Last year, we have decided to make a huge move to remodel our existing house that we have stayed for almost 10 years. I have been planning for this renovation for a while (years in fact) e.g. gathering ideas, designing the new layout and etc.

Total duration of the renovation from 1st day of demo till we move in took about 5 months. All of this could only happen as we do have a very dedicated contractor. Actually, his role is more like a PM as most of the work will be done by his workers. So we have to thank him for that. But my personal advice is that as the owner, we should really involved throughout the entire renovation. I am lucky as I temporary moved to a place nearby and i can still visit the site twice a day. Once in the morning and once in the evening.

Our target is to achieve simple yet modern and practical home.
1. The 1st thing in my list is to flip the ground floor e.g. the kitchen, guest room so that it create open concept and 1 straight line with the living room. Benefit, open concept and can keep an eye on our growing kids when we are in the kitchen. And also to allow more natural lights to come in. Intermediate terrace house always having the creepy feel even in the day and forced you to turn on the light even during the day time.
2. Enlarge the existing ground floor toilet.
3. Add extra 1 small room for the maid. Or we can convert them into storage room in future.
4. Extend the front of the house (extra 4 feet).
5. The back of the house also need to hack during our renovation is because it has to give way to new columns for the extension on the upper floor.
6. New piping for the entire house.
7. New wiring for the entire house.
8. Add additional toilet up stairs so that we have individual toilets for each room upstairs.
9. Extended the back and front of the house for upper floor.

This is our old layout.


And this is our new layout


These are some of the completed photos.







This post has been edited by jootat: Aug 15 2017, 11:57 AM

This is the back of the house.















This post has been edited by jootat: Aug 14 2017, 03:41 PM

Day 1 Demo. The workers is like went into beast mode and it just took them 1 day to demo most of the wall and flooring.





This post has been edited by jootat: Aug 11 2017, 03:20 PM

The Ground Floor toilet.
- Enlarge of the toilet a bit, relocate the WC and redo all the piping.





Constructing the split toilets at the 1st floor on top of the extended area.






Master Bedroom Toilet was constructed last after they have done the extension on the front part.






This post has been edited by jootat: Aug 11 2017, 04:35 PM

The changes inside








This post has been edited by jootat: Aug 14 2017, 08:57 AM

This is the transformation of the front part which is also the most time consuming one.










This post has been edited by jootat: Aug 14 2017, 09:18 AM

Wow..nice. What's the layout? 24x75?

Was looking at your layout, why not move the toilet to the end of your house instead

Yea... 24x75

I reserved the space behind the toilet for washing machine and also the back door. It was a difficult decision as i do have multiple ideas but in the end, this is our final layout. So far ok. Hehe...

I used to have my house layout like yours with toilet at the center. Is just take up too much space. I put the washer in my kitchen now. Is save up lots of space

I see. I tried to design the toilet till the end of the house but the washer will eat up the wet kitchen space while it is already quite small now. Is your house also 24ft or larger? Coz i personally feel my wet kitchen now is a bit small after the reno. But i think thats the best i can do for such limited space i have. I cant sacrifice the guest room space as my mother in law is sleeping there and i do not wan her to feel cramped up.

My house 37 x 80. That is why I push the toilet till the end to make the kitchen bigger. You can check my thread https://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?act=ST&f=231&t=3799314

This post has been edited by sonerin: Aug 11 2017, 08:11 PM

Ahh.. i see. U have such a wide house. Haha. I think i have also go thru ur thread b4.

But now you mentioned about my new layout, i think pushing the toilet to the back is actually possible. Make the toiler longer and narrow then widen the wet kitchen and put the washer there. May be some other ppl in future can consider that. Its too late for me now. Hahaa... but actually i wanted to hide the back door so that it is not visible from the living room. But it is totally personal choice but u do have a +ve point there.

Yes I also try to hide the door especially the toilet door that can be seen from front of the house

But my toilet door now is visible from the front hahaa... *slam face*
I was a bit worried at 1st but now we r ok coz it is quite practical as we no need to access the toilet from the wet kitchen.

Some people pantang. Anyway nothing bad about it

The first thing I thought of was, since you have a chance to change the layout, the toilet should have planned in a way that the window opens to the outside, instead of open into another wall which does not provide direct ventilation.

