Pesadelo

OMG i really love your design. Unfortunately my wife is not as daring as me, lol she prefer standard template design. Initially we also dig the glass panel in Master bedroom design as we thought the room would look brighter in the day but scrapped it later due to not daring to make it happen.

Contractors also not "Bao" everything one.. we've gone through some, his own workers etc can do tiling, hacking etc but carpentry, electrical works he also outsource one, so he also earn a portion from it, no different from ID. Perhaps tiling part a bit cheaper, that's all. Still.. to me end of the day things get done best by 1 co-ordinator. I've done a mistake to sub my door/window out, end up i've to make calls here and here to co-ordinate between my ID and the window contractor and when there's issue, lagi sianz...he wait for him, he wait for him to finish this 1st etc...

Pic 1 - 60 + Pic 2 - 100+ Pic 3 - 120+ Somewhere there.. 120 + 100 + 120 = ~340 More or less i didn't see the receipt. Haven't test the quality yet so no comments. As i mentioned, 一分钱一分货. COmpared to blum i think cannot fight. but price cannot fight also, hehehehe.

I've asked.. ID says standard package is just those cabinets with doors and darwers, if you want any extra fitting, you need to supply then they'll install for you free. There's some package with free items, like mine, only free dishwasher rack. SO if i need items like these need to purchase ourselves. With these items, then when discussing size of drawer, doors etc can customised to what we've bought. Well, at least this is what i've been told, there may be ID who will settle everything for you at a higher cost maybe? ANyway these items are easy installation, just some screws to tighten by the side or bottom. If carpenter cannot do, need to knock their head leow. LOL.

More Purchase - For kitchen cabinets Total cost : $340 Location : IMM level 3 Over the weekend, we visited some shops to look for sliding drawers etc for the cabinet so that we can make necc measurement for the carpenter to know. We view in IMM mainly, didn't shop around, went to 3 shops and settled on these. There's one brand called Welmi , can see that the quality is very good but it's very costly as well. We settled on these as they're more friendly on the pocket and doesn't look too filmsy. Can't find any good item to place my forks, spoons, knifes etc... may decide on those in IKEA. Sliding drawers for some pans and such. We bought 2 of these. We had one of this so that we do not need to place those bottles of wine, vinegar etc on counter top, it'll be stored in the cabinet with this sliding storage. The last one we had is more for slightly bigger bottles, some hanging utensils etc.

End of Week 3 Changes made in midweek In the midst of tiling, we made changes to our design, we swopped places of the fridge and the full height cabinet, do away with it and install a normal 4 ft cabinet instead with solid top as we thought the cooking area of 10 ft is too small and we still need to place kettle, rice cooker etc. Here is look i generate from floorplanner. Our ID didn't complain, made some calls and fixed it before the tiling starts at that area. Nice... However, some tiny regrets as our kitchen design isn't so... egronmic in design now. We've thoughts of doing L shape but decided not to as we do not want the hallway in between cabinet and wall to be too narrow. At the end of the week, this is the look You'll notice we build concrete instead of wood cabinet for our sink as we want it to be more lasting. Didn't like the idea of water spilling sometimes and damage our wooden fixture and have to get it replacec after just 2,3 years Next week will be some final tiling works, plastering and floor laminate.

Not sure if my rpice was discounted due to total package > 40k but the discount was given with those FOC indicated. The original price was beside it so as a ref to you. (My ID's price is not cheap or expensive i think) Those things you mentioned will cost around 800 CLEANING WORK 1Clearing of debris & rubbish throughout renovation period (UP $300/-) 2Supply & lay corrugated paper for whole house flooring (UP $180/-) 3Provide chemical washing for whole house flooring (UP $180/-) 4Provide final cleaning for whole house flooring upon job completion (UP $150/-) Kitchen Per Feet (around $140) Granite top around $125. if budget can choose solid top around $85 per feet. Assuming 10 ft should cost $2250 Wall I built a 12 ft wall for storeroom but yours maybe bigger..around $1200 Make a doorway + smoothen it - around 400 Plaster smooth the wall(optional i think) - $500 Door - nyatoh one $260. Total maybe around $2000 Floor laminate is cheapest but need take good care.. suggest to go for minumum AC4 and above and not cheapest. However if you want easy mantainace and lasting one, tiles of course better. For 2 room my guess is around $3000 should cover all except kitchen. All in all under 10K is doable. and the 2 quote you've come across is roughly there as the cleaning hauling part cost less than 1K. You do not need huge disposal if you're not doing any hacking i think. but labour to bring items to house mine cost around $750but mine's quite a lot... I'd say comfortable range is around 9k to 10k ok but need to go through item by item to compare. Some ID will give you poorer quality stuff to match your budget whereas another maybe $200more in total but the item worth more than that. Look around, seek opinion. No job is too small. My brother also do minor reno like 6-7k type to do 1 toilet etc.. company still take one...unless you go for those big company you may meet ID who do not bother.

