The First Blog Entry Ever!

[alprakas 1]

I know it has been a very very long time since I updated this thread. I suddenly got very busy at work, then the renovation started a couple of weeks ago. So far the hacking is done, tiling almost done.. Now moving to flooring.

I ended up doing Vinyl for the living room, my new wardrobe area and even the kitchen ( long story about the kitchen). Selected Evorich HERF for the Vinyl. I so wanted the wood grain tiles instead in these places, but we really could not find any good looking wood grain tiles within our budget. Plus the tilers wanted to charge us exorbitantly for staggering the tiles and excessive wastage. So I decided to do Evorich vinyl for the living room and the wardrobe area. Saved us more than a thousand bucks when compared to tiles. For the kitchen I still wanted tiles because of the fear of water sipping through the vinyl. So that was decided. The first day of the renovation, the hackers came over and hacked all the necessary things; they were done in three days and they left. After they left, my tiler tells me that they cannot overlay tiles in the kitchen since the house shelter door cannot open after overlaying. I was furious with my ID. The guy had been to the place several times by then and still did not identify this problem. He told us about all the other doors that need to be adjusted after overlaying, but forgot about the one door that cannot be adjusted/touched at all. Anyway, so he says that he will arrange for the hackers to come over and hack the tiles, but they will charge me another 600 SGD for hacking and hauling off the debris. 

Then I thought of Vinyl and suggested to him, first he refused saying that even with overlaying vinyl the door cannot be opened. I showed with the vinyl sample I had, but he insisted upon calling the evorich guys to confirm. I agreed that it was better for the evorich guys to come and confirm. So they came and confirmed. In the end, I confirmed that we will do vinyl in the kitchen as well.

After all said and done, they finished the vinyl flooring yesterday; these guys are fast! they finished in less than a day for about 600 sqft area. I went in the evening after those guys left, it looks nice, but at some places it feels hollow. I am told that it takes a bit of time to settle down, so lets see. I hope it does not feel hollow for too long. Here are some picture of the Vinyl floor, please excuse the lousy quality of the pictures itself though.

 

 

Now back to the tiling, we are putting in a lot of effort in the master toilet itself. We went to soon bee huat and hafari several times and multiple branches. But the first time, we liked two tiles a lot from soon bee huat. These two tiles were part of the same series, but the problem was that I liked and my wife liked the other one.. So we had to compromise in the end: Here goes: 

See what we had to do there, I got my tiles on the floor and my wife got her special tiles on the wall!  The work is still ongoing, so they haven't cleared all the debris from there yet.. The one on the floor can be difficult to maintain though, as in since there area grooves in the tiles, bad things can get stuck there.. Plus the tiles are dark, which can make them hard to see.. But I clean my toilets myself quite frequently, so I will just have to make sure that they are clean everytime..  

Thats all so far.. I hope I wont take this long to update the next time. What do you guys think?

By the way, I am kind of struggling with the electrical stuff at the moment, the electrician with my ID quoted me 4K plus for all the electrical items, including laying the Cat 6 cables in the 3 bedrooms. The cat 6 cables itself was quoted at 600! Really, is it that expensive? If you guys have some cheaper option there, please share! Thanks a lot guys..

 

Edited April 7, 2016 by alprakas
Editing to get the pictures to show in the post

[wsketchpad 0]

2 hours ago, alprakas said:

I know it has been a very very long time since I updated this thread. I suddenly got very busy at work, then the renovation started a couple of weeks ago. So far the hacking is done, tiling almost done.. Now moving to flooring.

I ended up doing Vinyl for the living room, my new wardrobe area and even the kitchen ( long story about the kitchen). Selected Evorich HERF for the Vinyl. I so wanted the wood grain tiles instead in these places, but we really could not find any good looking wood grain tiles within our budget. Plus the tilers wanted to charge us exorbitantly for staggering the tiles and excessive wastage. So I decided to do Evorich vinyl for the living room and the wardrobe area. Saved us more than a thousand bucks when compared to tiles. For the kitchen I still wanted tiles because of the fear of water sipping through the vinyl. So that was decided. The first day of the renovation, the hackers came over and hacked all the necessary things; they were done in three days and they left. After they left, my tiler tells me that they cannot overlay tiles in the kitchen since the house shelter door cannot open after overlaying. I was furious with my ID. The guy had been to the place several times by then and still did not identify this problem. He told us about all the other doors that need to be adjusted after overlaying, but forgot about the one door that cannot be adjusted/touched at all. Anyway, so he says that he will arrange for the hackers to come over and hack the tiles, but they will charge me another 600 SGD for hacking and hauling off the debris. 

