Reno Progress

27th May 2007 - Hb and I went down to our place again in the evening and found that HDB workers have started work on our master toilet.

Off-white/beige tiles for the shower screen area and Royal Fashion black (you can't see the design on the tiles from this pic) for the area above the WC (washing closet aka toilet bowl, lol)

The above shows the common toilet, about 3/4 of the wall tiles are laid... left the floor tiles.

Actually, I find it kinda sianz to keep having to go to the flat to check on the reno progress, but I guess we don't have much choice. Haiz, hopefully HDB will keep to their word of finishing the toilets by this Thursday, then Eesy and gang can start on the tiling works for the rest of the house, followed by carpentry and painting!

Bought 2 water heaters last week at Kong Tai. It is by far the cheapest offer we managed to get for the 707 Alpine model. Bought Primelifestyle for the common bathroom. Quite lucky has Kong Tai still had a few remaining units of the heaters, as once the new orders come in, they will be increasing the price to above $210++ to match their competitors. Heard from all the shops that the agents had increased the cost price, so well, they have no choice to mark up their pricing to the consumers. In fact, the 707 Protek model used to cost only $150++, but now it is already selling at $220++~! Phew, luckily we bought the heaters now! Paid a total of $290 only for the 2 heaters haha! Of course, we had Xiaoyan to thank as he knows the boss, haha.

Decided not to buy our Mitsubishi fridge and Toshiba washing machine from Max Credit. The price may be slightly cheaper than Kong Tai, but the services sucks! When Hb asked whether what they quoted was the best price, the guy took out his supplier file and started saying stuff like "Let me show you our price, we don't earn a lot from you one, blah blah blah, even if you walk out not buying from us I also won't try to make you stay, but if you come back, we will still give you this offer". Liew, so arrogant! So Hb told them we are not buying and we walked off. Liew, so stuck up! Anyway, we'll be getting our fridge and washing machine from Kong Tai tmr or Wed. Better settle it fast cos the price is going to increase starting mid June!

Went to make the remaining payment for our bed and sofa over the weekend to avoid incurring the additional 2% GST charge after 1st July. Heartpain sia...

Hb and I went to CK Tang to look at bedding stuff. Wondering if there will be further discount? Saw a set of quilt cover with bedsheet and 2 pillow cases selling at $236 after discount. Kinda cheap, but then realised that Robinsons is selling the same set for $206!! But I guess we'll buy from Tangs since I have a $300 cash voucher. Just hope that the price will go down more...and more...

Went to look at lightings and furnitures as well. Sad to say, we didn't manage to find any that made us go all "Wow!". So hard to find a nice dining table... or is my expectation too high? Some of those that we have seen so far are quite nice, but somehow it is not THE TABLE, lol. Same goes for the silly lightings... haven't seen any that made us go all "Wow nice!".


- Phebe

Makeover of the Common Bathroom~

23 May 2007 - It has been 3 days since Hb and I paid The Corner a visit and thus decided to pop over to check on the progress of the renovation. HDB has started work on our common bathroom and now laying the tiles we bought! Yay!



*Common bathroom in its makeover process~!



*Ever so messy....


- Phebe

Warzone

17 May 07 - The Corner is now officially a warzone. We now have pipes hanging down from the ceiling, piles of sand in the living room, and scarred walls in both bathrooms and in the kitchen.

this wall has seen better days... and nights

Oh, and did I mention that the glass door has been ripped out from the balcony? In other words, the living room is now at the mercy of the elements 24 hours a day. Hopefully, this is the lowest point that The Corner can go, and from here on, things should be looking brighter. If not, a certain contractor is going to spend many long nights rectifying his mistakes and making sure that everything turns out exactly the way we want it.


- Melvin

Grey Feature Walls

12 May 2007 - Went to our place in the afternoon to meet up with Eesy. The areas where the feature walls are going to be had been cemented in black. Nothing much except that we are now waiting for H*B to send someone to hack down both toilets. Hope it won't be too long a wait...