Wat's your budget? From how I see, it can be done with a contractor , however if you want some innovative ways to do it, seek ID then. Sorry can't rec any contractor to you as I've so far not working with them before, only once and he MIA after viewing the unit n promised with quotation.

End of week 2 Kinda slow but before i bring it up, ID sms me that next week will be full blast and will be able to complete within schedule. So far a bit here a bit there i also dunno what's the process? My Kitchen basin arrived today together with the tap. As I'm going to built a concrete stand for the basin, this is going to be needed to arrived 1st for the tiler side to built it in. My Basin COST : 200+ Location : Geylang area My wife is hunting long time for this design, she wants a small rubbish container sothat it's easier for her to throw small stuff when washing etc. Some might find it unhygienic etc but i think it should be fine as long as it's cleared regularly like every meal etc. Of course we had another bigger one installed below the basin. Length is 80cm, kinda small but my wife says it's enough, she doesn't a need a 2 sink type. Well.. it's her area, it's her say. My tap COST : 80+ Location : Geylang area This is my simple tap for my basin. Doesn't cost $200+ like other i've viewed. This one only cost $80+ but well similiar function as those above 200s.

Yes, in fact I saw a lot of us living in Simei n tampines 4A type all similar design. Other one is living room more squarish type with square mbr. I prefer that type though but settled on this ultimately due to high cov

I was quoted around 2K for 4A. I asked before if i could just do living and dining, 1 ID firm told me cost would be like 1k plus also, not worth it as kitchen, toilet area is not too big after tiling, only ceiling.. 3 rooms area compared to living/ dining slightly smaller also. Was told be them few hundred more no regrets later lol. I went ahead.

Week 1 - Hacking End of week 1, Pretty on schedule, they finished the hacking for all tiles, skirtings and finished my storeroom. Whole place is in a pretty mess This picture below is one of the special place in my room where it require additional hacking to the tiles and concrete steps built by previous Indian owner Week 1 - Plastering Supposed to be starting next week but i could see them doing it to 1 of my room already. The effect is much better than expected as ID says ours is old flat so do not expect a very flushed and smooth surface. As you can see from my photo below, left side is my old 'rockstone' surface which is very popular 20 years ago. Right side is the newly plastered surface (without painting). For new owners who are wondering roughly how much plastering cost. My whole 4 room flat was quoted 2K. Week 2,3 will be tiling works etc. Will update further.

3D Drawing I wouldnt go thorugh a lot with my purchase of furniture and elec items which i dun think many will be interested. Here's a few 3D drawing my ID comes up with and most (I'd say 90%) of the lights, furniture etc are the real thing as i've already purchased them and send to ID before the rendering of the drawing for more accurate look and feel. Living room Dining room There's a few block of wood as you can see in the pic as i mentioned eariler in my costing, this seperates my dining and living. If you noticed, my whole living room is seperated into tiles and wood laminate. I did asked in forum if anyone did it but seems no one did it, i didn't find much sample on the net as well but i still go ahead as ID says it should look fine. Kitchen Open concept as initial suggestion is glass door etc... 1stly costly and 2ndly, we feel it would block off all the natural wind that is flowing through from kitchen to dining. Only minus point is to take care of the oil smoke etc when cooking. Extra care. I may look into some form of sliding door in future though if it really gets worse. Master room and common room bathroom Simple and basic, nothing fancy or special but we decided to build a low wall to place our shower form, shampoo etc instead of buying those thing that screw into the wall to hang.

