my life before!

Before going to Hafary, the only tiles I knew were Mahjong tiles.

Amazing(!) 2: None of the tiles I touch is the tile I want!

Just like my luck at Mahjong...

 

Super amazing how ugly 90% of them were! But my wife say I was mean.

She say, "different strokes for different folks lah", "one man's meat is another man's poison lah".

Then I realized, she made sense.

I told her "Ya hor. Some people will say my wife ugly. But I think hippopotamus is cute leh, what to do? "

 

I thought I was agreeing with her! Why she get angry at me (again) leh.

Amazing(!) 3: We found the one!

Super amaze! Despite being trapped in a maze (hoho. my pun so clever.) of 900,000 ugly tiles (1 million multiply by 90%; my maths good hor!), we found something we wanted!

It was cute (like me), neat (like me), classy (like me), dense enough (like my wife) and black (like my wife face now)!

Some women just get angry easily. Haiyah. Cannot please her.

Voila! Our Tub

Because everything finished faster than a 70-year old Ah Pek with hot China wife, we got no time to take "before" and "after" photos. Haiyah.

Presenting photos of our finished bathtub!

 

Actual Tub

 

Tiles

The seashells. SO CUTE omg. Loves!

My wife is giving me the "are you a man or not?!" look.

I don't care!

I like cute things, that's why I married her.

Workmanship

In the close up, you can see how neatly the tiles are laid. (The top white part IS the bath tub btw)

Our contractor told me this job was done by his favorite tiler. He likes this tiler so much, our contractor even tried to make the tiler a partner in his contracting business - but the tiler apparently prefers to be freelance. His own man.

Freebie ALERT!

Sometime in mid Dec, my contractor out of the blue came to me to tell me that he calculated there would be leftover iQuartz from the kitchen counter tops. (see this post)

Based on his calculations, he figures the EXTRA pieces can be cut and fashioned into bathroom ledges! Like those you find in hotels (those put shampoo etc on it one).

No extra charge. Free. As free as Madagascan zebras. Dunno why I think of zebras. Must be the bra.

Its not done yet, but I will put up a photo when it's ready. That was seriously.a.great.idea!

Parting Shot

Final advice for those of you looking to start your renovations will come in the form of a photograph-cum-caption (Today's post alot of innuendos sia. Its a sign! Bath tub is naughty corner anyway )

Treat your renovators nicely! Happy staff = better work (My personal belief, lah!)

Edited October 4, 2017 by jez2014

[Guest Leslie Koh]

thanks for your update! I just met Contractor E, hopefully his quote for me is as nice as yours

[JohnB 15]

Quartz top, eh, don't play play!

We heard many bad things about solid surface top AND granite tops (the former is **** CMI). So we forked out abit more to get iQuartz. The color scheme was chosen by yours truly - the ceiling she wanted green lah.

...

Moral of Story:

Please insist on 3-D diagrams! Lifesaver! Phew!

Overall:

I think the house has a nice clean look - and there's ALOT of carpentry for 25k. **** happy

Furthermore, when signing the contract we actually haggled quite abit to get extra paints, extra laminates etc - but end up never use. I will try to knock the price down further because in the end I choose so much white! White is actually the cheapest (we learnt from them)!

Next Episode:

Actual works start! Stay tuned!

Ceiling colour sounds like a good idea. If one is in the mood for some colour, it's right there. If not, just don't look up. And it goes with the green version of Mama Lemon!

Could I trouble you for the price that your contractor quoted you for the custom study table (white, L-shaped), please?

That does look like a generous amount of carpentry works for $25k. Well done, Jez2014.

[gosailor 0]

Hi Jez2014,

Congrats to your reno and your carpentry design sure looks great!

Do you mind to share your contractor name, company name & contact no? Thanks in advance!

cheers,

[jez2014 16]

Hi gosailor and JohnB,

I've responded to your queries by PM. Thanks for reading!

Aside

Phew! This is turning out to be (practically) a full-time job!! @___@"

We aren't sure how long we can keep this up for - but if work gets busy and we don't reply, we apologize in advance!!

[graphicj75 0]

Hi Jez,

thank you so much for the information. i never come across such a nice person like you & God bless. Your information is the most helpful. My place coming up and looking for reliable contractors.Wish you & your family good health & prosperity.Thks again.

[jez2014 16]

Carpentry

If you want to become a dentist, you study dentistry.

If you want to become a carpenter, you study carpentry.

If you want to become an adult leh...?

Today's post will focus on the carpentry in the study!

If you've been following the t-blog however, you'll know that in late Nov 2014, we finalized our 3-D drawings! The post can be found here.

While we were generally VERY satisfied with the drawings provided to us, there were some minor changes (which we'll keep secret until we unveil them shhh!). After the changes were approved, in early December, we gave contractor E the go ahead to:

1. Paint the house

2. Begin fabricating the carpentry

Within a week, the paint was done. It was quite a conservative paint job, and you can read more about our "ceiling color" paint scheme here. So nothing much to share here, but it made us very happy to walk into a house with color . Bonus: The contractor we chose promised us a second round of paint/touch up after carpentry is complete. I will remind him if he forgets!

By end December, there was wood in our house.

Wooden Invaders!