*Living room "feature wall"


*Another pile of sand


*MBR "feature wall"


*The "glass door" leading to the WIW


*Pathetic state of the kitchen and study, lol


- Phebe

Late Night Sneak Peek 3

10 May 2007 - After 2 rounds of going to our place late at night, I have decided to bring along my digicam! The wonders of a flash function...



*Screeding done for the bedrooms

*Our current MBR after screeding and hacking...

*Screeding for the study as well~

*Overlaying done - there goes our kitchen tiles~


- Phebe

Late Night Sneak Peek 2

9 May 2007 - Hb and I went over to our flat again after work to see whether HDB's contractors have finished with the screeding. Lol, the screeding was done at the right places, and the ground level for those areas became about 1-2 inches higher! Haha, will perform another late night sneak peek tmr as our tiler will be starting on the wall and floor tiles! Too bad we could only visit the flat at night during weekdays....too dark to take pics, lol.

- Phebe

Day 2 of Renovation

8 May 2007 - Hb and I went down to our flat in the afternoon to meet Eesy. All the wheelbarrows from the night before (refer to previous post) has been removed and we were able to walk around the place without fearing that we would trip, lol. Two HDB contractors came in not long after, carrying some equipment, and announced that they would commence cement screeding tomorrow for our rooms and study. Finally!!! Yay! Our tiler will be coming on Thursday to work on the floor and wall tiles. Haha, finally we are moving on!

*The gaping hole beneath our gate, the chain lock, and permit


*The long awaited permit~!



*After hacking, the study walls are gone, same goes for our kitchen! Those square boxes contain the homogenous tiles for the living room.



*View from the kitchen looking out to the living room. The left side shows the rest of the tiles.



*Connecting the master and secondary bedroom. Sand on the floor for screeding purpose.



*Eesy and Hb by the balcony discussing some stuff about the ledge



*Eesy and Hb


- Phebe

Late Night Sneak Peek

7 May 07- Our renovation contractor has officially started work on our flat. According to him, he will start by demolishing walls and arranging for the floor and wall tiles to be brought on site. In the same breath, he also added that this portion of the renovation would be completed by tomorrow.

Which is why we ended up taking a late night detour to our flat to check if he could live up to his claims. The first sight that greeted us was huge piles of construction materials in the living room. The next thing we noticed was the huge gaping hole where the walls of our study used to be.

We then quickly went around for a mini pre-inspection, and indeed, the remaining walls were all missing in the right places. So far, our flat had resembled a post-apocalyptic movie set, and now, with metal strips protruding dangerously from the wall frames, it was even more so.

As Her Royal Majesty and I darted around the piles of construction material, the sight of our flat in all its "rawness" was burnt into our minds. Although this is definitely not the look that we want to achieve, but somehow we are still just that little bit sad that we won't get to see this ever again. Strange but true.


- Melvin

Stepping onto Sand

6 May 2007 - Hb and I went over to our new place to take one final last look before renovation starts on Monday. The moment I stepped into the flat, I was surprised to find myself stepping onto sand! Apparently, H*B had already moved sand and cement into our place to do cement screeding for our rooms and study! Saw bags of sand and cement in every room and I got rather excited! Finally our little corner will start its makeover process! We'll be heading down to our place on Tuesday afternoon to see the progress as well as meet our ID on-site. Hope everything will work out smoothly!

- Phebe

Washing Machines

6 May 2007 - Hb and I decided to pop into Ha*vey **rman to take a look at washing machines and fridges. In fact, we already did that the day before at Audio House. We were served by a salesperson called K. What had been planned to be a 20-30 mins stay stretched into a full 1 hour plus, with K explaining the different terms for the functions of a washing machine and providing us with additional information that proved to be very useful. I guess we have more or less decided on which brand we are going to get - Toshiba. As for the model, it's AW-D950S. Rather expensive for a top load washer, but hey, it's the only top load model with direct drive. Oh, and that, with inverter too. As for the fridge.... more research needs to be done by yours truly.


