Jump to content
Find Professionals    Deals    Get Quotations   Portfolios

Recommended Posts

The Proposed Works

The wife also did up some preliminary sketch ups on the proposed works to be done to the dining and kitchen areas which very much is the key focus of our renovation.

Not wanting to waste too much time on the renderings and touching up, we decided to do just enough at this stage to get the minimal going for the purpose of getting the quotations in.

image.jpg

View from dining area looking downwards into the living room and beyond the balcony. As our unit is facing the Chinese Gardens, our intention is to keep the space between the living room and dining area as unobstructed as possible to maximise the garden view from all angles as possible.

 

image.jpg

With the kitchen wall hacked away, we are looking to create a dry kitchen area beside the dining area in order to create a continuous flow of space down into the living room with a Chinese Garden view to boot!

 

image.jpg

We also pushed the original door entrance further out to create a longer passageway which also allowed us to put a shoe rack here. As our kitchen is facing the common passageway (or common corridor as some would call it), we thought we should cater for some form of privacy in the form of a big wooden door to block people from looking in from outside. This also allow us to create some sort of a divider between the wet kitchen and dry kitchen. 

 

image.jpg

When there is a need, we could just open the wooden door to open up the whole kitchen space.

Edited by SimplePersonSimpleLife
 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Looking for good contractors? Click here for your request

Wow Chinese Garden! My unit is at Lakeside, so quite close! No view of the actual gardens though heh heh.

Love the concept so far! Your kitchen faces the common corridor? That's quite cool!

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The "Call For Tender" Process

We have a few contractors in mind whom we had partnered up for previous projects. However, this time round it is a different ball game altogether given that this is our own house and we had to fund for the whole renovation project! So yes, budget is one of our top and key considerations. Quality and reliability wise, we are not too concerned as we are quite comfortable with the works delivered by these contractors from previous projects. To cut to the chase, we only looped in 2 of our contractor friends for this "tender" process... As in, we give them the scope of works and they come back with their quotations. The advantage is we have a side by side comparison of all the individual works.

Contractor 1 - Daniel

Daniel is a very friendly and nice guy whom was recommended to my wife by her ID friend years back when she started on her very first project. When I was first introduced to Daniel when my wife was doing up the interior design for a Bedok HDB unit few years back, I must say I was quite impressed with this guy. He came across as a very honest person and what is also so good about him is his chatty character and the belief that while he is in to make a living here, he is not out  to squeeze people to make ridiculous profits; just enough for him and at the same time keep client happy. 

Contractor 2 - Bernard

Bernard is a close friend of my wife and hails from a family of contractors. Young for a typical contractor in his early 30s Bernard nevertheless has the drive and creativity that we think are critical traits much needed in new-age renovation today where younger or sophiscated clients expect much more than a brick and mortar conventional design. He is more willing to work with clients on unconventional design and rather than shooting down creative ideas, he would actually offer suggestion on how the design might actually work. 

Edited by SimplePersonSimpleLife
 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, ricepapergirl said:

Wow Chinese Garden! My unit is at Lakeside, so quite close! No view of the actual gardens though heh heh.

Love the concept so far! Your kitchen faces the common corridor? That's quite cool!

I just saw your thread and your house also look huge!

Yes, both the kitchen and service yard are facing the common corridor though these are on higher ground as compared to the corridor!

image.jpg

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The Hunt For The Tiles

Hunting for tiles is one of the first few tasks that we took on when we first embarked on our renovation journey, even before we start to engage our contractor. I must say that Hafary is a good starting point for anyone whom want to start the process of tile selection. This is one of those places where people get to view tiles in a very conducive environment, one where you can get access to a wide range of tiles and yet stopping short of being overwhelmed by so many choices... well at least until you start to shortlist and the need to make a decision of what to use for a specific area. That is where things get complicated... Very complicated... Things start to get blurred and just after a few minutes of tile viewing, you start to get hallucinated by every new tile that you come across, and start questioning yourself what is the difference between what you are viewing now versus what you just viewed... Indeed, the wide range of choices could actually make this tile selection process a mentally draining experience if you do not approach it in the right manner.  