Then I thought of Vinyl and suggested to him, first he refused saying that even with overlaying vinyl the door cannot be opened. I showed with the vinyl sample I had, but he insisted upon calling the evorich guys to confirm. I agreed that it was better for the evorich guys to come and confirm. So they came and confirmed. In the end, I confirmed that we will do vinyl in the kitchen as well.

After all said and done, they finished the vinyl flooring yesterday; these guys are fast! they finished in less than a day for about 600 sqft area. I went in the evening after those guys left, it looks nice, but at some places it feels hollow. I am told that it takes a bit of time to settle down, so lets see. I hope it does not feel hollow for too long. Here are some picture of the Vinyl floor, please excuse the lousy quality of the pictures itself though.

 

 

Now back to the tiling, we are putting in a lot of effort in the master toilet itself. We went to soon bee huat and hafari several times and multiple branches. But the first time, we liked two tiles a lot from soon bee huat. These two tiles were part of the same series, but the problem was that I liked and my wife liked the other one.. So we had to compromise in the end: Here goes: 

See what we had to do there, I got my tiles on the floor and my wife got her special tiles on the wall!  The work is still ongoing, so they haven't cleared all the debris from there yet.. The one on the floor can be difficult to maintain though, as in since there area grooves in the tiles, bad things can get stuck there.. Plus the tiles are dark, which can make them hard to see.. But I clean my toilets myself quite frequently, so I will just have to make sure that they are clean everytime..  

Thats all so far.. I hope I wont take this long to update the next time. What do you guys think?

By the way, I am kind of struggling with the electrical stuff at the moment, the electrician with my ID quoted me 4K plus for all the electrical items, including laying the Cat 6 cables in the 3 bedrooms. The cat 6 cables itself was quoted at 600! Really, is it that expensive? If you guys have some cheaper option there, please share! Thanks a lot guys..

 

4k sounds quite steep! Now I'm anxious to find out how much my electrician would charge me:(

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have the impression that the LAN and tel lines are already Cat6. Are you laying additional ones?

[ricepapergirl 21]

2 hours ago, alprakas said:

I know it has been a very very long time since I updated this thread. I suddenly got very busy at work, then the renovation started a couple of weeks ago. So far the hacking is done, tiling almost done.. Now moving to flooring.

I ended up doing Vinyl for the living room, my new wardrobe area and even the kitchen ( long story about the kitchen). Selected Evorich HERF for the Vinyl. I so wanted the wood grain tiles instead in these places, but we really could not find any good looking wood grain tiles within our budget. Plus the tilers wanted to charge us exorbitantly for staggering the tiles and excessive wastage. So I decided to do Evorich vinyl for the living room and the wardrobe area. Saved us more than a thousand bucks when compared to tiles. For the kitchen I still wanted tiles because of the fear of water sipping through the vinyl. So that was decided. The first day of the renovation, the hackers came over and hacked all the necessary things; they were done in three days and they left. After they left, my tiler tells me that they cannot overlay tiles in the kitchen since the house shelter door cannot open after overlaying. I was furious with my ID. The guy had been to the place several times by then and still did not identify this problem. He told us about all the other doors that need to be adjusted after overlaying, but forgot about the one door that cannot be adjusted/touched at all. Anyway, so he says that he will arrange for the hackers to come over and hack the tiles, but they will charge me another 600 SGD for hacking and hauling off the debris. 

Then I thought of Vinyl and suggested to him, first he refused saying that even with overlaying vinyl the door cannot be opened. I showed with the vinyl sample I had, but he insisted upon calling the evorich guys to confirm. I agreed that it was better for the evorich guys to come and confirm. So they came and confirmed. In the end, I confirmed that we will do vinyl in the kitchen as well.