- Phebe

Jack Not Stupid

5 May 2007 - With the renovation works commencing next week, one of the purchases that we had to finalise prior to that was the aircon. With possible complications arising due to the aircon's piping, it is generally considered prudent to install the aircon before commencing on tiling and some forms of carpentary work.

Other than the big boys such as Co**rts and Harv*y N**man, most specialists in airconditioning keep a relatively low profile. You can hardly find any ads on airconditioning services in the papers or TV. And this is why Her Royal Majesty and I relied on the recommendations of friends, who pointed us in the direction of Allb**t at IMM.

We were served by a salesperson called Andy. I have to admit, he's one heckuva patient guy. In total, we spent about 2 hours talking to him, and at times he was almost conducting a mini lecture on how aircons work. Nevertheless, this was useful information to us, and in the end we decided to go for the Mitusubishi System 4 Starmex Invertor.

Essentially, we liked that it was easy to clean, and given our usage patterns, is probably the most energy efficient. Plus it was endorsed by Jack Neo, and we all know that he only dishes out intelligent opinions, because wasn't it him who proclaimed "I not stupid"? So by logical inference, if Jack's not stupid, so aren't we.

- Melvin

Chelsea Arrives in Jurong

3 May 2007 - That's right, one more reason for Chelsea fans in Singapore to cheer about. Not only can they catch the Blues in action on ESPN, read about Jose's weekly attempts to piss off the rest of the soccer fraternity, and thump their chests in righteous support of the club's slow but steady purchase of every available player with an exotic name, they can now even buy lightings for their home from Chelsea.

Tucked in a corner of Jurong West lies a quaint little shop in a quaint little neighbourhood called, you guess it, Chelsea. Together with 3 or 4 other shops, they form a mini congregation of lighting shops in Jurong. Today, Her Royal Majesty and I paid a visit to the area to check out some lightings after reading good recommendations about Chelsea (the lighting shop) and Pantech (also a lighting shop).

Among the few shops along that stretch, Chelsea occupies the largest area, and although the selection of lights can't exactly qualify as the most stylish, it does have the most variety. Plus, based on our experience with the shops at Balestier, we discovered that Chelsea's lights are priced significantly lower.

In particular, we spotted an interesting rectangular hanging light with a wooden frame containing 2 glass globes. It was the kind of look that we wanted to portray for our dining area and we quickly scribbled mental notes of the price.

Next, Her Royal Majesty and I moved on to Pantech, which was about half the size of Chelsea. The boss was quite friendly and helpful, and was always ready to switch on any light in the shop as soon as we displayed the slightest hint of interest. We spotted some ceiling mounted lights that may be suitable for the living room, and the boss was quick to add that the colour and type of the frame could be changed.

Overall, quite a fruitful trip as we now have more feasible alternatives in addition to the shops at Balestier. Now comes the difficult part, coordinating the living and dining room lights....

- Melvin

Storage Tank or Instant Water Heater?

Hb wanted to go to Balestier to look at lightings and bathroom accessories. Thus, I sacrificed my Labour Day beauty sleep and dragged myself out of bed early in the morning. There were 2 rows of shop houses, most of them selling either tiles, bathroom accessories or lightings. To be honest, the lightings all look more or less the same to me except for the price differentiation. Personally, I am more interested in looking at bathroom accessories. I think we more or less got an idea of what type of taps we want to get, although it really very much depends on whether we are going to use a storage tank or instant water heater. Essentially, if you are using instant water heaters in the home, you won't be able to use mixers aka cold and hot water water taps. There are of course, more varieties in terms of design with mixers as compared to cold taps alone. What a headache. We still haven't make up our minds about which type of water heater to buy. Of course, mixers are more pricey, but then again, at least you have a choice of hot and cold water coming out of the tap. Well, we shall see how it goes. As long as we settle this by end May, it should be fine as by June, there will be a hike in prices. Again.


- Phebe