Variety is one, price is another and then as I dropped deeper into the bottomless pit of tile viewing, someone in the shop just threw me another curve ball to tell me what size I am looking at and boy... I was so lost for that 5 minutes when I was alone until wifey came out from nowhere to say she had found something for the living room... the dining area... And then a new disbelief struck me... I never know my wife, a woman can be so decisive here... As a matter of fact, she started going through with me what kind of tiles we should be looking out for for each area of the house and so on... But then again before this, I had never really accompany her to such tile viewing sessions with her clients so this is the first time I probably have a better idea of what actually goes behind all those tile selection process. 

Edited by SimplePersonSimpleLife
 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Your house is huge and very well-maintained (looking at the parquet flooring and the condition of the MBR toilet)! Looking forward to see the transformation :) 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On ‎5‎/‎31‎/‎2016 at 2:13 PM, El LoCo said:

Nice big space! Love the idea of an island too. Yr wife is an ID?

Hi @El LoCo, yes we thought adding an island would be a nice touch to our home, to make it more unique and special from conventional home.

My wife is an architect but she does take up interior design projects occasionally :)

 

23 hours ago, blackainmamba said:

OMG! your house is huge! and the view is awesome! Can't wait to see you transform the apartment!

Hahaha! @blackainmamba, I wld share more photos of the views subsequently!

 

15 hours ago, trcd said:

Wow. Incredible space you've got there!

You will have to spend quite a bit on flooring though... :wacko:

@trcd, spot on! Bigger size equates big floor equates bigger cost... :( 

 

8 hours ago, pipsqueak said:

Your house is huge and very well-maintained (looking at the parquet flooring and the condition of the MBR toilet)! Looking forward to see the transformation :) 

@pipsqueak, thanks for your comment. Though well-maintained, most have to go cos they were quite out-dated...

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

@SimplePersonSimpleLife - more cost but you got to do what you got to do... Bite the bullet and go ahead. It's going to look awesome after renovation. And enjoying happiness in the new home will be worth it!

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The Selected One

Both Daniel and Bernard subsequently came back to us with their quotes and we were pleasantly surprised to see that both sets of numbers were quite close to each other. As a matter of fact, we are looking at a small difference of some $2,000 which when stacked against the overall renovation quantum could be considered insignificant. We were expecting to see a wider spread between the two of them given that Daniel specialises in HDB projects while Bernard more on retail/condos projects so while the quotations came in very close to a ballpark number that me and wife had in mind, we were still surprised by how close the 2 quotes were. On the other hand, the fact that the 2 quotes were so closely aligned also served to validate that we were not being ripped off by either one of them; not that they would actually think of doing that to us given they have more to lose if we do not work with them on future projects...).

Eventually, we decided to go with Bernard. Not that it was an easy decision as we were actually tored 50/50 between the 2 of them and even with all their strengths and weaknesses stacked up side by side for comparison, it was still very much a close fight down to the last contention point. Guess ultimately what swayed us towards Bernard was the fact that he was more receptive to creative designs/ideas and given his family specialisation around carpentries, we thought given the nature of our renovation work that he would be a better bet. Though his experience is nowhere near that of Daniel, we could see his passion for design works as well as his ability to connect with clients.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The Hacking Starts...

I was actually quite elated to see the start of the renovation works! And yes... So excited about the hacking. 

image.jpg

Hacking of existing floor tiles around the dining area. We are also pushing the door further out so that we have a longer internal passageway. The wall in front in the photo above would also be hacked away to create a open concept space where we would have an island here.

 

image.jpg

Dining area facing path to bedroom 2 and 3 in front and master bedroom on the right.

 

image.jpg

Kitchen... Massive hacking as there were a lot of cabinets...

 

image.jpg

More destruction observed in the kitchen

 

image.jpg

Walkway to the service yard in front with the common toilet on the left. View from bedroom 2

 

image.jpg

Hacking done halfway in living room. Hackers decided they had enough for the day and stopped here...

Edited by SimplePersonSimpleLife
 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×