ID hunting and cost Was lazy so i didn't ran around a lot of ID firms to ask for quotation. We asked around 3 ID firms and 1 contractor and found price to be quite similar though... unless you come down to item by item. Wouldn't write too long basically i think end of day it's all about you feeling comfortable with the ID and generally good reviews 1) Uhome 2) Orangecube 3) Submit 4) Hoh Fatt reno or something Offhand didn't remember) Ultimate end up with Submit. Price wasn't really the lowest but the ID seems responsible. Manage to get back to us within timeframe as promised, and i did not hear them talk big like able to promised this and that etc. Down to earth, no hidden cost, all lied out. Other firms i see they managed to get within my budget but left out this and that... ultimately hoping to secure the deal if i'm not careful with going through item by item maybe. Anyway , i wouldn't breakdown my cost item by item but generally what i'm doing and the cost. Anyone interested to know more can PM me. Living room Hack off half of it for tiling, the other half laminate wood 8 ft feature wall L box and false ceiling with downlights Kitchen Hack off everything New wall tiles and floor tiles (including those behind cabinet) Some quotation seems cheaper but they did not put wall tiles behind your cabinet, which is quite a lot 10 ft top and 7 ft bottom cabinet 1 full height cabinet 1 3 ft concrete washing (for sink) Quartz top (there's generally 3 type, quartz is most expensive but hardy etc) A new storeroom erected inside kitchen 2 bathroom ALl hacked away New wall and floor tiles New piping of course 3 Rooms Nothing much done, just floor laminate Master room there's 1 7 ft warbdrobe sliding (When been quote it's standard door type, cost a lot more if change to sliding, take note) Addtional works I hacked away 1 part of a room s the previous owner(indian) put an altar there, so all wall tiles, conrete steps etc... cost a bit to hack them, cement it in order to do floor laminte As mentioned before as the wall are all rockstone, i am doing a plastering for all my walls and ceilings I placed a few wooden blocks around to seperate living and dining. Some standard like changing all doors Painting All these comes out to about 44K which doesn't include some which i used other contractor like electrical works and changing of window grills and few window panes WIndow grills works etc - Around 3K plus with 8 window panes and frames changes Electrical works - 4K (full re-wiring and changing everything and well... a lot a lot of sockets. In total around 51K spent in reno and doesn't include furniture, lightning, electrical appliances. At this point that time i almost faint leow LOL.. inital budget is only 30K This is what we roughly comes out using floorplanner and we present this to ID for execution

Anyway this few pic is how it looks like before reno. Our living room DIning room. It wasn't really clearly defined as dining as with different design, it can be a living room as well Our kitchen... old kitchen are bigger especially this one when the storeroom was torn down Our 2 common bathroom and masterroom bathroom. Next post will be our mini journey to diff ID and purchase of items. Last pic cant be shown as post dun allow me to

My reno started yesterday and i thought of sharing some experiences I've and some before and after pic for those with similiar model type of house owners and having headache doing it. I used to browse a lot and was glad there's few owners here who share the same model as me. Not making it long, this is my current flat (however the storeroom is gone and i've to spend some money to build it back) i can't imagine anyone who can do without a storeroom, i personally stores a lot of junk lol. Design is 20 years old with rockstone wall and those conies well... i think you guys know.. Testing this image ulpoad before i continue on 2nd post.

I'm currently engaging Submit to do my home as well, a 20 year old house. Carol is the ID we're working with right now. Not very proactive like flooding you with ideas etc. It's best you engaged her with a intial concept of yours, however, if you're stuck, she can give pretty good suggestion but do tell her or she'd prefer you to do what you want with your house. timing pretty on time as i brought forward my reno by 2 months and she's fine even. No rush, helpful, my wife feels comfortable with her. However, she doesn't give you a good idea of what you should do and when you should be doing in detail, you need to ask her. Like she'll tell you can bring in lights after certain works done but she'll hand you a schedule and you'll feel clueless exactly when will be a good time. Then again as i mentioned, if you asked, she's helpful in providing you the details and even contact the vendor for you to arrange. Overall Helpfulness / attitude : 8 Worksmenship i've have to see, this is something ID not in total control. Today is 2nd day of hacking, so far on time, will update.

Went around asking etc... 20k hard to do it unless you can really lower the standard of reno. I end up around 46k instead oing basically 1) Redo whole kitchen and 2 toilet 2) laminate flooring for most except dining area 3) all electrical works with downlights 4) only 1 warbdrobe in master rm 5) Bulding a storeroom in kitchen 6) Changing most window panes and all new window grilles 7) change all doors All these haven't include puchase of lights, kitchen/bathroom acc which totals to another 5k plus 6k. Painting, Lbox, few minor reno. Will post it in my blog once started...

We'll be starting our reno at end of this month. WIll bring update in blog.

Searched around but couldn't find any in SIngapore. Asked ID she said only got glass one.. showed her photo and she still says top hung only glass one.. arcylic one bottom got tracks.. So any experienced one got lobang in singapore.. Looks like this but this one based in Malaysia http://www.reliancehome.com/products/indoor-door-malaysia/sliding-door/

Going to reno my whole house in 3 months time. What do you do with old a/c that is working? I got a 4 year old panasonic a/c system 3. I intend to use this chance to change a new one instead of spending money to repipe, chemical wash etc. You guys just throw? or got some lobang who takes in old air-con?

Ohh. have thought of that but too costly as living area quite big. 225 sqf for living 200 for dining. K since no one has such pic, i'll see what the ID can generate and see if it'll be nice.

Has anyone seen this type of design. My living room and dining is just side by side and i was thinking of living room using laminate while dining room using homo tiles. Idea is to seperate the 2. Any comments?

Anyone knows if any shops accept trade in for AC? My AC is only 4 years old and working but due to major Reno, decided to might as well replace it as well. Otherwise dismantle and fix it back + chemical wash also not cheap.