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Just some additional proof that we have been enjoying the comforts of our own home, photos of some of the meals that we have whipped up. These are mostly quick fix dishes as we do cook on weekdays after a hard day of work, just as we gradually adapt ourselves to steel cookware and a built-in oven which are new to us.

After what seemed like 1000 years, we finally got our sofa! This is how our living area look now... Our socialising area.... Cosy corner.... Ensuite bedroom And not forgetting, our toys display glass showcase

I have started our renovations for about 1 month. Finally decided to start a blog to document the journey. I have seen a couple of my neighbour sharing their reno journey too.. so my floorplan is not something new. Floor Plan did not have the before pictures but i guess can refer to DarkWingZ's blog. The only difference is that i did not take the HDB tiles. http://www.renotalk.com/forum/topic/65739-construction-of-our-little-estimos-nest/

Hi all, I'm new here. I have bought my lightings and fans from JB for my BTO 4 rooms flat. And I was quoted as below, 1. Installation of 26 Nos of lighting point and LED Light @ $ 910.00 2. Installation of 4 nos of fans @ $ 180.00 3. Installation of 8 Nos of double power point @ $440.00 4. Installation of 2 nos of single power point @ $ 90.00 5. Installation of 1 TV point @ $ 60.00 6. Installation of 2 nos of heater @ $ 100.00 7. Installation of 4 nos of T5 @ $ 32.00 8. Installation of 1 door bell @ $10.00 9. Installation of 1 no. Hood and 1 no of oven point @ $160.00 10.installation of 2 nos kitchen ceiling light @ $ 20.00 Total cost: $ 2002.00 Should I engage his service? Pls advice. TQVM

Hi Everyone, My wife and I have been reading the posts on this forum for a while now, and we have found it extremely helpful. Hence, we would like to start our own renovation blog to share our experience with this forum as well as ask the friendly folks here for advice / opinions when we need them =) Our renovation just started a week ago but we’ll be starting this blog from our house hunting experience. In short, we decided not to buy BTO before I proposed. After I proposed, we tried for 2 Sale of Balance flat exercises but were unable to secure a house (those remaining at our turn were to be completed only in mid-2015). We then decided to get a resale flat as neither my wife nor I wanted to stay at our parent’s place for long. Our criteria for the flat was pretty straightforward I think. We wanted a place that wasn’t too expensive, near amenities like food and shops, and of course accessible. We also didn’t want a flat that was too old (more than 20 years) and quickly settled on a place in Hougang. My agent arranged for a couple of house-viewing and we decided to offer a price for one unit on the day itself. The owner agreed and we were then one step closer to being home owners! Here is a floor plan of our unit. We’ll share our experience getting an ID in our next post =)

The thread is moving fast and furious! Many new home owners sharing their journey and that's great haha. Just recalled I have taken photos of the actual turnout of my wardrobe configuration First compartment - Shelvings Second compartment - For bags, drawers n clothes. Third compartment - For clothes and some drawers. Fourth compartment - Hubby's corner. Mirrors at each compartment for convenient trying of clothes! Certainly hope the space is enough!

Continue from previous post Living Room (White Lights - Cove Lights) Console with side cupboard for Internet & PowerBox Shoe Cabinet (More shelves will be added at later time)

House is currently 85% done I guess. Carpentry is done except for some rectifications. Currently left with painting, cleaning of the place & defect rectifications. Below are the pictures of the house : Kitchen (Left - Right) MBR Wardrobe (Stuff from TaoBao storing inside temporary)

You may lias with only 1 contractor who is overall in charge but this will usually result in higher costing and usually similar to ID costing (However note that the costing do not vary that much) If you can source various contractors yourself it will be much cheaper mostly. However sourcing the various contractors yourself, you will need the following : 1. Knowing clearly what you want and planning in advance. 2. You got to follow up with the Reno closely as when defect is out, mostly each contractor will push to the other party 3. You need good time management of how things are to proceed. 4. You need a lot of free time as you are the person to supervise everything 5. No advise from anyone mostly when you meet with issues like color, placement, how wiring should be run and etc Hope this help and good luck for your Reno.

