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Hi all, It's been 2yrs+ since i've moved. Had added some stuff to my house which i thought would be useful to share. 1. Kitchen entrance door curtain to block aircon and oil & gas. Bought these from taobao and no drilling required for installation. 2. Small metal shelf placed opp kitchen counter. Have moved my rice cooker and airfryer onto the metal shelf to free up kitchen counter space. 3. Small art gallery at entrance way to conceal bomb shelter door. I like to do paint by numbers and thot this to be a good idea to showcase my hobbies. It was only half filled when i moved in and i've finally finished filling up the wall recently since i've done a lot during cb.

Window panels almost completed, carporch cantilever structure completed. Timber fencing has started. It seems like work progress is getting slower nowadays..haha

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Prices of renovating a house is now cheaper in Singapore,depends on who we engage. Looking around and surveying around alot of IDs Firm,all quotation was on slightly high side,so me and my hubby decided to look for contractors. We asked our families members ,relatives and friends and finally met up with one contractor,he did for my cousin house He said quoted my BTO flat at a total amount of $12,300 He also ask us to buy things from Taobao to save money Really appreciate the help he gave us,i attached the picture and also items i purchased from and also where i purchased from. Just to share around with people

if you had already started work with your builder and if your builder had indicated the supply and install of marble floor for you, you would need to talk to your builder on whether he can omit the item out from the contract should you decide to get from another supplier. getting building materials from another supplier is not like buying an electrical appliance from another shop. your builder would most likely have factored in the cost of raw materials (marble tiles, tiling adhesive/mix), labour for laying of marble floor/wall, labour for polishing of marble floor/wall into his quotation to you. so by you switching to supply your own materials, your builder would still need to charge you for the labour and materials for install and polishing. on top of that, he could also charge you for profit in attendance. also since you are supplying the materials, if there's any damage during installation and you end up not having enough tiles, you will have to fork out additional money to buy more tiles since you are now the supplier and not the builder. if you have a very big area for marble installation, supplying your own may save you some money. but do note that this amount can't be part of your construction loan (i'm assuming you have taken construction loan) and needs to be paid in cash to the marble supplier. anyway, talk to your builder on this and work out the sums should you decide to supply your own marble tiles at this stage when contract had been signed.

Im pretty happy with my contractor which I've decided to go ahead with after hearing friends recommendation. Here is the finished product!

yes, they can build their boundary wall smaller than what their actual boundary is. but it doesn't automatically give the rights to that piece of land to you. last time (and even now in some cases), two adjacent houses are built with a common party wall in between them so the developer would save costs on building 2 sets of walls/fence. so when one house is redeveloped, the existing house would end up using the new house's party wall as their boundary wall as well. when the existing house is redeveloped, the owner would usually build a new party wall on their side and this new wall abuts the neighbour's wall. so for your case, I think you should just build a wall/fence to demarcate your own boundary at the part where the neighbour left out. if the electrical pole ended up in "no man's land" then so be it. at least you know that you are not encroaching on your neighbour's land by using it. If SP decides to access the electrical pole for maintenance, then they would be disturbing your neighbour instead of you since the pole is on their land and not yours. the worst case is if your neighbour one day decides that you are encroaching on their land with a garden and sends you a lawyer letter demanding for rental/fees over the years you have used the land. Not sure if it happened before in Singapore but I read an article online of something similar happening in USA recently.

The floor plan. The previous owner also brought the access balcony too. 155m² floor area in total. As mentioned, we recreated the balcony and changed the kitchen opening facing. Our balcony sliding door also have to face a certain angle due to fs.

