Matching Shoes

Our first pair of matching shoes. Skechers. 

Getting The Keys

The 2nd appointment was a simple affair. Typically home owners do not have to be present for this appointment. But in our case, we wanted to be there to receive the keys immediately so we could go 'open the door' right after since it happens to be the 1st day of a lunar month.

We were on leave anyways to check out marbles so it mades sense to make a trip to HDB Hub too. Since we were there we also setup the SP services account for 405. The whole process was pretty quick. We had our hands busy trying to sort out the marble flooring.

We spent our time talking to Norman about the 90x90cm tiles we saw this morning and getting a confirmation from him that his tiler wasn't going to do it. And the better part of the time was contacting Edward for a installer reference and then calling him to tie down a quote for the marble works.

Eventually Julina (our agent) came over with a single set of keys. Its rather odd that the ex-owners were handling over one main door, the master bedroom key and the letterbox key. I would have thought they will be passing us a whole bag of them but no ... just 3 keys. What about the bedroom doors? The window and window grills? The main gate?? Very odd ... I wasn't going to be fretting over this and tasked Julina to sort it out for us. We settled the commission cheque with her and immediately made our way to 405.

The 开门 was a simple affair, we are not the type to go into overly complexed rituals. Papa and Mama were there too to join in the event. Meimei rolled the customary pineapple and we all shouted "Huat Ah!".

It feels very comfortable in the unit. I can already feel like its home. Now to look forward to the next big event, the renovation. Hope there are no major hiccups along the way :-)

Marble Hunt 之 Up Up North

We were both on leave today and so we decided to check out two marble suppliers. One was close by at Changi North. For the other we have to brave a trip north to the Senoko industrial area. We have to make our selection soon so I wanted to make sure we view all we could to make an informed decision.

The first stop was at Futar. It was pretty quick trip, they could not bring us to view any inventory slabs so we could only view the samples in the showroom. We listed down a couple of marbles and requested for a quotation. I was slightly disappointed that we couldn't make a bigger headway to see actual slabs.

Our next stop was at Mondo. Senoko is truly a long way to drive and it seems Mondo is tuck right at the tail end of the whole area! But I'm glad we made the trip, and at the right time too. 

We were actually here to view their selection of Volakas and other white, greyish marble. But as Edward brought us around to see the marble sample slabs we noticed a set of white-ish creamy coloured marble laid on the floor for another customer.

My first thought on seeing it was, "Hey, isn't this close to what we were looking for? Something beige and greyish but falling on the whiter spectrum?" So even as Edward was explaining the different selections of white marbles he carries, my eyes were examining the marbles on the floor to see what sort of grain and characteristic it has.

My attention was soon directed back to Edward as he invited us to go view the Volakas slab and another beige coloured marble. However as he walked us further into the factory he kept mumbling that Volakas marbles has many issues. He went on to share that a new client of his had recently came to him after experiencing discolouring of the water marks on his Volakas marble (which he bought from another supplier) after a year of installation. It seems the veins in Volakas marble are prone to absorb the dirt and moisture from the ground. And so the veins will turn yellowish after awhile.

Wow ... this is new to us. No other supplier had told us about issues on Volakas. If this marble is unstable we're surely not going to install it. Imagine having to tear it out after a couple of years ...

So after seeing the Volakas slab, which wasn't any good at all and the other beige marble which was a little dark, we were back at the dry lay area. I took this chance to start closer examination of the marble and asked Edward about it.

This is Vanilla Cream marble and it is pretty cheap. For the 60 x 60 pre-cuts, it is priced at $11/sqft. Add on dry lay at $1 and sealant at $1 it comes to $13/sqft. For our area of 56 sqm or 600 sqft that would work out to something like $8K. And if we go for a bigger 90x90 pre-cuts, Edward quoted $18/sqft for the marble. This would come up to $12K which was still within our budget. $18/sqft was a little tight for our budget so I went on a chance and asked if he could do $16/sqft. He gave it a quick thought and then smiled and said, "Come, let's go to my office and we can discuss." Ka-ching~! Looks like we have found a raw deal!

So long story short, we shared our floor plan and he promised to work out the laying plan in the next couple of days. We ended the trip with a quick tour of feature wall marbles. Meimei already had a liking for Silver Mink and they happen to carry it too. And we even had the chance to see an actual slab. It's a classy grey marble and I think it would look well as a TV feature wall. That said, I don't know if it will go well with Vanilla Cream if we eventually get it.

