Journey of My Life: Contractor

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Contractor

After months of talking about renovation, the moment-of-truth has arrived.

Renovation works started yesterday, 14 March 2010, Sat *pinch myself*.... Long awaited, overdue moment.

It was a long tedious process of hunting around for a Contractor. After so many scary stories of Contractors doing shoddy work, incompetent, running away in the middle of a project, over-charging, gamblers, mafia leaders/members and etc. You won't blame me for having some kind of hesitation and apprehension... would you?

Eventhough I would like to get a Contractor with recommendations, I was careful about taking on someone I know from Church or a personal friend. After all, I prefer to keep them as friends. So, let's separate the two.... business and friends.

I found Ah Pang from the internet link forwarded by Hubby. This guy who was going through renovation was doing extensive work on his house and posted his experience in his blog. So, I took down Ah Pang's number and called him up.

Ah Pang has a typical humble Contractor look. Drove a worn out Proton (probably unwashed for some months), tattered jeans, sun-scorched skin, uncombed hair, measuring tape in one hand and calculator in the other. He was well-versed in Mandarin but stammered in Cantonese. So, I had to endure his broken Cantonese for I could understand 100% of it and 30% of his Mandarin. So, he graciously accommodated and spits his best Cantonese in our discussions.

A day before I confirmed him, I was about to put a downpayment on another Contractor M. Well, before I was to pay up, I prayed... "God, if this is not the right contractor to do the job, make some kind of foil-up". A few days later, I received a call from Contractor M asking for an increase of RM10K to the existing quotation. That was my sign.

I guess it was also not by accident that Ah Pang called me up around the same time, the same day. I had not spoken to him for almost 1 month, after his initial quotation.

Anyways.

To cut the long story short (if its not already long enough), Ah Pang re-quoted based on new requirements and work started the next day! Talking about short!

As of yesterday, the back area of the house has been demolished to make way for our new design. It looks like an earthquake has strike. Looked interesting. For the next 3 days, its going to be "demolition phase".

Below are the layout plans...