This is our EA floor plan. Lots of hacking work to be done. We bought over the recess area. Square feet is about 1625 = 150sqm

Very fast one. I had to wait for 5 years for my BTO, but on the other hand, I was also happy that I was given more time to save up for renovation! ok more pics on my decorating ! 😬

A 20 yr old place that is well built should still be in good condition. But I'll look out for (some of which has been mentioned) Firstly it's important to be strict and change if there is any doubt, because it's a real hassle if you need to fix it when you are staying it in already - roof - very important to check and look at it during a big downpour, but be careful don't change a perfectly good roof if it's working well... - also look at the false ceilings for stains - all electrical (added new light points) place your LED drivers in easy access places - relay switching for staircase lights and bedrooms - added generous LAN points (this is an entire topic in itself, but be generous with the number of points) - tiles : IMO, it's optional if the floor is very good and suits your style, eg some high grade marble. Otherwise replace because it's a big hassle in future, unless you are just laying LVT - termite checks - I'll change plumbing and toilet floor tiles too and I used all new pipes with a large calibre for better water pressure - take down the roof antenna, painted a new waterproof layer on the roof and made sure the ventilator works - I replaced the cabinets / wardrobes too and added internal lighting As for the room layouts, as snoozee mentioned, see what's your time horizon and if you want to stay happily and comfortably for at least a decade, do it properly. Such a job without touching the roof can cost under 300k.

For those who need simple shelvings for your Bomb shelter, I bought these IKEA Omar shelves (x4 pcs, stack them up to get 2 high shelves) and they fit nicely. 😬

Some pool costs: - chlorine either in tablet form or powder - I prefer powder - cleaning and flushing the pool - you can hire someone for around 70-80 a week - topping up the water Most of these, you can manage yourself actually... it can be done.

for a detached house, the maximum site coverage is 50% for non CGB areas so the maximum building footprint you can have is about 2000sqf. so based on this, a "standard" 2.5 storey house would have a built up GFA of about 5000sqf to 5200sqf. if one wants to increase the built up area, basements can be added or mezzanine added as well. your builder's quote of 1.5m if based on a max GFA of 500sqf would be about $300psf which is quite reasonable as it seems that many are quoting at $350psf even before this COVID situation. do note that construction cost does not include professional and authorities' fees. so be prepared to set aside another 100k to 200k for these fees depending on the QPs you engage. I think what is important now is for you to find an architect who can help you design up the house first. once the house is designed, then you can see how you can cut back the costs by tweaking the designs.

you are not going to save 300k on retaining the existing structure. if you are lucky and your house is in a area where there is good soil, you may escape with just doing footings or a raft foundation. this could save you maybe close to 100k from doing piling. to do fencing instead of build brick walls as boundary wall will mean quite a bit of savings as well. opt for those mid-range or lower ranged sanitary ware. a $300 toilet bowl compared to a $1k toilet bowl means $700 savings. multiply that by say 6 toilets will mean about $4k in savings. don't splurge on smart switches, etc. do normal ones which are non-designer stuff opt for half height tiling for toilets unless necessary like in shower areas. you save on the cost of tiles and labour for tiling. but still need to pay for plastering and painting which is still cheaper than tiling. for flooring, marble would be most expensive. getting big homogeneous tiles for living room will look good as well. if you like hard wood floor for rooms, get parquet instead of engineered wood. else just do tiling as well for the rooms. light fixtures can order online from China. can save quite a substantial amount as well though you may need to pay the electrician to install them since your main-con can't earn from this. for ceiling fans, no need to buy those $400 and up DC fans when a $200 AC fan will perform the same job. unless you want to splurge $3k on a 84 inch Haiku fan to make your house look grand, else getting a few normal ceiling fans or standing fans will also work. the ducting for ducted aircon will cost much more than the aircon unit itself. get ceiling cassette units to save on the cost. if you can live with exposed beams on the ceilings, tell your main-con or PE that you do not want to have false ceilings and ask the PE to design flat beams instead. a normal beam will be about 500mm to 600mm thick whereas a flat beam will be about 300mm to 400mm thick. no false ceilings = $$$ saved for the roof structure, can ask the PE to design using steel columns and beams instead of RC. then do a metal roof. this will cut the construction time as well as lower the cost a bit. sliding windows are cheaper than casement windows. no need to pay extra for low emission glass as normal glass will work. if want to block out the sun, do solar films later on. doing normal metal railings will be much cheaper than glass railings. anyway, there's many things that can be done to cut costs. how much the house costs eventually really depends on how much you want to splurge on the finishes. by cutting down on the luxury finishes, you can save quite a bit of costs on the construction.

