Wood x White x Grey

[lalashir 5]

Thoughts on J&E 

My renovation sort of had already come to an end around 2 weeks ago except that the Evorich was supposed to come and change the joint line trimmings had informed that they currently do not have stock for the metal trimmings. Well no choice but move on to other things while waiting for stocks and Contractor E will arrange Evorich to come down again.

Although cleaning is in the quotation but the cleaning done by Contractors are never clean at all. We were hesitating if we should hire professional cleaning services or clean ourselves and decide to just save the $ and do it ourselves so we can make sure every part is clean before moving in! We started cleaning the house part by part since 2 weeks ago so that we can slowly add on electronics and furnishings. Cleaning the whole house is definitely no joke! 

So now I am ready to share my honest review for J&E. 

In total we spend around mid 30k including electrical. Before we contact J&E we already know that they are not cheap like most Contractors and in fact similar to some ID quotation. We still go ahead with them because we feel that our house and money are in safe hands. We are currently in the mids of our wedding preparation there will be a big sum that we need to spend for weddings and we were so scare of putting our money on a wrong contractor after hearing so many horror stories as we do not have so many 30k to spend on 

As we are only available during weekends and hardly can go down to supervise on the works, we need someone who is reliable. Throughout the whole renovation, J&E did not chase after us for payments at all and we were the one who are worried on not paying them instead  we are like so late in all our payments till handover day we only paid like 50% of the payment even though works are all done 

we rarely meet up with them throughout the whole renovations and mainly communicated through WhatsApp or phone calls and only visit our new place on weekends. 

carpentry wise, there are mistakes here and there some rectified some we leave it as it is but the works of the carpentry is definitely 

this is our first renovation and sometimes we felt a little lost and during that time I wished that we had engaged an ID instead so that there will be more design inputs. Though J&E offers 3D but they do not provide design inputs hence for those who are engaging J&E, you need to know exactly what you want. 

Contractor E is the project manager and sometimes a little too forgetful so some of the things you may have to tell him a few times but generally both J&E are very nice people! Most important thing for us is if there is a mistake that we pointed out they will rectify it for us.

Our renovations really took a Long time because we are not in a hurry to move in and did not give any timeline to J&E but I later realised that it was a mistake because some stuffs got dragged for too Long till I feel **** sick and tired that I am still not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. 

We are generally not picky people and most of the things we just cin cai about it. All in all if you are looking for someone trustworthy with good workmanship I would say that they are the one but if you are someone who are looking for a contractor who will be very meticulous then you will get very frustrated with them. 

 

 

Edited May 23, 2016 by lalashir

[lalashir 5]

So now since renovations had come to an end, it's another exciting task for the house which is furnishings! There are still a lot of things that we have yet to buy. 

- fridge (will be getting Hitachi) 

- washing machine (anyone has any recommendations on which brand to buy? My old house is using a SHARP brand and my mum bought it when we move in here 24 years ago and although the exterior is very old and dirty but it is still working and we are still using it!) 

- mattress and bed frames 

- bomb shelter rack

some updates for the house 

Stools from Taobao. 

Racks from Taobao for service yard. 

Just received our sofa and love it so much! Super comfy to slouch on it and we are considering to buy another armchair from the same series! 

Kitchen

 

 

 

[VincentTan 0]

Hi @lalashir,

Nice home you got there~

Really enjoy reading your tblog.

Possible to get Contractor J&E contact from you?

Thanks~

[watzup 1]

Wow! lalashir, nice updates! Please give them coming.

Just wondering where is the sofa from?

[Weijie123 1]

On Friday, May 13, 2016 at 10:31 AM, lalashir said:

I was really keen to use Kompacplus for kitchen top but had changed because the hubby is sceptical on how Kompacplus will last hence we had decided to use good old granite for kitchen top in the end! I'm happy on the outcome as it gives a nice contrast to the wooden laminates. We choose full black granite without any shiny particles 

The wrong alignment of the oven had been resolved too and the excess space had been replaced with a pull out pantry which is waiting for the doors to be installed. 

Initially we opted for solid top for MBR vanity to save cost but when we went down we saw granite being used 

After checking with Contractor E he informed that there was some misunderstanding and ask if we can accept it and he will charge us as solid top  of course we are more than willing to accept this! 

 

 

Hi, nice reno.

Can i check, what kind of lights do you place in the toilets, in the casing used to cover up the water pipes? 

[lalashir 5]

6 hours ago, VincentTan said:

Hi @lalashir,

Nice home you got there~

Really enjoy reading your tblog.

Possible to get Contractor J&E contact from you?

Thanks~

dropped you a pm 

2 hours ago, watzup said:

Wow! lalashir, nice updates! Please give them coming.

Just wondering where is the sofa from?

Hello!! The sofa is from Castlery! The one I got was Tracy Sofa in tiffany blue.

