Latest Pics

Well... not latest, these pics were taken on the 17 Dec and only had the chance to upload. Mr Boombastic, apologies for spoiling your leave :-). I didn't realise you took your long awaited leave to view my blog heheheh

Current status?

- Concrete fences are being built on 2 sides (south & east sides)

- Existing neighbours fences are being repaired (north & west)

- wooden floors are almost done, only the family lounge requires polishing

- apron (floors surrounding the house) fully tiled

- built in cabinets have been delivered and to be installed once all paint jobs is done

- upper floor T&B all fully tiled (wall & floor)

- master T&B, bath tub has been installed

- have spent a total 8 hours in 2 curtain shops (5 hours in Miri shop where I manage to sleep on their display sofa heheh)

What next?

- select tiles for ground floor

- design the bar-table

- design the cabinets for kitchen & hallway

- book air-cons and kitchen hobs/ovens

Master T&B - on the left will be the loo & shower on the right

bathtub installed

Muhammad's T&B - fully tiled (he chose the tiles himself)

Iman & Izzan's T&B - Iman chose this tile and we pick the mosaic to complement. She loves it.

The contractor found this snake following an overnight shower.... I wonder what snake is this

the house as it was 2 weeks ago @ 17 Dec. Second layer of paint will be done closer to handover time

Update @ 5 Dec (Wednesday)

The last month of December - lots of work KPI to meet (mine plus others), so there have been many meetings, many activities to attend, so the blog is the lowest of priorities BUT I'm still visiting my house every day after work, and taking pictures.

These pics were taken on Wednesday, 5h Dec. Window frames & glasses have been installed but not the locks & bathroom wall tiles has started to be installed.

nearly all the exterior walls have been painted. Another layer will be added when we are ready to move in

Another angle of the house. Notice the windows have been installed.

Tiles for (from left) Master bathroom, Muhd's bathroom and Iman/Izzan's bathroom. These tiles are laid on the floor for us to review and once ok with us, then they will put these tiles to the walls

And these are how they look like on Iman/Izzan's bathroom

The stairs have been covered with the teakwood. next step is to machine, sand and polish the wood

And the family lounge too has been completed. Before we left for Bandar yesterday (another tile-choosing-outing), we saw our Master bedroom floor has been completed.

Design....

Did I mention in any of my postings, of somebody trying to get copies of our homeplans from our contractor? The contractor asked them to approach the owner i.e. my wife & I, but nobody did. 

He told that person, "Itu olang banyak pikir, banyak keluar wang mau bikin ini design, lu sanang-sanang minta ka.... aiyaaaa" or translated to English, "The owner spent so much time and money to get this design and you want to take the easy way??!".

I guess this is true. Even if the person comes to see us, I wouldn't share. It took us more than a year, asked around for ideas, get ideas from hotels (especially the bathrooms), scour magazines, hours and hours and hours of discussion. 

Another reason I wouldn't share is simply that different design applies to different needs and shape of your land... so I would rather give tips, rather than give away my design. See below:

Tips

• The thing is, our plot of land is kind of rectangular and access road is from the corner of the plot. Make sure you take this into account from the start, where do you want the house, in particular the entrance to be angled to.
  
• Needs? How many rooms? I have three kids so we have 4 bedrooms - although 1 is used for guest room for the next 10 or so years, until Iman and Izzan want their privacy (Iman is 4 and Izzan is coming to 2 years).
• We need separate living rooms for family & living room. Living room is for us to entertain guests, and we need the privacy so it is an enclosed area i.e. need a door there.
• We need the dining room linked to the living room. Main purpose of dining room is to entertain guests as well. 
• Further, growing up in my grandparents house, we often had visitors who need to use the washroom, and had to walk pass our kitchen and see all the unnecessary stuffs i.e. mess before they reach the toilet (in the bathroom), and in those days, bathroom is where we do our laundry.......... so for this house, we need a separate washroom near the dining / living rooms... and the architect told us this is called a "Powder room". I wonder why.
• I need the dry kitchen to have a bar facing the TV in the family room, so we design as such.
• And dry kitchen should be connected to the wet kitchen.
• And how big do you need the kitchen to be? why wet & dry? 
• make sure the wet kitchen do not have direct access to the other living area - the smell of cooking can spoil the environment of these areas
• Laundry should be close to the drying area.
• Oh yes, we have a maid so another room for the maid.
• Initially we plan for an atrium but the thought of troubles to replace lighting as well as maintenance (windows, ceiling cleaning), we created a playroom for kids at the top and ask for the entrance ceiling to be raised... at least we still have our own grand entrance.
• And we need garage for our cars, so instead of a separate one, we have the garage as part of the house.
• Walk in and built-in closets. 
• Power points & TV points.... and phone + LAN points. Keep these in mind.

