Open House on 20/12(Sat) - 21/12(Sun) ~!

KFC is finally done up~!

Well, almost. We are still waiting for a dressing table and our lovely dining table to arrive on 19/12/2008. (Just in time for Christmas!)

We're also in the process of purchasing knick knacks like utensils, crockeries, decorative stuff, but it should be ok...

As such, we are opening our house to anyone who wants to visit on 20/12-21/12~!
Renotalkers are welcome~! =)
Fellow renovators are welcome~! =)
Anyone is welcome~! =)

Burglars are not.
-_-"

Contractor overloaded~!

Ah Soon shouts to me

'Don't recommend anymore people to me now~! I'm fully booked till after Chinese New Year~!'

So I say to all,

Sorry, won't respond to anyone who needs Ah Soon's service BEFORE Chinese New Year. He is too overwhelmed with work to even come my house to drill a few holes for my own fixtures. Sob...

Storeroom rack

Getting my storeroom rack from Yee Sin. http://www.yee-sin.com/

Opting for an L-shaped configuration like the one below, I was quoted $325 for a 5-layer wall-to-wall configuration, using 12mm indonesa plywood boards.

Latest pictures of KFC are in~!

95% of the renovation is done.

Here are the pictures in advance. =)

081114 95% Renovation Completed

Internet is finally up at KFC~!

Yay~! Singtel came over and setup my Mio Plan Voice/Internet/TV today (12/11/2008) at KFC.

And yes, I have not updated the blog for one month already, because there have been many many events going on (chasing contractor for fine items, furniture buying, house-moving, settling into the new house, going for interviews for a new job, ROM, went for a Bali trip with K, going back for ICT, RT sessions @ Maju camp)

Will attempt to post-update.

I have received many emails/phone calls/sms from people who are interested in getting my contractor, and I'm not responding to the new ones (yet!) for selfish reason - Ah Soon still owes me some renovation items, and he's pretty bogged up this period.

Was actually quite angry with Ah Soon for delaying me all the small nagging items (I had a 3 page list, now left 1 page) until I saw my friend's writeup on his NorthWest contractor

Will update more later.

Furniture from Malaysia: No Go

Went with the Malaysian friend to Taman Sentosa, and Taman Molek.

Quite a lot of furniture shops there for viewing, but prices were no-go.

Although the prices of furniture there is slightly cheaper than Singapore (can get a full bedroom set @ RM$1200), there is the 7% GST and the delivery charges (SGD$100-SGD$200) to consider.

As we were interested in only getting
1) 1 queen-sized storage divan (quoted RM$2100= SGD$875.70)
2) 2 bedroom sets (quoted RM$1200=SGD$500 each)
3) 2 mattresses (variable)
4) 1 dining table (quoted RM$1200 = SGD$500)

The prices do not differ much from the prices in Singapore shops (if you know where to go!) after adding in the GST and the delivery charges.

Will be making another trip down to the furniture shops around IFC @ Sungei Kadut to get my furniture.

Furniture from Malaysia?

IN yet another desperate bid to save money, Frank has contemplated hard on whether to attempt getting furniture from Malaysia.

Raja kita, selamat bertakhta...

Ah, yes. Quite our usual favourite getaway for seafood and cheap booties. But furniture?!?

From good ol' renotalk, Frank has gathered information on an area called Taman Molek, which has quite a few furniture shops to look around.

Frank has garnered accolades for his bravery/stupidity in venturing up North where Singaporeans are often sought after in "unaccountable donations" and "long term loan of personal effects" to the local social entrepreneurs, who seek funds or long-term loans using creative means including tapping your car screen with certain large objects.

Local Social Entrepreneur

Whilst their furniture-selling counterparts are not so "entrepreneur"-ish, one must not doubt their ability to remove wool from lambs which are acclimatised to the southern island.

Noting this, Frank intends to bring along a malaysian singapore-PR friend to explore the potential and possibility of such a dealing with our friendly neighbours this coming Sunday 12/10/2008, in the hope that he'll not be fleeced as much.