After all said and done, they finished the vinyl flooring yesterday; these guys are fast! they finished in less than a day for about 600 sqft area. I went in the evening after those guys left, it looks nice, but at some places it feels hollow. I am told that it takes a bit of time to settle down, so lets see. I hope it does not feel hollow for too long. Here are some picture of the Vinyl floor, please excuse the lousy quality of the pictures itself though.

Now back to the tiling, we are putting in a lot of effort in the master toilet itself. We went to soon bee huat and hafari several times and multiple branches. But the first time, we liked two tiles a lot from soon bee huat. These two tiles were part of the same series, but the problem was that I liked and my wife liked the other one.. So we had to compromise in the end: Here goes: 

See what we had to do there, I got my tiles on the floor and my wife got her special tiles on the wall!  The one on the floor can be difficult to maintain though, as in since there area grooves in the tiles, bad things can get stuck there.. Plus the tiles are dark, which can make them hard to see.. But I clean my toilets myself quite frequently, so I will just have to make sure that they are clean everytime..  

Thats all so far.. I hope I wont take this long to update the next time. What do you guys think?

By the way, I am kind of struggling with the electrical stuff at the moment, the electrician with my ID quoted me 4K plus for all the electrical items, including laying the Cat 6 cables in the 3 bedrooms. The cat 6 cables itself was quoted at 600! Really, is it that expensive? If you guys have some cheaper option there, please share! Thanks a lot guys..

 

Oh dear. so sorry to hear about your issues with the kitchen floor. So how is the vinyl in the kitchen? Wouldn't you still have worries about the water seeping in? Though isn't Evorich supposedly the brand that has waterproof vinyl?

Wow! I don't know how your electrical quote is structured but mine just looks at the number of Cat 6 end-points and charges me $150 each. If your quote is also doing that + charging for the cable itself, how about you buy the cable for them? Lol. No way the cable is going to be worth $600. If however you have maybe 4 Cat 6 end points then $600 would be the same as my quote. My current electrical quote is more than $5k but it includes changing all my electrical wires and I have a lot of lighting points (cost about $60+ per point for point + installation of the lights itself) and a lot of power sockets ($65 for double socket, $55 for single socket).

[alprakas 1]

On 07/04/2016 at 2:20 PM, wsketchpad said:

4k sounds quite steep! Now I'm anxious to find out how much my electrician would charge me:(

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have the impression that the LAN and tel lines are already Cat6. Are you laying additional ones?

Only the Lan is Cat 6 ethernet cables. I plan to have the LAN point in 3 bedrooms as well. For the living room, the router is generally there.. So there is no need to have another Lan point in the living room I suppose.

 

On 07/04/2016 at 2:34 PM, ricepapergirl said:

Oh dear. so sorry to hear about your issues with the kitchen floor. So how is the vinyl in the kitchen? Wouldn't you still have worries about the water seeping in? Though isn't Evorich supposedly the brand that has waterproof vinyl?

Wow! I don't know how your electrical quote is structured but mine just looks at the number of Cat 6 end-points and charges me $150 each. If your quote is also doing that + charging for the cable itself, how about you buy the cable for them? Lol. No way the cable is going to be worth $600. If however you have maybe 4 Cat 6 end points then $600 would be the same as my quote. My current electrical quote is more than $5k but it includes changing all my electrical wires and I have a lot of lighting points (cost about $60+ per point for point + installation of the lights itself) and a lot of power sockets ($65 for double socket, $55 for single socket).

 

Thanks ricepapergirl.. Yes I am still worried about the water seepage, but I suppose we will have to live with it.. The evorich guy did insist that their Vinyl is waterproof, NOT just water resistant.... I confirmed with the guy several times about that. But to be honest, I dont care what they say.. I do not really believe that it can be water proof! So we will just be careful in mopping up any water spill on the kitchen floor as soon as possible.