More Pictures.

I have quote with few ID company for 3 room, kitchen & 2 toilet plus kitchen cabinet n tiles is around $25k inc GST.

Love the laminate you chose!

I think 15 to 20 years is long enough to justify a renovation, especially for the kitchen. Kitchen cabinets are normally wood and with moisture (especially near/below the sink), they would have deteriorate. At the stove and with overhand cabinets over it, the heat would also have cause the wood/formica to deteriorate too. Toilets too. This is a wet area. I think waterproofing have limited lifespan and will need to replace. Other areas in the house, I think it is not necessary if carefully maintain. My opinion only.

Good for you. I am not like you. Living in a 4 room HDB, not other real estate. Insurance, minimum only. No investment. Owns a car (pre-own) but bought it base on budget. Primarily need it for work, so company gave an allowance for it. Otherwise won't be affordable for me. Weekday, family duty is a driver to send everyone to MRT station and school before I send myself to work. Weekend, family duty is to be maid. Wife not the kind that do housework, so I have to do laundry, ironing, house cleaning, toilet washing, etc.... When things break down, I transform into the handy man (or I try my best). So I DIY mainly to save that $. But I do enjoy it (at least most of the time).

amazon has free shipping to sg now? But only on very selected items right? Thats wonderful news, and i'm obviously quite late.. Never liked amazon because of the price of shipping! Guess i'll pop by now! PS the fatboy beanbags look great!

roundegg,Yolla,mysapporo, have drop you people a PM. Just for some sharing, There is pre-renovation sale ongoing at Home-Fix at Marina Square with discount up to 30%. Padlock brands such as Viro, Duro, Abloy , Yale, Vinnai and etc are on a 10% discount when i visited and there are also demo of the Yale digital lock on promotion ( comes with free installation and at least $100 cheaper). A few products at home-fix MS is slightly cheaper after the promo. I am considering the following gate-mounted padlocks which can be openned using one hand. 1)Duro Padlock Art No 338 at MS HomeFix -> $140 (rounded off) After 10% discount is about $126(cheapest), This model is selling at the hardware shop at Textile center for about $130. -come with 4 keys. -10 years warranty -DIY installation -could not remember if the 1 key system (envelope, Main door and Gate Padlock) price, could remember if it was 200 or 230 before discount. 2)Vanni Padlock Art No 6868 at MS HomeFix -> $70 ( forgot the price, remember around that range) After 10% discount is about 63++ (forgot the price) -DIY installation -comes with 6 keys 3)Castle lock from SingLock at $138 -3 Years warranty -6 keys -Free installation -Additional of $68 for 1 keys system.(Main gate padlock and door) Others 4)Mul-t lock system -Also considering about this model but surprisingly when i went to one of the so-called distributor at the shop, the staff dun seem to understand what i am trying to get, so i left without any clue about it. http://www.mul-t-lock.com/en/site/Mul-T-Lock/Products/?groupId=95 5)Abloy locks -Military grade lock used in camps, hardly see any physical shop carrying it but it seems to be around $200- 600 depending on model type.

My first house purchase. A kitchen mixer from insani. Received the goods in good order. Satisfied as of now. Hope it works after installation. I got the rest of the shower accessories from Heritage and sanitary wares from wasser bath. My 60 inch big *** fan... i opt for white as the living room is not really that big...and having a black thing towering above me gives me a feeling of having a giant moth above me... My fav SONY brand tv.. I am a sucker for Sony products... the only samsung product in my house as i could not afford a fisher .. lol Sonos play bar and subwoofer

Don't be lazy, google it.