But I have seen two types of people. First type is like me, prefer toilet window to open, reasons are to allow natural lighting and to make the room dry faster and less nasty stuff which tends to accumulate or grow due to prolonged dampness.

Second type is keep window shut type, and block any possible light transmission.

Ya, you are right. but since we did not hire any professional ID or architect to design the house, probably we are lacking in this area. But initially we thought we wanted to leave the back area so that we could still hang some clothes indoors (which we used to do all the time before we have a maid) but now we no longer hang the clothes indoor. but so far it still kind of ok because we have a lot of pails and also we can hide the washing machine. As for the ventilation issue, the floor still dry up but u need to make sure you open up the door or turn on the ventilation fan inside.

e.g. my master toilet, big windows, sufficient sunlight during day time but we still turn on the light when we shower. Coz it's just not bright enough.

But personally i would advice to push the toilet all the way to the back of the house if possible due to the benefits of it.

This post has been edited by jootat: Aug 14 2017, 09:22 AM

This is the closer look on the laundry area.

1. Reserved an elevated flooring for the washing machine.
2. The outlet for the washing machine is done in a way that could prevent the water from coming in in case of flood.
3. The drain pipe from the dry and wet kitchen will floor to this mini man hole (I really donno what does it call). Then my contractor installed something below it that will filter away the smells from the manhole).
4. From here then all the water will flow to the man hole.

1 of the issue that I have seek advice from forum before our reno. Is the man hole. Our previous owner, cover the man hole permanently when he did the wet kitchen. I only realized after i have the idea to renovate our house and when I look at the floor plan, i was a bit shock. Even though i think we will hardly need to open the hole but i did not want to conceal them permanently.

In the new layout, the man hole will be in my ground floor guest room. And since the new layout for the bedroom is also not very big, i decided to put a platform there instead. So far we quite like the platform as my mother in law is sleeping in this room and she loves it as well.





This post has been edited by jootat: Aug 14 2017, 11:10 AM

1 of our target to get more natural lights into the house. Other than larger windows, open layout, we also went for cheap solution that open up a 4x4 boxed up with poly-carbonate sheet at the staircase void area.

The photo shown is not the transparent roof tiles yet, it's our existing air ventilator that installed on the roof. For the boxed up area, we leave about 2 inch gap before putting the poly sheet so that the air can escape from there as well then go up to the roof top area.

We always worried about water shortage in our housing area. So, we have decided to put in 2 tanks + the 60G solar heater water tank, we hope that it will at least help a bit.

2 x King Kong Vertical Round Bottom with Stand Stainless Steel Water Tank (1800L/400G)

Challenges is that our back alley is quite small and got some obstacles, so our contractor need to ask the worker to carry it all the way from the front.

Mission accomplished as shown on 2nd pic.

Nice. How long more to complete?

bro ... it's completed jor, and we have moved back for 6 months now is just that i am slowly picking the photos and upload it here now. need to resize the photos and cannot upload all at once so made me a bit lazy.

I am quite happy with the workmanship from the tiling sifu. Although they take a bit more time to do the tile installation but I am quite satisfied with the result. Before that, the whole house is in a mess once they started installing the tiles then the house look a bit ok.

I am not very happy with this workmanship. So immediately i call my contractor and he straight away ask the tiling sifu to correct them the next day. Even though most of the part will be covered by the skirting but I am still very unhappy with the cutting towards the door frame area. Small problem solved.


Although i leave some buffer for the tiles when i made the purchase, still i am hit with this problem where the tiles is not enough during the installation. Worse is that the same QC Code is sold out and I have to purchase a different QC. Surprisingly i cant see any different. Advice to others would be when you purchase the tiles, make sure u also ask them how many stocks left they still have in their warehouse. And also check with your tile sifu and get him to re-calculate if you still have enough tiles or not. They should be able to advice you while they installing it.

The new fencing. I have to paint it white to blend into the new design and also to cover the old bricks as i just build the new fencing on top of the existing ones.







