SW80

I have run through your quotation. Its a bit steep.. My friend who did a 3-room flat overhaul few months back, hack from head to toe cost around $27K. If you are serious to reduce the cost, perhaps you can consider do kitchen wall plastering instead of hacking + tile laying. Or you can work on the carpentry to see if some items can be removed. Alternatively, you can try to see more ID/ contractor if you need more reference. To shorten your search scope, look for recommendations in the forum.

Initially when my wife and I started the ID hunt, we have a shock. They will usually give a full range of recommendations with quotation to design our house and the quotation initially offered by 3 ID firms ranges between 35K to 40K !! My wife and I have weed out items that we feel that are not very important to bring down the cost. Some of the items that we removed from the original quotation: 1) Hack existing aluminum sliding door between living room and balcony. Related tempered frameless glass proposal were removed as well. (I don't like black sliding door but we decide not to remove since it still can provide good "support" for the curtains) 2) Walkway false ceiling ( We feel existing one still looks good and can be re-used) 3) Shoe cabinet installation (Mind over heart this time. Even though I long to have one for our house) 4) TV console and feature wall (We found we can get TV console outside at a lower cost and probably not big enough to house DVD player, sound system etc, not practical) 5) Study table with top hung cabinet (Removed as it does fit to our cozy corner theme) 6) Light pelmet with mosaic tile finished at vanity area for both toliets. (We don't really like mosaic but this is up to individual taste really). We also glad that our ID made honest deduction to kitchen carpentry for overlapping area for our L-shape kitchen (You will understand later if we upload the layout at a later time). Its a good experience really. As for toilet/light stuff, I am really screening through other blogs (include yours) extensively and did some viewing between shops for ideas.

Yes Thats the scary part. Small items you need to buy will added up to burn more holes in your pocket. If budget permits, we have to equip the house slowly.

What a good price for your inverter aircon!! Can recommend your aircon vendor, who can I approach ?

Phew... today made another milestone to our sweet home journey: finalize on our ID. The quotation of 29.8k (excluding the electrical work) for ... - a total make over of kitchen, service balcony, 2 bathrooms, - building of study area platform, - L-box and glass divider for living room, - repolishing marble flooring, - revanishing the wooden floors, repaint whole house - plus all miscellaneous (hacking, plumbing, MBR carpentry, etc. ) .....may not be the cheapest . But we do feel very comfortable with the experience and the quality work showed by our ID (from SKY Creation Design) based on his presentation and past projects. Yay yay, counting down to the day we get the flat key and start all the works... So excited... building a house and starting a home... **(Wife posting)

Good luck to your renovation. I will be checking your thread frequently for my reference also..

I think the quotation is reasonable as you have quite a few carpentry work and floor work. If press down the price further, there "might" be a tendency that contractor "short change" you during renovation. A few of my friends I know encountered that..

There is one part of the photo that I cannot see clearly. In front of the Hob, are u using white plaster or wall tiles. If u are using white plaster, then I think it will be quite hard to maintain if heavy cooking is involved.

Tomorrow I will be checking with our preferred ID for the final quotation. This is after I have let him in to inspect the house for a more accurate estimation on the house wiring cost, non-hackable beam location etc. If his final quotation meets our requirement, we will most likely let him have the deal. Sad that I have to decline the other ID quotation. In fact both of them are very good throughout the weeks of discussion we have so far. They give us sound explanations on design concepts and not pushy on us to commit any deal. We choose the latter for his experience and his design focus on easy house maintenance. I will review the ID name after our discussion tomorrow. Layout planning will be coming soon..

Actually I find the L-box downlights are put to good effect based on your photos. Are u using >1 switch to control all the downlights for the L-Box ?

Er..r. yah We are surprised with the MBR aircon setup, previous owner didnt say much so we didnt ask further.

Yap, I mean if you are changing to the retractable laundry system.. Seems that not many of forum members change to that system .

Hmm since you have started first then I will monitor closely to your tread.. Anyway, back to the topic, I hope there will be no major problem to your watermark issue. Possible leak from aircon piping since it come from all your bedrooms ?

Have run through your blog and I was happy for you on the progress of your house so far. Of the items you have bring in, I noticed that the laundry hanger is not in the list or you intend to use the existing setup?

Yap. My parents love the balcony also, can grow many plants there.. Seniors think alike hee hee..

We will overhaul the kitchen, service balcony, 2 toilets, re-design master bedroom and L-box the living room. We will save $$ on just to touch up the flooring. But cost of renovation is still 30K ++ based on all 3 ID quotation that we have visited so far, minus off some carpentry eg, cozy corner book shelf and TV feature wall etc, where we decide we can make to do without it. Main cost is still on the hacking side and carpentry. One of the ID did mention to plaster over the wall tiles instead of hacking them for the kitchen. This proposal also help to save us some cost.

Have narrowed down to 2 ID proposal. We find our ID based on recommendations from forum and friends. Hard choice to pick between the 2 really.. I hope to finalize by this week.

You are right.. Nowadays new 5-rm flat only comes with about 110sqm. Our initial plan is to get a 4-room but we end up getting a 5-rm instead due to it nicer flat layout.

More photos (2nd posting): Store Study corner, the area with the wooden table and chairs Walkway Surrounding area Feel the current flat is a bit dark to my liking. Probably due to the choice of paint and flooring. Previous owner even create a partition between the original kitchen entrance and the store to make the store bigger. All the bedroom comes with those thick and bulk cloth cabinet, which I will get rid at least 2 of them during my renovation. Overall flat condition is still ok. We will most likely keep the marble flooring at the living room, flooring for the bedroom as well as the windows. We will spend to overhaul the kitchen, service balcony, 2 toilets, re-design master bedroom and L-box the living room.

Some photos of original house as follows (first posting): Balcony Bedroom Kitchen Living room Master bedroom

Just finished my first appointment with HDB on 28th March 2009. Pending 2nd appointment and more ID discussion. Therefore I feel its time to start a blog to track our house renovation progress after reading T-blog for months, where I can really feel the passion and excitement from other newly wed couples. Anyway here is the floor plan as shown below. Its a 5-rm corner unit resale at 122 sqm. Photos of original house will be posted at a later time.

Hi Has anybody anyone have experience with Melvin Yick from Ideal House ID..? Thanks