Time flies, it's been a week since we moved into our house. We have officially terminated our rental agreement for the temporary housing...a 3 months rental which turned out to be a 9 months rental.
Moving and living in our house is a bittersweet experience. I'm very happy that we are finally living in our own house, which is the first house that I have ever owned in my life. However, I do get frustrated that things have progressed super slowly and there are still so much more to be completed. I spent this whole weekend cleaning as much as possible so that we don't feel like we are living in a warehouse (still do, but at least a bit better). At least, the big pile of rubbish outside is gone :)
Top 10 things that we've learned so far from our renovation exercise:
1. Lower your expectations, you would reduce the disappointment & heartache :)
2. Do detailed checks for defects & chase your developers to fix it. Developers here, (UEM included) tend to take shortcuts and things are often not up to the standards that we are used to, especially if compared to Australian standards etc.
3. Best to supervise all work done, unfortunately, micro-management is compulsory most of the time.
4. Some things are still cheaper in Singapore, e.g. electronics, top quality taps, LED lights.
5. Install water filter system for your house. We engaged a company to install and clean the water tank last week. You'd be surprised to see how dirty (I'm talking about dark brown) Malaysian water is...yuckie yuckie :)
6. Always compare multiple quotes.
7. Try to include some penalty clauses into your fit out contract if possible to help you recover from delays (in case).
8. Use stainless steel as much as possible, other iron/materials fall apart very quickly.
9. Whatever time frame you've given your renovation project, best to multiply that by two.
10. Most important point of all, never fully pay after a job is done, most of the time, you'll be calling the company to come back and redo something.
That would be my top 10 learning to date, I am sure that there would be more interesting experience that we will go through down the track. For now, here's to our 1st week anniversary in our new house.
Have a great Sunday evening & great week ahead everyone.
Study room extension:
Courtyard:
and blue for baby's room:
Ian built most of the timber doors and I'm super proud of his work, so thanks to the hubby for doing awesome job! Maybe I can request for him to write about making doors :)
We still have a little bit to do internally and we have not had chance to complete internal decor (paintings etc) but we're extremely extremely happy to be back home and we're very happy and proud with the outcome of this renovation. Kudos to our contractors! We're looking to start stage 3 which is external soon, hopefully in time for housewarming before our baby is due. So stay tuned for more renovation updates in the next coming months :)
Last but not least, I just want to say BIG thank you to Barry & Jackie who's been so kind to host us during our messy renovation. Thanks for being such lifesaver.
Have a good evening everyone,
Erika