My bed has finally arrived! Added a bedside table once I have confirmed I have enough space for one. 😍

It has been more than 2 years since my last update. Recently I painted the recess area of the wall in my master bedroom to make it like a feature wall.

interesting that your contractor's workers build the brick wall first before erecting a concrete stiffener to tie the brick wall to. my main contractor's workers always cast the concrete stiffeners first then build the brick walls. I suppose the recessed area on the left is for your meter compartment. from the photos it looks like the workers just lay the bricks to abut your neighbour's boundary wall column. hope that in future if your neighbour redevelops the house and tears down the column, it won't affect/damage your meter compartment.

Great workmanship and reliable contractor. Renovation Journey Within our budget. Cheers Renovation Forum. Sharing is Caring

Also theres this story about a bad ID online. didn't name which but helpful to know what to look out for with your own experience. "#1 Multiple and continuous errors in the quotations There were errors in the quotations from the very start, which should have been a warning sign. We didn’t let it affect us because we figured they were busy, there were so many items on the list, it’s still a work in progress, blah blah blah. Because this also meant we had to double, triple check the invoices. We simply couldn’t trust them to do a good job. And boy, we spotted so many mistakes. At one point, we pointed out SIX mistakes in one short invoice. The revised invoice had mistakes, too. Our final payment also had an item that was supposedly from another project. For the record, I don’t think they were trying to cheat us of our money – they were just sloppy and unprofessional. " ya'll can read more here: 99.co/blog/singapore/my-bto-reno-was-stressful-learn-from-my-mistakes/

Here's the man himself if anyone's interested! Good service, very professional and responsible, and even vacuumed after!

So the tiling work begins and I think it was very well done. I even looked at the spacing in between the tiles and they are really very straight. I got regular updates from my contractor and I didnt really need to go down though I still did. But I went down for only 15 minutes. And he just told me that the drawing will be out pretty soon.

@matchalatte i think trunking and hacking is independent as long as your trunking pipes are not going on the wall you want to hack! my beam is in the middle of 2 walls, hence the length of the aircon is restricted! @Viv14344 hehehe i love them too, hope they look as nice on my home too! A small peeve. saw some cigarette butts on my home on several occasions. Must be the hackers and aircon people. Told contractor M about that and he said he will put up a no smoking sign and remind workers not to smoke in the home.Look at what he drew for me! so cute! I guess i am just being anal, i don't want my floor tiles to be laid with the cigarette butts underneath forever, not being able to see the daylight forever. Let's hope i don't see this again! Laminates Galore i practically koped back all the catalogues that contractor M has from his office. He uses EDL and Jennings. Didn't really hear of them before. Guess i am only exposed to Lamitak that is like widely used in renotalk. But i am quite impressed with EDL. I get to order sample laminates from their website (See below) and they do a door delivery the next working day free of charge! YAY. Don't really have to make my way to Sungei Kadut their office to see the laminates, though i think the sample size will be in bigger pieces there. Settled this for my Kitchen! Upper cabinet (style white), and lower cabinet (bleu vif) Both in matte. I know, kill me right now, matt laminate in kitchen, especially the blue one is face palm. I did a greasy fingerprint test on the sample, and yes, as expected, there's a greasy mark. Never mind, going close 1 eye because i love blue and i love this colour combination for my kitchen. Not going to be so anal about this. At most i shall just wipe it after every cookout session. In fact i was contemplating over lamitak nautical laminate but contractor M advised against it, as he said it's too dark, and will look like almost black at different angles and time of the day. Praying this blue will be perfect. I seriously only have a few shades of blue in my brain that i can accept. For style white, it's an off-white laminate that he recommended. he says that off-white laminate will not turn yellow over time. Yes, this colour combination will go super well with shaker cabinets, but i guess i am not going for it for 2 reasons. 1. the kind of shaker i want - wood trimmings is quite pricey. 2. trap more oil within the shaker style cabinets Now just need to crack my brain over my bathroom vanity and wardrobe laminates. probably going for some woody laminates. The husband, shared a concern with me, which i found valid (and the concern is in my title). He feels hard to imagine how our house will look like, because he is someone who likes to copy (and he likes the scandi, muji style) where he say things are uniformed. all white, all wood, etc. But for our house, he has seen some of my ideas and buys thus far, from lights that look country-style to antique etc, a persian rug i am eyeing, that herringbone console that i bought from commune, and a green wall!!, he cannot imagine. To be honest, i can't imagine that much too, and that there isn't a focal theme for our house. i can only assure him that the elements that are uniformed is that the house is still mainly white, and wood.