A Delayed Anniversary Lunch

Since are already in the west this morning for the marble hunt, I thought it might be fitting to celebrate our anniversary at iO Italian Osteria located at HillV2. It was an impromptu meal, I wasn't sure Meimei was up to it as she has been coughing badly for the past couple of weeks.

We were here earlier in June and loved the ambience and food. Meimei was so impressed by the Ribeye she had the last time that she ordered the same again.

I order a beef pasta off the bar counter board but regretfully didn't take any pictures! It was so good that I was lapping it up and half of it was already gone before I remembered I wanted to take photos of our meal for the blog >.<

We ended the meal on a high note with a pair of delectable desserts, chocolate cheese cake and pistachio tiramisu. We highly recommend anyone that comes to iO not to skip the desserts. They are simply so good you will forget about your diet!

Marble Hunt 之 Journey To The West

Having search the internet extensively for marble suppliers and sent online queries, we managed to receive a couple of responses. It seems Sungei Kadut is the hub of most marble factories. Over the course of the research I found at least 10 supplier located there. There may be more smaller establishments peppered throughout the area. So it made sense to visit as many as we could since its all the way in the west.

Our first stop of the day was at GEM to view the shortlisted marbles. We had trimmed it to 2 over the week based on what we could afford.

The Kavala White marble looks ok, though the shade is a tad greyer than the slab we saw in the showroom. Meimei didn't seem too keen on the little spots across the darker grains.

The Volakas slab they were offering is whiter but the darker lines and grains were not impressive. There were also very visible watermark lines cutting diagonally across the grains. Somehow I just don't see the point of spending $2K above budget for this since it didn't stand out to me.

We thanked them for showing us the marble and went on to the next stop Hot Spring Stone. The prices were in the range of 180 to 240 per sqm including delivery, dry lay and sealant. I soon found out why they were offering such prices to home owners.

We were shown left over stock from various batches. Each batch had maybe 8-12 slabs which is not enough to fulfil the 56 sqm we needed. So it means we have to brave the varying tones and grains and may end up with weird areas in the house which don't match another section due to different marble batches. And considering that it wasn't exactly dirt cheap we went through a couple of light beige ones and then decide to leave. We are unlikely to find a gem at this place.

Anyways I wasn't disheartened about being shown sub-par marbles. It was always going to be a chance of luck to find something good with our budget. So undeterred we shoulder on to the next destination which is just adjacent to Hot Spring, TSM. We had read online that the prices can be pretty good but somehow it didn't quite met up to expectation.  For the budget of $12k we could only get pre-cuts. Nonetheless we diligently check out the marbles to make sure we don't miss any opportunity.

We were shown 2 beige marbles, Botticino Fiorito & Lotus Cream, both which didn't impress at all. The 3rd one Jupiter White was the cheapest at $9K+ and Meimei seems ok with it. I wasn't keen on it, Meimei didn't want a alternating grain pattern layout and so the lines are going to be hard to match.

The last stop before lunch was at Sinbor which was on the other side of the Sungei Kadut area. Again we were shown old stock though the manager assured us that they have enough from a single batch to fulfil our 56 sqm. We were shown a couple of light beige creamy marbles which didn't thrill us at all. It was only to the end of the factory walk that the manager showed us a batch of white marble which is somewhat similar to Kavala White. This was named Panda White and it looks like they definitely have enough supply for our needs without having to mix batches.

Of all the marble we saw today, this has to be the most appealing one. Though personally it still falls short of the wow factor. Meimei find that this is much better than Kavala and has written that off. As for me, I didn't fell in love with it immediately. Well ... I know its not like we have cash to burn so realistically this is the quality we were always going to get. But still ... surely spending this amount of budget should get us something that looks better than homogenous right? 

Remember 303 - Dining Sideboard Wannabe

Originally we were exploring if we could build shelving at the inlet by the dining area to house a microwave. However it didn't work out and so we ended up with two simple planks across the inlet. The only brief consolation was that it help to hide the wiring for 2 power sockets at the bottom of the lower plank.

It was a pretty neat place when we first moved in. We had the medicine box at the top shelf together a couple of the decorative plants. Lower shelf is where all the wine bottles were kept. The rest of the clutter you see now wasn't there initially. But as time goes by things started piling up.

