littleones

WORK-IN-PROGRESS (Part 3) The windows have been changed - "tea leaf" tinted glass. Grills not up yet. Those white stripes are really amazing. It's used for plastering and makes the edges so sharp and pretty Pristine white kitchen wall tiles up. They have some lines running across like waves and bring out the length of the kitchen. MBR toilet with eczema covered up nicely with marble-like wall tiles...but the pipe is STILL there!!!! That's about what has been done so far. This week is rewiring and setting up the L-Box. Still to be done - aircon, lightings, floor tiles, gate, window grills, painting, carpentry works... We going to shop for toilet accessories and lightings this Saturday but we're already having a headache choosing laminates for the carpentry and also the wrought iron gate

WORK-IN-PROGRESS (Part 2) We have a 'pipey' house - so many funny pipes everywhere.. This is the storeroom with 2 gas pipes cutting right across..weird huh? This is the common toilet. Check out the weird water pipes at the right end (supply water to the upper floors). There's simply nothing we (and the Town Council contractor) could do about it even though the pipes have turned rusty so our contractor could only try to box up the ugly sight We are also converting the squatting pan to the toilet seat. MBR toilet. Again, bad case of eczema and more weird pipes!!! That is an AIR pipe which is redundant but contractor cannot do anything cos it runs though the whole block. Cannot imagine i'm going to shower with the pipe at my side Sand and tiles arrived for tiling.

WORK-IN-PROGRESS (Part 1) Renovation has started on 6 May 2009. I estimated the work done to be 15% so far. We hope to move in by early July but looking at the progress now, not so sure if it can be done Everything hacked...except why is the fan still hanging there? Our kitchen. This picture makes me feel super uncomfortable...like the wall has a bad case of eczema (no offence cos i've got eczema too). That's the hacked wall (as indicated by the red circle in my floor plan design) to create the walkway for WIW.

poseidon_gal: our reno has started on 6 May 2009. if not wrong, i think the floor area is 92 sqm Pinklady: yes, we will try for the 2nd miracle so we can spend less on furnishings, etc. yep, progress photos will be up in my next post

hello, indeed we have a similar floor plan except for the store room and your MBR is way bigger. Congrats on getting your love nest soon!

Our search for the right ID/contractor was a long and tedious one. We were basically hoping to do Modern Classic style but IDs claimed that this style is expensive to do and needless to say, the prices quoted were way out of our budget Hence, we 'downgraded' from looking for ID to looking for contractors instead (since we also knew what we wanted) Here are our reviews of them: The IDs 1) Cissern (expo show) - quoted $61k the most expensive of the lot! Space planning not bad but ID has no expertise in Modern Classic style as she claimed that she sought info and help from other IDs. 2) Rezt & Relax (expo show) - quoted $48k also very expensive because the quote excluded alot of things like the toilet accessories and lights. Quotation was done haphazardly and printed on plain paper with ink smudge all over Despite all these, we actually wanted to consider them as they were quite sincere. In the end, we waited for weeks for their revised quotation which never came, so we garnered that they weren't interested 3) Chew Interior (walk-in) - quoted $48k. not much design at all...just doing reno works. no hard selling but also not very interested to do our case 4) Exodus 31 (walk-in) - quoted $45k. we looked them up as we were impressed with their space planning (creating multi-purpose furnitures) and nice Modern Classic designs in magazines. Design turned out to be quite unique. They proposed hacking away the storeroom to create more space for dining area and also create extra storage drawers in the dining area Hubby was very interested but not for me. It's a feel thing lah The Phua Chu Kangs 5) Gek Jin (brochure in mailbox) - quoted $29k. hubby not comfortable with them as too cheap...scared quality not good i was ok to give them a shot though since they were in the business for many years so shouldn't be that bad mah 6) Chin Guan Furniture Construction (friend's relative) - quoted $35k. was one of our final considerations. competitive prices. got RADAC Gold Award somemore. only thing is that we had to do alot of coordination work ourselves, like the arrangement to change sewage pipes and buy the toilet and kitchen accessories all by ourselves 7) DecoPac Services (friend's contractor) - quoted $46k but includes Mitsubishi System-3 Aircon, PLC lights, heaters, toilet bowls, sinks, and taps, etc. Most importantly, willing to go the extra mile to help coordinate everything. Eg. even though the changing of the sewage pipes was done by Town Council contractor, Daniel came down to help us oversee the works and paid the contractor first on our behalf 8) PROCreation (friend's contractor) - quoted $36k. Claimed they are ID charging contractor prices. I didn't manage to meet the ID so no comments on his services but quotation was not done properly. Many things were omitted in the initial quote. Imagine the hacking of the wall and floor tiles of the entire house was left out They also took some of our other quotes for comparison and see what they missed out. What a surprise when the revised quote came, certain prices actually became more expensive. eg. haulage charges suddenly increased from $500 to $900!! There was this $200 "Admin fees for applying HDB permit" which i didn't like as none of those above quote us for this! Isn't it supposed to be FOC? Quoting us $190 for the fridge and washing machine base EACH was also crazy as the rest were quoting like $50/each or even FOC So eventually, DecoPac won the job