Toilet Accessories For the common toilet, we got the mirror and mirror lighting from Ikea to add a touch of retro to the design. Need to tidy up the wires a bit. Finally my custom toilet accessories get installed today. My toilet roll holder made from steel pipes. Got a TB vendor to make it based on my design. Never run of toilet paper again! Railing for hanging towels. Really have a fetish over these red knobs! So ordered 3 of these but not too sure where to put them. Any suggestions? One idea i can think of is to use it to hang bathrobes. At the end, we put it on the wall near the main door. Will probably hang something on it.

It's been a while since we mentioned anything about the design, previous posts were all about the things we bought. Time to give some updates. Design has been confirmed! Contractor has been engaged. And today is the start of renovation! We took quite long to settle on the designs because the husband is more concern about budget and the wife is more concern about the design. So many rounds of trying to strike a balance between value and aesthetics. But here are the designs. Most of the stuff shown in the designs, like the study with black frames and the brick wall, we are definitely doing. However, for the media console and the full height cabinet... no matter how much we love it and how much time we spent on the design, after seeing the quote, we won't sure if we can afford to realise it. At the moment, it is beyond our budget, so we have to leave it aside. Till we become rich or when money drop from the sky one day, we need to look for an alternative media console off the shelf. We are doing the brick wall! To minimise the cost, we have it at the smaller wall. Haha. The kitchen! The side with the fridge and oven has customised measurements instead of the usual 60 cm depth for the bottom cabinet. This is to compensate for the bomb shelter's loading wall eating into the kitchen on the left resulting in the bottom cabinet to be roughly less than 60 cm in depth. The fridge and the oven gets the deeper end of approx 75 cm in depth. For the side with the hood, hob, sink and dish rack. The only not-so-standard thing we did was to make sure the base of top cabinet is aligned with the base where the dish rack goes. For the 2 bathrooms, we are going for almost similar design with a box out niche feature at the shower area. Each bathroom has a slightly varied design for the mirror and storage. We are also choosing different tile and laminate for each bathroom. (Will update the choices of tiles and laminate in another post ) On the renovation end, our contractor is Jake of Z L Construction. He is recommended by our ID. We have met up with Jake a few times to bombard him with a lot of questions before we signed them on. They are not lowest quote around, plus we have to pay for GST. But we are assured of the commitment and the quality, judging from their previous work and the rapport we have with him. Just to add, they are HDB registered. Let's hope our choice is right. But judging from the first day of reno, his team is made up of uncles... those kind that are super experienced and know exactly what they are doing. (Don't need to see HDB electrical drawing, they know where is what kind.) They just auto-pilot once they got to our place. Especially when they are asking us to confirm things, they can recommend what looks nice and what works very quickly. All while we were still trying to understand what is going on. Also to add, not that we are xenophobic, but there aren't any PRC or bangla workers, all of them speak Singapore type of mandarin and some English. So now we just cross our fingers and hope that our reno turns out nice and good. That's all for now.

Aiiiii... I am tempted to buy the sonos play bar plus sub woofer... Super nice ... $112 rebate off from the electrical fair at suntec ...

My functional mop station I would like to show some pics of my low-cost and very useful mop station. It doesn't look that nice, but it is very useful and flexible. The mop station comprises one Grundtal towel rail ($12.90) and three Grundtal rail ($6.90 each). All are from Ikea. Mr Yeak's workers did the mounting. image by Harriette_Tan, on Flickr image by Harriette_Tan, on Flickr I can use S hooks to hold detergent bottle and mops. image by Harriette_Tan, on Flickr I can use water jug to hold laundry powder. image by Harriette_Tan, on Flickr

Tefal Actifry We have used the Tefal Actifry to cook curry chicken, fried bee hoon and fried prawns. Very convenient. This machine is able to contain the smoke, oil and fumes well. A kitchen hood is not necessary. image by Harriette_Tan, on Flickr image by Harriette_Tan, on Flickr image by Harriette_Tan, on Flickr We chose the Tefal Actifry coz it can cook "Chinese/local dishes" like the above-mentioned, instead of a Philip AirFryer which can't.

