Morning of Easter 2012

Our yellow multi purpose room

This Easter is special… its the day that I stop major reno work .. and so this is the state of the house reno and its going stay this way for about 2 months.. We are taking a break from reno and will be gone sailing… our annual pilgrimage to Tioman.

Temporary kitchen setup

Its still about 2 weeks to departure, and now we are full swing into sailing preparations. Moving sails on and tools off Calliste, stocking up food and fuel… etc. Going on vacation like ours is alot of work to begin with… and then 10 days of island fun.. this time, Calliste will be gone for couple of months, hence more prep work..

Fridge in its place! Yes!

Around the house, we will be picking up the pieces and doing little finishing touches when we can, but not much. Its feels like camping out, but much more comfy now with the fridge in its final position, altho the kitchen top is not even started. A temporary kitchen just to get us by… Notice the portable single induction stove and kettle?

Doors and A/C are in!

With the doors installed and keeping the A/C ‘ed air in and saw dust storms out, my very blue bedroom is pretty much done..

Meal corner in our bedroom...

 

Yes, we still need paint on the doors… details! Blar! I am just so anxious to get this over with… I keep thinking that its done!

And a little eating corner in the room… like a studio. A little radio set tucked away in the corner, easy music while we relax in here.  Things are slowly getting better around here…

Progress!

Me at my new site office... across the room

I wish we were done… but I can only say that we made good progress. … and we are likely to finish just before Good Friday, and hopefully we could have a Easter Egg hunt party … Plan is in the works. ..

Framing a partition between future bedroom and kitchen.

This is me sitting in my new “site office”… also temporary kitchen. Well at least 1 corner in my very blue future bedroom is done. Also testing the daylight LED here. Daylight looks alot better than warmwhite against this very vibrant blue wall and partition.

Oh, how do you like the white wood frame/trimmings?

At the foyer... painting station.

While I am collecting egg shells… and keeping them safe… we’ll be finishing up this partition between my future room and the kitchen.

The other completed corner is in the foyer… yes its PINK! and some Lilac white. Colors that I have done so far are Sassy (pink), Lilac white, Harmony (blue) from Nippon Easy Wash and Premium Odorless range. Yes, I painted the ceiling with this pricey paint too. I insist on good quality Nippon paint only.. Nippon should reward me for being such a good return customer since 1990.

… and yes, I use Bordelac Innosence on wood doors and Pearl Grey on railing soon to go on. Partition trimmings are coated with Timberlac white..

After 4 days of work!

The beginnings of a partition wall.

While everyone were enjoying the long weekend. … Lang and co were working on reno…

Its a quiet neighbourhood, so we try not to disturb the peace… with our machining noise that is… we try… but when its raining heavy and ringing thunder, thats our chance to quickly saw up some wood for making this partition wall.

Wall painted while still on the ground.

Assembly is not so noisy.. phew. Painting is nice and quiet… I love the painting part, cos its the finishing part of a project. Its relaxing and its very visual… especially when I choose such bold colors to work with.

And now the wall is up.

And here it is… we have a lift off .. from the floor that is..

Pushing it up is easy.. its very light, plywood and block board construction.. to be filled in with foam for soundproofing, then screw in the other side.. After front side is up, the rest should be easier to fit.

And after this partition, there’s still 3 more “fake” walls to build … and the list of other things goes on.

Back to DIY reno

As it was before

Back to my new and un-finished place… sigh… after a great month long vacation from this work… .. now where did I stop?

Yes, the stairs… then there is the ceiling that needs alot of work.. and the walls need paint and the kitchen needs too much attention… One day at a time… one project at a time.. really gotta learn how to pace myself.

Cementing over the slippery old tiles

The stairway… lets tackle that one 1st. I ripped the old wood laminate flooring … only to find it glued to 24 yr old tiles that are already popping in some places. To remove the tiles or not…? 

 Nah, only the popping ones and then cement over. I hired some cheap labor for it, and it turn out to be quite a nightmare. Cementing over slippery old tiles is really tricky, plus its definately difficult to get wet cement to stay in shape.

BTW, notice the dark blue wall behind the stairs… got some more cheap labor to help with painting inbetween times.

And my mini utility truck..

Re-working some spots myself… sigh… Me, I can fix that myself. Sigh…

Look… I gotta go get me own bag of cement too…

Resin over canvas.

After getting cement down and allow to dry for 2 days, add 2 coats polyester resin. Then cut canvas and lay over, and 2 more coats resin. …

Not as smooth as I hoped

That was quite a chore. The canvas bubbled up! Why? maybe the cement was still quite wet underneath… dunno. Rework…

Map of pacific ocean near Marshall islands..?

