BudgetMama's home for her beautiful kids

[KFC1189 11]

On ‎9‎/‎30‎/‎2017 at 9:58 PM, Songz said:

Queen size bed should be better based on the design.

Hope this helps.

Hi Budgetmama,

Personally, I think it is better to change to a L shaped WIW. Why? This is because we spend one third of our lives on the bed and therefore it is worthwhile to fit in a comfortable king sized bed.

You may want to consider using glass walls for the WIW like the ones below because the glass wall is only 10mm (1cm) thick. More importantly, the glass wall will make the WIW more open and less oppressive. It will also bring in more light. Otherwise you will feel catastrophe and cramp in a tiny space.

Edited October 3, 2017 by KFC1189

[budgetmama 0]

3. ID Selection, Contractors, ETC...

At this point (5th Oct 17), our reno is 95% completed.
I will hold my reviews & Feedback of my engaged ID until final handover.

Engaged ID Company: *To be revealed at later stage*

Apart from our ID company, we engaged a few direct contractors for our reno. (Mainly to help us save some marked up fees from ID..)

- HDB Appointed Contractor: Cement Screeding
Upon key collection, we immediately appealed for the free HDB cement screeding by filling up an application form given by our branch office in punggol.
Date of submission: 17 July 2017
Date of Screeding: 8 August 2017
We had to top up $600 for extra screeding to level to our HDB given Kitchen floor tiles & toilet tiles.
*FYI, HDB Free screeding only covers up to 40mm, remaining 10-15mm (to level with kitchen & toilet) will have to be topped up.

- Vinyl Flooring: Deluxehomefurnishing
We dropped by to their showroom @ Woodlands and decided almost immediately which vinyl flooring we wanted.
At first look, I knew THATS THE ONE!
The flooring we selected had woodgrains texture imprinted on them (yeah, i know, it may trap dust & dirt, blah blah, i-dont-care)
Keith attended to us and was very helpful & patient in explaining every single details, pros & cons of vinyl flooring.
Of all the many other vinyl flooring companies, "DMF" is not the cheapest option, but they made us felt assured so we decided to engage them.
Date of visit/selection: 31 July 2017
Date of site measurement: 14 August 2017
Date of installation: 16 August 2017

- Aircon Installation: CT Aircon, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Sys 4
After reading through many good reviews and doing price comparisons, we went ahead with MHI, installed by CT Aircon.
We had a $300 off discount+ piping upgrade during their July Promotion and paid by 36 months interest free instalment.
Date of confirmation: 31 July 2017
Date of installation: 2 August 2017

 - Window Grilles, Sliding Yard Window, Solid Veneer bedroom doors: ACE ID & Wood
Found them online and their price was the most reasonable.
Replies were quick and service provided was good.
However... the veneer doors were quite sharp along the door edges. After "complaining", they were prompt to send their workers down the next morning to fix it.
No complains after which.
(We initially got them to install bi-fold doors for our bathrooms as well, but after installation, the doors were flimsy & we decided we rather pay more for PD/SK Doors instead. They do not have either PD/SK doors so we got our refund.)
Date of confirmation: 13 August 2017
Date of site measurement: 14 August 2017
Date of installation: 18 August 2017

- SK Doors for bathrooms: Romax Industries
Also found them online with several range of design selections for SK doors.
Date of confirmation: 14 August 2017
Date of site measurement: 14 August 2017
Date of installation: 19 September 2017 (Delayed cos of ongoing reno..)
 

[budgetmama 0]

4. Key Collection, Roll pineapple, Defect Checking

Before our key collection...
- Made appointment for activation of SP Services (Water&Electricity) online
( https://services.spservices.sg/appOnlineApplication/uiAppForm.aspx?ACTIONPAGE=FORMPAGE&MODETYPE=1 )
- Bought Etiqa insurance online
( https://www.etiqa.com.sg/personal/general-insurance/property/hdb-fire-insurance )
*Remember to bring a printed receipt of your Fire Insurance during key collection! 

Alternatively, you may join the queue:
- Etiqa Fire Insurance Counter @ HDB Hub Lvl 1
- SP Services Counter @ HDB Hub Lvl 3


17 July 2017:
During Key collection...
- Both CPF got wiped clean ):
- Payment for S&CC (conservancy) fees to be made @ Lvl 3
- Keys collection & Photo-taking (Self-service please!) 
*Only Main gate, Main door, Letter box keys were given to us as we opt out of HDB's bedroom doors.

As our SP activation appointment was 1 hour after our key collection appointment, we rushed down to our place just so we could be the "first" to enter.

Being Christians, we didn't have any ritual to follow, but we still wanted to roll a pineapple just for the fun..
And ofcos, before we rolled our pineapple, we wanted to cleanse/bless our nest and let God cover it with his layer of protection.
I didn't wanna miss out any parts of the house unspoken for, so I prepared my blessing prayer in advance..
----------------------
(Non-christians can skip this part..)

Lonely pineapple seated at a corner...
----------------------
Soon after, a staff from SP Services arrived to turn on the Electricity & Water for us.  
Presented my IC for check to verify that I'm an owner of this house.. -.-
I was told by some of my neighbours that we are actually given free access to Electricity & Water during the defect check, but I wasn't aware, so yeah..