For those of you who are very "ngeow ku" (dialect: fussy, picky) like me, go ahead and scrutinize the image for the corrugated floor protection. It runs all the way to the skirting, and properly covers the floor. Must say that it made me quite happy to see that!

Overall however, I remember feeling underwhelmed. It was a huge mess, and I couldn't see how things would fit together. I couldn't even see the laminates that we chose! It felt like Christmas, but without being to open your presents

Early January

Fast forward about one week, and I suddenly could see the carcass! All the pieces finally seemed to fit! Hypeeeeeee! Excites!

Today

Fast forward to today! (9th Jan 2015)

Here's the view as from the common corridor, as I slowly crept into the room this morning. So far so good. Quite like the laminate choices we made. White and wood, with internal PVC finish - also in wood. The V-shaped top cabinets look nicer than I thought! My dad hiam (dialect: comment in a displeased manner) the V-shaped cabinets not very practical. But I said "Aesthetic. Need not be pathetic. No need confuse. I will find a use."

I thought my rhyming cool sia!

Another POV

Anyway, here's how it looks like from the other side of the room (the window side).

Edited October 4, 2017 by jez2014

[jez2014 16]

My Custom Table

 

I mentioned in an earlier post (here) that we consulted our contractor on the construction of a custom table. Immigration also got alot of Custom table ha ha.

 

 

It works like a charm!

 

First picture: You should be able to see how neatly the white portion tucks into the top plank.

Second picture: You should be able to see that the white portion swivels!

 

I apologize for highlighting the word swivel again. Those of you who've been following this blog will know I've been overkill on the word swivel - but I am SUPER excited about the table!

 

You see, we are placing a bed to the right of the table. I love to work from beds, but my wife thinks its a total waste of space to have TWO tables in the study. We chanced upon this design which suits our limited space. I love it!

 

Best part is, he charged us the regular per foot price for study tables (bottom piece also must pay lah). No ultra-expensive custom-built fee! His thoughts on the table were (summarized) "Quite easy to do. Not that much extra effort mah".

 

(By the way! The groove cut into the table is for my Eubiq system, just in case you were wondering)

Edited October 4, 2017 by jez2014

[jez2014 16]

Workmanship

Workmanship is what most people obsess about, after price.

For every contractor/ID we met, we would ask them to take us to current/existing projects to view the workmanship. (And you should do the same!)

In early October, we visited one of contractor JE's (then) current projects. The workmanship was the deal clincher for us. We hoped that JE would keep up the good work for our house...

Fast forward to Jan 2015

I am proud to present to you our study!

I've highlighted the workmanship in each of the following three photographs. Some are so subtle you might miss it!

Workmanship - Photo 1

If you're thinking "Ok, neat ,straight lines, nicely applied laminate," then I'm afraid you've missed the point of this picture.

Look closely at the top wooden cabinet door. Its the one in white.

You should now be able to make out the groove cut into the door. Its slanted ever so subtly, to ensure the top cabinet can be opened easily. This was amazing for us. High cabinets have the groove pointing "upwards", whilst low cabinets have their grooves pointing "downwards". You have to open the cabinets yourself, to get a feel of how useful such a small feature can prove to be.

What's even more impressive is, if you go back to the picture just before this one (previous post), you'll see how the groove is invisible from the front. Not that it matters anyway, as the groove is actually quite aesthetically pleasing.

Workmanship - Photo 2

You can see again for yourself how the half-height cabinet also has the groove cut into the base of the door, where you'd open it from.

Once again, if you look back to Photo 1, you'll see how the groove for the half-height cabinet is otherwise hidden from view.

The electrical socket (bottom left side, open shelf) is also neat, and I can't wait to see how it will look, once the socket is up! Because this is the study, we expect to place a printer in that area. We initially wanted it to be fitted to our printer (I like it tight... heh heh) - and we gave contractor E the dimensions of the printer. But he very helpfully reminded us "printer next time maybe need to change one leh". Good point. So we made the hole bigger.

The picture above also conceals another surprising workmanship feature! Can you spot it? (Don't cheat and look at Photo 3!)

Workmanship - Photo 3

Ta-daah! All the shelving that they do comes with this "AA track system". I hope I got the name right. This means that the height of the shelves is fully adjustable. For built in carpentry, I think this is a GODSEND.

Imagine you have fabricated tonnes of built-in carpentry. Your house is stacked to the max with cabinets - but you find some of your ginormous stuff just won't fit into the shelves! Then how!!

Boss even promised me extra planks and those metal pieces, in case I decide later that I need extra shelves!

I feel slightly bad that they are so nice, because I feel I knocked him down quite hard on the final quotation... scarli (Singlish: what happens if?) they refuse to give me extra planks because the final price was too cheap...

Comparing to the 3-D image

Lastly, I thought I'd compare this with the 3-D image we were presented with (see: this post).

To cut costs, we ended up:

1. Doing away with the false ceiling and T-5 light (behind the shelf).

2. No parquet flooring either. Sticking to the original tiles HDB gave us.

We're still in the process of buying a super single bed for the room, but we're otherwise done! I'm happy to report that the study I got is exactly what I want!

Next up

Master Bedroom? (Planning the MBR give us the most "rawr!" moments)

Edited October 4, 2017 by jez2014

[michyho 0]

Hi

Can share your quotation and contact? Thanks!

[intonewlife 2]

Wow.. I like the swivel table.