Using the Fein tool, cut from the base of the bubble and lift away the “peaky” canvas. Find jelly like resin below… what does that mean? … Then resin over again, big time, make sure it fill up smooth…

Thats the Fein tool..

Then sand away the “atolls” and get ready to paint… My plan is to paint over with 2 coats epoxy… Bought NA4, indoor protective floor coatings by Nippon… we’ll see how that works out. .. but later… now, still grinding away. ..

we moved!

The last time I moved was 2000. Hey, that was 11 years ago. Back then it was easy. Only big thing was the TV, everything else were taken down into smaller pieces. All other appliances were brand new and delivered.

Old living room... bright and cheery

Here, a one last look at the place I vacated. Looks so much better empty than when we had stuff all over the place. I will miss it, but I am happy to know that the next owner does not intend to redo the floors and will keep the mosaic stove top… I did that!

Old kitchen. Empty.

I did take my own sweet time in renovating the apt back then. No rush and with very tight budget. Manage to get it under $10K and plus new appliances at $3k. That was a bargain! Me thought.

How different it feels again, empty old little apt. Nice, bright and airy… cosy… I am gonna miss this place. .. but the new place is huge and have lots of potential… It might just turn out to be another nice, bright, airy and SPACIOUS abode… I made the difference when I reno’ed the old place… (it didnt look half as nice when I bought it, take my word for it)..  this new apt is gonna be better than that!

Just moving in...

The early stages.. just moving our enormous amount of junk that were accumulated over 11yrs. Where is everything!? How do ya get to anything!? … wait… I cant find the picture on this one… my point exactly!

And now, we have just passed the rubble stage… Yes! Gone are the horrible looking kitchen and cabinets!

Next, into reconstruction stage. A new kitchen in the yard, a new airconned workroom, lounge and guestroom…

The truth… its not all that clear to me yet… but I sure it will all work out just right.. Always positive…

Technical details of flexi strip LEDs

I have written about designing LED circuits and DIY fabrication with the various components. Now that whole idea is made obsolete by the dropping cost of flexi strips LEDs. Back then, it was really not cost effective to buy a spool of flexi strip. Each 5050 LED was selling at about $1. Now, I just got some for $0.30 each and comes mounted on flexi strip complete with resisters and circuitry. Whats left to do, is to simply hook it up to a 12V power. Its that simple! Yikes!

Following my own harrowing experience on buying flexi strip LEDs, I thot I should share it with those of you who are considering to use LEDs, but are deterred by the seemingly difficult to understand technicalities.

1 strip of 5050 LEDs, cutout from a roll

Why is buying flexi strip LEDs difficult? I think the reasons are overwhelming selection, confusion over pricing, unsure of one’s needs, unsure of how to DIY install, put off by incompetant sales people and worry about being conned by installation crew.

Lets start by talking numbers. Without going into the technical nitty gritty, the visual size of each LED in a flexi strip is the best indicator of its brightness. Although they all look to be very bright, the bigger 5050 LED does shed more light and have a wider angle than the 3528 LED. These 2 types are the most common these days, but there are others that are smaller and meant for decorative purposes light christmas tree lights or car trim highlights. 

IMHO, the 5050 LED is a better all rounder than 3528 series for lighting purposes, but it is more expensive and will consume more energy while producing less light per watt when compared to 3528. Anyway, they are both better than flourescent in flicker free, power consumption and longetivity.

Large selection of flexi strip LEDs in the market. Just 3 types that I got here.

Each spool is 5meters (or 16ft) from the factory. This is complete with LEDs and resister circuitry on board the strip that no assembly or soldering is needed. When buying a strip, have the sales person open a new package, light it up and you should check that all LEDs are lighted up. If you are getting a opened package, check the 1st link and last link for the connection leads that should be sticking out from the reel. There should be 1 red and 1 black, about 10cm each at the beginning and end of the spool. If not, then you have missing links… dont buy that spool.

This picture shows 2 strips of 5050 LEDs (notice they are larger dots than the 3528). The one on top is cut from clear sleeved 30 LEDs per meter spool, and the middle is cut from a 60 LEDs per meter spool. The bottom one is 3528 LEDs from a 60LEDs per meter spool.

