OOR

The hours spent walking the corridors of the Perfect Livin exhibition were not in vain as we left PWTC having bought both floor and door.

Floor
Put down a RM500 deposit to secure price of Inovar laminate flooring @ RM5 per square foot including installation, for Basiq Series.

Door

Got this for RM580. Solid door, veneer. 3ft x 8ft. This is 1 foot taller than standard as I wanted a taller main door. Feels grander when you enter the house.


Comes with this lockset for an additional RM150

The purchases above qualify us for 2 spins of CIMB's Wheel of Fortune...


Which I totally OWNED by hitting the 20,000 point jackpot.


Now there's a picture for posterity.

Inovar Wood Laminate Flooring for Discount

We're off to PWTC today for the CIMB Perfect Livin expo.
Inovar floor is exhibiting there, and they've promised discounts over their already reasonable prices.

Gotta push off now. See y'all.

Environmentally Responsible Crib Trickage

These days its all to do with the impact of your carbon footprint, renewable resources, etc.
In the light of the above, we resolve to reduce, reuse and recycle as much as we can to Trick our Crib as greenly as we can. (New word, heads up, Oxford)

Seeing as we're extending out the front of our house, and all the grilles are gonna go, that's a whole lot of iron...



...to use for constructing the metal framework for a 22ft wide by 10 ft high picket fence at the back of our house for security and privacy.

After cutting all the grilles to form, we should end up with this. As you all can see, it's really ngam-ngam :) And only 3 new steel bars are required for support.



Then we clad the iron framework with 8in x 10ft cemboard planks. Looks like wood but is not wood. Costs less than wood. Save trees summore.



And there you have the plan. Follow this blog for the execution, coming up when it does.

Contribute a Designer Tap Campaign

You Can Help Put This Designer Tap HERE

And the best part is, it doesn't cost you a thing to do your Good Deed of the Day :)

Designer taps cost hundreds of dollars these days, and for homeowners on a budget, that simply won't do. But after all the effort that goes into designing a fully pimp home, no bar counter deserves to have an AhPek hardware store tap installed on it.

So, do your part today.

Kitchen Concept

Woot* No Sink?


Sink is concealed behind a removable grating panel


Which gave me an idea.. (click for large image)


Now you mentally toss those together with our kitchen designer's 3D renderings...

Technical drawings




Looks delicious in red high gloss finish, but not with the worktop I had in mind


Front quarter view with the correct concrete surface.


So yeah, use some imagination and you kinda get where this is headed.

Just For Fun

The Masterplan

Just so y'all get an idea of what this whole thing is about, i'm posting up the renovation plans for yer perusal.

It's pretty self explanatory.
Click for bigger images.

Orange for newly created areas/structures
Turquoise for existing walls to be demolished
Grey for new walls to be constructed.





And the following are the interior designer's floorplans just so you get a better idea.

I Love Concrete - Low Cost High Style

Okay, not everyone will agree with me on the above.
Fact is, design sense and a limited budget don't play well together.
Finishings in particular, cost a lot of money. Tiles are expensive!
So screw the tiles and expensive wall finishings, enter concrete. Bare concrete.

I love concrete. MMMmmm... crunchy







These are from a different crib. Seems quite do-able. Hmm...

The P.I.T.A of MPSJ Approval

In the absence of any progress today, just thought I'd document the pain one has to go through to get your permit to renovate by doing everything above-board.

1. Contractor goes to MPSJ to try get a pre-approved plan for our house reno, which is supposed to take just one day.
   
2. Alas, no pre-approved plans are available for how we want our house done (but all the neighbours have done it)
3. Next plan of action: have to go for the full architect/engineer's approval
4. Contractor recommends us to an architect
5. We go see the architect to get our plans drawn up.
6. Pay architect RM800 upfront
7. Architect says 1 week to draw up the plans.
8. Harass the architect every couple of days.
9. Plans eventually get drawn up... 2 weeks later.
10. I go see the architect to sign on the submission plans.
    Me: So can you submit the plans to MPSJ today?
    Her: After this I will get the architect to sign the plans today.
    Me: So when can you get it submitted?
    Her: Maybe on Thursday we will go to submit.
    Me: What happens between now and Thursday?
11. Pay architect a further RM2810 for the balance of the fees and MPSJ deposit and other costs.
12. The plans finally got submitted... on Thursday. Grrr..
13. Architect says *maybe* can get approval within 1 week. Oh well... fingers crossed.

DAY_02: Rubble

Progress for the day:

• Kitchen walls demolished
• Common toilet new door opening made

It's interesting to see the old kitchen go from this to this to this






And the view from inside the kitchen looking out into the living area.
Looks that much more spacious. Gotta love open concept.



Toilet before and after.



New relocated toilet door opening.

DAY_02: Demolishor

Duh, no, not this guy...

Checked in the house at 10am in the morning, there's been more progress. Obviously the guys had started work early.


The kitchen walls have been stripped of the old built-ins

The real demolisher Yono was hard at work on the kitchen wall with his Decepticon jackhammer.

Checked back in the house at lunchtime, there's been some progress made, and also some not so good news.
1. There's a column in the kitchen wall that can't be demolished. That kinda sux.
2. Heard from the workers that MPSJ has been sniffing around, although no alarm bells ringing yet.


MMMmm.... open concept....Bricks are no match for cybertronian armament... muahahahaha
Looking in through the hole in the front kitchen wall, the opening for the new toilet door has also been made.

DAY_01: Tooling up

The tools and workers arrived at our house this afternoon.

The stuff can't be stored outside in case the authorities come around and make an issue of it or ask for bribes seeing as we haven't got our renovation permit yet. Our contractor says it should be OK to start work on the interior of the house first, and only get to the exterior once the plans are approved. There are 2 Indon guys staying in the house tonight, Yono and Agus. They seem like decent guys trying to earn a living.

Progress for the day:

• Common toilet downstairs dismantled.

Throw Me a Brick

I can be contacted at durifto@gmail.com for questions, suggestions, comments, critiques or just to say hi.

What's This Trick Business Anyway?

Trickmycrib was originally started to document the planning, designing and renovation process of our home, a regular double-storey link house in Malaysian suburbia.

Now that the house is built, and we've moved in, Trickmycrib is a platform of expressing edgy design ideas and innovations to make our house awesome, all on a lightweight budget. This of course involves lots of doing it yourself because if you want something done right, well you gotta do it yourself.