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Its really hard to have cheap and good in Sg becos almost everyone also wants the same thing but oh well, we still try our luck lah. We got our Anchorvale Horizon BTO flat keys in early April and after a full month of consulting 5 different IDs and contractors alike, we finally settled on our current contractor, Nick from Renoguyz. To be honest, initially we didn't even considered Nick for various reasons: 1) Too sloppy looking. Look as if he isn't serious. When we brought him to our house and told him the many things we wanted done in our house, he just looked around and went "hmm... hor...orh....orh..." without even taking any notes at all! *Another factor that WOWED us later is that despite not taking down any notes that day, within 24hrs Nick emailed us the quotation with all our comments in detail! This guy may look blur but he's actually very alert of what's going on around him!* 2) Too blunt and too honest. I die die wanted to have my dream of a bathtub in my MBR toilet. Nick kept putting me down and said difficulty such as aircon piping issues, height, etc etc.... to Nick, practically more important. So we went on to get quotations and consultations with 3 other contractors and ID. For the amount of work that we are planning to reno our flat: MBR wardrobe, bay side window, MBR toilet with cabinet shelving and bathtub, living room feature wall, false ceiling and kitchen cabinets. No flooring to be done as ours us the Premium scheme from HDB. We almost picked another contractor who had a good portfolio doing up for MBS until.... my hubby being the sharp one, spotted a quotation from Nick that the latter quoted us for quartz kitchen table top. The other contractor that we almost picked quoted the same cost as Nick, only that his quotation had solid surface table top instead. That means Nick's quotation is cheaper by 2k. 2k is alot for young couples like us as we have to factor in other miscellaneous costs from furnishings to electrical appliances and even our system 4 aircon. So that's when we decided to go ahead with Nick. No wonder he was recommended by one of my estate neighbor who have read good awesome reviews on Nick from Renoguyz. And being a kiasu lady, prior to my confirmation with Nick, I googled his company's name, his name and even his HP number to make sure I'm throwing my dollar at the right person. Guessed after all my initial impression of him is no less different from the other reviewers: sloppy, dazed and blur looking, blunt, but he gives cheap yet very good workmanship. So the whole reno loan process went on and after a few more time of meeting up with Nick we began to like him more. His top 优点 is Integrity. He has his reasons for being blunt which is giving the best work done for his customer. Like how I wanted so much to get chandelier lighting from taobao (cos many of my friends are using the same chandelier and it looks very nice. And cheap too.) for my dining table but Nick says no because the whole look won't fit our quasi Scandinavian-Modern Resort look. I didn't believed him at first and secretly went to Photoshop the 3D design with the mentioned chandelier and I was shocked by how good his visualization is. The chandelier indeed stood out like a sore thumb against the backdrop. Sometimes, lesser is always better. We started to like Nick even more. He rather say No to us than have the whole work end up crap looking. So much so that we ended up consulting him on the colors and types of matching furnishings to pair with the wall colors, cabinet laminates, the full length wall mirror, etc... Thats the good thing about Nick that my husband likes: brutally honest but it's for the good of the customer. Some customers may want their own designs/colors becos they look nice to the customers themselves but may actually not be nice at all becos of the clash. Nick is the sort that he tells us No means No. Yea, we kena lectured by him a few times cos we asked for some colors and designs that actually ended up looking ugly. We rather he be honest and give us the good workmanship than be a Yes man to whatever we wanted and end up look like crap house that is neither here nor there. Yes Man sales tactics never worked for us. I forgot to add too, for Nick's very low profit margin quotation (no wonder he charge so cheap cos he spoil market ), he gives a value added service as an ID (Nick had prior experience as an ID at D'Trenzo) without the ID cost. One ID we consulted quoted us 32k for less than what Nick offered at $24k despite the ID himself being the spouse of my husband's friend. I'll post pics of my 3D design flat in this post soon as my flat is still in the process of renovation. So far almost 2 weeks have past and my beloved bathtub and false ceiling is up. The carpentry is gonna happen this week and I'm too excited over it. I'm posting this up first as so far I'm very satisfied with what we've gotten. I will update more in this post as I go along over the next few weeks.

My sis's place main door has electronic with fingerprint function.... If you usually have problems with fingerprints recognition devices then you will have problems with this fingerprint technology. Niece's hands not sure is too wet or too dry or too whatever....her fingerprints can never clear the Singapore custom's biometric gates coz her thumbprint cannot be matched. And her fingerprints can't clear her home's electronic door lock as well. Always gets an error message. She's using password to unlock the door. It doesn't have to be the thumb by the way. I see my sis registered her forefinger print.

I also got similar problem and similar answer as you. Except that in my case, the contractor was not angry but also explained no space, if use thicker will damage etc, if I really want, they will rip out the old trunking, put in the new trunking, but if damage cannot blame them etc etc. Alamak, basically put me in a spot, so much so that I decided to just leave it. I think it is not that we really want the thicker ones, but we feel kind of "cheated". If contractor wants to use some other size, should at least tell us before doing so.

wow very long service yard!! and 123sqm is so spacious!! i like your t-blog title. in chinese it sounds very heartwarming "hui jia chi fan" hehe

Only online gets 6% rebate. Sounds reasonable but this is become an excuse to shop more then.