If there is anyone keen on going for this expedition, please contact Frank @ 93830241.

Some financial statistics

Housing costings
Renovation	$18,000.00
Electrical	$ 6,697.00
Furniture	$ 4,999.00
Curtains	$ 650.00
Tap + Longbath	$ 320.00
Kitchen Accessories	$ -
Store room racks	$ 200.00
Misc(Vacuum cleaner,lock,kitchen stuffs)	$ 500.00
Total Renovation costings (4/10/08)	$31,366.00

Aircon Analysis

There's so much aircon people saying
1. Inverter-based aircon is cheaper in the long run, and
2. Inverter-based aircon is more expensive if you dun use it often,
that we were really stuck in this "left foot first or right foot first" dilemma.

So I took out an excel and did some calculations of our own, with our own estimated variables of projected aircon usage.

If you are considering inverter/non-inverter, you might also want to do something like that. Here's a cut-and-paste of the excel calculations we did, based on Mitsubishi Inverters and non-inverters (we settled on a Toshiba, though):

As we are ASSUMING 8 hours use a day, it makes sense for us to get an inverter as we will have a savings of $541.71 a year for electricity bills, meaning we can recoup the overheads in around 2 years.

Hope this helps. =)

Washing Machine, Hood, Hob, Oven, Fridge, Aircon...

I love Renotalk.com It is so informative and full of tips/contacts.

For the household applicances, we got our stuff @
1. Goh Ah Bee: Blk 210 # 01-247,Hougang Street 21, Tel: 6288 8611
2. Everjoint: Block 159, Ang Mo Kio Ave 4, #01-534, Singapore 560159.
Tel : 64589569 / 64582531 / 64582578 Fax: 64562335

In case you don't know, there's a lot of mention on these 2 electrical applicances shops in renotalk, and we found them indeed commendable when we went over to these two shops. Love love love their prices.

Got most of our stuff from there, except for the aircon.

Our aircon is Toshiba System 3 Inverter, and the price is @ $2480 (with armaflex core insulation). Got it from a subcontractor whom The Contractor recommended. It's not the best price, but it ain't shabby either.

Just for effect, I'm posting a picture of a really delicious fridge here (which doesn't happen to be the one we're buying.) Not sure why I'm doing so either. Hmm.... but here it goes:

A delicious fridge

Oh, and we got our heater and dryer from CityGas
The $730 package for both items.

Lightings.

When God said "Let there be light"... and there was light.








In a similar fashion, KFC needed lights - so K&F went out shopping for some.

KFC need lights
2x for master bedroom,
2x for 2 common rooms,
2x for 2 toilets,
2x for corridor to rooms,
2x for living room,
2x for kitchen.

Expensive display lights are
1x for living room
1x for dining area in kitchen.


Places visited
Balestier
Took 2 weekends to walk through almost all the shops there. Bargained until some sellers angry with us.
Watt Business: Gave us quite good price, around $800 for all the lights.
Strauss Lights: Heard from forums not so good, but we managed to get quite good price from them for the lights. But alas, the good light we eyed was out of budget for us @ $1000 for the total package. It's a really good crystal display light, I must say.
Extreme Lights: Not bad, good service. Even offered to custom modify a bit for the light which we were interested in.

Chinese Garden
Renotalk mentioned of shops (Edison Lights) across from Chinese Garden MRT, so we went there to look. Didn't see what we want in the end.

Jalan Besar
Went from one end to the other, and finally settled on lights @ Design Light.
MUST RECOMMEND HIM:

MR. ALBERT, 101 KITCHENER ROAD, DESIGN LIGHT, 62970168.

He's quite honest and straightforward. No need to bargain he give us very competitive prices already. Then we bargain down some more and finally our lights were settled at $800++.

Main display light is $400++ (after much cajoling). Here it is:

=)

Superfast work schedule

Contractor started on 15/9 and he promise deliver of renovations ahead of schedule on 5/10.
First time I hear got contractor chase house owner to deliver things like oven/hood/hob/longbath so he can do his work fast.