I suppose the above should be of help to those people who wanted to start building... and good luck. I don't mind you come visit the site to get some ideas, but do let me know so I can give you a guided tour. Or you can wait until the house is completed in March, InsyaAllah.

Updates @ 29 Nov

Not much progress on the outside

Seems not much progress from outside today, but when I got in, they have already covered about 30% of the stairs steps with wood... in 2 days time, it should be 100%, InsyaAllah. 

They've also completed the 'skeleton' for our living room and dining room ceiling.... yet to decide whether it'll be covered in gypsum board or wood.... have to really think about the colour coordination. The thing is, we've already bought a beautiful chandelier for the dining room, and figured wooden ceiling would distract attention from the beauty of the chandelier - well i guess that's probably it then, gypsum board :-)

Anyway, I am already so iski (excited) about the windows - can't wait for the weekend... but I need to time myself well, this saturday I got to see my son Muhammad' s school principal, to get their signature to allow him to enter Ugama school, got to pay electric bills, phone, bmobile, astro, commitment to BSRC Photograph during the BSRC festival (Kanta, 1 hour can what? heheh) and probably bring my kids to OGDC for the thing at OGDC...... well, there goes another Saturday.

Well folks, enough of my ramblings and enjoy the photos...

Our patio and you can see the dining room inside

the 'skeleton' for our entrance ceiling

piping, drainage, cables to be hidden in the ceiling

You can see the bolts used to secure the timber to the concrete.

the timber steps after being covered with wood. 

It'll be finished and painted with varnish to protect the wood

another view of the stairs

Updates @ 27 Nov

Got a call from the contractor at noon to meet up at 5 today, to discuss changes to exterior colour... still the work demands held me back and I only reached there by 5.20. Luckily my wife and I drove separately today and she reached there exactly at 5 pm.

It is important to manage the relationship with your contractor, to ensure work are done smoothly, especially in our case following the delays in payment during milestone 1 & 2.

Anyway, updates?

• All other windows to be installed either on Friday or Saturday.
• The stairs have been installed, and will be covered with the wood flooring from Wednesday on (3 days work)
• Flooring for the top floor will start next week.
• Despite the progress, the contractor still maintained target completion date by March 2008. As we are not in a rush i.e. not staying in Shell housing, that was no problem. 

So, the pictures are here as promised. Enjoy.

One coat done. Second coat by February / March when we are ready to move in.

Big glass window of the Master Suite

Big glass window of our Family Lounge

View from the rear of the house

My wife said every time we drove past the house, my face glowed with pride. I was just so happy that the house already showed exactly how we expected it to look like, and personally, I am fond of the big glass windows. For those familiar with KB area, there is this 2 storey house surrounded with palm trees, facing the new KB courthouse - it has got this big glass window...

 and that is how my wife and I were inspired.

Yeaaayyyy... Windows! Walls Painted!

Sorry folks.... not been able to update for the past week regularly.... Haven't actually been able to visit the house in daylight for the past 5 days - yesterday was just borderline, reached the house during call for Maghrib prayers, just when daylight ends.

Anyway, spent the weekend in Bandar and stayed over at my sister in laws place. We've now confirmed the tiles (walls & floors) and T&B stuffs for the upper floor, and also found a new furniture shop called Oregano next to Autowerke in Gadong... Looks like I found the place to buy my patio furniture.