I'm still trying to figure out a spot for the wine bottles in our new place. Maybe a wine rack in the storage by the dining table? Whatever it is, I'm gonna miss this tiny spot.

Marble-licious

Norman has introduced a marble supplier, GEM, who he claims may carry slab cut marbles within our budget of $12K. I was particularly excited to hear it and so we were at the supplier's showroom at Ubi last Saturday to view the range of marbles they carry.

The place was pretty stunning with large 2.5m by 1m slabs hanging in gallery rows across the room. They had a wide range of marbles and we were excited to finally see real samples of slabs which shows off the lines and patterns of the marble clearly. After closely examining the selection, we shortlisted a couple of light beige ones for the flooring. One darker marble caught our interest, the Blue Princess, and we requested for a sample as well with an eye for that to go as the master bedroom feature wall.

I couldn't help but put the samples for a comparison, together with 2 we picked from Hafary. Moonstar Beige was the initial marble we were going for until Norman suggest that we explore other suppliers.

So we have the 4 shortlisted from GEM.

1. Mengla Lisa - The sales manager was strongly recommending this. I like the shade but didn't like that there were pin holes and many watermarks on the marble. What's more ... at $320/sqm it came up close to $18K for 56sqm. Sorry but I wouldn't pay that kind of money for what I find is a sub-par marble. I suppose they are pricing it that way for the exclusivity. They claim they are the only supplier who carries this marble ... there must be a good reason why lol
2. Anatolia Beige (one below Mengla Lisa in pic) - I like the distinct lines but the shade is a little too dark for my taste. Again expensive at $280/sqm
3. Kavala White - Another GEM exclusive marble. Like that it has less distinctive lines that can get busy. Interestingly we were quoted $200/sqm for it. I suppose it is one of the lousier grade marbles in the white category when you compare it to the likes of Volakas, Calacatta, etc. This is the only one of the 4 which fell into our budget
4. Sandalwood Light - Woody tones and lines make for a stunning look. Sadly it was darker than I had expected. At 250/sqm it was also out of our budget

The one beside the Sandalwood is the Blue Princess. It's truly a stunning marble with dark bluish tone with bright orange lines cutting across. If we can squeeze out some budget to the tune of $3-4K, I think we might take that for the TV feature.

Having seen that there are other suppliers out there, I've been searching the internet for other suppliers to organise viewings too. It never occurred to me to do so till Norman pique my curiosity with another vendor. Now I'm thinking, "what if there is another supplier who carries a slab cut marble in the same shade as Moonstar Beige and yet with a reasonable price?" Hafary is not a primary marble supplier ... its focus is on tiles. So they are unlikely to be as cost-efficient on the marble front. 

So the hunt for the right marble begins!

A Shocking Seizure

A parent's worst fear, watching their baby in dire condition and not being able to do anything to rectify it immediately. I hope it never happens again. The anguish and silly thoughts of loss is truly unbearable.

Emily has been running a fever since Saturday. We are at home on Sunday since we couldn't go anywhere. It was time for her medicine and since she hadn't ate we asked the maid to feed her milk. We had just sat down to have our dinner when the maid suddenly shouted "Mum mum mum mum!!" constantly.

We dashed to Emily immediately and there she was having fits. I instinctively took over from the maid who had put her finger into baby's mouth to prevent biting. It was truly shocking and numbing to see her shaking uncontrollably. At one point her eyes started rolling upwards and not knowing what we were dealing with, we were shouting at her to stay with us. Thankfully I had the natural instinct to turn her to the side when I notice she was choking.

Meimei dialed 995 for an ambulance and calmly instructed the maid to pack. I love her ... she has this much needed clear-headedness during times of danger and stress to drive the situation. I, on the other hand, is just a mess. We packed and made our way quickly to the void deck. Surprisingly the ambulance was here a couple of minutes after our call. Meimei carried Emily gingerly in her arms and accompanied her on the ambulance while I drove with the maid to KK Hospital.

It was only at the hospital that we discovered Emily's fit episode was not life threatening. Thank goodness. It seems these happens to 3-5% of children and they usually out grow it by the age of 6-7 years. But since Emily was only 15 months old the doctor decided to admit her for further observation.

