Our House Renovation Plans

After we had a bathroom makeover, I decided that maybe we can have a total house renovation. I thought that instead of buying a new car, why not renovate our house first because we barely go out naman and we spend more time at the house than outside.

I planned for this renovation just after a month we’ve done with the bathroom (I just needed time to replenish my savings). As you all know, I asked for help from an in-house interior designer of All Home for our bathroom, so I contacted her again to check the area that we want to renovate. At first, I just told her to give me a design for the kitchen, dining, living room and our working area. She was too busy and got a lot of clients (thanks to me hahaha, joke lang!), so she was not able to provide the design soon enough.

Compared to the bathroom where she did not make a plan, for the rest of the area, she needed to provide a layout for me on how the appliances, things and design will look at this time.

It took a month when I got the design from her (sadly!). I visited the newly opened All Home at Evia Lifestyle Center to meet up with the interior designer. She showed me some of the pieces she included in the design.

I liked her design, but I had a change of mind and decided to have a new room also on top of our kitchen. Kasi naisip ko, kung magrirent kami ng house habang ginagawa ang bahay, lubos lubosin ko na para di na ako gagastos ng rent next time na magpadagdag kami ng room sa 2nd floor (yun naman talaga gusto ng husband ko). This new room will be his arts and crafts room, and our existing bodega will be Ren’s room na. Yes guys, ang laki na ni Ren and yet he is still sleeping with us. He requested to transfer to his own room already but we can’t do it yet kasi ang daming kalat ng “dapat” na room nya.

We have a lot of items in that room that we need to declutter. BTW, ganda nitong mirror sa likod ng sofa hahaha (commercial muna).

We are living in a small townhouse and yet the price for the labor are damn soooo expensive. It’s unfortunate that the one who made my bathroom cannot do the new room on the 2nd floor and demolish a part of the existing wall in the ground floor because they lack the manpower.

I asked him to quote the labor for it, but it took another month for me to learn that they won’t be able to supply the said job because of that manpower problem.

I looked around for a contractor that provides good work quality and less expensive. Looking for one was soooo hard here. Na-trauma ako sa gumawa ng kitchen ko, sobrang daming mali kaya gusto ko maging maingat. Sayang ang pera guys. BTW, hindi mura yung dating nakuha ko ha, kaya lalong nakaka dismaya.

A neighbor recently had a house renovation too, and she invited me to look at their house. In fairness, I like the work of her contractor. I’m not referring to the interior design but yung linis ng cut ng tiles, ng pintura etc.

Unfortunately, medyo mahal ang singil nila sa labor. But I still asked for a quotation so that I can compare sa iba. I asked 3 other contractors to submit a quotation and surprisingly the first one I got was the cheapest among them.

That’s a tip, if you will have a house renovation, do not stick to one. Ask around first, check out their work or portfolio to help you decide (this is what I failed to do from the previous renovation of our kitchen).

This contractor also helped me in processing our building permit. Yes when you are inside an exclusive subdivision, they will not allow your materials for construction to get in the premises if you can’t provide a permit of construction.

As of this writing, it’s been 2 weeks already since they passed the extension plan to our subdivision for approval. After the approval, the architect will bring it to City Hall for the processing of the building permit. Then we will pay for extension bond to the subdivision.

I hope the permit will come up soon, so that we can finally start the renovation of the house. I’ll update you next time.