'You give me faster, I deliver faster. You save time, I save money (labour cost),' says the Contractor.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Here's the appx schedule of his works up till now:

14/9: "Start" of Renovations
Actually just a symbolic auspicious day.
Went there to knock knock a bit to signify start of work.
It's Mooncake day, FYI.

15/9: Actual start of work.
Living room tiling begins.
Bases for kitchen cabinets begins.
Bases for washing machine and fridge begins.


16/9:
Living room tiling finished.
Bases finished.
Half height kitchen cabinet wall begins.
Removal of room doors.
Bedrooms tiling begins.
Storeroom tiling begins.
Window ledge begins.
Cement support for kitchen cabinet begins.

17/9:
Half height kitchen cabinet wall finished.
Bedroom tiling finished.
Window ledge finished.
Cement support for kitchen cabinet finished.
Top support for kitchen cabinet begins.
Wall skirting begins.

18/8:
Storeroom tiling finished.
Wall skirting finished.
Kitchen wall knocked down.

19/8:
Top support for kitchen cabinet finished.
Patchwork for kitchen wall.

20~22/9:
Electrical installation
Laying of aircon pipes finished.
Patchwork for kitchen wall.

25~26/9:
Purchase and installation of longbath.
Painting of walls begins.

30/9:
Painting of walls finished.
Cleanup place.
Woodwork begins - installation of cabinets.

New photos~!

Photos taken when Frank and Katy went down for inspection of renovation works are to the righthand side.

The Renovation Works

DESIGN SERVICE

Interior Design and Space planning

Consultation and selection of Home furnishing

Perspective Drawing

Job site co-ordination and supervision

Decoration advice

Apply for HDB Renovation Permit

MASONRY

Supply and lay 600mm X 600mm polish homogenous floor tiles for living room, 3 bedrooms, bomb shelter and dining area (include skirting)

Supply and lay tiles for window ledges at both common bedrooms

PLUMBING WORKS

Extension of copper pipe + install outlets for kitchen sink + washing machine

Install tap for washing machine

Supply and install bathrooms racks

Provide labour for installing one storage heater (Citygas)

KITCHEN WOODWORKS & WETWORKS

Supply and install 10ft cement-edged kitchen cabinet with ABS trimming, laminated finishing, dish tray, handles, drawers with all soft closing doors

Supply and install 10ft top kitchen cabinet with ABS trimming, laminated finishing, dish tray, handles, drawers with 2 piece frosted glass, all soft closing doors

Supply and construct 2" cabinet base with tiles skirting

Supply and construct 2" washing machine base with tiles skirting

Supply and construct 2" fridge base with tiles skirting

L-shaped Kitchen cabinet at the side with mirror doors near dining table and solid top surface

Supply and construct half height divider hollow-wall with tiled surface between washing machine and sink

Full height kitchen cabinet at the side

Supply and install 10ft table top (Black granite, China)

Install hood, hob and oven

Supply and Install 3ft (W) 10mm tempered glass backing

Supply and install Kitchen sink (buy the tap ourself)

Supply and install dish rack

CARPENTRY

Design / fabricate 6ft aluminium frame sliding wardobe (Frosted glass) with 8 drawers and shelving

6ft TV console with laminate finish, 2 rows of drawers with glass sliding doors

6ft Wall feature

Shoe cabinet, half height (4ft) laminate with tempered glass on the top surface

L-shape full height cabinet next to shoe cabinet, laminate + glass panels and frosted glass doors with internal shelving

Install raised wooden platform at window

PAINTING WORKS

NIPPON PAINT for all internal wall and ceiling, 5 colours (Nippon Easywash)

NIPPON PAINT for doors frame, main gate, pipeline

Revarnish existing main door

OTHERS

Lighting point installation (12 points)

Supply and install power point (per point) - $50/double - $45/single

To run 1 SCV point to TV wall

Supply & install mounted door stopper for main door

Mirror supply and installation (6ft" half height length)

