Our Life Together

We happened to come across a leaflet from Audiohouse that was put into my in-law's letterbox. Audiohouse is located at Bendemeer Road, pretty far from our place but Audiohouse is known to match the lowest prices in the market, meaning to say that upon purchasing from them, if we were to find somewhere else selling the same item at a cheaper price, all we have to do is take a photo and Audiohouse will match the price. Apart from that, they also offer free membership and 20% + additional 7% cashback that can be used to offset other purchases made at Audiohouse. The best thing is that these evouchers does not have any expiry date. 👍😊 Earlier in November, we bought a Samsung 65inch UHD 4K Smart LED TV that costs $2639 including the wall bracket, delivery and installation charges. From purchasing the TV, we earned $678 of evouchers! Also, Samsung was having some promotion, hence we are entitled to $200 worth of grocery vouchers!  👍 We also bought a bundle set consisting of a sl...

Since tiling is expected to take about 3 weeks to complete, we decided to make use of this time to start visiting some furniture and bathroom accessory shops to shortlist some items for our home. 🏡 There are so many things that we have to shop for - furniture, electrical appliances, lighting, bathroom fittings and accessories. First stop.... Castlery. Castlery is a local furniture firm that offers surprisingly affordable furniture. I first saw their advertisments on facebook and instagram and I really liked the overall feel of their furniture selections. Upon checking their website with husband, we felt that their furniture suited our theme and at the same time was within our budget! Hence we planned a trip to their showroom at Turf City.  For furniture, we are planning to get a L-shaped sofa, a dining set and maybe a coffee table.  We have been to Courts, Ikea, Big Box, Furniture Mall and some furniture shops in IMM to briefly take a look but have yet to see...

One week into renovation and all the works are going as scheduled! 😄      ✔ Hacking works --- COMPLETED        ✔ Gas piping works --- COMPLETED       ✔ Gas heater installation --- COMPLETED       ✔ Electrical works --- ONGOING        ✔ Tiling works --- ONGOING  There are lots of electrical wiring coming out from the ceiling and walls. It looks pretty messy  everywhere. 😂 The contractors screed the walls over the existing tiles. The windows between the kitchen and service yard were removed was sealed up too, so that it looks like a normal wall. The windows would be unsightly and pretty useless since we would be installing windows in the service yard.  The kitchen cement base was also constructed already. Initially our ID proposed to have the base made of carpentry as he said that nowadays people dont splash water to wash the kitchen floor anymore. However, since we ...

With the completion of the retification works and confirmation of all the design details, we were finally ready to start the renovation for our new home!  We wanted to start the renovation as soon as possible as we were worried that the works may get delayed because Chinese New Year falls on 5th and 6th of February 2019. Most of the contractors are Malaysians and they normally take quite a long time off during the CNY period. But as usual, our ID had thousand and one reasons, in which he said he had to give one week notice to the different contractors and what not.. Hence, the renovation process was scheduled to start on 10th November 2018. 🙄 Our ID provided us with a renovation timeline so that we will be aware of the works that is going on in our home at any point of time. From the timeline, it is projected that the installation of the last items such as lights, glass works and quartz table top will be carried out on 2nd February 2019. The general cleaning and washing...

After meeting our ID several times again to change details of the design here and there, we finalised everything including the 3D drawings and the carpentry drawings. Like FINALLY.. The house is just sitting there waiting for us.. Also, another thing to point out is somehow the colour in the 3D drawings from this ID company does not seem to be a close match to the actual laminate that we chose. For example, if we compare the laminate picture below (on the right) against the 3D drawing of all the main carpentry in the living area, somehow the laminate in the 3D drawing appeared quite yellowish to me. 😖 I was constantly faced with the situation where we were worrying whether the true colour in the end when put together with everything else will look nice. There will be many more pictures in which the 3D drawing does not carry out the real colour of the actual tile/laminate we chose. Makes me wonder if we are the only ones facing this problem or the 3D drawings from other ID firms are...

There are external companies that help you to do the defects checking these days (everything is possible now). So basically these companies offer a package that consists of 3 inspection trips to your home, which typically costs around $400.  1st Inspection: Identify defective works required and submit the report  2nd Inspection: Joint inspection appointment  3rd Inspection: Conduct the final inspection on the rectification works carried out We felt that it wasnt necessary and decided to carry out the inspection and follow-up by ourselves. I trust my eagle eyes and nitpickiness. I read online that some couples have a long list of items to bring to their new home during defects checking such as ladder, pail, torchlights, broom and what not.  We simply downloaded and printed a sample BTO defects checklist shown below and  brought along together with a few pens and post-it pads. That's all.. 😂 I think we took around 45 min to an hour to check throug...

We were rather disappointed by the first draft of the 3D drawings. The overall look and feel of the drawings were really not what we have envisioned our home to be. We were expecting to confirm the designs of the house before the key collection. However, as we were not satisfied with the 3D drawings, we had to spend time to really re-think and try to salvage the situation.  It would have been perfect if we loved the 3D drawings and just a few days later receive the keys to our home. BUT... since it did not turn out the way that we expected, we decided to meet our ID, talk over it and head down to Hafary again to re-choose some of the tiles.  This time, we headed down to Hafary at Tradehub 21 after he finished doing the on-site inspection and measurements at our new house. Although the Tradehub outlet was smaller than the one that we visited in Eunos, but they still had a rather large selection of tiles for us to choose from.  We first started to look for a r...

The day that we have been waiting for is finally here.. KEY COLLECTION!! 🏠 Our appointment was at 10:15am. We arrived earlier at Toa Payoh HDB Hub to have breakfast at Macdonalds before going to take our queue number.  Dad and grandma arrived while we were waiting for our queue number to be called. When our number was called, we went to the counter to sign all relevant papers, decide on the loan amount, the number of years, the percentage deduction for each person, pay our first conservancy charges, etc..  AND FINALLY..... WE WERE PRESENTED WITH OUR KEYS TO OUR HOME!!! 😍😍 At that moment there were too many things to take in, it didnt feel surreal yet. We went to level 2 of HDB HUB to open our SP account for the utilities. Once that  was settled, we headed straight to our new home to open the doors! 😁 There were so many contractors camping at the void deck of our block.. I guess it was only when we entered the compound and saw our block tha...