Defect Check:
Since we opted out of HDB's doors, floorings, toilet basins, we had nothing much to check for defect check..
Only few defects we spotted were very minor too:
E.g. Scratches on Main door, Glue stains on windows, scratches & stains on DB Box, VERY Slight misalignment in bomb shelter door (when closed the door is not flushed in totally flat)

We informed the friendly staffs @ our BSC centre and they quickly arranged the site manager to follow us back for a joint inspection.
The site manager mentioned our defect rectification should not take long as we were one of the earlier batch to collect our keys, so there wasn't much queue yet.
(Also cos we didnt have any major defects)


More Photos of our RAW House:

 

 

 

Edited October 5, 2017 by budgetmama

[budgetmama 0]

5. Floorplan vs Reality, 3D Drawings & Sketches

So, we've always been visualizing & doing mock sketches of our dream home based on the floorplan provided by HDB.
Later did we realised, the dimensions given included the depth of the walls (dead space to us) *GUA GUA GUAAAA~*

So a very annoyed Budgetmama forced hubby to help out with taking accurate measurements of the house for a more precise floorplan..
HDB's dimensions:

Our measured dimensions:

During the 4 years wait, the place must have shrinked with the weather and such...

3D drawings:
After collecting our keys, we pestered our ID for our 3D Drawings that was done based on our ideas..
These are 3 (AND ONLY 3) of the 3D Drawings given - 

We waited 2 weeks plus for our 3Ds and got 3 low-res & small images, with wrong flooring (told ID we wanted Woodgrain Vinyl flooring instead of tiles), different table top & laminate type for kitchen (gone were my Kompacplus tabletop & white laminate cabinets), and overall, very different feel from what we wanted.. 
*Again, I shall leave the feedbacks of our ID till the end*

Spoke to ID and requested for updated 3D that are more in lined to our expectations..
(till date 6th October, we still didnt receive any updated 3Ds..)

Met up with ID again to discuss on carpentry and managed to snap some sketches drawn during our discussion:

Sketches were very messy and ID said don't worry, he will send me a digital copy of the sketches when he get back to office...
(...AGAIN, till date 6th October, we still didnt receive any digital/scanned copy of carpentry sketches..)

):

Edited October 5, 2017 by budgetmama

[budgetmama 0]

6. Reno Progress

Timeline:
Defect Check: 17 July 2017
BSC Defect form Submission/Joint Inspection: 18 July 2017
Defect Rectification: 21-24th July 2017
Renovation Start -  28 July 2017 (till date, 7 Oct, still not fully completed)

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28 July 2017:
- Hacking of MBR partial wall for Hubby's 1.2m width built-in wardrobe

2 August 2017:
- On-site Discussion for Electrical rewiring 
- Aircon Installation (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Sys 4)

(Blue=Aircon, Red=Trucking/Piping)

7-8 August 2017:
- Electrical work commence 
- Construction of Kitchen & Service Yard base/curb

9 August 2017:
- Cement Screeding

16 August 2017:
- Vinyl Flooring installation

23 August 2017:
-1st batch of Taobao purchase arrived through Feixing (China 3rd party forwarder)
- Delivery of Cooker & Hood

8 September 2017:
- Installation of lights & ceiling fans

(Entrance Light)

(Feature Light)

(Ceiling Fan with Light)

(Track lights)

(Bathroom, Service Yard & Bomb Shelter Light)

15 September 2017:
- Carpentry Delivery

- Remove Service Yard bi-fold door, patch up 


18-29 September 2017:
- Installation of lights (Hanging Lights)

(Dining Lights)

(Kitchen Light)

(Corridor Light)
*Decided to switch positions of WIW & Corridor Lights as the Chandelier was too big in my WIW, unable to access the top cabinets.

(Chandelier for WIW)

*After switching lights positions...

(LED Stripe lights)

(Feather Light MBR)

- Installation of Carpentry, Built-in Oven, Kitchen Hood, Ceramic cooker, Sink &  Tap

(Full height shoe cabinet)

(Wooden beam to install child safety gate)

(Wooden box to hide aircon trucking)

(Built-in wardrobe between hacked wall of MBR & study room)

(Back of built-in wardrobe before conceal)

- Installation of Glass works (Bathroom Sliding screen doors, Kitchen Glass backsplash, WIW Mirror)

(MBR Toilet)

(Common toilet)

-General Cleaning

29-30 September 2017:
- Painting

1-3 October 2017:
- Cleaning & "Staycation"

3 October 2017:
- Touch up Painting

6 October 2017:
- Officially move in

7 October 2017:
- Installation of Curtains

As of today (7 October 2017), there are still some pending renovations to be completed:
- Installation of Bathrooms Basin & Vanity set (Was delayed cos of delivery from Taobao)
- Replacement of faulty MBR Shower Mixer
- Installation of locks for some drawers in MBR (ID forgot to install.. -.-)
- Fixing of Kitchen Corner Cabinets internal shelvings (Told ID we didnt want any dead space in the cabinets but he chose the easy way out for 2 of them. Repeatedly asked for confirmed 3D & Sketches of internal carpentries before fabrications but was delayed & ignored all these while. Still have not received any of the mentioned..)
- Adding Black laminated frames along edges of WIW as design (Was confirmed in our 3D & discussion, but not done, and when asked, ID blatantly said I told him not to do the frames?!?!?!?)
- Fixing of internal shelvings of DB Box (Confirmed top half of DB Box to have shelvings installed, and bottom half to have a hanging rod for our umbrellas. Shocked when we found fixed (with silicon somemore!) shelvings at bottom half & no hanging rods!@!@)
- Installation of shelvings in study room (No reason for delay. Just not done.) 

Renovation was supposed to be completed before our agreed move in date on 20 September 2017. 
No reason why but we were delayed day by day, with no good reason, and only able to move in on 6 October 2017, into a incomplete house..

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Edited October 17, 2017 by budgetmama

[budgetmama 0]

7. Moving In

tbc...

[budgetmama 0]

8. Overall summary 

tbc...