This post has been edited by jootat: Aug 14 2017, 03:16 PM

You just recently bought the house or already stay quite sometime?

any contact for the glass canopy?

we stayed there for almost 10 years. then we decided to renovate the house to suit our taste and needs. are you also planning to renovate your house? we temporary moved to my uncle condo and stay there for few months. coz it's difficult to get short term rental.

You mean the skylight at the car porch? i bought it from De Skylight Roofing Sdn. Bhd. Singed up their package during home expo.

https://www.facebook.com/deskylight/
And you may look for Ken - 012 606 6707

Nice, very nice! After 10 years, and this mega reno.

I like the natural light idea.

Question, how much is the water tank?
Can you show us your kitchen area?

The reason because when we purchased the house, the previous owner had also done some renovation to the house. So we just spent very minimal on the renovation then we moved in. Since it's an old house, everything is old, and the toilet flooring started to leak and we wanted the natural light. So far, we hardly turn on the light during the day.

Do you mean the wet kitchen or dry kitchen area? I was searching my photo album and could not find a proper photo for my wet kitchen. May be I will snap a photo and show to you later. This is the best photo that i could find but it's not showing the completed wet kitchen.


As for the water tank, i bought it online from https://www.ewarehouse.atkc.com.my/
very reliable and very fast delivery.

dry kitchen. But that's fine, I can imagine d.

Thanks for the link. They have a lot of stuffs there, time to shop!

I see. I thought u referring to wet kitchen earlier. I do have the dry kitchen photo but initially i thought i will upload all the completed photos once i upload those in progress photos so that they go with the flow.

Have added some completed photos in the 1st post.

Again, nicely done! My wife has been dreaming for that big mirror.

Forgive me to ask, why do most of the chinese will use the round dining table? In my opinion, the square one suits ur homestyle better. Is it because of the get together CNY eve dinner?

Hi bro,

Really nice after the reno....

Chinese don't like sharp edges. Believes whoever sit at the corner will face the "sharp" corners (pantang lah) and breaks the flow of harmony. A round table is continuous and promotes harmony ; no break in the lines.

Also for practical reasons, round table can sit more people - people just have to sit closer together during family dinners and is also more fun- and doesn't matter if you have odd or even seating. Everyone sitting on the round table faces everyone and the food is within reach by everyone.

Square table is more restrictive. You have to have even people siting otherwise one person is "left" out. Also square or rectangle sitting makes it harder to converse and the dishes can be outside of the reach if one person is seated at the end of the table.

Hence have both beliefs and practical reasoning for round vs square / rectangle size tables.

Thanks! Now I understand.

Anytime! Hope you learn something new today

that mirror i would said worth the investment if your wife really like it. In fact, this mirror has been there for the past 10 years. You can see the renovation photos, i have to cover it up as I wanted to re-use the mirror. And it blend in nicely with the new design. what i have to do is just a fresh coat of paint and it look brand new.

Last time, we using long table (7 ft). And we found it not practical at all. As what explained by bigred below, fengshui sometimes is not just fengshui but is more on practicality.

I gave away this long table before our renovation. Feel wasted but it's a practical decision to change to round table as after almost 10 years sitting in the long table, we only use 1 part of the table as it's easier for everyone to take the food. Another part of the table hardly used.



thanks

Thanks for the detail explanation. It's exactly what we thought

Ya..my current house also almost 6 -7 years already. That time no reno yet no budget to do.
Now thinking of reno must get a place for few month first.

I see. Enjoy your renovation journey

I think it's difficult to get a short term rental but with the current rental market, may be u might be able to get it by offer may be a bit extra to the owner or you can even try to pay 6 months rental all in advanced to the owner for that 6 months stays. May be this will attract the owner to rent the house to you for short term basis. This is also one of our challenge before the renovation and luckily my uncle unit tenant moved out and we can move there temporary. and even more lucky is the condo is just behind our house where i can still visit the construction site very often.

how much u get per square feet?

Rm45/sf. Just be careful when you are comparing the price. I think some may quote you cheaper but just double check what kind of material they are using. For a larger size, i prefer using the T-Beam + translucent laminated glass so that it will block away some dirts and also not so hot. And it's actually 2 pieces of 6mm glass glued together so it's 12mm in total.

i got quoatation from de skylight too..when u book at fair? i book i think april, but it quote me expensive than u..do u request galvanized steel?