Meimei wanted to stay with Emily badly but she herself was running a fever so we couldn't risk it. Since only one caregiver could stay, it was up to me to take good care of Emily. I made a quick trip back home to bath and pack for the next couple of days at the hospital.

Over the next 2 days Meimei and Nyama would come first thing in the morning to check on our little precious one. Everyone was worried sick about her. My dad even came down too after hearing about it from Mum. I was happy to get some time to rest during the day since I keep getting up during the night to watch over our baby.

Interestingly I was getting curious looks from the other mothers and nurse in the ward since I seem to be the only male staying over with the baby. Well to be fair it would have been Meimei if she wasn't sick but still ... they kept looking over to see if I knew what I was doing. I think I did alright hehe *proud stance.

I'm glad we were warded. The nurse would come every hour during the night to check on her temperature. We'll never be able to keep that level of vigilance at home. Her tests came back positive for Influenza A but nothing else life threatening.

Although she was running a slight fever we were allowed to bring her home today since she has not add another Febrile Seizure during the stay. For us its not a done deal yet, we still have to shoulder through the week to make sure her fever breaks. We were under strict instructions to come back for follow up should the fever persist past Thursday. I'm crossing my fingers that all goes well!

Remembering 303 - The Monster Storeroom

The original 303 had a traditional longish storeroom where you lose a third of the space simply because there has to be space for the door to open. And then you lose another quarter to cater for a tiny walkway to the back of the room. It was the first thing on my mind to hack away when we first view this unit.

So hack we did and we came up with an alternative storage space. The foyer had been underutilised by the previous owner, they put 2 traditional chinese teak chairs and a coffee table there. The moment I saw the space I knew what I was gonna do to with it.

We build a wooden frame with casement door at the inlet which is a whopping 90cm deep. And instead of building the carcass behind the frame, we left 4 doors empty for metal racking, which saved us quite a bit on the carpentry cost.

So what we have is a stunning monster of a storage space. And because we utilise the existing foyer walkway, none of the storage space is wasted and everything is easily accessible.

We love this so much that we purposely moved the kitchen door just so we can build the same type of storage at 405. I cannot imagine living in a house without this amount of storage. Things would be laying all over the place!

The New Mc LaoSai

An upgrade to Mc LaoSai, with bright red coloured buns as warning to the unwary.

15 Months - Mumbles of Papa & Mama

Emily is finally mumbling Papa and Mama though not distinctively to address anyone of us. Nonetheless we are glad there is progress. She is a roadrunner now and will dash across the rooms, sometimes with her eyes closed ... which of course scares the wits out of everyone else.

Showing off her new Pediped shoes

Helping Nyama with Diaso loot

Sitting on the glass pane guard railing

Our Little Miss SunShine *kiss~!!

The Papi lap sofa ... comfy~!

Father & daughter TV time~!

A rare Girl Girl look moment~!!!!

Walking about in adult slippers

She has natural musical inclinations

Finalising The ID

This has been a tough choice for me. I've had my arguments with Meimei and at some point was ready to give up on the whole renovation nonsense. This whole process of choosing for an ID has put a toll on us.

In terms of cost, Jerry was $3k lower than Norman's. If it was my decision alone without any repercussions, I would have gone with Jerry. He seems easier to work with and is willing to go out of his way to come to our place for all the renovation discussions. Norman, on the other hand, seemed disinterested in taking our business. He never suggest to come to our place to get to know our taste. Meetings with him was always at his convenient timing and his office.

Again it is not my decision alone to make, no matter how hard Meimei tried to point out that I have the final say. We had asked for feedback from other family members and the general comment was that Jerry's renovation wasn't good. So if I took Jerry and it turns out the renovation for 405 wasn't good, I'm likely to be hearing it again over the years.

It wasn't much of a choice. As I explained to Meimei on the decision, I rather suffer through 4 months of crap than hear the complaints for the long term. I'm someone who is easier to forget about things than Meimei. She is able to remember all the things she find nasty since the first day of renovation many years ago. It's better for me to live with the unhappiness since I tend to forget better.

So with a heavy heart and ernest to get this over and done with, we are going with Norman for what I call 'perceived quality'. I hope I am wrong and it all turns out well. But I can live with it if it all falls apart. 

'Abandoned' Friends

Emily likes to leave her friends laying around the house sometimes.