The next number to consider is the count of LED per meter or per spool. The usual number per meter is 30, 60, 90 and 120 SMD. SMD stands for Surface Mount Devices. The higher count means that more LEDs are packed into each metre. Normally, there are 3 SMD on each link, therefore a 30 SMD/metre strip = 3 SMD for every 10cm. … and a 120 SMD/metre strip will have 3 SMD per 2.5cm. And sure we know, the higher SMD count, the more expensive is the spool. Each SMD is a commodity, the more you get, the more you pay.

So far, I found that the prices on Amazon.com to be pretty good. I use that as a benchmark price and shop around in Sim Lim Towers. Ask around and walk away if the offered price is not good or the sales staff is lousy… I can tell you that they mostly are technical snobs, altho they might not know what differentiate they products and pricing. I did find one shop that offered a better price than Amazon for LEDs and a lousy price on power supplies to the LEDs and they did try to sell me a larger supply than was necessary… naturally, I only bought the LEDs… see, it pays to do your homework before going into the den of ……. Another personal comment, I found the pricing of old stock to be fantastic on Amazon. Like the 60SMD 3528 is going for less than local prices even after adding the shipping cost (varies a lot, depending on quantity and freight company, shopping for a freight forwarder is another subject altogether).

But really, what does more SMD per strip mean to you in terms of lighting? If the application is spot lighting, I would go for a 60SMD 5050 or 120SMD 3528 arranged in a tight square configuration. If what I wanted is to light the area on my desk, I would use 60SMD 5050 or 120 SMD 3528 running in a strip or 2 strips spaced 5-10cm apart, for almost the length of my desk. I will have to mount it under a shelf… I dun like sticking the LEDs to the ceiling for this application, I like a more table lamp kind of feel and not light up the whole room feeling.

Now, for lighting up the room with a more distributed light effect, I would use a 30 SMD 5050 or 60 SMD 3528. Well, this really depends the ambience that you want for the space. Can have a nice soothing warmwhite thats just about the right amount of brightness, or a glaring white workspace… so you will have to decide on where to place the strips to achieve the desired effect. .. and it helps to sorta have a placement and routing plan before you speak to the installation contractor. If you dont have a plan, they are going to sell you lots more LEDs, wiring and circuitry that you may never use.

Yup, you will need a “adapter” for 240V down to 12V. Nope you cant connect the LEDs to the mains. My plan is to have 1 adapter for each room. 5Amps will be plenty for a bedroom, 1 Amp will do for a loo or small storeroom.

Its confirmed. We are moving… in about 5 weeks.

2 weeks have past since we did the 1st appointment thingy at HDB, and now we know for sure, that we be moving around 24th Sept.

1st appointment at HDB is a big thing…. and I feel in people that they might be somewhat fearful of the day… Its the day that an officer would meet the buyers and sellers of the properties (note pural because 2 properties may be involved in 1 transaction), to resolve matters with eligibility of buying or selling, to discuss financing for the buyers and make arrangements with other government agencies to ensure smooth transition of monies, set behavious for sellers , etc.

My new flat has 2 levels...

It is scary to me too, and I hope that my diligence in preparing photocopies of numerous documents will allow us to pass without major hiccups that stall the entire process. I mean, stalling the entire process by weeks is the biggest scare to me… but it will still go thru, I am sure of it. .. Part of my worry, is that I do not have agents to help me with solving problems if I run into any… my study of HDB regulations suggest that there will be no problem… but agents will always give you the scary details about what happen to so and so … … I decided to be brave and see it for myself. Afterall, given my education, exposure, financial situation, if I cant work this out on my own, then I suppose DIY transactions at HDB is pure fiction. … thats my very arrogant thinking… its like knowing that there is nothing I cant fix. 

Okie okie. So on the day at HDB, we were served by a very efficient fast talking officer. Everything pass on her desk was like a blur to me… opps, we were missing death certs of my grandparents who were previous owners of the flat that I was selling… okie we’ll submit in the next few days. .. that was a minor hiccup.. The sellers agent for the flat that I am buying screwed up more than I did. They didnt get my witness to sign in the right columns, so I had to go get that fixed too. Then they had other missing documents that had to come from the sellers who were overseas. That was a major hiccup, that cost us 1 week! … Even the officer commented that I seem to represent myself better than the agents would have!! Yeah!

Now its just waiting for the completion and planning renovation… so what would you do with this new flat? Its big…. and does have many exciting options… I am going to have fun, thats for sure!

BTW, if you are still thinking that HDB is run by a bunch of rude, slow-moving cows,  you are probably living with the dinosaurs. We were impressed by the efficiency and knowledge of the staff.. altho we think that the completion process of 7 weeks is too long. I have used the hotline extensively and find that to be very helpful in my preparation work… I have nothing against HDB staff… but I wonder why there are many others who feel they are unhelpful and unfriendly. …?