Updates from us! Rectification work and repainting going on this week. side tables and lamps are being fixed, holes are being plastered and walls are being smooth out. Contractor cant wait to handover and we cant wait to be done by next week. Going to spend our NDP weekend cleaning and stuff. As it is still ghost festival we cannot "move in" so we will spend august cleaning and moving our furniture in. Please await our fully furnished home pictures! At this stage we are really keen to learn from already completed reno owners on what they wish they did or what they wish they splurged on as we really want to stay in our place for a long time and both wife and I are noobs when it comes to fixing lights, taps and such From our end things we learnt thus far: -Always draw what you want or always draw and show your contractor what you want. Especially when it comes to tiles and placement of basins ( we learn this the hard permanent damage way). Afterall your contractor is a hands on person, not an ID so don't expect that design common sense to come to them. - know the house and its limitations, readers of our blogs will know our pain of living with UN-concealed pipes/ wiring. -no amount of reading or research helps, renovation and interior design is like a trigger happy element to us as we are hardly around when the workers are there, or should I say, the workers are hardly working! -in lieu of this, wifey decided that important structures will take up 50% of the house and 80% of the cost, the rest she decided to splurge on furniture and lights ( but she still very budget, no Grafunkt or Commune items no matter how gorgeous they were). We had a talk last weekend and she was complaining she made the house what it is ( there are flaws too honey but the art of good marriage is the husband has to keep quiet) and she feels I just floated around for the ride and never reward her or praise her, I promised her some surprise on the day we move in, wish me luck buddies! For the other less creative and passive spouses , do take time to reward the other hardworking (aka uptight) spouse for their efforts in the reno process! Over and out ( until next weekend maybe with pics!) LHWH

Hi chiang80, Go for Grohe/ Handsgrohe. These amazing German products are still shiny (reat rust free) and silky smooth (handling) as day one. I had an unfortunate leak in my Grohe rainshower head, but the Excellent service reps from Grohe had them replaced at no charge even after 3years! They maybe a handful to pay at the intial but the quality and service are worth your bucks!

Hi Puggy, yes thats right. at first they told me need 2 weeks... but after payment they ship out in 2~3 days.. Hi Yongshiz, i dont have the actual photo.. but those on the manual should help.. need to drill two holes with screws for this to hook up.. hi hellonub, yeap.. thats the style we hope to achieve.. thanks for the compliment! hi guojiawen, i will go take a closer look over the weekend and share with you.. thanks PTopaz! i guess he is quite good.. everytime there is an issue, he will settle it no questions asked.. (but then again, me and mrs are very easy going...so we didn't 'complain' much..).. haha.. like for this case.. i have no intention to voice it out, since its a norm. but to my surprise the lines were covered up few days after.. not all.. but at least those that are not covered.. lets hope the standard can maintain till the work finish... hahaha..

Uploading photos (Thanks to a Renotalk friend's advise): OK, I must remember to do it this way : 1. Sign in 2. Go to Gallery (if unsure, go to T-blogs and go via Pinned How to post photos post 3. When in gallery, choose category on RHS 4. At bottom, can see "Choose photo" or something like that. Click it, will take you to your PC, choose yr photo folder 5. Select yr photo. It uploads. Done. 6. To load that photo into a post in an existing or new thread, click to open new post window 7. Go via another window (that's how I do it) to the gallery category where I uploaded that photo, select that photo 8. Click on Options (it's a black box) on RHS 9a. Choose and copy the Image Link code. 10a. Go to your posting window and select the Image icon (above the box where you write your stuff), and then Paste the code into the little box that appears. Your photo appears! I post this here for reference cause I always forget how to do it.

My lights from TB are finally here and installed over the weekend. After that, I have patched the holes in the ceiling and painted the ceiling too! My living room lights! I have chosen white color to match my living room's colour- mint color! ">http:// I thought the light bulbs are white color but it turns out to be slightly yellowish... ">http://> I love how the lights look in my mint color living room!

Hello cj8888, We did not build false ceiling at the study and ceiling. From the distribution box, to the left, we ran exposed round conduit on the edges of the living room and to the right, we have normal box PVC trunking to the study. Round conduit at the living room area that we will install track lights Final look: Exposed round conduit on the perimeter of the living room. On the study side, we build minimal partitions to hide the PVC box trunking and. At the top right hand corner of this image, the white box trunking is still exposed, because we decided that building partitions will make it even more obvious. Hope this explains clearly

Chances of more than 500 are slim now, especially after the first round of purchase. Even if one is shopping frequently on Amazon, max hitting SGD300 will stop to avoid GST. So planning is important when buying.

Sharing my experience. I engaged a contractor too, after sourcing through many IDs. Contractor cheaper than IDs for same work done. Reno has started, hope it completes well too. So far so good. Good workmanship and very responsive. Got pics in my t-blog. pm me if you want his contact number.

Omg... I thought the wording in pale purple is the watermark ... Seriously they really need to do better than that ...

Check out the creativity and innovation: http://www.messynessychic.com/2012/05/07/12-tiny-***-apartment-design-ideas-to-steal/

Your laminate floor indeed gorgeous. From which company? Can give me the link?

i'm confused by the brands for ceiling fans.... almasco, crestar, franco, kdk, ... gosh... which is good? am looking for ceiling fans with good bright lights.

OMG not only their product sucks...they have such a bad ethic too. Initially wanted to install PD door, but my contractor friend adviced against it. He told me the door very easy to spoil.