ID Selection: The Atas ID

This ID came in after John was out. Meimei wanted another one to 'compare' with Jerry. So I asked around in office if anyone had a good ID to recommend and came up with ID firm. I shared it that night with Meimei and coincidentally she came up with the same firm from her ex-colleagues. 

The one couple of notable comments about them was that they are expensive, but their quality and workmanship is good. So we contacted Meimei's ex-colleague's ID Norman for a meet-up at his place.

The office is nicely done up with an area for a showflat to showcase the firm's carpentry and specifically, Blum hinges and Caesarstone countertops. It seems they have special tie-ups with these suppliers and am offering the premium fittings on all their carpentry.

We went through the same motion of describing what we envisage for each of the rooms. The customary ??? look at our marble request came too. He seem accommodating enough to our needs. Only thing that stands out for me was when I asked for mirror finishes on the dining room storage sliding doors. He didn't seem keen on it and mentioned that there will be issues with the weight. I thought, ok if this is your way of keeping 'quality' by rejecting everything that is special instead of exploring for solutions, then I question whether if it is really worth spending on quality achieved through avoidance of design.

Anyways overall I found him a little aloft. Somehow I get the feeling that he doesn't really want our business. I can't put my finger on the exact point but he seems to be trying to push us away. Well maybe our budget wasn't enough for him to work with .... 

ID Selection: The Contractor ID

As shared previously, Meimei seems bend on getting another ID and has been asking her colleagues for recommendation. So here comes John who has received good reviews for his work on renovation forums.

The caveat is that he is leaving his current ID firm and striking out on his own. Ok, so this is a contractor ID who may not have the baggage of fixed margins and high overheads of larger ID firms. So we met him and he came across as a down to earth fella who listens to our request and design ideas.

As with other IDs, they were surprised that we are looking for marble tiles and parquet for flooring. It seems the common trend now is homogenous tiles and vinyl flooring. But oh well you can call me old school but I find the charm of marble and parquet flooring irresistible. So anyways we discussed and gave him our revised budget of $80K when he asked for one. 

The most memorable part of our first meet-up was that he kept reiterating that since he is now his own boss he can dictate his cost and margins and will be able to give a good price. I was happy to hear that but didn't let my keenness show. He went on to tell us how his other clients love his work and how he never takes any project which is less than $80K. He came across as over confident of himself if not bordering on stuck-up. But ... that's ok I can live with your attitude if you can give us a good price. The other thing that bugged me was when he couldn't fit parquet into a $80K budget and asked for $5K more. I gave him a flat no and a smile with "you are the boss now, give us a good price lar!" before sending him off.

He came back a week later with a rather surprising quote. It's exactly at $80K but with lesser items than what our ex-ID Jerry had quoted. There is also a fat 'discount' of $6K on the quotation and has now included the parquet. I took it and did an item to item comparison with Jerry's quote and every item was more expensive by 5-10%. Oddly enough Meimei still thinks he is a better deal than Jerry ... Argghhh. This caused quite a bit of tension for a couple of days.

Eventually I stamp my ground and asked Meimei to notify John that we are not going with him. This triggered an interesting turnaround ... He asked for my number and decided to discuss with me directly. I shared with him that our approach with ID hunting was to give a reasonable budget and see which ID gave us a better deal. He asked for the difference between quotes and I gladly shared with him. He promised to get back in a week.

And sure enough he did and gave me good news "$80k include 6ft to feature and console, 2ft shoe cabinet and curtain pelmet . Can be done. Which else you still require? Since I promise my offer to be better let me know I throw in as well." Great ... now that you are not getting this job you are turning around and being accommodating.

I really don't know where he got his confidence from in the first place when he was boastful of his achievements and ability to price things cheaply but yet didn't deliver on that promise. He is leaving his current ID firm and setting up his own. I checked his new firm and its a sole proprietor incorporated just last Aug. Its not HDB approved contractor and not listed on CASETrust. How does he think that he will be getting a lot of business such that he doesn't need to compete on pricing?

Anyways only he knows what he is doing. I've lost all trust in him when he came back to offer a better deal. I can't work with someone who is obviously not sincere and requires me to constantly watch my back to ensure he doesn't pull a fast one over me.

No thank you. I declined him politely the next day as Meimei insisted and breathed a sigh of relief ... good riddance!