Ins and Outs of moving around in Singapore public housing

What a property agent dont want you to know, is that you could transact a sale or purchase of a property yourself, with help from your favorite banker and lawyer. Unless you really dun want to spend any time on printing a ad and answering phone calls or calling up people who placed for sale ads. Or perhaps if this little effort is not worth saving $10K upwards for you…..

If its public housing aka HDB, the government portal website has a great deal of info and checklist on how to DIY your own sale and purchase. All it takes is good ability to read and lots of patience to read every word of the documents and including the fine prints.

So this is what I did… because I think its not worth paying 2% sale comms for selling my place.. est $7.5K . I start reading the guides, policies, checklist …etc, during my free time, starting in Feb. Also browsed for transacted prices for my type of flats, and flats that I am interested to buy. That is, getting to know the market, in detail.

May, I am now ready to sell my HDB flat. I have decided to sell my flat 1st, before buying another… with the expectation that if it were necessary, we would move to Calliste, and cats to move to the pet hotel and stuff to move to temp storage. Naturally, I hope to avoid that, but I couldnt deal with the financing part of purchasing a flat 1st, before selling this flat. Or else I may end up selling this flat out at a low buyers price because I am desperate to complete this sale to finance my purchase. So anyway, sell 1st is in my best interest…

Step 1) Getting the flat valued is the 1st step to selling. I spent much of April packing up messy stuff into boxes, clearing away blocked windows and unsightly clutter. Early May, I logon to HDB portal with my singpass. Under the “e-Services -> resale application”, there is a box at the bottom that says “submit valuation request”. Complete this request by making sure that the payment is made and emails are sent to your inbox. In a couple of days, for my case it was within 12hrs, the valuer would contact you to make a appointment to visit your place. Within 2 weeks, you should receive the valuation report. … again, in my case, it was 5 days. .. I was amazed! Just my very good luck .. I guess..   This cost me $170.50 …

And while you’re there, on the HDB portal, download the Resale checklist for DIY sellers. Complete it as soon as you can, scan and submit online to the “resale checklist repository”. This is a must! to complete 7 days before you can grant a option to buyers. This checklist expires after 6 months on the repository…

Step 2) Let the buyers know that your flat is on the market. There are 2 ways to do that, its either free or paid. After submitting valuation request, I went online and posted my flat on “st701″ and “nation property” which was on the resale prices page of HDB website… well I got some calls, but they were agents wanting to “co-broke”. After getting the valuation report and quite pleased with the value given to my flat , I went online to CaTs classified website and booked a 3 line ad for the following Tuesday, which happens to be a public holiday… again, my very good luck that the timing was so right. Okay, so book the ad online, and later they will call you to confirm the ad details and billing. Note its so convenient these days to pay by credit cards, so its the way to go. This, I paid $36.xx .

Step 3) On the day of the ad, be prepared that the phone is going to ring like nobody’s business… but thats exactly what you want.. right? I received like 50 phone calls and arranged like 10 groups of viewers in 3hr period between 1300 to 1800hrs.  By the end of the day’s showing, I have 3 offers. In local terms, HDB is sold by the amount above valuation, aka cash over valuation (COV). I was asking for $50K COV… personally, I think that is a ridiculous amount of money and buyers are mad if they agree to this price. .. but the market is crazy, and if I dun ask for this much, I cant afford the COV for the flat that I am going to buy next. So, thats the reality… and I cant accept $25K, $30K and not even $39K. But I am definately pleased with receiving such good offers on the 1st showing. That gave me much confidence that my flat is going to sell easily at a good reasonable price… now to look for a place for us…

And I repeated the ad on the following Sat, the favorite house-hunting day in Singapore. Again the response was great! … and I went on house-hunt myself .. and became quite comfortable with the idea of accepting less than my “impossible” asking COV…. places that I am looking at is going at around $40K to $60K, and I can ignore those not very serious sellers who are asking for $80-$100K.  

Step 4) Okay, after you have accepted an offer, and its 7 days past the time when you submitted the resale checklist to the repository, you may give the Option to Purchase (OTP) to the buyer. You must! get this set of forms directly from HDB main office or any HDB branch office. Get a spare set.. incase of mistakes when filling in the forms, so you can use a new set without too many alterations …

Arrange for meeting with the buyer (or their agent) to complete this OTP. Receive from the buyer a option fee of between $1 to $1000 (cash or cheque is fine). This is a non-refundable fee. If the buyer walks away and not buy, the seller keeps the fee. Therefore, stick to the norm, ask for the full $1000.

