Renovation

Renovation has its up and down, some mistakes here and there but as long as they are rectified, we are okay with it. Anyway the whole process is very rushing since we have to move out the rented flat soon and we can't complain much. Most importantly, we are quite easy going! Hahahaha.. Actually if time permit, hubby would get them to do it as agreed. Oh well..

Can't blame or pin point their mistakes since we are not able to give them time to rectify some miscommunication. We will just live with it but next time (if there is next time but I don't think I will want to move again, I don't really like to move as there are too much stuffs to do).

As we want to spend within budget (already borrowed 20k renovation loan but end up we got 40k loan, reason stated in next paragraph), we decided to purchase the rest of our furnitures from Ikea. We didn't buy everything cheap in Ikea, overall we spent over 10k there. And also we made sure we really like the design before purchasing, we don't buy for the sake of buying. Only thing I don't like is the shoes cabinet, quality not really good. I paid over $100 for it and yet it started to peel off (the laminate). The kids chose their own wardrobe door colour, only the youngest will be using drawer cabinet brought over the old house since he's still too young for a wardrobe and we planned to let him take over his older brother wardrobe which is slightly shorter than the rest while the older brother upgrade his. We bought pax wardrobe for master bedroom, look good but the bad thing is there is no lock drawer. Never realised we have so many books, took 2 big shelves, 1 thin tall shelf and 3 waist height shelves to put all our books in. I love books, I just can't resist buying them, hehe.

From the beginning, we discussed and decided to borrowed 20k renovation loan. Initially he made up his mind to borrow from CIMB as he compared it with OCBC and their interest rate is lower. But right after he submitted his application, the interest was adjusted and it was higher than OCBC. He wanted to try OCBC but because of time restrict, he couldn't wait for OCBC to process the application and had to go ahead with CIMB. The interior design company was chasing after us for first payment, we didn't want to pay upfront with cash first and get refund later stage. (To be frank, I heard too many horror stories about renovation so I am really worried they will run away with my money). As this is the first time we borrowed from the bank, we thought the way the banks work are the same throughout but before we know it, OCBC had sent us a bank cheque to our new home without informing or signing acceptance letter (OCBC actually doesn't require to sign any acceptance letter. Once you go OCBC to apply for loan, they will mail you the cheque if approved). Going to make full repayment for CIMB this month, can't afford to pay both for the next 3 years. Only a few hundreds penalty, better than to pay few thousands interest.

YaYa