As it turns out, my Cat 6 quotation is identical to yours. I was not clear earlier. But it is indeed 150 SGD per point. Since I was planning to do 4 points, they quoted me 600 SGD. Even so, I find it really expensive.. I mean, how much do Cat 6 cables cost anyway! 150 SGD per point seems like a complete rip off.. But what to do, it is not as if we have a lot choice in this. I am not really doing any rewiring.. But yes, quite a few power points in the kitchen.. so that will be expensive.. no choice..

I am going to talk to one more electrician next week.. Lets see how the other guy quotes..will update then

 

 

[Jess Ong 0]

Can i how many litres did you get for your bathtub?

[sunnyscandi 1]

On ‎1‎/‎23‎/‎2016 at 5:57 PM, alprakas said:

Here is a 3D design that I drew myself. It is not perfect or even complete, but roughly our ideas are there. The colours are pretty random at the moment.

,

What apps u use for the 3D?

[alprakas 1]

What apps u use for the 3D?

Free app called sweet home 3D. give it a search on google and you should be able to find it easily.

3 hours ago, Jess Ong said:

Can i how many litres did you get for your bathtub?

Sorry, I do not know the capacity of the bath tub.. The important thing for me was its size and honestly, it just barely fits into my master toilet. I worry, if they every need to service the tub for any reason, dont know how they are going to do that.. :-)

 

[slashmylove 5]

looking forward to see the progress of your home! looks good so far, have you bought the furniture and electronics?

[alprakas 1]

On 21/10/2016 at 10:33 AM, slashmylove said:

looking forward to see the progress of your home! looks good so far, have you bought the furniture and electronics?

Ah yes, in fact I had to move in while some of the renovation was still going on.. Paying rental was getting too painful!  Been staying at my new place for about 6 months already..

 

 

 

 

[jjrenosoul 0]

3 hours ago, alprakas said:

Ah yes, in fact I had to move in while some of the renovation was still going on.. Paying rental was getting too painful!  Been staying at my new place for about 6 months already..

 

 

 

 

Understand that you have shared the quote includes 33 items , can you pm which ID you have chosen ? How much approx cost? Would you share pls? TIA...

[slashmylove 5]

On ‎22‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 2:40 PM, alprakas said:

Ah yes, in fact I had to move in while some of the renovation was still going on.. Paying rental was getting too painful!  Been staying at my new place for about 6 months already..

 

 

 

 

haha pls share some cleaning tips! must be very dusty living with reno at the same time..

[alprakas 1]

On 10/24/2016 at 9:58 AM, slashmylove said:

haha pls share some cleaning tips! must be very dusty living with reno at the same time..

Hahaha Well, most of the wet works like tiles, flooring, painting, most of the carpentry stuff was already done before we shifted in. Some electrical work, kitchen counter top, splash back glass, carpentry touch ups, etc. was left over when we moved in. The headache was when we had to re-varnish the parquet in the 3 rooms, stupid contractors did a lousy job twice. 3rd time was okay. But the smell of the varnish is unbearable really, we didnt go inside the rooms for more than  a week. Had to sleep in the living room.

Anyway, most of the time the contractors clean after themselves, not very well, but to some extent. Then we had to let our vacuum cleaner run around the house frequently.  Ask the contractors to cover the floor and nearby stuff whenever anyone drills, else the dirt is hard to get out from some floors, like vinyl or wood grain tiles.

And clean slowly lah.   We are still dealing with house stuffs 6  months in. Arranging things, buying and fixing things here and there in the house all the time. 

 

On 10/22/2016 at 6:12 PM, jjrenosoul said:

Understand that you have shared the quote includes 33 items , can you pm which ID you have chosen ? How much approx cost? Would you share pls? TIA...

PMed you...

[w1nn7e 0]

Hi. Mind share contact of ID you engaged?

[GreenHornet 2]

I very much like your floor and wall choice. how much does it cost all in all and where did you boughg the materials?

[GreenHornet 2]

On 4/7/2016 at 2:20 PM, wsketchpad said:

4k sounds quite steep! Now I'm anxious to find out how much my electrician would charge me:(

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have the impression that the LAN and tel lines are already Cat6. Are you laying additional ones?

Is that a tile design on the floor?