Step 5) The buyer have the option and he/she/they can choose to exercise this option any time within 15 days from the date of receiving this option. Which is, they could still be looking around for a better deal and if they found one, they can walk away and lose $1k, which is really not much, relative to what flats are going for these days. There is nothing a seller can do, in the event that a buyer walks away and the loss of profit exceeds $1k. Eg, when the property market crash in the 15 day period and you had to sell the place for a lot less, 2 months later, and incurring interest on not getting the money sooner… etc.  

Okay, so they may also exercise immediately. As seller, when the buyer wants to exercise their OTP, we must duly complete the resale application and e-file this application online. So meet the buyers again, collect $4k deposit, get more signatures on the OTP, then e-file resale application within 7 days. Keep the exercised and signed OTP forms carefully, for they must be presented at the 1st appt at HDB.  

When doing the e-filing, make sure you get to the page that request for $60 application fee and that it is paid successfully… get the receipts! If this is a “contra”, make sure you choose the “contra” button on during the application. It gets a little more complicated when doing contra, and in this case, I am the “contra”ing party… Okay, so remember, the buyer for my flat have to file resale application, I have to file resale application to sell my existing flat and file resale application to buy my next flat, and the seller of my next flat has to file resale application to sell that flat to me. Total, 4 resale applications to be file by all 3 parties, within 7 days of the 1st party who filed! Clear? The final party in this “linked” resale applications will choose the 1st appt date and time. The desired time for all parties should have been discussed before proceeding to file the resale applications! Phew I did that right…

Step 6) While waiting for 1st appt, HDB will inspect if the flat is ready for resale. A officer will come check the unit in about 1 week after the resale application. Okay, checked! Next, I am just looking around the house, packing things into boxes, discarding things that wont be going… ..

This is where we are at right now…. … Oh BTW, we will be saving around $14K in comms… My cost of  DIY selling and buying is 2 ads on the Singapore CaTs, mobile talktime, $170.50 valuation, $60 x 2 resale application fee, $180 window repair fee (problem as determined by HDB inspector of my flat), and time to be home to show the buyers around. That seem to be a great bargain… isnt it?

My old dig

Letting the dust settle over the selling and buying of the so called “subsidized” housing here in Singapore. Now, we are in the transaction period, which is typical 3 months. After that comes the reno and moving… for us, it will be moving and reno. sigh…

DIY stovetop and mosaic overlay.

But now is a good time to start thinking and researching about reno and styles. … I have been hard at work in this department for the last 2weeks! Still struggling over whether to hack away the current kitchen floor and wall tiles that seem to be in good condition… relay new tiles of my choice or paint over with epoxy resin paint… My problem is simply the color dun work for me, and that I will be modifying the layout quite a fair bit…  but to hack is noisy and costly and very dusty… so I dun wanna do that if I can avoid it.

This is definately not how my dig look like when I move in 10 years ago.

peach walls, cream ceiling and cream door..

Looking back at what works for me. I really like how my kitchen look right now. Very dark grey kitchen homegenous floor tile, creamy textured ceramic wall tile, glass mosaic stove top. Except the stove top is too small, which means not much space for food preparation. This would be the only thing I would change in my design for the new kitchen.

My very messy all purpose table

I am probably a very grey person… but maybe light yellow painted walls would brighten up the space… instead of the existing apple green white. Next I gotta think of how to tie the foyer color scheme to the kitchen and the bedrooms… Once, I like a different color in each room… but I am sure past that high contrast bright color stage… I think this time it may be a more light and airy earthy tone flavor. … but really… hows the peach..

Changing Life..

Not abandoning my blog…. but I have been so distracted with life. Just sold my flat and looking for another. Left my old job with lots of hussles with the crappy management and moving onto a new job which I think would be exciting. .. IMO, sometimes crappy management are hard to avoid but I hardly notice it when the job is exciting… thats my take on life in the corporate world… after 16 years… I think I know..

On the subject of “public” housing in Singapore… I think the market is crazy.. I cant believe my tiny little very old 82sqm flat sold so quickly for $40K COV (cash above valuation)! … but then, I am turning around to find that whatever I am liking is asking for $60-$100K COV! even tho they are on the low floor and has no view! .. opps… did I sellout too soon…?

Well… enough is enough… time will come when the speculation cools off and people with money are all settled down… then that be the time for me to look again.. but in the meantime we’ll move onto Calliste, our barang barang move to storage … kitties will have to stay in little condos that I will be making just for them…