Been a silent lurker for a while, and really got a lot of inspos and useful feedback from you guys so decided to contribute! What a funny theme i have right? Even i am unsure how it will turn out since we are engaging a contractor and not an ID, so i dont get to see those autocad drawings. However, my contractor draws very nicely too with his trusty pen and paper, so for now i am still hopeful i will get my desired home! Some of the major works i will be doing 1. Hacking away my kitchen wall. this was an ongoing debate between my husband and I. Hacking the wall really makes the area more spacious. we don't cook, neither do we know how to cook. However, i do have those dream one day i can be whipping up delicious meals that my mum does, and i think my husband think that this cooking activity is more of playtime rather than really filling up our stomachs because he claimed it's expensive and time consuming to cook for 2, and there are so many food choices near us. I have also heard of stories of friends telling me that even frying an egg is disastrous in an open concept kitchen. the whole living room gets oily too Nonetheless, i pat myself on the back on the decision finally made and hope i don't regret. 2. Tiling my living room, passage way, and 3 bedrooms with wood-like tiles! 8K went into here, and i just had to choose my made in italy tiles 3. Converting 1 room into a wardrobe. Due to those structural walls in the wrong places in the house, i basically cannot hack any rooms. So i guess i can't call my room a walk in wardrobe. At best, i can only call it a changing room. my dad is even worse, he calls it a storeroom for clothes. 4. Building a 5 feet vanity cabinet at the master bedroom toilet with quartz top. This is another ouch cost! But i just cannot withstand solid surface top and the potential stains it will give me 5. My master bedroom toilet door. Not sure if you can see from my floor plan, but the layout of the masterbedroom toilet is horrendous!! we can't even build a swing door for the shower area due to the HDB given door that obstructs all space. So off the door goes!! one of the saddest thing my husband witnessed. He hates to pay money to remove existing stuff and pay money to rebuilt it. So he is shaking his head in helplessness at my 2 vanity basin and the bathroom door all removed! Wont really share my quote here, as this contractor is from a friend recommendation and i think i had a better price, and i dont wish to share till i really see for myself the quality of his carpentry! But you can see some of his drawings below! Really not bad right!! (Yes, i am having a dark green wall- and i think i am going blind from choosing all the green)

With the new entrance, I lost my storeroom but gained a new bedroom. In order to provide an alternative storage space, a new W2300xD600xH2000mm storage cabinet was created at the wall of the new bedroom. Please refer to the 3D drawings above.

Varying! Time to update your reno progress! MsBunny has updated her blog so is your turn!