Last year some time in Oct if not mistaken. I not sure if it's galvanized or not but it's powder coated.
Did you call the contact I shared with you? See if he can gave you that price or not.

yup, i call the contact u give me.. get better quotation compare current..powder coated but kena air steel will rush?

Great. I hope he can give you better quotation.
I not too sure as I have never consider about this part. I thought powder coat usually can last a while but don expect the rust issue will go away unless we use stainless steel? Coz even they powder coat it, they still need to do some welding and etc during the installation.

Hello bro, may i know how much does this cost you in total?

Powder coat will prevent rust if the metal used is not rust-resistant (e.g. mild steel). It quite hard to scratch the powder coating surface off, unless you start hacking or sawing the metal. Powder coating metals are usually cheaper vs aluminium or galvanised steel.

let's keep that as a magic questions pls feel free to ask itemized quotation but not the total cost

yes, totally agree. If not mistaken, mine was mild steel only and not those galvanized steel. but this is the part that i have not put into consideration when i ask for quotation.

As long as the metal is not continuous exposed to water or very damp areas, powder coating is more than enough. Suitable to be used in wardrobes, dining, living room furniture, shaded patio areas.

I see. Ok bro. but now i m having the rust issue at my grille near the wet kitchen sink. regret i did not ask the contractor to make it powder coated. wanted to save some cost so i did not use powder coat for all the grille. only certain part of the house i choose powder coat and the rest is just spray matte

If minor rust still ok.

1. Use WD40, spray and clean the area of rust (need some elbow work)

2. Once the the rust, dirt and grime is cleaned, just repaint the grille (make sure get paint for metal works).

As long as there is a layer between your metal works and the air, rust shouldn't appear. Grilles usually are not powder coated, too expensive to do so. It's usually just painted on.

ok bro ... thanks for the tips. I will do it this weekend.

Anyway, how long your t-beam cantilever out..look very long.at least 5-6 feet ...

i thought of galvanized as they said wont rust after galvanize, is it true?

Galvanised iron is definitely resistant to rust and may not rust at all if the galvanised layer is in place. Normally rust occur when there are chipping or scratches that peel off part or whole layer of galvanised iron. Continuous exposure to weather or bird poo will also wear off the galvanised layer in time.

Hi, it's 24' x 10'. I do not want the supporting columns and also the 2 metal hanging from the top, so we can't really stretch more than 10'


I not sure, i have a small cage that i put it outdoor for my gas tank. According to the contractor, it's galvanized iron but the top cover part started to rust. It's exposed and the top part will takung some water when it rain. But I would advice you guys to contact some other contractor for the grille if you wanted coz the one my contractor is using not so good. I have another contact which is better.

[quote=jootat,Aug 21 2017, 09:53 AM]
Hi, it's 24' x 10'. I do not want the supporting columns and also the 2 metal hanging from the top, so we can't really stretch more than 10'


10'..u really daring ..or it was your contractor ...with the t-beam ( cut i-beam ), normally the contractor will advise is only up to 6' cantilever ..i have mine 6 and 7' but i always monitor the joint . BTW your is using bolt and nut joint to the concrete beam right...
The weight of the glass n beam is quite heavy...so i always careful and monitor it...

ok ... thanks for the advice. I will always monitor it.

This post has been edited by jootat: Aug 21 2017, 12:12 PM

thanks for your info..may i know have u started to do your cabinet things? i am now headache finding a reasonable price cabinet maker with the market now got lot con man

Yes, actually my house is done d.
I used legend kitchen, but i think there are pros and cons for this. You may contact my contractor to give you quotation on the cabinet if you want. Just go with those reputable ones if you are worried about con man. all the best!

Powder coated I had that for my grill last time, it will still rust but just take longer time. As long as its steel it will rust. Stainless steel is the only answer. For me, I decided to go without grill. Save everything.

I am also using legend kitchen, they are not perfect but quite good. Of course the price they charge is quite a lot.

Your house must be located at a very secure G&G community. I won't feel safe without the grille but I know with grille you also not to say 100% safe. It's more like psychological issue only. haha.

