Looks like you are all set for renovation next week! Good luck and do share here your experiences

Engaged Mr Yap as recommended by a few LYN forumers as my contractor for wiring, plumbing, plaster ceiling, painting, tiling, etc. He started work on the 21st of August 2018 as promised.

Hacking of existing kitchen tiles is ongoing. Will post pictures soon!

Have paid for most of my electrical appliances, flooring, curtains, subway tiles, etc to avoid paying SST.

Have also purchased bathroom fittings (Sorento), a pump (Teral) and a water heater (Hydro One) off LYN forumer zheilwane.

Am trying to confirm and pay for my air conds, IKEA furniture and marble countertop before the end of the month.

Will be dropping by Legend Kitchen this weekend too to confirm my cabinet order and for final discussions for the design.

Updates:

1. Started purchasing various elements for a smart home system
2. Updated wiring diagram to cater for smart home automation
3. Paid 90% deposit for marble countertop and pre-selected slabs (StoneAce)
4. Paid for airconds (opted for Hitachi inverters and non-inverters)
5. Discussed pre-final kitchen and built-in cabinet design and chose panel colours

Still figuring out the smart home system as I go along. Hopefully it turns out well. Main system will be anchored on Google Home + a few Google Home Minis with elements from Philips Hue and Broadlink. Home will only be partially "smart" as I did not allow for this in my initial budget. Want to cap spending on this item to under RM3000.

Choosing cabinet panel colours was really difficult as we had to rely on small sample panels to visualise how the end product will look. Hope it turns out well.

Have paid for the bulk of everything with the exception of furniture (IKEA + export manufacturers) plus the main renovation works. IKEA should be settled by this week; aiming to pay for my IKEA shopping list on Wednesday or Thursday.

May decide to share my full itemised budget sheet at the end of everything if anyone is interested but will provide a short summary of cost incurred to date in the coming posts.

This post has been edited by justintga: Aug 28 2018, 05:41 PM

Completed my IKEA shopping before the end of August and had the furniture delivered to my place. Unfortunately had to take the delivery of the IKEA furniture boxes which are now sitting in my storeroom while the renovation is ongoing as IKEA does not hold the order for you and will deliver a few days after payment.

The rest of the electrical appliances and furniture will only be delivered after the main renovation is complete and the flooring is in place.

Renovation started slowly as my contractor was still busy with his other projects but has picked up recently. Have been dropping by every 2 or 3 days to check on progress.

Current works:
1. Hacking for concealed wiring and new power points
2. Installation of brick veneer for living room feature wall
3. Installation of subway tiles for kitchen backsplash
4. Starting ceiling wiring for areas with plaster ceiling

Was quite happy with the subway tile installation but had some comments about the proposed method of creating the corners. My contractor proposed a PVC profile which looked quite thick and out of place. The white of the PVC profile also did not match the white of the subway tiles. I suggested to just lay the subway tiles as per usual and use white grout to "profile" the corners.

The laying of the brick veneer also started off too neatly with small gaps (<8mm) for the grout. Requested the contractor to widen the spacing and lay the brick veneer with a little less care for a more rugged and unpolished look.

The wiring has also just started. Hope to see some good progress next week. Monday and Tuesday are public holidays so I need to check if my contractor will be allowed to work. Have seen other contractors working on Sundays so perhaps they are not to strict with weekend / public holiday renovations given that not many families have moved in to date.

Checked with the guards and the developer on Sunday and was told that no renovation works are allowed on public holidays (i.e. today and tomorrow) so I informed my contractor accordingly.

Dropped by today during lunch to have a look and to my surprise, more than 6 houses were under renovation. Not sure if the guards turned a blind eye or were bribed haha

Anyway, some pictures of progress as promised:



Grouting works for brick veneer wall ongoing. Quite happy with the "roughness" of the wall.



Subway tile backsplash for kitchen. Only tiling up the exposed areas which will not be covered by the kitchen cabinets to save some cost. Hopefully the 90 degree corners look nice once completed!

This post has been edited by justintga: Sep 10 2018, 04:32 PM

Met my contractor at site today mostly to discuss positioning of the eyeball downlights and pendants as wiring works are about to start as well as the curtain pelmets for the rooms and halls. Quite happy with the contractor's performance and service so far.

Anyway, more importantly, PICTURES!:



Subway tile progress; pending white grouting. Really, really hope the corners turn out well.



Brick veneer wall and plaster ceiling progress for dining and living room.



Also tried out the eyeball light positions in the family area upstairs. Most of my recessed lighting will be Philips 5W eyeball lights in warm white. Quite happy with the effect and am quite surprised that the family area was decently lit up with only 4 nos 5W eyeballs (dropped by one night to take this picture). Also, am quite pleased with the lighting effect and "feel" of the eyeballs vs using regular downlights.

