Preparing for renovation commencement

Today went with ID to see one of his depot road client house. We saw the white pebble stone design he is going to do the same for our entrance foyer. I am surprised that it look really nice than wat we imagine.. cos we tot pebble stone dun look tat nice mah..

M also noticed that the flooring is done quite well, nice alignment and grouting even. I think it is done even better than some of my company's projects.

Later we went to one of the HDB showflat to see the kitchen tiles.. cos the tiles are the same selection as my kitchen. I am happy that it looks nice and cosy.
M commented that hdb showflat workmanship not as good. Me pointed out the skirting.. haa.. and now ID scared liao cos he know i do Quality checks for my company projects one. But actually I think i am the most 'chin chai' (easygoing) among my colleagues who also participate in the Quality checks! Hee.

Today our ID showed us the ceiling plan liao! Oh finally!!
It looks quite nice.. tink he have use more time to draw tis time round.. cos better n more detailed than his first/second set of drawings. We asked him to take out the L box and do inverted L box instead. M think it will look more special while i have no strong preferences.

Our ID also inform that he found out that he has over-quote us for our wardrobe.. he said he has measured again on the plan and discover that he over-quote for 2 more sqft.. so he will refund us back the $$! Hee.. imagine that we initially thought he purposely overquote to earn $$, so looks like he is quite responsible afterall. And he say how come we no tell him when we ored know liao.. haa. Seems like after we confirm with him on the renovation, he has been quite pro-active so far.

But hor! His person really a bit ah beng ah beng lah.. heee.. think some people may not tahan him lor.. cos he can be quite direct at times. But he is not so calculative like other IDs we met lor. So far he is quite negotiable and flexible.
Even when we want to change our flooring etc (from homogeneous tiles to parquet, then to laminate now) he didn't charge us any extra. And when he recommend Supreme laminate flooring, we are not so sure so we wanted to see Kronotex and Supreme he also helped us to arrange to view then decide lor. Not like force us to take whichever lowest etc. Now even M begin to like him more leh.

Now M is considering whether want to print those scenery pictures in gigantic posters and paste over the feature wall. I think it will look really nice if it can be done up. Maybe we will ask our ID next appointment whether it is feasible.

Next appt our ID says he will arranged for the electrician to see our flat together to discuss the lighting points design.. intend to commence works after 4 Sept.


Now a bit fretting over our finances! We realise we need to purchase cooker hood, hob and built in oven, kitchen sink & bathroom sink (for the vanity top) soon. Lightings and curtains too. I may see if i can get discount from one of the supplier I know. Estimate cost $3500! Faintx. Hopefully got enough bonus to buy all these.

Our selected homogeneous tiles

We have more or less confirmed our homogeneous tiles selections at Soon Bee Huat Warehouse (just across IMM), which our ID brought us to.

See the pictures below:-


Polished homogeneous tiles for our living room



See the white one i am about to take out? Tats the one for the kitchen tiles!



Our selected kitchen tiles - when laid in alternate styles

Supreme laminate flooring

Today is quite a eventful day. We managed to persuade our ID to bring us to Supreme Laminate flooring showroom. I told our ID that since he recommend Supreme, I will prefer to see the mock up before i decide. I was also thinking of visiting Kronotex laminate flooring showroom, but M seen the selections at their website and find nothing of his preference. We still prefer the African Black selection at Supreme. M dun really like to visit the showroom because he feel it's quite cumbersome but i, being more particular still insist heee

Supposed to meet him at 12pm, but he message to say he will be late (12.30pm). . So end up we practically rushed down to Admiralty as their showroom is closing at 1pm.
Our ID called Supreme saying he will reach slightly later than 1pm and asked them to wait for us. The staff seems to be transferring his call so he get frustrated and called their sales director (whom he know personally) to complain. So in the end the showroom staff waited for us. Our ID still complain a bit on bringing us so far to see the showroom.. me just let him be. Hee, sometimes he can be a bit annoying, can't tahan his ah beng style.

We find that their mock up floor board is quite good leh and look seemless. Then the normal board w/o insulation is already quite good, not much sound. They demonstrate the sound insulation for us (by adding a whole piece of rubber mat for the whole floor). We find tat it did help to reduce the sound.

The guy says their floor board are all grade AC5, and each selection has both 8mm and 12mm. The mock up is 8mm and seems ok, so i think we may choose 8mm.

As for the 'floating' feeling of laminate flooring, we find tat the mock up feels quite solid. Our ID says that actually it depends on whether the screeding is done properly. Since we can't expect the free HDB screeding to be perfect, adding the rubber mat below may probably help in better leveling of the ground. Our ID also says that he has to lay our living room homogeneous floor tiles before the HDB contractor do the screeding, so that they can match the living room tiles level.

I feel more comfortable after seeing the show room, though our ID a bit frustrated at so much trouble to bring us to the showroom.

