Ideas and More Ideas

Snapshots of some real houses with renovation done.



Changed the grill of the 3rd bedroom:





Look at how a ramp was done from the back gate:






Some houses extended the front door. My personal opinion, not much additional space gained.





This balcony caught my attention. The entrance was a glass door, which looked like a window.

Stairs from the master room to the balcony (another house).

I have tabulated the details I got from the site supervisor. Refer to it at your own risk ya :)


Not many people have moved in. Maybe around 6-7 houses..

There are a lot of Malay food around, not too bad coz we love Nasi Goreng Kampung & Tom Yam. Need to scout around for nice Chinese food, and the nearest place to get fresh vege & fish since the market is quite some distance away.

Renovation

This is the quotation from our renovator. Will not be translating it to English as I'm not very good in reading Chinese myself.
Any comments? Expensive? It's almost 18% of our house price. Sweat.

Tiles

Any of the readers have the code for Palmyra tiles? Living Room, Kitchen, Maid's room, Upstairs? If yes, pls share. Thanks.

15th Dec 2011:
Thanks to reader "WW":
1) Kitchen wall tiles - 300x300mm ceramic tiles Guocerra K926A
2) Porch - 300x300mm Homo. tiles Guocerra DRF01
3) Bedroom - 600x600mm Guocerra YMP6305

Frustrated with Hong Leong

When we bought Palmyra last time, I told hubby to get the EON Bank loan coz I was lazy to check out the other option - AmBank. It is one of the worst decision I've made regarding $$ so far.

We do not know how to read/ interpret the monthly statement sent (that with hubby being a finance buff and myself, oklah, A1 in Prinsip Akaun). The way the debit & credit are tabulated, it shows a forever increasing or stagnant loan amount! The online banking transaction summary is worst, and even the bank's personnel himself acknowledging that.

We paid 2 visits to Hong Leong Bayan Baru, there was no one knowleadgeble to advice us and the branch manager was not in for me to vent my frustration. We went again today, and what the customer service managed to help us was to call a loan officer and we spent 15 mins talking on the phone. Talking about numbers over the phone is not effective! At the end of the conversation, the loan officer said she will call us back to clarify (which luckily they did call!). Apparently the Bayan Baru branch is focused on business banking now, and all home loans are handled in Auto City branch!

Next regarding the Hong Leong MSiG Insurance which the bank bought insurance on behalf of us. The insurance cert had hubby's name wrong, and when we told the branch that this is their problem as the submitted the name wrongly (we did not fill in any form), the officer said he will follow up and call us back. 3 weeks has passed, no call. We enquired on this again today and we were told to write official letter to ask for ammendment.

I never had any problem with my current OCBC homeloan.

Frustrated frustrated frustrated. Is this just the beginning?

Using the new highway

We've been trying out the new highway to Pekan Genting twice. Some of the highway stretches are not completed yet. Going there from Bayan Lepas seemed so far, I guess it takes too long to see civilisation compared to the Relau way. The journey back seemed much shorter.

Since the highway ends in Pekan Genting where Palmyra is, it looks like this will be the preffered road in the future for us. There are several bottlenecks before reaching the highway where we most probably have to endure the jams during rush hour. The highway looks pretty scary too, so don't look down, just look at the road.

We're getting the renovation guy to provide quotation for us. Here are some plan in mind for our DST intermediate but we have no idea how much it will cost us.
- Repaint the house
- Install CCTV & alarm system
- Install autogate, since the gate is not designed for manual open/ close. Notice there's no latches like normal gates?
- Knock down the balcony in the 2nd room for extension
- Do nothing to the "pseudo balcony" in the 3rd room coz there's a toilet window sticking out
- Knock down the maid's room coz it's too small and there's no window
- Replace the windows in the toilets with frosted glass; no peeping toms allowed.
- Build a balcony to hang our clothes there, install a door from the master room (which may mean removing windows?)
- Knock down the wall between kitchen and laundry area to make way for wet kitchen

That should be about it coz cost of living is real high nowadays but salaries are not increasing proportionately :)

OC Obtained

The much awaited OC has been obtained. You should have received a letter asking you to collect application forms for the electricity and water supply from Belleview sales gallery. The next thing to do is to call the site supervisor to confirmed if touch up has been done, and hopefully to get the keys. Remember to bring extra padlocks for the new house! Meanwhile, I wonder anyone has started renovation? Too lazy to drive up to have a look. Next time have to drive everyday, how?

House Inspection; No Keys Yet

After paying the quit rent at the Farlim Sales Gallery, we made an appoinment for house inspection expecting to get the keys. The house inspection was accompanied by the site supervisor and 2 sales guy. Being newbie on buying a new house, we relied on what the site supervisor advised us, check the door, signs of leakages, if the window can open and close well, the number of electrical points etc. Some friends told us to knock every tile to check if there's hollow sound but there were just too many tiles.

Basically, there were some peeled paint on the door frame, minor leakage at the 2nd room "balcony" and the paint work of the house was barely satisfactory. We were told that we will only receive the keys after the developer has touched up the paint work and attend to our complaints. We were also cautioned not to perform any renovation else the developer will not be responsible for any defects; do not install any fittings else it may get stolen. The developer so kindly gave FOC a huge mirror each in each toilet upstairs, perhaps they could have be kinder providing more freebie? While the promotion brochure looked great with lotsa nice trees, the actual site had several malnourished trees but we're glad that there's a playground and a nice garden at the entrance of the housing area.

OC is expected within this month and we shall wait for the day when we get the keys.

Here's a snapshot of the 20X62 terrace:



And the view of what's opposite one stretch of the double storey terrace.

Vacant Possession

Received mail via pos laju regarding the delivery of vacant possession. The letter was dated 25th July, and it only arrived today, 2nd august. We need to notify the developer on the premise defect within 2weeks from the date on the letter. That's pretty short notice right?
By the way, I wonder how many visitors here will be my future neighbours, who plan to move in to the land far far away?

Bank says: Pls start paying

We received an account statement from EON Bank stating the interest at RM500 plus. I guess that means the house is completed and it's time to start paying. Strangely, should there be some notification from Belleview or the Bank stating the completion status and asking you to start paying?

Almost Done?

Called up Belleview last week. The lady mentioned that Vacant Possession is this month end (but it's month end tomorrow!) and OC will be ready in a month or 2. So everybody, start to allocate some budget to pay for your homeloan!

6th March 2011 Visit

Finally we had some time to drive to Balik Pulau to see the latest updates on Palmyra. Our Proton Exora did pretty well going up and down the winding road, but that would mean the fuel expenses will increase 3 fold once we move to Balik Pulau.

There are not many lots left. The guys there said the project will be completed this June. That would means ka ching ka ching ka ching get ready for $$$$ reno, furnitures, home loan, moving cost etc etc. In my memory, the rooms were much bigger but looks like they have shrunk during this visit :)

Need to start thinking how to renovate the house since it's getting nearer:

- to setup a balcony, where to put the door? One side will block your location of the dressing table and the other side will block your bed.

- should we hack the wall between the kitchen and the "laundry" area so that there's bigger space?

- can we move the location of the "maid's room" door to the dining area and make it into kid's playroom (though it's pretty small)

- the upstairs 2nd & 3rd room, there are some pathetic space outside. It is currently placed with the aircond condensor. Can we hack the room to get a few inches more of space?

Any good ideas???