Choosing a contractor: my experience I contacted a total of 5 contractors about 2 months before getting the key 1. first contractor I chanced upon his company on renotalk - no t-blogs named this contractor. 2. two contractors were through reading t-blogs on renotalk - the owners openly recommended these contractors 3. the remaining were through friends First I contact them via phone - speak to them - see whether can communicate Then described the reno work briefly. Then sent floor plan with scope of work via email. The floor plan and scope of work should be the same for every contractor you send to. This will help you to compare the quotation across all of them. My considerations were 1. Relatively lean budget I was very upfront about stating that I wanted to keep costs low. To me that meant no fancy designs. I wanted a clean and updated space so I can furnish and decorate. One way to keep costs low is have as little work as possible e.g. minimize cabinetry and false ceilings. For instance no TV feature wall, no false ceiling in living room, no shoe cabinets, no fancy pole system wardrobe, no walk-in wardrobe (WIW). I managed to see quite a few budgets from reno-talkers and if you look closely cabinetry/feature walls are one of the big ticket items. Minimizing these items means these savings can be used to buy nice furniture/decor that can create the look you desire. Also, no unnecessary hacking. Initially my plan was to hack the flooring of the living room/kitchen/bedroom and re-tile. However after speaking to one of the contractors, the floor is already flat! Why hack, just overlay instead! Moreover when they hack flooring, must re-do concrete screed and this may not be as smooth and flat. More hacking means more costs i.e. one more day of x number of banglas to hack floor, clear hubris, extra haulage costs. All these costs add up and also extra time needed! Once I told them about my lean budget, immediately 2 contractors didn't bother to give me quotation anymore despite me sending floor plan and scope of work. That's good cos both parties dont waste time. I also would not bother following up. If they dont want your business, they dont want your business. 2. Able to start work on my reno once I get the key Ask them directly whether the time frame you anticipate your reno to start and end is feasible for them. No point getting quotation then realise the contractor got too many projects and yours have to wait. If they are unable to commit resource to your reno project, confirm double confirm delay one. Also if after speaking with contractor and their next available follow-up appointment is like 2-3 weeks away, I immediately did not bother to follow-up. This guy likely very stretched among many projects and you will have to "fight" for his time and attention. 3. Experienced - must be able to tell me if my suggestion is not practical and offer alternatives I think this one is quite intuitive. Very hard to assess and based on feel. I feel more comfortable when I describe my idea and the contractor immediately told me what his concerns were. Those that just say ok without much questions made me uncomfortable. Surely miss things out in the quotation and you will have lots of VO (variation order) later. This happened to me - I planned to hack the wall and one contractor just quote me for hacking and erecting a new wall. But missed out the costs of making good the hacked area. This involved getting a new false ceiling in kitchen i.e. few hundred bucks! So his quote was missing some vital components. 4. His network of sub-contractors A good contractor is an excellent project manager and has good sub-cons that he engages i.e. tiling/wet works, demolitions/hacking, electrician, plumbing. Always ask where his sub-cons are from - Malaysia? China? Generally Malaysians will be better especially tiling. Demolitions/hacking - Bangla can already but usually have a Chinese supervisor. And another good question to ask is whether the sub-cons he usually engages will be doing your reno also. No point if he has good sub-cons but they are tied up in another project! You can view workmanship of his sub-cons by visiting his completed projects. If the workmanship is satisfactory - ask whether the same sub-cons will be used for your project. Also when you view the project, take note of all the small details like how the air-con trunking/piping is hidden. See whether you can tell or not. If you cant tell, good! Heh I was very fortunate to visit a reno-talkers EM and was very very impressed with the workmanship! Plus the contractor did it within a very lean budget and completed project AHEAD OF SCHEDULE. So rare that reno complete ahead of schedule lor! The owner was extremely grateful to the contractor and I could tell the contractor had a lot of pride in his work. Definitely very reassuring and made me confident to sign the quotation.