House Renovation

Some of you may recall us mentioning in an earlier post that we were busy preparing to move house this June. Well we are!

For the renovation of our new place, we've decided to do without an ID (that's today's speak for Interior Decorator) or Main Con (lingo for Main Contractor a.k.a PCK style) mainly to cut costs and also to allow our renovation and decor to look less BORING, (Hello IDs out there, where's your creativity?) less PLASTICKY, COLD, less like everybody else's and more like a HOME. In other words, some place you can be yourself and be happy in; junk, mess and all!
We're great believers that you don't need a lot of money or expensive stuff to make your home nice.

Surprise, surprise! Nothing has changed since we last renovated our first marital home in the 90s. I would think with today's connectivity technology, that sub-contractors would be more contactable (given that you no longer have to PAGE for them and wait for their response). But no, that's not to be! Managing sub-cons without a main con is a nightmare. What do these people use to tell the time? The position of the sun?

Most of our suppliers / installers do not arrive on time. If they arrive within an hour past the appointment time, you should already bite your tongue and give them a pat on their back. Sometimes, they don't arrive at all and when you call them (IF you are able to get through their phone line at all), they may just let on that they have to re-schedule your appointment!

Perhaps the biggest headache was from our aircon company, who left us two nice GAPING holes to patch up ourselves (of course, we Singaporeans keep cement, sand and plaster at home all the time for situations like that!). We realised it too late after the team had left. There must have been a reason they had created several 'wrong' holes all over the house that they were patching up in a rush at the end of the job and for also creating a labyrinth of 'quality' trunking - it's to confuse I say! Also, it was a great distraction that the main 'installer' was pretty good looking and was walking around shirtless! (LOL)

Suffice to say, we were in a bit of a fix because our painters were due to start work 2 days later. In the end, we had to get another sub-contractor to patch up the holes! As a test of their efficiency (because I was so pissed to not be able to get through their phone line the whole day) I had FAXED them a note to CALL ME BACK and lookit here, they did......albeit FIVE days later!
When I mentioned that ours was the house with the holes, the girl had the cheek to advise us that THEY had already sent THEIR team to patch up our holes!

Their trunking of certain parts of the masterbedroom has caused some ugly alterations to be made by the flooring company and eventually, after many FRUITLESS phone calls, we decided to pay a visit to the aircon company's head office. I shan't comment on the service we got. Let's just say if it were good, rest assured I would have said so. They've promised to send down a 'more experienced team' to fix things today.....so let's see.

We've had issues with other companies and I shan't go into the details except to say, entering into a renovation contract is like getting married. The other party will promise you the moon before the deal is sealed! (No no Darhlink, I'm not talking about you..... you're fantaaaaaastic!)

But that's not to say we haven't had good experiences with other some sub-cons. Our kitchen cabinet makers were a wonderful bunch. Helpful and hardworking. They missed their promised deadline but looking at things objectively, we were still very happy with their work.

By the way, did I mention that we're intending to paint a mural on our main door? Not sure if it will eventually materialise. But if it does, we'll post a pic.

Have a good weekend!

Fiona