47 minutes ago, Weijie123 said:

Hi, nice reno.

Can i check, what kind of lights do you place in the toilets, in the casing used to cover up the water pipes? 

Hello @Weijie123 we used T5 lightings and used acylic panels to cover up the area instead of the original panel with holes. 

[owlNbear 2]

Hello! MUCH LOVE for your a super comfy looking nest with that soothing colour palette and those soft wood tones.
It's got the type of coziness that would make me want to spend a cozy night-in everyday after a long day at work 

I'm using an electrolux washer and dryer. But I'm not experienced enough with housework to comment much...
Though I did notice that my clothes don't crease much after a wash and dry. 
In fact I haven't ironed my clothes in 1 month already. Don't tell my mum 

[Weijie123 1]

20 hours ago, lalashir said:

dropped you a pm 

Hello!! The sofa is from Castlery! The one I got was Tracy Sofa in tiffany blue.

Hello @Weijie123 we used T5 lightings and used acylic panels to cover up the area instead of the original panel with holes. 

Hi thank you for your reply.

Can i also check the length of the lights that you used? And how many pieces to be used for the whole main bed room toilet? As i see that there are different length like 0.3m, 0.6m, 0.9m and 1.2m. I am afraid the 1.2m may be too long to be easy insert into the space.

 

Thank you.

[Weijie123 1]

Hi can i also check, i noticed that you used ezbuy for your taobao stuff. Taobao have forwarders like dpex etc to send the items over. Is it recommended to use them?

Edited May 26, 2016 by Weijie123

[rxgn 2]

hi again, could you share your tb sofa link?

[Edger03 1]

Hi could u share with me your contractors contact pls. Thks

[lalashir 5]

On 25 May 2016 at 11:21 PM, owlNbear said:

Hello! MUCH LOVE for your a super comfy looking nest with that soothing colour palette and those soft wood tones.
It's got the type of coziness that would make me want to spend a cozy night-in everyday after a long day at work 

I'm using an electrolux washer and dryer. But I'm not experienced enough with housework to comment much...
Though I did notice that my clothes don't crease much after a wash and dry. 
In fact I haven't ironed my clothes in 1 month already. Don't tell my mum 

Thank you! Hope that it will still look cozy and not cluttered when all furnishings are in! 

lesser crease for your Electrolux?! Ok! I will check them out! I hate to iron because I am just so bad with ironing that I surely would scald my hands if I try to iron. I normally try to get clothes that will not crease too much but If I really need to iron my clothes hubby will be the one doing for me 

16 hours ago, Weijie123 said:

Hi thank you for your reply.

Can i also check the length of the lights that you used? And how many pieces to be used for the whole main bed room toilet? As i see that there are different length like 0.3m, 0.6m, 0.9m and 1.2m. I am afraid the 1.2m may be too long to be easy insert into the space.

 

Thank you.

Hello! I think it's better that you measure your toilet so that you will not get the wrong length. For my case, my electrician measured for me and told us which length to get for him to install. For the piping area in the MBR toilet we used 1 x 2ft and 1 x 4ft. 

16 hours ago, Weijie123 said:

Hi can i also check, i noticed that you used ezbuy for your taobao stuff. Taobao have forwarders like dpex etc to send the items over. Is it recommended to use them?

I only used Ezbuy for their Prime service which has shipping at $2.99 per order. This is worth it but they have limited items available under this Prime service. If you ship bulky stuffs to Ezbuy (not using prime service) it may not be as cheap as forwarders who ship by CBM too as they charge volumetric/actual weight whichever is higher and x 1.1. 

For my other stuffs I used ETrove to ship over which calculates by CBM this is good for bulky stuffs. I would not recommend using official Taobao forwarders like dpex, 4px etc for bulky stuffs as they have restriction on the maximum length of the parcel that they can ship you may risk getting your item rejected by their warehouse. It will also probably cost a bomb to ship bulky stuffs with them too! 

[lalashir 5]

10 hours ago, rxgn said:

hi again, could you share your tb sofa link?

Hello! The sofa is not from Taobao. Got it locally from Castlery. 

 

10 hours ago, Edger03 said:

Hi could u share with me your contractors contact pls. Thks

Hi, dropped you a pm  

[huggermonster 0]

On 5/23/2016 at 6:01 PM, lalashir said:

What type of paint or board is the black coloured wall? My wife wants to have that also. for her to scribble and for our kids to draw/write stuff....Can PM me your contractor contacts as well? We are getting our house soon and would like to engage a reliable ID/Contractor. Yours seem very reliable and trustworthy. TIA

 

 

 

[lalashir 5]

4 hours ago, huggermonster said:

 

Hi @huggermonster I am not sure what paint is used because this is done by my Contractors J&E. I only inform them that I want to have a full length magnetic chalkboard. 

Dropped you a PM