So things took a turn for worse. 

I don’t know exactly who to blame actually, me for not communicating properly? Or them for being sneaky. Am just gonna go with the latter because this is apparently what the whole renovation industry is known for, though I am pretty sure it's just a few rotten apples. 

So I mentioned wanting to ask them to come down to assess beforehand, dude said no need and they don’t usually do that (despite agreeing to it before I paid deposit). In my naive mind I didn’t think it was a big deal because I thought all this shifting in power points, and minor patching up works, are 家常便饭 for contractors like them, and rates are comparable.

I got a brainwave after I got my keys so I decided to snap photos of things I wanted them to do and asked him to quote. What came back was mindblowing. Dude tried to quote me $45 per light for changing downlights and I nearly fell off my chair (when people are charging $10). When confronted with other people’s rates he made some lame excuse like oh it’s coz of overheads, and I forgot you had other works so I guess the overheads can spread out, I can match the prices you name. Magically it went down by more than half wow. It’s a similar story for handyman works - minor patching works he wanted to charge $40. And when I KIVed him and checked with Winnie’s handyman contact for a second quote, turns out this dude was trying to charge me triple the price WTF. 

So much for competitive pricing sigh. 

And I haven’t even got to electrical works. Turns out his idea of shifting power points? Nothing will be concealed and there will be trunking everywhere WTF who even does that. He told me his electricians can’t do that, so I countered - your electricians not licensed? These are very basic works. To which he had the cheek to lecture me. 

So electrical works are off this guy’s plate too. All that’s left for him is painting, which I was really crossing my fingers at this point that it won’t be a disaster. 

It wasn’t exactly a disaster, but I won’t call it smooth sailing either. Firstly while hunting for an electrician last minute I had to push back painting by a week, which he had no issues. In the end two days before panting works he texted a short message saying “we will start on Tuesday instead” to which I was really annoyed because I applied leave specifically to be there for the start of works. So that I can tell them exactly what I need them to do and make sure they don’t miss anything (like, inside the wardrobe for instance). Immediately called the guy, got into a minor argument with him but in the end he said Monday his guys will be there to deliver paint and I can still communicate with them on my requirements and hand them keys etc. So I guess the leave day wasn’t wasted and still went according to my plan, just that the actual works only started the next day. 

I realized one thing I forgot to ask is what paint they will be using. In the early days we talked about Nippon and using light colors (and it was reflected on the invoice), but it didn’t cross my mind to specify what kind of Nippon paint, because in my mind I had the full selection for me to choose from. I only remembered to ask about anti-mould paint (it was a concern because of how my current place turned out), to which he recommended against it because he didn’t see a need for it, told me not to waste money on it lol. Which is kind of true because my chief location of concern, the bathrooms, are both naturally ventilated. Sealer included - but it was a water based sealer (ok I don’t know enough to know if water based or oil based is better). But when he texted me paint selection it was only for the Matex range (and even this part he didn’t tell me it’s Matex, I only discovered when I googled the color code coz they didn’t show up in the Nippon app). Matex is usually used as a base coat before applying the actual coat. Even during float days we used it as a base for the CCB before applying the more elaborate colors (oh I’ll always remember candelabra).  

And I didn’t want to argue by this point - because I know he’s gonna charge me extra if I wanted more premium ranges. So for that price point and the type of paint used, turns out it wasn’t really a great deal at all. Guess that’s the industry for you - from their perspective I guess it’s so competitive that they really just go all out to earn that much more. As a consumer you can only be as sharp as possible and that only comes with experience. First timers and without a ID (come to think of it even with an ID) gets carrot-ed. Oh well. Remind me to go for Nippon’s painters next time. 

Paint job took three full days in the end. Spot checked every night after work lol. First two days progress was very slow, the first night I was surprised to see they had only done the sealer for both bedrooms and ceiling. Second day they did the two bedrooms and probably more ceiling, that I had doubts they can finish on the third day at all. Half wanted to call and make noise but in the end I remembered I had budgeted the entire week for it anyway so gave it a rest.

Lo and behold they called during lunch on the third day to tell me it can be done by end of the day and asked me to come down to check for handing over and touch up if any. But I had a meeting that afternoon so I told them to just leave the keys behind and I’ll check in my free time. When I did check - I guess it was decently done la. But there are some spots which definitely needed touch up so duly snapped some photos and sent them. The bigger issue is my keys and card were not where it was supposed to be, turns out they couldn’t stuff it into my mailbox (weird, I was getting flyers so I didn’t realize the flap was locked). So they had to make a trip down to pass me my keys anyway so I combined it with a touch up session. 

End result, I think it’s ok la. Not the best person with colors again so I think the bedroom color looked a bit odd with the flooring color in the end hahahah oh well. But level of trust with this guy is sub zero since the time I found out he tried to make me a carrot so nope, not you next time. In fact he was either very forgetful or being sly again (am just gonna go with the former this time) but for the balance payment, he forgot to remove the omitted electrical works and requested for the balance based on the original invoice. And because I was not in a right state of mind following the whole rewiring brouhaha I very nearly just transferred the money over too, but somehow I eventually forgot about it and didn’t transfer on the spot. Which was a blessing disguise because the discrepancy only occurred to me while running that evening lol so I texted back to get him to resend invoice with the correct balance amount. And dude (and his so called “accounts office”) did so immediately, wow so efficient on a Sat nite. 

There’s some minor disagreements eventually during touch up too. He earlier promised that “let’s give the paint a couple of weeks to settle, then we touch up where necessary”. When I arranged with him to come down at the two week mark (and this was after payment) it became “oh, we are busy this month with projects, let’s do January” wtf. Called him up to argue again and he accused me of not being understanding of their plight enough on lack of manpower, restrictions yada yada sigh. Told him touch up literally takes 20-30min at most and don’t tell me he cannot spare me this time. He countered that coz it’s condo so there are specific working hours and challenged me to get condo management to agree for his men to come down after working hours, then he can do it at the two week mark. Oh bring it. Went down to talk to condo officer who helpfully agreed coz it’s not something that will generate noise and disturbance to neighbours, and just needed to inform security to let them in.

So game on. And in the end they didn’t even come in after working hours - came at like 4pm. Wtf waste my effort and time only and only proves that it’s an excuse all this while. 

Oh well. Lesson learnt.

Labels: foresque, 买菜