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The house is finally completed.  I still welcome any new comments or opinion which may be able to benefit the public at large. 

Thank you all for reading the blog.


Introductions

• The beginning.
• House Found !
• Work to begin
• No more poor picture quality ! 
• The Contractor 

Content

• Minor post-renovation change (Modified 11 May 2011)
  
• COLOURS AND PAINTS  
• Flooring and Tiles 
• Let There Be Light ! - Sunlight that is.. and too much of it 
• The Sewage Pipe 
• The Kitchen - Mid phase changes & renovations  
• The Roof   
• Car Porch Reinforcement 
• Recreate a Garden  
• The staircase  
• Ground Floor Extension 
• Second Floor Lobby & Rooms  
• Surrounding Fence & Frontage

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Post Renovation

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The house is finally done.

Officially we have actually moved in as well.  However, there have been bits of pieces which is beyond our layman's imagination that occurred after the completed project.  Just when I was pondering where I should post the tiny changes which may come about from time to time, I finally decided to create another topic just to bundle all tiny bits of pieces in.

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First of all, the biggest problem we encounter is water leakage.

We found out over a period of a month, that certain directional down pour leads to water leakage into the side wall paint especially under the window frame.

There is one spot of water leakage too, spotted over the ceiling.

For that, we called back Ah Phan, along with his trusted deputy Ah Lee, who has investigated the problem.

The solution is to install Awning, improve the water sealing around the edge of the window frame, and get Ah Phan to reduce water pooling outside the window frame when it rains.

Here's Ah Phan's man at work to help installing the Awning.

Completed job.

Note the Silicon Sealant on the edge of the Awning to prevent leakages.  This particular Awning is tougher to install due to the placement of the Air Conditioner Condenser above.  We actually have to shift the Condenser upwards by a few good inches to create space for the Awning.

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11 May 2011

It has been a long time.  

Other than the usual wear and tear, we did encounter a couple of problems to our house.  Water pipe leakage was one and it was duly rectifed.  This time no picture was taken as I was working when the fixing was done.

Then another issue is the Power Surge problem.  

We encountered almost definite power cut off whenever there was thunder storm.  If that is not enough, I have so far encounter sensitive electronic equipment damages as well.  

So far one PSU of my home computer was burnt.  After it was changed, the unit return to normal.  And even my amplifier has experienced failure of remote sensing, which I think is due to the surge as well.

After making a few enquiries and posting the problem ONLINE HERE, I finally engaged a professional company to solve the problem.  Here's how its done: 

Plus we add another earthing rod (about 12 feet long near the TNB power entry point) to divert surge and lessen the burden from the house unit.

Now we shall wait for more thunderstorm to verify its usability.

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The beginning.

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The story begins when we received some minor complaints about our dog (seen on the left, taken together with his toilet.)

We are now staying in an apartment, which, generally do not allow any pet dog to be kept. Thats the way the Malaysian law is as far as I know.

This is coupled with my wife's desire to have some small plot of land to satisfy her green fingers.

For that, our hunt begins for a smallish medium cost house, which hopefully do not burn my bank account but able to allow us to have some space.

Then our daughter was born.

Which in effect, confirmed our desire to have a bigger space to allow more life's experimentation !



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Where are we ?


We are in Malaysia, in a suburb called Petaling Jaya, Selangor.   This place has everything that a person would ever needed generally, hospitals, morques, schools, both primaries and secondaries, privates and Publics.  There is also University of Malaya, which used to be one of the best University in the country.  There are shopping centres, factories, legal and illegal business entities, thugs and good people.  PJ has been gazetted as a City too.  


... and do not forget about tonnes of old houses hanging around here too, amidst all the vibrant lives.


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A house chosen !

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A phone call changed our destiny.

When our property agent friend called up and told us there are an old house open for sale, my immediate response was to ascertain some criteria to be fulfilled.

Is there a small space available ? yes ..

Is the house reasonably priced ? well... not bad it seems ..

Is it near to where I work ? It is, no doubt ..

Will the cost too much to renovate ? Now.. it could be, and thats what this blog is all about.

The fact is the house is more than 30 years old probably gave us a faint idea how much we need to dump in to fix it back up again.

It has been tenanted for, well, probably 5 to 10 years? Perhaps further enforced our impression that more job may need to be done to make it user-friendly.

So we committed nonetheless, finally acquired the building with tenants in-place.

Middle of this year, we finally manage to get in to have a closer look inside every rooms. And there we went in for a surprise.

To summarise it, I can safely say that this house's extended kitchen and upstair rooms had literally broken into half !

The picture on the right shows the red crack, which is due to the sinking soil under the kitchen extension. Was it due to poorly constructed foundation? Or due entirely to the soil structure? We didn't know.

When my wife and I saw the condition, we just went ' Oh oh ... '.

It did not look good. Not a bit .