After a week of waiting, our tiles for common bathroom, kitchen and service yard all laid nicely 🙂 How about the master bathroom? That one – only exclusive VIPs can see for themselves. Not gonna reveal!
So, before they can overlay a new set of tiles over the HDB (hideous) tiles, the contractors must remove the basins, wc(s) and pipes etc. They will first of all lay a layer of screed over the HDB tiles to allow better grip for the new tiles over the older tiles. Like painting, we need primer to ensure better long lasting grip. Same thing here too! To think again, makeups for girls also got primer and it serves the same purpose too 🙂
Okay, I personally cannot stand it when the tiles are dusty and dirty. If only I can splash water all over the tiles to get rid of the debris, dust and what not. But I can’t do much now but to wait till it’s time to clean up. For now, everything is all in a mess!
Master bathroom wc all gone! Yes, told you I always drop by after a run to Eastbank.
Master toilet botak liao!
Common bathroom also botak. Now I cant run to eastbank and drop by toilet to pee!
Where they keep our WCs – in the kitchen. OMG.
Touch up the hacked wall – between matser bedroom and another room.
Hacking and making the wall pretty all over again costs us money…..
That is what I mean by they screed over every tiles we want to cover!
The kitchen too – one look, I thought it was a haunted house. Base cabinet is done!
Uncle start off with the common bathroom first. He took one whole day for EACH SIDE of the walls. Each side okay!
After he is done with all the walls and floor tiles, he can now add the kerb to separate the wet and dry area in the toilet. That is Johnny our ID – hard at work.
Drying the kerb normally will take a day!
Common Bathroom almost done, left with filling in white cements in between the tiles. 🙂
As for the kitchen, Johnny laid them all first before we approve the layout.
Same goes for the service yard. We were abit reluctant to spend money for service yard, but huat ah….
Dry lay tiles. We approve and they can work on it soon!
Irman hopping here and there!
Tiles are up! Woohoo! I hate that skirting btw, that has got to redo!
I like how it transition from the kitchen to the service yard. Nicely done! And we can save money now by not changing the service yard panel door (for at least another 5 years?)!
I like how the washing machine base is all done up. The drain hole is even cover. So sleek!
I still think the kitchen looks rather dark. Hopefully Johnny can do smtg about the lighting etc…
Next up – screeding. We had to liase with HDB Contractor for screeding. He quoted us a whooping $1500 for the top up above 40mm free HDB screeding. We were appalled at the thought of spending $1500 on just a slab of cement from hall to dining to all three bedroom. Is this how HDB earn money? Hais. Anyways, I think (I am actually pretty sure) my bargaining skills suck big time. When he called me for with the quotation of $1500. I take it and just ‘pasrah’. You know that feeling like omg we gonna be $1500 poorer. Then, Irman called him back to bargain. And he managed to dropp the price to $1100. Final price. We seal the deal lor. We need it done asap anwyays. This cannot delay any longer! I was thinking further – how come we kena ‘broad daylight robbery’ just like that. It boils down to two things:
(1) We both can’t bargain. Irman win 2-2.
(2) James (HDB Contractor) must have thought that since we overlay the toilets and kitchen, we must have been ‘loaded’ (which we aren’t to begin with as we are planning a wedding and a house all at the same time lor).
As what Aisyah and Fithrin said, “takpa, get it done asap”. No more delay pls.
With that, next week, Irman will step up as the Project Manager for the entire week as I am away for AGC trip to Cambodia for 4days 3 nights. I am not looking forward to it but work is work. At least 3A is an angel 🙂 Makes it alot more bearable. We hope to get the screeding done on Tuesday and Wednesday so that Johnny can get his electrical guys to start on Thursday onwards. Looking at the timeline – we are suppose to start on:
(1) Electrical
(2) Partition wall to be up and plastering to be followed
(3) False ceiling to be installed
(4) Confirm on carpentry measurements
Meanwhile, we are just sofa, bed and TV hunting on weekends. We found a few ‘wants’ and that will make us even poorer in the months to come. Boohoo. I honestly do not know how we gonna pull through this, but we will make it. 🙂
I fell instantly in love with this sofa which can turn into a bed, and can be orientate into many other positions! Only problem – abit pricey for us. I have also managed to make Irman like the same model too. 🙂
Grey with black. Or colored with black. This sofa can turn into a bed!
So, today we gonna head to Eastbank to check measurements and see if this sofa set fits ours perfectly or we might consider the slightly bigger (which gonna cost us more). Can’t wait!
Laverne
Hi there! Such a wonderful short article, thanks!
irmanadz
Thank you Laverne!
mingli
Hi, I saw your post and I wanna say that James is really daylight robber. He quoted us $1k for top up for more than 40mm for my 5rm flat but end up we did not even top up so we did up till 40mm which is free. This 40mm is the same height compared to the floor of toilet, just slightly lower than floor of the main door and kitchen. Since he was not able to earn the money for top up, he suggested for us to do self leveling cement on top which cost $900 and it will make the floor even. End up the workmanship is so lousy with so many lines and floor not being leveled at all when it is called self leveling cement. Total waste of my money! So pissed off with him, he keep saying ‘It is like this, this is how it look”
irmanadz
Hi Mingli! Thank you for sharing, we had a tough time negotiating with him on the final price as his prices kept changing. Our floor is not even and he claimed we should do self-leveling which will cost us more. Rather than doing that, we decided to get our own materials and source for “freelancers” near our neighbourhood. It really does save us a lot as compared to what James would charge us.