Updates?

When I got back from Bandar on Sunday, it was getting dark and we made it a routine to drive past the house EVERY TIME we go out. Anyway, when we drove past that night, my son shouted, WINDOWS... so i stopped by and they have actually installed the BIG GLASS WINDOWS wooohooooo, I ran up the house with my wife and we both stood silent for a while admiring the view through the glass windows. I feel like a little boy again, waiting for the time to actually live in this house.

On Monday, just at it was getting dark again, I went to the house and as I approached, I shouted in delight to see that it has been painted... cool, just like we imagined its gonna be. Its not yet finished though, the second coat will be painted as soon as we are ready to move in. Till the next update with proper photos, please enjoy these pics taken from my trusty old mobile phone.

More photos

Spent a good 1/2 hour after work at the house today, going around the house, into every room and looked at the ceilings being installed...  and found that despite the sophistication of today, contractors still practice the old-fashioned (caveman) way.... see the pics below

We have three cars but garage for two.... mmm, the space on the left looks good for another garage....  sell one car or buy another, to make investment of garage for two worthwhile... 

decision decision heheh

In my last blog, i mentioned about stuffs that comes in three.... this is one of those stuffs, 

the three windows on the east side of the house

The ceiling design that comes in threes


captain caveman was here!

old fashioned way... this is the design of my living room ceiling

try to figure it out heheh

view of the west side of our house; i think this is the first time I showed photo from this side

another view of the house.... from the north? well, the front of the house.

Updates @ 17 Nov

We spent almost the whole day today on the house! I hope this blog is kept permanent by blogspot so when my children grow up they can see these entries and understand that their parents have no intention to ignore them - instead their parents are struggling hard to ensure that our HOME is completed as soon as possible and close to, if not, PERFECT!

Well, the day started with a drive to Bandar to pay the lawyer fees (for the financing), dropped by Insurans TAIB to query about the Mortgage Insurance (and also got a copy of Brunei Report by Oxford Business Group but that's a different matter) and then we drove up to Kiarong Complex to check out tiles at Nordin Jaya.

Spent a good 2 hours at Nordin Jaya Kiarong from 11 to 1, found tiles for Muhammad's (4 options) & Iman's (2 option) bathrooms, and tiles - 5 options :) & bathtub for our master bathroom. why options? These options are a set of different wall tiles, floor tiles & wall border and we need to play around the $$ - get the best compromise of the options if you may - to ensure we meet the contractor set budget. If we exceed the contractor set budget, it means we have to pay more than the agreed construction cost... lets see if I can defer the flat screen TV .... or the AV system by another year....

Well, we moved on to Thomson Furniture in Beribi, spent a good 1/2 hour there looking for potential dining table but couldn't find the right one. 

FOCUS! we need to get the tiles & bathroom stuffs first, so we moved on to Sengkurong's Nordin Jaya,.

There we found a very desirable bath tub for our master bath - we initially planned for a corner bath but it seems too small, so we had our eyes on a spacious long bath.... but it cost almost double our budgeted cost for a corner bath... so, cross out another flat screen TV.. tssk tssk

Well, here are some more pics as promised.

Our HOME as it was late yesterday.

View of the Family Lounge big window... I love this shot - will take a similar

shot once the house is completed.

View from a cornet of the house. Notice the concrete platforms,

intended to install the A/C compressor units.

View from the east side of the house... we accidentally have these theme of "threes"

- 3 windows at this side, 3 windows along the corridor and 3 rows of ceiling inserts

in our family lounge - and we love it.

Tips: we hide the A/C pipes into the wall and up the ceiling,

 and to avoid condensation of the pipes, our contractor recommended

to separate the hot and cold pipes as you run the pipes in the ceiling.

No progress?.... there is, inside

I've been very busy for the past 3 days at work, left office Monday at 6pm, Tuesday: committed to DRM footie, Wednesday with BSRC photography until 7 pm. Luckily I was able to leave at 5 this afternoon, so I took the chance to see our house with my dear wife. 