This post has been edited by justintga: Sep 16 2018, 10:09 PM

New issue just popped up sigh.

Apparently my main door cannot be modified by the laminate flooring contractor (need to trim bottom to allow clearance for laminate flooring). No issue with the other room doors.

Any idea how much this will cost?

Had 3 main options to resolve this:

Option 1 - Dismantle door and send out to be trimmed
Option 2 - Hack down and resurface
Option 3 - Use existing entrance tiles and start laminate flooring at stairs

Decided to go with the final and easiest of the 3 options. We will only start the laminate flooring at the staircase. The entrance is a heavy traffic area so it is probably a good idea to use the tiles anyway.

Work on the ceiling and curtain pelmets on the top floor have started. Had to modify the curtain pelmet plans slightly as we discovered that there were beams in a few places where we intended to have a recess for the curtains when we cut open the existing plaster ceiling. Instead of a recess, the curtain pelmet will now be coming down and covering the wall mounted curtain rails.

The contractor prepared a mock-up for us and our immediate reaction was that the pelmets looked too thin. The contractor agreed to re-do the pelmets with at least 50mm thickness. We wanted to avoid overly thick and bulky pelmets that looked like beams but the first mock-up really felt "cheap-looking". Pics below:



Study room pelmet; revised thicker version to be extended all the way to the left too instead of terminating right after the window



Upstairs living room pelmet

This post has been edited by justintga: Sep 24 2018, 12:28 AM

Some decent progress over the past few days. Very excited to see how everything is shaping up!



Subway tiling is almost complete; decided not to go with a PVC corner profile and just use grout instead to form the corners and we are quite pleased with the outcome



1st floor ceiling complete and starting base coat



Started 2nd floor ceiling

Target to move in by the end of October if we can make it

Latest progress:



Basecoat completed for 1st floor ceiling



Installation of pendants for kitchen island



1st coat of paint for entrance staircase up to 1st floor; went for a light grey on both sides of the staircase



2nd floor ceiling in progress



Modified thicker curtain pelmet, looking much more presentable now at ~50mm

This post has been edited by justintga: Sep 27 2018, 04:48 PM

As promised, rough breakdown of final anticipated cost is presented below. Total cost is approx. RM180,000 which is about 20% over my initial budget.

Kitchen Appliances - RM11,000
- Oven
- Hob
- Hood
- Kettle
- Toaster
- Espresso machine
- Fridge
- Microwave

General Appliances - RM16,000
- Washing machine
- TVs
- Soundbars
- Air-conds
- Iron
- Vacuum

Furniture, Decorative Items, Misc - RM33,000
- Italian leather sofa
- Fabric sofa
- Dining table & chairs
- Beds & mattresses
- Coffee tables
- Sideboards
- Mirrors
- Decorations
- Storage racks
- Shoe case
- Misc fittings

Kitchen Cabinet, Built-in Wardrobes - RM38,000
- Kitchen cabinet & island
- Built-in wardrobes for 3 rooms

Marble Countertop - RM10,000
- Marble slab inclusive of installation for main kitchen & island countertop

General Renovation - RM33,000
- Plaster ceiling
- Brick veneer feature wall
- Hacking existing kitchen tiling
- Installation of subway tiling in kitchen
- Installation of hot water piping, pump & heater
- Installation of bathroom mirrors
- Painting
- Wiring

Flooring - RM15,000
- Laminate flooring for main areas
- Vinyl flooring for kitchen

Curtains - RM7,000
- Main curtain with sheer layer for living, family area & 3 rooms

Lighting - RM8,000
- Eyeball lights as main lights
- Recessed downlights for porch, yard, toilets, etc
- Pendant lights

Smart Home System - RM3,000
- Google Home & compatible products
- Security cameras

M&E Fittings, Water Filters - RM6,000
- Kitchen sink & mixer
- Hot water mixers for bathrooms
- Water pump
- Water heater
- Water filter PoE & PoU

This post has been edited by justintga: Oct 1 2018, 03:37 PM

Had quite a number of things to attend to today including a wedding but decided to quickly drop by early in the morning at 8am to check on progress. Was extremely happy when I opened the main door and saw this:



Caught a glimpse of the living room pendant light installed!



Closer view ; looks bigger in real life (was using a wide-angle lens)



Living room wall painted dark grey



Continuation of dark grey living room wall up to the 2nd floor; really like the different shades of grey here

Months and months of planning finally starting to bear fruit! Hope to start laminate flooring installation sometime towards the end of next week!

This post has been edited by justintga: Sep 29 2018, 09:07 PM

Hey nice grey! Similar to my choice of color as well from jotun!

