The introduction of the new meaning of KFC

From now on, KFC has a more complete meaning: Katy & Frank's Children :-)

110201 KFC Update

Here's how KFC looks like after 2+ years.. Happy Lunar New Year!

110201 KFC Update

Not so Soon anymore

Dear All,

If you have done your homework at Renotalk.com, you would have found that a lot of things went through for Ah Soon.

In short, he took projects and money, did not deliver on them, and got into hot soup with many many homeowners.

Ah Soon is no more.

Ah Soon, overrated?

There has been many discussions about the good and bad of Ah Soon that I dunno whether to continue recommending him or not:
http://www.renotalk.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=21215

With more people asking him for quotations, he is getting a bit too "popular" for comfort.
He has been flying people's aeroplane, not replying to promised quotations, not giving due attention to client's projects (resulting in project implementation mistakes), and also higher quoted prices (subject to negotiation).

Perhaps when I first got him, he was not so well known (I haven't introduced him inside renotalk) and I was not presented with the problems his new clients are now facing...

In summary, as marvin puts it, go for Ah Soon if
1) You want slightly cheaper quote
2) Can have time to jagger and oversee the project.
3) Knows exactly what designs you wanted.
4) Threshold level is high for waiting.

Also, Ah Soon's brother , Jason, recently split from Fu Hua.

Jason is a talented project lead as he had started off as a carpenter since young, and he is the main guy for Ah Soon to help him "finish up" projects, after all the different parties (tile layer, carpenter, painter++) have done their work.

This might not be good for Ah Soon...

Finally, to answer all those queries about whether Ah Soon is a HDB-approved contractor... you can find out yourself :)

Did Ah Soon lose YOUR quotation?

Ah Soon called to tell me that he has lost some of his quotations today due to some nebulous events resulting from bad karma (which resulted from him making so many people wait for his quotations [but this is bad cos more people will have to wait for his replacement quotes - more bad karma!])

Anyway, he told me that the quotation of someone I recommended (from Blk213 Yishun) was one of the ones lost! Good grief and fiddlesticks!

Ah Soon appealed for me to give him the guy's contact so that he can get back to the guy about it and generate a new one for him soon. Tricky part is, I don't know who I recommended. (There's just so many~!) Tricky business without proper tracking. Whoever it is who used my name to ask him for a good bargain, please call him back.

So I went back to google up mentions of Ah Soon at renotalk (so many people asking for his contact were directed from there) - and there's just so many mentions of Ah Soon!

Apparently after I blogged about Ah Soon (and posted mentions of him in renotalk) he became the hottest favourite in Renovation Town.

Hottest favourite, and infamous too for being the best pilot in Singapore at flying people's aeroplanes. Hardyhaha.

Happenings. and, oh, Ah Soon.

It has been a long time since we last blogged about our renovations....but I'm not going to talk about renovations now. Need to talk about Ah Soon.

I digress to summarize stuff cos we all like to talk about ourselves - our motely crew of 2 in our tight ship has been sailing some epic journeys after the ones dealing with renovations in our nest (Finding the Right Contractor and Finding the Right Contractor II)

In a similar taste we went to great lengths (again) for the best deals:

1. Finding the Right Hotel in Singapore (in the likes of renovations, we went to soooo many wedding shows and talk to soooo many Banquet Catering Teams - more than 20. Final call - Hotel Rendezvous.)
2. Finding the Right Hotel in Vietnam (long distance research + coordination is hell. Final call - Park Royal)
3. Finding the Right Photographer in Singapore - in progress
   
4. Finding the Right Photographer in Vietnam - in progress
   
5. Finding the Right Honeymoon package (SGD$150. Return tix. Melbourne. No spelling mistooks. Beat that.)

...If I live to tell the stories about each of them, then I will. But I have digressed. I'd better get to my next blog about Ah Soon, which is why I even started to blog this post at all.

Updates

Things have been moving pretty tight since the last post.

Weekdays (after work) and weekends have been devoted to sessions of housewarmings and recce-ing of hotels for our wedding in Oct this year, that there's hardly time for anything else!

Will need to take and post pictures of the house in its final completion soon, as I seem to be owing that to this blog.

Ah, and yes, we got our wedding bands~! We're probably the first couple to get our wedding bands AFTER the ROM, but I must say it is worth the wait. =)

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.