We didn't take many BEFORE pics. here are some of them... apologise for my lousy photographing skills Looking at the metal gate, window grills, door arch and original HDB floor tiles, you can basically guess the age and condition of the flat and what a bomb our reno costs will be The living room and door The retro window grills The arch in my living room leading to 2 bedrooms at both sides The kitchen

no problem, mrspiglet, think i can imagine

wow, what a coincidence..haha.. I'm right at the other end, near to the big cross junction

Hi ivy, I'm staying at 706 now! but actually 705 and 706 are quite far apart...haha.. It's a nice estate, only thing is need to take feeder buses out to Clementi mrt. Thanks, metalsubzero. oh, you reminded me of the kitchen. yah, older flats have long big kitchens...think maybe because our mamas cook alot in the olden times.. we don't need such a big kitchen now so we segregated the kitchen and dining area with the L-shaped cabinets. nowadays, new flats have very small kitchens (and rooms also) but they're spanking new and nice! i'd rather take a new flat if i had a choice. your house squarish-layout is very nice and big for a 4rm. in fact, if you add your kitchen and dining area together, i think it's rather big. Mine is door-to-door unit but because it's low floor, alot of people will climb down the stairs right outside our house. Oh, that's interesting.. why cannot put shoes above shoulder level? Our shoe rack is abt 5ft. Yes, we don't go for FS otherwise there would be alot of things to consider for the house...big headache And i'm afraid there won't be any 3D images cos i'm the designer..can't do 3D..haha.. Will put up photos soon. Thanks Wow, mrspiglet, stairs to WIW sounds really great! now..why didn't I think of that? does your ex-col has a blog or pictures to see?

This is our original floor plan. and this is what we hope to achieve. As our house is not very big and we (or rather I ) have accumulated tonnes of stuff over the years, we had to make full use of the space available by constructing multi-purpose furnitures Our idea was to create a full-height shoe rack facing the main entrance so as to give us some privacy, and also act as a backing for the settee by the window. The settee will also give us extra storage space for magazines, etc. I'm already imagining relaxing by the settee on a lazy afternoon with a good book and a cuppa The original MBR was kinda small, so we decided to hack 1/3 of the wall separating the MBR and the other bedroom so we can take the other bedroom as our MBR and also incorporate a walk-in wardrobe right outside the toilet. The WIW will act as the room divider itself Of course that also meant that the other bedroom will be smaller but we think it's still ok to function as a study room or a child's room. However, there is a problem, there is no window for this room! Therefore, we will incorporate a sliding door next to WIW to ventilate the room when not in use

hello mrspiglet! indeed He has heard our prayers. at the beginning of the year i had prayed to get a wonderful house by the end of the year and it did come to pass as we got our house on 1 Dec XiaoBinBin, yeah the MacDonald's and West Coast Plaza are our favourite haunts now! I've also been staying here for over 10 years.. You can still come back to visit your parents after you got married mah

Hi apples, Metalsubzero, pinkpetter, Angel81, preciousjam, XiaoBinBin, and ivy, Thanks for your good wishes and welcoming us to this reno family Nice to meet you all! XiaoBinBin and ivy, we are staying at Blk 708, in between stadium and West Coast Plaza ba.

hi metalsubzero, thanks for welcoming us Congrats on getting your new house too and hope to see the completed pictures soon!