Am using Jotun paint too. Only using 4 colours in total for the whole interior of my house:

1. White
2. Pebblestone 1877 (dark grey)
3. Twilight 9904 (light grey)
4. Antique White 1016 (greyish beige)

The Pebblestone colour turned out perfect but the Twilight was a bit too light for our taste for some areas. Considering to change to a slightly darker (but still light) grey. Perhaps something like Bare 1391 but will have to decide soon. Examples below:



Upstairs living room wall painted with Twilight; here the light grey looks okay with the limited natural light (similar to the staircase picture from my previous post)



Here the right hand side wall of the study room has been painted with Twilight; there is a lot of natural light coming from the windows so the painted wall looks slightly washed out with minimal contrast with the surrounding white walls



The left hand side wall in the dining area / kitchen has also been painted with Twilight; a lot of natural light in this area so the light grey wall looks particularly pale

To repaint, or not to repaint. That is the question...

This post has been edited by justintga: Sep 30 2018, 01:34 PM

Hey almost the same choices as well. Havent decided on bare as it’s almost similar to existing white wall. But definitely pebble stone looks great.

option 4 - use vinyl for door swing section. This will be the cheapest option to go, just need to find vinyl that match with the laminate

pelmet should be minimally 6inch wide or else it will be too difficult for you to fit the curtain later

This post has been edited by ju146: Sep 30 2018, 09:15 PM

We have decided to just leave the paint as it is after viewing our house at night and live with the current shade of light grey.

Hi thanks for your suggestion. Will consider it when we have our final discussion with the installer tomorrow. Pelmets are at least 6 inches wide so should be no issues.

Progress updates:



T5 lighting and eyeball lights installed in the living area



2nd bedroom painted

Can't wait to actually start the laminate flooring installation tomorrow as I believe it will really change the look of the house!!!

This post has been edited by justintga: Oct 2 2018, 06:31 PM

Laminate flooring progress is going very well. Only Day 2 since they started and they are almost done! The laminate has been laid in all rooms and common areas and they are now working on the stairs and the skirting.

The laminate installation has really changed the look of the house and we are very happy that the colour we picked fits in very well with the grey and white Scandinavian theme of the house. We chose "Caloria Oak O125" from Robina.



A different view of the living room with laminate installed



Slight difference between the vinyl waterproof flooring for the kitchen on the left and the laminate flooring for the dining area on the right



Top floor landing with some of the skirting installed; we couldn't find a perfectly matching skirting for the laminate (as the laminate is from a new series) but the colours we picked for the laminate and skirting complement each other well. For reference, we picked "Almond" for the skirting.

The Robina salesman initially suggested a darker colour skirting and a shallower profile (70mm) but we are really happy we went for the lighter colour and higher profile (100mm). Suspect the flooring installation will be finished by tomorrow based on their current progress rates after which we will start installing air conds.



Have also just completed the installation of the centralised water heater which is installed in Bedroom 2 but also piped to the Master Bedroom.

This post has been edited by justintga: Oct 4 2018, 02:36 PM

3 days in and only one flight of stairs remaining for the laminate installation. Had some comments on the finishing in a few areas which they will touch up as well (mainly excess adhesive / sealant and misaligned / gaps in skirting for some small sections of the stairs).

One major issue was that they damaged the edge of the master bedroom door while trimming it to allow clearance for the 8mm laminate + profile. Have made an official complaint and they are looking into it now. Hope it gets resolved properly.



Laminate installation on first staircase



4 out of 5 air conds installed on Friday; one remaining in the master bedroom which needs relocation to be completed by Monday

Finalised the curtain measurements on Saturday and dropped by the Baagus HQ in Kepong to finalise our cloth selection.

The cabinet contractor will mobilise sometime this week. Moving in by the end of October looks increasingly unlikely due to the cabinet delay. Disappointing. Still need some time after the kitchen cabinets are completed to finish the marble countertop as well.

Disappointingly the cabinet contractor has yet to mobilise despite promising to start work last weekend. Their latest response is that they would start this weekend and only work on weekends and certain weekdays whenever they had a free slot. Very obvious that they are overloaded and unable to cope with the number of orders they have on hand. Looks like the earliest they will finish is mid November .

On a positive note, the laminate flooring installation is complete and we are fairly happy with the results. We had some comments on the finishing of the skirting in some sections but the installer came back on Monday to rectify everything to our satisfaction with exception of the damaged edge of the master bedroom door which has yet to be repaired. Hope this gets resolved soon.

The final air cond has been installed and the main contractor has been focusing on final touch-up works i.e. final coat of paint and making good the extra holes cut in the plaster ceiling.

And, pictures!:



Base coat and first coat of the cement render feature wall of the master bedroom; have asked my contractor to use a bigger trowel with "larger" strokes as the current trial pattern looks too "small"



Smart switches mostly installed; can't start proper configuration though until I get a proper internet connection



Only fan in the entire house installed in the 2nd living room; hope we don't regret this decision to go with mainly air conds...



Upstairs hallway

This post has been edited by justintga: Oct 18 2018, 12:16 AM