Remodeling of existing 5 room flat

[Bumblebee17 1]

6 hours ago, KFC1189 said:

The progress of your home renovation is looking good! May I know how much did you pay for the Neato cleaning robot? Which automated laundry drying system did you get?

Thanks thanks, ID is working hard to make sure my reno fee is well spent. Haha! I bought my Neato during the 12.12 sale on Lazada for about $700+. Foe the automated laundry system, I got the basic model from Steigen.

[Bumblebee17 1]

6 hours ago, KFC1189 said:

Recently I bought this Xiaomi Roborock cleaning robot from Taobao. This is a second generation cleaning robot that comes a water tank attached at the bottom of the robot. It vacuums first and immediately mops the floor. Its performance is excellent! I can even control it with an app when I am overseas.

The little bot looks nice! How does it clean the corners since it’s round and how long does it take to finish vacuuming and mopping? I’m waiting for Neato to come up with a model that can vacuum and mop too.

[KFC1189 11]

@Clarence Lye It is approximately SGD520 including shipping. It is considered the best cleaning robot from China and is definitely cheaper than iRobot.

@Bumblebee17It can clean within 1cm from the edge and around the corner. It is also laser guided and its performance is really impressive. For my flat of about 129sqm, the robot takes about 90 minutes to clean the whole apartment.

In the past few years, Xiaomi has come out a whole list of impressive products. It is definitely a good buy considering its cost and performance. 

Edited December 26, 2017 by KFC1189

[Bumblebee17 1]

<R>

 

Edited January 9, 2018 by Bumblebee17
Clean up

[Bumblebee17 1]

And so, we won’t be able to move back this weekend as expected. A little disappointed but hubs and I kinda expected this to happen. We are ok with a few days delay as long as the reno is done properly. My mum is another story though. Nagging at me already. 

 

Update

It’s going to be able 1 week plus delay in getting back the house. There’ll be inconveniences but we also don’t want to move in and still have people coming in to work on incomplete areas. Can only pray hard hard that somehow things finish fast fast (without compromising on quality of course) and we can move back earlier. I miss my house!

 

More update

When I wanted to change my aircon a few years ago, I engaged the services of this company called Breezy Aircon (they have since changed their name to Ronnie Aircon). They had pretty good reviews and were prompt in response. I also engaged them to do regular aircon servicing. For this reno, I engaged them again to re-run the aircon piping. Like I mentioned in my earlier post, they were very late and almost screwed up the job. After re-running is done, they had to wait for my ID to do the box up before they can install the aircon back. On Christmas Day, they called me up and asked for final payment. But I told them the installation is not  done yet. They said but “we are supposed to re-run the piping only and that is done. Installing the aircon is goodwil gesture.” And so I made the payment out of goodwill and trust after I was informed that someone will install the aircon back on Thursday (which is today). In the end, no one turned up and they also did not answer or return my calls.  so everyone beware of this company and these 2 guys called Ronnie and Jin.

Edited December 28, 2017 by Bumblebee17

[Bumblebee17 1]

Handover day + 2 days

2nd last day of 2017. Instead of moving back, we spent most of this rainy day at our place, sorting out electrical works, aircon and some minor stuff.

Aircon

ID got his contact to install the aircon back. It took longer than expected because Ronnie Aircon run the wire wrongly, meaning the wiring for living room went to bedroom 2 and master room wiring went to bedroom 3.  The guy said lucky it’s the wiring, if the pipes went wrong, then jia lat liao. They changed the wiring, top the gas and made sure we were happy with the work before they left. I really should have just ask them to do the re-piping in the first place. My stupidity cost me extra $550. Need to eat bread for a few months to recover. 

Electrical works

Electrician said ours is old design where it is against regulation to conceal electrical trunking (meaning hide under false ceiling, can. Dig hole and hide in ceiling, cannot). So we told them to use back old trunking as much as possible. New ones to make them as inconspicuous as possible. Communicated via WhatsApp and personally on the requirement and we still end up with ugly new trunkings and incorrect positions . Fortunately, the electricians are really nice and agreed to the changes we requested. And so ID, hubs and I spent the day to discuss and finalize the points and lighting positions with electrician and also tested the cove lights.

The only change that required more work is the point at the pantry. A hole was drilled on the side board for a double switch. Problem is this double switch is pointless as it is only a few steps to the other switch. ID was like  and decided to remove the laminate, seal up the hole and re-laminate. He cannot charge me as well because it was his assistant’s so-called error. 

Minor changes

We went round the house to look see look see and found some minor “mistakes”.

1. Bomb shelter stopper. It’s entirely useless as the shelter will hit the cabinet before the stopper. Don’t know what no one had the initiative to remove or ask to remove when the kitchen cabinets were installed.