From the outside, it looked as if there was no progress since Sunday but inside, actually there has been a lot done, i.e. ceiling for garage & maid's room and the bedrooms' floors were levelled. I am hoping that in a week or two they will be able to install the wooden flooring. I will  update you with more pics by this weekend, InsyaAllah.

Corridor to the Master Suite being levelled - preparation for the wood flooring

same thing, this time showing more of the corridor and entrance to the master suite

Construction done.... now the details.

The construction of the building structure has been completed for a few weeks now including laying of the roof tiles. 

So for or the past 2 weeks, the contractor sent his Filipinos (ceiling design expert) and Chinese (carpentry specialist) to work on the ceiling/cornices design and the cabinets. To ensure things are done smoothly, work is restricted to the first floor. As of today (12 Nov), about 95% of the ceiling area has been covered with the gypsum boards.

As for the cabinets, we resort to ideas from magazines (and yes, IKEA catalogue) to ask the carpenter to design something for us to make full use of the walk in closet. We also specifically told him to use semi-gloss white spray painted color for the cabinets instead of the traditional fake pine colour (sorry Henry if you are reading this hehehe). We look forward to meet him this Saturday to see the revised proposal.

Oh yes, the exterior walls as well as the first floor interior walls have already been painted with undercoat. Looks nice though in white and makes the kids' room look bigger than before.

What next? Time to choose the bathroom kits... sinks, tubs, bowls and the tiles. So another busy Saturday as usual..... Till the next update.

Latest picture of the house

exterior ceiling has been completed!

ceiling at the stairs.... now, lights or no lights at the ceiling... 

got till this weekend to think about

three slim windows lining the corridor to our master suite

Not much work over Eid

**This post was due on 16 Oct but due to problem of uploading photos, it has been in the draft folder for the past 3 weeks.... and as usual, overlooked.**

Most of the construction workers building my house are muslim Indonesians, and their boss had kindly given them a 3 days off, from Saturday to Monday (day 1 to 3 of Hari Raya), and they only started working today (4th raya). The non-muslims however continued to work during the raya festivities (except Sunday, the usual day-off), so there is still progress albeit a slow one.

I went there at 6pm with my son to look around and to take some shots. Some of the work done were plastering of my kids rooms' walls as well as installing the wood panels for the external ceiling. Tips? You may want to include ceiling fans as it is a cheaper alternative to switching on aircon all the time.

Latest Photo of House

Our stairs

Our Master Bedroom

Our Family Room

Our House from the other side

Status @ 10 Oct

Looking at my home pics folder, i realised that over the fasting month i've only took pictures of the house ONCE. Feeling guilty about it, i rushed to the site to snap a few pics, and here's one that compares well to the architects rendition.

Payment?
Manage to sort out the payment issue with the bank, and it seems like process problem alright... can't say much about that, except that i am so disappointed with the delays despite us being cooperative and giving them whatever letters, invoices, receipts for them to proceed with the payment, but Alhamdulillah (Praise Allah) the contractor never slowed down the construction and continued on with their work on schedule.

Budgeting?
When the contractor quote their price, you have to know that it does not include government charges (we still have no idea yet how much it is), aircons, aircon piping (average $300 per aircon unit), alarm (depends on numbers of doors/windows), lights & fans. You have to set aside budget for other necessities too like fridge, cooker/stove, microwave, TV(s), curtains... depends on number of windows and material/design... and for those home theater enthusiasts or those IT buffs, let your contractor know your needs (LAN points, speaker points, cable TV outlets etc) before they quote cos it'll cost more if they charge it as an additional job compared to being included in the outset.


Anyway, here are the pics:


morning pic of 13 Sept, still doing the roofs

afternoon pic of 13 Sept


doing the roof over our master suite

latest pic, status as of today (Wednesday, 10 Oct 07)


till the next update... to friends who cared to visit, Thank you .

I wish my Muslim friends Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri, from us Pg Hj Azmi Rizal, Hajah Rakayah, Ak Muhammad 'Abdurrahman, Dk Iman 'Aaliyah and Dk Izzan 'Aaeeshah...

i've got other photblogs at gembo and gembo-gembo