Reno Diary - Lights, Shine Lights P1

In home renovations, electric works are quoted separately for these are largely dependent on how much electric works you want to carry out within the house. We first met up with the electrician our ID works with, but his quotation were beyond our budget. Henceforth, based on Leecher's friend recommendation, we engaged another electrician who gave us a quote that was within our budget and able to cater to all our requests *yippee* He's flexible and delivers work promptly. Even when I had to make him adjust the front door light 3 times, he did it without charging us extra. 

He was like a magician, able to conjour things out from nowhere. When the WIW was all ready, I noticed that the power point that was supposed to be embedded in the cupboard was missing. So, we called him up and asked him if he is able to put a point inside the shelves. We also explained to him that we understand that the shelves and cabinets were done, so if its too difficult, just forget about this point. He simply said "put a mark on the cupboard on where you want the point, I'll fix it". The next day, when we came over, WOOLA, the point was there and most importantly, the point is working :) 

Now that I've finished gushing about Edwin, let's start the reno journey of "Lights, shine lights"

Discussion Stage

We met up with Edwin, to discuss on the electric points around the house. HDB only provide 4 electric points in the whole kitchen. Sometimes, I question the mentality of those in charge of designing the flats. We've heard stories in other estates whereby there's a designing flaw in the windows, such that only 1 particular brand of aircon is small enough to pass through. I wonder if its a conspiracy, haha! Anyway, we've decided to add more points in the kitchen, to cater for future use. Edwin immediately whipped out his red marker and began taking notes on the wall.

Measuring the dimensions of the points, so he knows what materials to get.

Work in Progress  

Fiddling with the main switch board.  When we arrived at the house 3 days later, majority of the wiring has been done.

The front door light point, which I've got him to shift it 3 times, haha! The hanging lamp took us quite a long while to search for it. I was on the verge of giving up our theme when we finally located the lamp in a lighting shop!

TV console & living room light points.


Adding more switches, to cater for fan & lights in living/dining area.


Switches for the kitchen/service yard, concealed under the beam that we constructed.



Shifting one of the original switch to another location.


WIW point, which I've also made him redo it twice, opps!

We changed to surface boxes in a corner of the kitchen, for Edwin said it would be a tedious process to use back the default flat panels provided by HDB. That would include taking out the surrounding tiles, putting the box inside the tiles and re-layering the tiles again. To save the hassle, we stick to surface boxes which is easier and less costly as well.