2. Curtain hooks. Also useless now that we’ve changed to blinds. Again no one asked if they need to be removed.

3. Painters kena scolded for painting inside of the wardrobes when it is not required. A happy mistake, this one. 

4. ID forgot to instruct bathroom window grills to be removed before tiling. Now need to find a way to patch back nicely.

Edited January 9, 2018 by Bumblebee17

[Bumblebee17 1]

Handover day + coming to 2 weeks

The house is still not ready to be handed back to us. First round of cleaning and varnishing of parquet are done. ID promised to clear all the other nitty-gritty stuff by today so I took half day leave to “supervise” his workers. I ended up running through the defects and to-do list with ID's staff instead. I seriously wonder when we would be able to move back. 

Study area and kids wardrobe

The downlights look good. Light holders from Diyovation with Philips Hue GU10 bulbs. Lightstrips not installed because they were out of stock. Lucky for me, what I ordered from Lazada were delivered today and I managed to purchase the remaining from Apple Store.  Phew! ID's staff were fixing them when we went over for a "visit".

Kids sleeping area

Also no lightstrips yet. Love the feel of this area. Downlights and wall colour makes it look cozy. 

Pantry (dry kitchen) and toy display

TV console + toy storage

Foyer/mud room

Edited January 9, 2018 by Bumblebee17

[Bumblebee17 1]

Common bathroom

Cabinet is missing. It seems the delay is caused by delay in delivery of laminate.  Don’t know when will it be ready for installation.

Shower screen in the common toilet was incorrect. Because of the position of the pipes and window, we actually had a lengthy discussion on where the shower head should be and which type of screen is the best solution. Seems like a waste of effort because ID forgot that we wanted sliding door and we also forgot to put that in the WhatsApp chat group. Conclusion: We asked to re-do the screen. That means further delay. 

Master bathroom

Missing cabinet and a drawer front. Other than that, all seems good.

Kitchen and service yard

 

Still waiting for the mirrors, glass partition and other glass works...

Edited January 11, 2018 by Bumblebee17

[papermotif 0]

Things are looking good! Aren’t you glad it’s almost over with minor hiccups only? 

[Bumblebee17 1]

@papermotif thank you! To be honest, we, or rather I’m pretty stressed now. The outstanding list is 1.5 pages long! I still don’t have a definite schedule of when things will be completed so I can’t plan my move back. I’m so like 

[Bumblebee17 1]

Handover + 3 weeks

We finally moved back around 2-3 weeks ago. It was a period of juggling work, kids, unpacking and scheduling workers to come and finish up loose ends and rectifying defects. It was tiring, bruising (really, I’m nursing a number of blue blacks) and definitely not fun. Although most things are unpacked, there are still a lot to do before the house finally become what we envisaged at the beginning of this journey. For now, I’m just happy the boxes are gone and we can walk around the house without tripping over stuff on the floor.

Some pictures I managed to take after cleaning up

Common bathroom

Kitchen

Master bathroom

Living area

Dining area (no dining table yet. The search for the idea set is still on-going.  )

Foyer (Pardon the untidiness. Hubs realized the false ceiling won’t be strong enough for the bicycle pole so only hang 1 bike to minimize the messiness. Think about a solution after CNY)

Edited March 30, 2018 by Bumblebee17

[Ando Tadao 8]

Congrats. Your kitchen has a nice and sleek look, just curious why didn’t you get rid of the shelter exhaust? It kinda stood out like a sore thumb.

[Bumblebee17 1]

@Ando Tadao thanks for the compliment! As for the shelter exhaust  it does look awful doesn’t it? We left it as it it because the other opening was already sealed up. Will be hanging a clock there to soften the ugliness

Edited February 10, 2018 by Bumblebee17

[Ando Tadao 8]

On 2/9/2018 at 12:04 PM, Bumblebee17 said:

@Ando Tadao thanks for the compliment! As for the shelter exhaust  it doesn’t look awful doesn’t it? We left it as it it because the other opening was already sealed up. Will be hanging a clock there to soften the ugliness

I see, if you ever change your mind on the shelter vent cover, do know that a company named Maison Mod Interior offers a nice solution. 

Btw, I too is interested in the Xiaomi bot, but was torn between the 1st & 2nd gen. lol 

[Bumblebee17 1]

@Ando Tadao  oops just realized I made a typo error... meant to say the shelter exhaust does look awful 

Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll do some research on the company... after CNY. It’s quite stressful getting everything for the festive period. 

Go for gen 2! I think it’s a good investment. Really frees up some time and you won’t have to worry about dirty floors anymore