Knock off wall + install tampered glass wall + tampered glass sliding door, top-hung

Supply and install Db spray tap outlet for both toilets

To install long bathtub and supply tiles for master bedroom toilet bathtub

Haulage Fees + debris removal

Floor protection sheet

Chemical wash for whole house flooring

Supply Kitchen Hood, Hob and Oven ($750. Pay the difference ourselves if more than $750)

Total Cost: $17500 (+$500)

The Right Contractor II

There's a bit of excitement and whirlwind flurry when it comes down to selecting THE RIGHT CONTRACTOR from my final shortlisted contractors. They are....

THE CONTRACTORS

Mr. Frankie Foo, who speaks with a loud voice

and.....

Mr. Phua Chu Kang (he everything also say 'can one~!', dunno can trust or not)

THE FIGHT


It was a tough fight between them... so I decided to dropped them both.


THE REAL CONTRACTORS

Seriously, my final shortlisted contractors are
1) Zhiseng (Queenstown)
2) Lego House Design (Paya Lebar)
3) Ah Soon (Queenstown)

So here's the twist-turning, gut-wrenching, belch-erupting 3-part encounter on how I finally settled on my contractor.

PART 1: Initial setup
I first went over to Zhiseng @ BLK 75, Commonwealth Drive, #01-507, Singapore 140075 and received quite a good quotation from their staff for the stuff I wanted. Wah, steady already.

On the next day, I went over to City Plaza and received a better quotation from Lego House Design. Desmond @ Lego was very friendly and told me a lot about how to best decorate my house. More steady than Bebop and Rocksteady~!

Bebop and Rocksteady

Round 1 ==> Winner = Lego Design


PART 2: Mr Yang's recommendation
Part 2 was possible because of Mr. Yang who lives on the 30th floor flat vertically above KFC. He's a friendly dog-walking retiree whom I saw by stroke of luck when I visited my flat to check out the place. He owns 2 dogs and one of them is a gargantuan Husky... dun pray pray with him.

As I wanted ideas of how to best renovate KFC, I tried to visit all the units above my chalet, starting with the top floor. Mr. Yang happens to live on the top and was very friendly to let me have a tour of his place. He then advised me to get a good contractor whom is trustable - and he recommended me to Zhiseng (whom I had been to before). He mentioned that he is a friend of the father-in-law of the boss of Zhiseng and set up a meeting for me and Mr. Ker (the father-in-law) to view flats done by Zhiseng and further discuss about the package at Zhiseng (may get better priced package!)

Being recommended by Mr. Yang, I agreed to meet Mr. Ker and proceeded to view 2 units done by Zhiseng, and I must say the workmanship is not bad. However, the 'better-priced' package still lost out to Lego House.

@ Lego House, Desmond introduced me to the ID who will be in-charge of my renovation, should I decide to take up Lego's package. The ID brought me to view two units done by Lego House, and I must say the design is not bad as well. However, the ID who brought me to do the house viewing did not seem to be too experienced.

Round 2 ==> Winner = Still Lego House~!

PART 3: Arrival of the dark horse
Just before signing the contract with Lego House, I went down with the ID to KFC to take a look and take measurements. Mr. Yang joined us as he was interested about my renovations and wanted to give advice.

At my place, the ID did not do much checking and was seemingly in a rush for another appointment, presumably a bigger fish than my ikan bilis of an ID project. He left shortly, and I proceeded to view look around with Mr. Yang and K.

After a not-so-thorough look, we left for lunch (lunch.is.impt.) On the way out, we chanced upon a flat @ level 1 undergoing renovations and we went in to look-see-look-see. Asking the workers if they were doing a renovation project at the house, we found out that they were actually from a firm contracted by HDB to do repairworks on flats in the area.

And they do renovation as well.

The lead worker gave me the phone number of his boss to call, and the rest was history.

As history is not a subject which everyone is familiar with (I only got A2 for it at 'O' levels) allow me to give a short topic of history.