Another link from member ncs1999 for Alvin Aw from Matrix concept http://www.renotalk.com/forum/topic/45215-cck-5i-plats/

On the topic of roof tiles, since it was being brought up, someone asked what would I do? Let me share my thought process how I came to the decision to replace them. For roof tiles, there are few options: 1) You can keep it as it is and don't do anything if it does not leak which one of my neighbour did when he renovated his house. This appeared to save a lot of $, but after he moved in, a few months later, the roof leaks, and he now got headache. Because all his furnitures, bed, wardrobes all in, by replacing roof, there will be lots of disturbance. By the way, his roof and mine are more than 25 years old. 2) If some parts are leaking, thinking of just replacing the defective parts, but can't be sure other parts will be defective soon, since these roof tiles are same 'age' and subject to the same weather conditions, if some parts are deteriorating, others will soon follow. 3) Change the entire roof to the full piece metal composite type of modern roof - nice and reliable, but very high cost, because the structures supporting it will need to be changed. The high cost killed the idea. These type of full piece metal composite roof will be suitable for new built where the new structures can be designed for it, not suited for A&A. 4)One of the cheapest method is retain the same roof, and apply coating. Cost is cheap, about 25%~30% when compared to replacing the entire roof with new clay type of roof. However, personally, i am of the opinion that coating - (where the tiles are washed, then sealer is applied, then about 2 layers of membrance is sprayed using power jet spray) will not last as long as replacing the new roof, obvious warranty is lesser,and now only rely on the top membrane coating to protect against sun and rain. OK if there is limited budget. But risk is surely higher than new roof. 5)Last but not least, total replacement, using clay type of roof. Since my previous was concrete roof, which had cracked, turned porous, and infected with fungus and algae, and throughout the years, the concrete had become 'brittle'. Replace with the proven clay roof, as it has high heat resistance, (and unlike metal, which can be noisy if rain falls,) clay is quite 'sound -proofing'. and can use back the same batten and truss, only when take out the old concrete tiles, then can check and replace those batten which were defective, cost is much controlled. And at the same time, replace the insulation and secure with a new wire mesh, + false ceiling later on, now we can sleep in peace...... Old roof: new roof:

Hi Folks, Just thought to share the work done by Alvin for my 3rm house, as I noticed there's not much reviews given to Alvin and especially for those whom might have approach him and wants to "see" his work. Like Cain mentioned: My hubby & I faced the same doubt, when we compared his quote to 3 other IDs. Well, we are not disappointed lor and was extremely satisfied with Alvin's sincerity to do-up our house, especially since ours is only a 3rm (which I felt most other IDs are not interested to do such a small project) + the quality materials we had and well-done worksmanship. A Little Background: Our house is aged at 40+ yrs old and being the only 2ND owner of the house, I'm sure most of you can imagine the "retro-ness" of the house. The entire house concept is designed by Alvin once he knows what kind of lifestyle we want. Anyway, I've done up a clip for our memory @ + to "show-off" also... No worries - It's not a virus....

Elden Lim squandered our $100,000 spends his time deleting negative but true comments on social media Company name: Minimo Studio/Minimology by Minimo/Laaab Designer & founder: Elden Lim Class act of deceit by founder of the firm. 27 June 2019: Paid design fee 23 September 2019: 25% upon confirmation 5 October: 40% upon commencement of work 7 October 2019: Renovation commencement day 1 19 January 2020: Delivery of carpentry (LITERALLY 2 PARTS OF THE HOUSE, PARTIAL) 23 June 2020: It has been a year since we had met and engaged Elden/Minimo/Laaab (multiple company names) to furnish our matrimonial home, and more than 8 months since our renovation commencement, our apartment is left hanging and unfinished. Our calls and texts have gone unanswered, eventually blocked our contacts. Elden squandered our money and threw his partner under the bus by not releasing funds to complete our project. AVOID SOMEONE WITH ZERO CONSCIENCE LIKE ELDEN LIM/MINIMO AT ALL COSTS!@Renotalk team, happy to provide documentation like contract and photos to support my claims and review

yes a total failure company and **** head MGMT team.. JOE CHAN lie and talk back about his responsible job task. a total ****HEAD!! ..