He dropped us at Balestier to see lighting and proceed to his other customer house nearby. We went looking around and compare the prices. I found a pendant light I like a lot but M prefer another one. Hee.. always like this right? Difference of preferences guess is common.

We passed by Hafary tiles shop (which is discussed in one of the renovation forum). M is curious on how good Hafary is and on this Champion tiles that the forummers seem to be fascinated about. We saw the tiles but was not fascinated because the selections are not as many as the Soo Bee Huat warehouse (next to IMM) which our ID bring us too. M is quite happy to find that the prices at Soon Bee Huat is relatively the same as in Hafary (at least for the tiles we selected). We saw a Soon Bee Huat branch opposite to Hafary but the selections are not much as compared to their warehouse. I guess selecting tiles from warehouse is still better becos of the great selection; and big showroom (with tiles mocked up).

Our ID picked us later and we proceed to the Soon Bee Huat warehouse to re-select our foyer tiles. During the last selection, we picked polished black homogeneous tiles but is of a smaller size. M feels that the small size will not be nice as our foyer is quite big. We can't find a rectangular size one, so our ID says he can specially asked to cut the size to what we want. So we manage to settle that our entrance foyer will be black polished homogeneous tiles with white pebble stones. Will have a hard time cleaning the white pebble stones!

Next we have a hard time deciding whether we want to change our wardrobe area laminate flooring to tiles or pebble stones. The reason is because i am afraid that water from the master bathroom may seeped in the laminate flooring and caused bulging/pop up. But M feels that if the wardrobe area is of different flooring it may look strange with the rest of the bedroom which is of laminate flooring.
We can't decide which pebble stones to use. I prefer the grey ones. Our ID then suggest that we meet up next week to see his customer's house which has done a lot of pebble stone flooring for our reference.

Later during the day, we suddenly think of a way to resolve the wardrobe tiles issue. We thought of putting a big rubber mat below so that water splashed after bathing can be prevented from seeping into the laminated floor. Hopefully we can maintain it better.

Phew! So here goes our day!

Laminate flooring or parquet?

Now very stressed ah.. dun know to choose laminate flooring or parquet?

Sat we went to Expo to see the times bookshop warehouse sale, accidentally pass by a renovation fair. So we pop in to see and was introduced to a laminate flooring brand called Excel. It says their laminate flooring can be soaked up to 3 days in water and won't bloat. The sales man also says it is anti-termites, fire resistant etc. One ting we noticed is that the sound insulation is quite good, there isn't much 'kok kok' sound produced by normal laminate flooring. Also, there isn't much floating effect. The 8mm and 12mm ones are quite good. So we get a namecard and discover that they are located at IMM, same building as our ID.

Later i went asking my colleague and read up on parquet flooring. Realise that Indonesia parquet as quoted by my ID may not be a good one because the oil content in Indo parquet is generally lesser than Burmese parquet and thus more vulnerable to termites attack. Burmese parquet will be more ex so not sure if ID will allow us to change without any extra charge. Also, we prefer the patterns on the laminate flooring and parquet design seems quite boring.. not so many choices lor.

Sunday we went to see 2 flats done by our ID. Its only half done, only the false ceiling is done up. Wonder why he bring us there since not fully done leh. But we still like the inverted L box done by him. The 2 flats we seen are very small, 4 rooms one. Our ID says it is of low budget, and cos smaller so v hard to design, whereas our flat is longish and big so should have more room to play with the design.

We went back to IMM to see his amended drawings. He forget to include the chimney hood and oven in his kitchen cabinet drawing again For the feature wall, he didn't really amend the drawing although M asked him to design a more elaborate one. I guess he is really too busy with too many customers. 3pm his other customer came, so we went out to jalan awhile cos we want him to show us the tiles factory again.
We waited until 6pm then go in to pester him again as the tiles factory is closing at 7pm.

He fetched us to the tiles factory, Soo Bee Huat trading, where we take a look at the homogeneous tiles we selected for our living and kitchen previously. Originally i wanted some patterns for the living room tiles, but finally i agree with M that the cream plain one we originally selected still look the best.

For the kitchen tiles, we realise a slight problem. The tiles sides seem to bulge after laying as shown in their showroom. The lady asst told us frankly that that tile we selected has this slight problem. Our ID told us that its the same tile chosen by HDB in their Jalan temternam showflat, and he has not seen any bulging. He seem deep in thought when i ask him if he can minimise the bulging because i really like the tile a lot. I guess i have to depend on his good hands in doing this.

We told him about our decision to change to laminate flooring for the bedrooms instead of parquet. He recommend us supreme brand and show us the sample. M and I prefer the African Black selection. I wanted sound insulation so our ID called Supreme who told them that they can add in a rubber board below to reduce the hollow sound when u step on the board. Our ID intitially say want to charge us extra for the sound insulation but later after negotiation, he say okay not to charge us.

Me not sure if supreme is good or not.. unless can see their live demo.. hmm will consider if can pester my ID to bring us to their factory heee.