APPENDIX: HISTORY: Contractor contracted!

Jason, Ah Soon's head worker, came over to view my house and look through the list of items I needed to be done.

He gave a rough quotation which by itself was a shocker - it is much cheaper than the after-discount prices of all the IDs and Contractors I annoyed throughout my Journey of the HDB kind - and I did not have to annoy him with birdie sounds (cheap cheap?).... yet.

I met up with Ah Soon and was subsequently happy with his workmanship and pricing.

My contractor is thus contracted~!

The Right Contractor I

Finding the right ID/contractor was crazy.

A shoe-string budget of 15-20K and an infinite wish-list for renovation works does not go well -
it's like a soldier
armed with a spork
in the iraq war. How to fight?!?

Everyone else says for what I want, a budget of 20K to 25K is more realistic.... :(
But I shan't give up in my search for The Right Contractor~~! =)






At first look in the Straits Times Classified Ads, my seemingly shoestring budget seems more than enough for the advertised renovation packages, and there were so many Interior Decoration firms advertising them~!
1) Classic Ideas
2) U-HOME
3) Weiken
4) Darwin Interior
5) LWT Design
6) HomeWorkz
7) 3D Innovation
8) LegoHouse

Most of the companies have packages priced between 10-18K for budget-conscious pple like me, which seemed great at first, but not so later as I find out.

Being the relentless bargain hunter which I am, I naturally went to look through many many many ID firms and contractors.

IMM
I started off @ IMM first, as it is very near my workplace.
1) Weiken (IMM)
2) GPlan (IMM)
3) U-HOME (IMM)
4) A Win (IMM)

Analysis:
After walking through these few ID firms, the quotations they provided were starting from 12K (bare minimal comfort level) and up to 25K for all the good-to-haves. A more comfortable level medium point will cost me around 19K, which still seemed too much for my miserable spork of a budget.


TradeHub 21
Then I worked with TradeHub21
5) Weiken(TradeHub)
6) 2Form (TradeHub)
7) NorthWest (TradeHub)

Analysis:
My scout senior friend took up NorthWest's services and recommended me a visit there, and I find NorthWest quite a good buy (and I almost took it up!)

They came up a quite a spectacular package and dazzled me with fantastic throw-in offers like aircons, solid tops, hood, hub, sink, tap at cheap prices+++. Factoring in all the freebies, my final analysis on them is that they are out to price-cut their neighbouring competitors with their packages, but their additional items are quite costly (maybe that's where they earn the moola!) However, I find that the designers are quite young in the trade and very eager to clinch deals, leaving me to wonder how good they are at delivering the service. Very attractive prices, though!


Queenstown local IDs/Contractors
After that, I purposed for the local contractors around Queenstown, namely
8) Lowe Living Concept (Queenstown)
9) Pravut Construction & Trading (Queenstown)
10) Promax Homemakers (Queenstown)
11)Zhi Seng Building Construction (Pte) Ltd (or Bounty Design) (Queenstown)
thinking that they might be cheaper since they spend less on marketing.

Analysis:
Lowe was a home-based interior designer. I think he overpriced me quite a lot and works by aggaration.

Pravut operates from a hardware store and is run by an old uncle who seems very experienced. But he doesn't communicate very well and never returned my email for quotation even though he said he can give very cheap prices since he opens a hardware store and has his own equipment. Would have been very interested in seeing his quotation and work, though.

Promax seemed like an honest and reliable business, serving the community in Queensway Shopping Centre, but their prices were slightly on the higher even though I believe that's because they deliver quality service.

Zhiseng operates a nice and long established business in the commonwealth/queenstown area. I have heard many testaments about their service and quality in relation to their prices. Under my evaluation, it came in my top 3 firms. Will blog about it in the next entry.


Others
12) Lego Design (Paya Leba City Plaza)
13) Summit Design (Eunos Tecnolink)
14) 3D Innovation (Hougang)
15) Ah Soon
16) Patrick from Ho Bee

Analysis:
Lego Design is my top 3 firms as well. They charge VERY reasonable prices. Will blog about it in the next entry.