The 1st time we did our build in cabinets (10 years ago), we have engaged Legend, and now we decided to engage them again because they helped us to recycle most of the cabinets (e.g. dismantle of existing cabinets, keep it in their warehouse during our renovation, and reinstall them back to the area that we want to re-use). During the installation, they still need to customize the existing Melamine boards to fit the new location where we want to install and also including replacing any boards that got damaged during the dismantle process or to give it a fresh new look.

So, overall yes it's a bit pricey for what they have charged me based on some opinion from my friends but I think those extra services that we are getting make it even.

I won't say like very secure. Depend on your neighbourhood as well. I do install small grill on the small window ok bathroom at back side of the house.

The best is go without grille if living in secure neighbourhood. With grille, feels like living in prisons.

Yes that is very true

Nice!!!

very informative read, for the extension of behind part of ur house, how much it cost? including hacking the old wall, new windows, door and etc

Thanks bro....

If i were to sum it up, I would said around RM45K for everything you mentioned.

Let me share a bit on the feature wall in the living room. It's actually made of plaster and not even the artificial rock type. I got it free from my uncle as he is the supplier and i just have to pay for the workmanship. Anyway, my sharing for this is if you are planning to use this, please make sure you ask the installer to cut out the bricks towards the edge before joining them together. As you can see the effect from the 1st 2 pictures is very ugly. I have to request them to cut out those joint pieces and re-install. Even though the final end result you can still see the joints but it's more acceptable and we hardly noticed it anymore after placing the TV and etc.




Our installer trying to fix it after i told them to cut out those half joint bricks and replaced with 1 full piece of bricks.






This post has been edited by jootat: Aug 25 2017, 04:36 PM

It look pretty good

May i know where you buy the grey armchair and how much does it cost?

May I ask for a rough figure for the front section modification only?
I'm just wondering about a similar changes, to knock down the front porch and extend the upper floor room a little.

Nice idea of using that roof for the front porch by the way.

in total, how much did you spend? fully managed by contractor? single contractor?

Thanks...

I was about to share some of my shopping experience from taobao. But since you asked, I bought it from ezbuy but the seller is from taobao, so you can communicate with the seller from taobao as you have the reference link from ezbuy directly to the taobao site. So it's best you choose the "Prime" item from ezbuy then check for stocks availability directly from the seller in taobao.

Btw, it cost me RM 570 per chair (incl shipping). Quality is great as well btw.

Thanks. The idea is to have more natural light for the house. I decided to use the translucent type because i worried it will be too hot if i go with full transparent.

Below will be the quotation for the front part.

All the wet work, wiring, piping, flooring (tiling), painting and etc are managed by 1 contractor. Windows, plaster ceiling, doors, skylight roof and build in cabinets are done by separate contractors.

Flooring, we decided to use laminated flooring. After doing some survey, vinyl is not our option because we are going to install it ontop of the existing tiles. Some ppl said if you did not do the self leveling on top of the existing tiles to close the gaps between the tiles, then after some time you will see a lot of lines if we use vinyl.

We surveyed a lot of laminated flooring as well. In the end, we decided to go with Inovar. Main reason is we like the options available, warranty, and also their stair nose option and also their profiling is seamless from room to room.

The only thing i would like to share is that if budget allow, i think should go for 12mm if you are installing it on top of the existing tiles (leveling is not perfect). Or spend some money for the self leveling if you are very particular on the feeling when u stop on it. For us, my contractor did some minor leveling for us (FOC) on certain area that are too uneven.









Initially we choose the stair nose that same color with our flooring. But somehow after the installation, you can see a bit of different on the colors. I was a bit disappointed but we just have to accept it.

I uses the same lamited flooring and it is really good. Some friends who visited didnt even realised is laminated.

How long have you been using it already? Mine still can notice as it have a few spot that got the floating feel. At least 1 of my uncle realized it when he visited my house. haha

About 1 year 3 months

oh ok ... still early to tell then.

How long have you been using ? The board you use is 12mm ?

This post has been edited by sonerin: Aug 28 2017, 03:48 PM

just 6 months now. i using 8mm.

Maybe you can ask them to come back to do some repair to make it flat. Not sure maybe is different of 8mm feel and 12mm feel

i think it's due to my old flooring is not even.

The layer they put under the laminated board should even it out unless is not done properly.