Welcome friends and all! This is the very first post about our up and coming home in West Coast. We call it our Miracle Home because we believe it is a special blessing from God. Don't believe? Read on... We started looking for a house in end 2007 and applied for many HDB ballots to no avail. Even with 4 chances, we were also queued very far back. Competition was really tough. Thus, we resorted to looking for a 4-room resale flat in the Clementi and West Coast district. The resale market was also crazy at that time, flats were valuated at high prices and sellers were asking for about $30k cash over valuation (COV). We were not prepared to fork out that amount of cash as we considered the cash required for renovation, furnishings, and our impending wedding in Sep 2008. The cheapest COV was at least $25k (and the house was facing AYE, at level 2 and in a really bad condition ), thus we were ready to give up looking for a house since we knew we couldn't make it in time for the wedding One evening my husband received a sms saying that there was a house for sale in West Coast and buyer willing to top up cash. We were like 'huh? what does it mean?' but decided to call and check it out anyway. We went to view the house (which was only 2 blocks away from my house!) and met up with the agent, an elderly lady, who was selling the house (friend of the sms sender). The house was valued at $275k and owner was asking for $23k COV. Turned out that the first buyer agreed to the deal but later on realised that she could not pay the cash due to certain reasons. Therefore, she was willing to top up the difference to the amount we offered to make up the $23k for the seller. She could have forfeited the $5k deposit but she didn't want to burden the seller so she wanted to find someone to take over the sale. We decided that the maximum cash we could afford was $10k and if the first buyer was not able to top up the difference of $13k, then the house was probably not meant to be ours. While we felt bad about someone paying so much cash for us, to be frank, we were also very worried that it might turn out to be a scam as who would be so generous to pay $13k for some strangers? Friends and colleagues also thought we were stupid and asked us to think twice However, we decided to take up the deal in faith despite having not met the actual sellers or first buyer at all. It turned out to be a genuine and miraculous case for us The first buyer turned out to be the agent herself who wanted to buy the house for retirement as she had a good feeling about the house, found West Coast a tranquil neighbourhood, and the neighbours were nice people. However, the unexpected circumstances (we know why but it's confidential) forced her to give up this house and while there was another buyer who was willing to offer $15k, the deal couldn't go through (due to some unexpected circumstances again). There were also another elderly couple who was willing to pay a good amount of cash, but eventually she decided to bless us instead as she felt that it was harder for newly weds to start up a new home and also because she felt impressed by the Lord to do so. Somehow, she felt that we were THE one when she saw us. It was also amazing when we finally met the owners of the house and the owner's agent, we realised that we were all from the same church! We are sure our agent aka the lady who paid $13k for us will be greatly blessed by the Lord So there's the story of our miracle! How nice to have the Lord recce the house for us and give us a $13k gift in addition (maybe He knows we don't buy 4D/toto so He has to do it in some other ways) We have since gotten our keys in Nov 2008 and thank Him for it. Yep, that means we went ahead with our wedding without a matrimonial home. Everybody thought that was weird but we think it's ok. Even now after more than 6 months, we are still living separately as we just finally finalised our contractor in early May. Hence, we can finally share our story now as we build our nest step by step Enjoy your stay!

Hi Thank you for the information! I will bear them in mind. Cheers

Hi morgulboy, thank you for your advice! We are actually on a tight budget. Ours is an old flat that needs total renovation! I thought hiring a contractor separately will be cheaper cos you don't go through the ID firm. Usually ID firm will take a cut from the contractor too, right? Hi boonkhim, thank you for your advice! Check with you, before you engaged your ID, did you happen to check out the rest of the ID firms that provided those packages? Is the price difference substantial as compared to what you had done (ID plus contractor)? For us, we checked out the ID firms and the priced quotely are steeped. And the thing is they can't really show us the design. Our concern is whether the price paid warranted the quality received.

Hi Hope to get some advice here. I'm interested in doing up a modern classic design theme for my 4 room flat. It's a resale flat. I came across this ID whom has a substantial portfolio on doing up this theme. This ID works this way. I will pay him a fee to done up the design. Thereafter, I can find own contractors to implement his design. He also charges a fee for Project Management, if I want him to oversee my house renovation. I know that most of us here either engaged an ID firm that do up "everything" for us or we engaged a contractor to do up the house. Anyone has any experience with ID that does the design and PM work, like the case I mentioned above? I would like to know the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. Thanks a lot!