Summit Design is the ID of my very good friend, Eugene. I look at Eugene's quotation and like it a lot already. However, I think his ID quoted me slightly higher than Zhiseng and Lego Design did, so I never got back to him. Maybe I never cut price enough..

3D Innovation came a bit too late, and though the prices looked reasonable, I had no more time and energy to evaluate it further. I have already 90% lock on my final firm already (whose price was quite impossible to beat~!)

Ah Soon is a black horse and I shall blog about him in the next entry.

Patrick from Ho Bee is very much mentioned in Renotalk and Singaporebrides. I met up with him one evening at Jurong East after work, but he never did get back to me with a renovation quotation. =(


In my next post, I will zoom in on my final selections for the Right Contractor.


In recap, I went to source for quotation from at least 16 ID/contractors (I didn't include the ones I saw at Bukit Timah Plaza), including:

1) Weiken (IMM)
2) GPlan (IMM)
3) U-HOME (IMM)
4) A Win (IMM)
5) Weiken(TradeHub)
6) 2Form (TradeHub)
7) NorthWest (TradeHub)
8) Lowe Living Concept (Queenstown)
9) Pravut Construction & Trading (Queenstown)
10) Promax Homemakers (Queenstown)
11)Zhi Seng Building Construction (Pte) Ltd (or Bounty Design) (Queenstown)
12) Lego Design (Paya Leba City Plaza)
13) Summit Design (Eunos Tecnolink)
14) 3D Innovation (Hougang)
15) Ah Soon (Queenstown)
16) Patrick from Ho Bee (?)

The Budget

Budgeting involves 3 important components
1) How much you can afford
2) Comfort level for renovation
3) The good-to-haves

How much you can afford
KFC took up all the moola, and there's not a single cent left [zilch.kosong.bo-lui] for renovation, so the first question Frank started asking himself when it comes to budgeting is

'...errrr... what budget?'

While K&F will be absolutely thrilled if a fairy godmother who coincidentally happens to be a HDB-licensed contractor as well turns up and give FREE RENOVATION, they know that it is quite impossible - most contractors are guys.

So F goes to guesstimate how much moola they can beg/steal/borrow from banks/friends/mother/brother/sister/daughter/son/dog, and it goes up to a decent total budget of $50K.

Ruling out the illegal activities and possible severement of family ties, the budget is still decent at $30K.

Comfort level for renovation
1) Floor tiling: Full homogeneous tiles
2) Painting: Nippon paint
3) Kitchen cabinets
4) Wardrobe
5) Lightings
6) Furnitures
7) Electrical appliances

Good-to-haves
1) The missus wants a bathtub~!
2) Slabs and slabs of mirrors
3) More cabinets to store stuffeses!
4) TV console + wall feature
5) L-box + false ceilings
6) Hack a wall and install glass wall + door


Going online to guesstimate and exclude the various costs of required furniture, lighting, and electrical applicances, we final reached our final renovation budget:

Renovation budget: "$15-20K"

... then comes the harder part of trying to fit within the budget. To be continued....

The Floor Plan

The Location

50 Strathmore Ave

Genesis

It was actually a nice and sunny day when all our housing woes started.
It was a Friday, to be exact.
30th May 2008, to be more exact.
We can go down to 8:30am, if you want mindblowing details, but why would you want that?

I digress.

As I was saying, it was 30th May 2008 (Friday) 830am when we went down to HDB Hub @ Toa Payoh and signed the papers and paid downpayment for our new nest @ Strathmore Avenue. It will be, from hereon, referred to as Katy and Frank's Chalet (KFC), for obvious reason which will be known later as we progress on our journey.

Here it is: Map

And so starts our new life journey into a new and exciting life - a journey which my scout senior so fondly refers to as A Journey of the HDB Kind

Watch this space for more updates as we pack our bags and tighten our shoelaces for this thrilling journey. Woohoo~!