#Reno Woes#

Who likes renovation? Not me, certainly. The packing and unpacking, the dust, the number of decisions to make, the coordination etc.. there are enough to drive me crazy.

So I managed to pack our stuff into 14 small boxes and 8 big boxes which we barely made it onto a 15" ft truck. The 3-men mover team took almost 2 hours to bubble wrap our furnitures and my piano and another 1 hour to loan everything into the truck.

the mayhem of moving out

loading into the truck

And that were only 3 rooms of belongings. On side note, I would have better gauge when we move again to new place, it would probably be 2-3 trips of the truck and probably 50 boxes in all!

So the first stop was to IMM Extra Storage to deposit our load and then to my parents' place. Their place was our temporary holding site for us while we tide over this renovation period.

mid size storage also packed to the brim

Renovation started on Monday. We engaged Kass Design for Project Reno II and I really have good impression of the boss, Raymond. He turned up punctually for every appointment and was very polite throughout. His pricing was reasonable and we got him because he did some renovation work for husband's aunty, the workmanship was very good.


So his workers came promptly on Monday to remove our old flooring.

work started - Day 1

Subsequently, we went back to check on the progress daily. It was a good thing because you would catch any mistake promptly.

Mistake #1 - Sending the wrong paint type.

wrong paint

Husband did a check on Day 2 and to his horror, he discovered the painter was using Vinilex 5000! He quickly called the contractor and he made a quick rectification by sending the new paint type we wanted at 5pm on the same day. He took photos for us to verify and it was still the wrong paint type.


We had paid for the Odour-less EasyWash which cost about $70+ per tin and they sent us the "EasyWash" which was $50+ per tin.

our choice

this was delivered instead

We hadn't got much choice because the painter would not be available on Day 3. If we insisted to wait for the right paint, it would mean our renovation would be seriously delayed. Arm twisted situation and so husband told him to proceed and to settle this at the end of the whole work.

Day 3 and 4, was on the flooring work. The workmanship was better, as verified by husband but the only unsatisfactory part was the skirting.


Unsatisfied Area #1 - Contrast Skirting and Floor


We had been told that the skirting colour could not be matched 100% with our floor colour and the best match was this.

skirting 0205 to match with VD0476

contrasting skirting 

Sigh! I dont know why it turned out to be like this. It shouldn't be so big in colour contrast. Do we live with it? Or risk delaying further because Mistake #2 came up on Day 5.


Mistake #2 - Wrong Configuration of Wardrobe

what we wanted

We wanted separate doors for the boys so that they have ownership over their own areas. When carpenter came to make measurement and confirmed the area was big enough for 4-doors wardrobes, we assumed it would be like this, 2 doors in such configuration and duplicate another side by side.


But it turned out to be wrong when we saw it. We got so shocked that I forgot to take a photo. Again, husband called contractor quickly and he gave us this solution to avoid long delay.

proposed solution

Husband thought about it and agreed because he didn't want the renovation to delay further. As of now, we are already 4 days behind schedule and we have storage timeline limitation as we only requested for 2 weeks space from Extra Storage.


Lessons Learnt from Project Reno II

1. Never discuss important decisions with your Interior Designer or Contractor when your children is around. 50% of the time you ain't paying attention to what was mentioned and discussed and 50% of the time you forgot to ask for black and white to avoid miscommunication.

2. We were so focused in verifying the right colour tone that we forgot to verify the paint type, which resulted in the wrong paint being used.

verify your colour tone AND your paint choice

3. Always always ... I couldn't repeat myself more... always get every detail down in black and white and get a checklist done. Just as I was typing this, I suddenly remember that they haven't got down to the toilet door. Try not to have creeping requirements as this would confuse everyone (I'm very guilty of this). Get all tasks required out in the first place. It helps heap!