gilbertyang

Hi Sir / Mdm, I can help you with that. Please email me at ***@yahoo.com.sg

Also good to knock out the red portion, so as to allow bigger space for the bedroom. Sliding panel can be added to the wall on the blue portion to allow flexibility of visuality between bedroom and living room. This is a condo unit? Judging from the layout i guess. I am good to discuss more with you. Please email me.

Hi there, At best, would be good to avoid any sliding doors dividing the kitchen and the living. I do understand it may be required for practical usage [avoid cooking smoke to enter the living, or maybe visual screening] I can share more ideas with you. We take it off from this forum? my email contact is ***@yahoo.com.sg. Please drop me a mail.

Hi there, i am not sure if you are still looking for ID. You can email us at egwa.design@gmail.com

Hi there, Do drop me an email at ***@yahoo.com.sg I may be able to assist you.

Hi there, Firstly, the sofa in the middle of the living room may not be feasible, due to your dining table located at the right side of the area. You should allow your living room to look spacious upon entry into flat. As for dining table, you can either do up a countertop near the kitchen, beside the household shelter, say like for 3 pax. Alternatively, you can place a long dining table between the balcony and living room, to give its half indoor outdoor alfresco dining concept. If your bedrooms are western-orientated, i suggest not putting your beds near the windows as the walls may give out heat from the day and your bed area tend to become stuffy at night. There is more which i can assist. Do drop me a email at ***@yahoo.com.sg I can further assist you.

Hi, It is valid as recon submission needs more drawings. If it is the baseline application, it may have more costs

Hi, You definitely need a floor plan and a rough budgetary mindset while engaging your prospective IDs. If you have a good design concept and/or ideas in your head, i would rather you engage a contractor directly. Of course there are risks involved as communications could be mis-interpretated and in future, your design may not turn out as nice as you visualize. The role of an ID basically bridge the communication threshold between you [the client] and the builder. The way to spot an good ID is the fact that he does not talk too much. Rather, he is able to give you design solution on the first meeting! There is a few IDs out there, which tend to do hard sales pitch and constant marketing and when it comes to actual works, they talk less. Happy searching

Does it includes demolition works? One glance at it and they are all based on lump sum package. Not much details , which may constitute to variation orders. Just a thought.

Dear Sir, It is very possible to exercise a healthy budget to get the interior that you want. It also depends on the "simplicity" of the design intent. The minimalist approach that was perceived by new buyers are always different to how interior designers thinks. Overtime, it gets overrated. Having practiced Interior Design for more than 5 years, on a freelance basis, it can be possible. You can drop me a mail at ***@yahoo.com.sg We can discuss more and would give you a possible solution to your home.

All i can say is it depends on your contractor's skill. In fact, you need a specialist's help rather than dependent on contractors. Firstly, skylight are not easy to install. You need specialist to determine to interfacing details and to check if the details got any water retention faults. Most importantly, water must not be trapped within any sleeves of the skylight frame and/or gaps. Secondly, The glass properties plays a part too. Whether is it single or double glazed? Low E or laminated?? The loading of the glass onto the frame???? What kind of details? Spider clamp details or the framing type by sides? I am personally not a specialist on this but have went through jobs to determine good or bad detailing job. Don't always blame it on the contractors.

Dear Sir / Mdm, I understand your concern when it comes to selecting ID and/or contractor. Firstly, everyone has its own strength and weaknesses and the harsh truth is nowadays, you can NEVER get a good contractor. As for ID, it depends on your expectation and requirements to your design intent. In layman's POV, always look at the portfolio and spot some good ideas. A good ID always propose something unique for housing solution, rather than flashing nice interior pictures and keep giving you the impression that the design is good. A good ID sits down and listen to what you want and will sketch to your intent and to the proposed details. Secondly, in order for your design intent to be fulfilled, good workmanship is way more important that design. While selecting contractors and negotiating, you must not always give them a rush deadline. When you rush deadline, bad workmanship will start to surface. Nowadays, contractors are getting younger and a whole wide ranges aged around 35 to 45. They may look "green" to you but experience counts. Lastly, my concluding statement is that no one is perfect. There are some people who can work with your expectations and some are not capable. You just need to accept the fact that it is a subjective approach. When surfing renotalk forums, when people commented that their designers and/or contractors does a good job to their houses, it does not mean that they will do the same to yours. I am a freelance interior designer since 2005 and i always take into particular when me and/or my client select contractors. However, till now i have not met someone who can still gives me quality workmanship. Yet they are durable enough to withstand any wear and tears for the next 5 years. Signing off and wishing you all the best, sincerely.

Tiler Seng, I hear you and in fact, i could not agree more with the things you said. The Interior Design industry has loses its respect over the past 10 years, at least. Not mainly because of picky clients or cheap perspective drawings that young students does. But is because of the freewill of accessibility of information that homeowners can obtain. The demography has changed and we now have educated people in this society who wish to outsmart any possibilities. Young homeowners now have their own standpoints and they tend to be a little bit cocky in some sense. They will not see eye to eye over a lot of things that we, as designers, architects or ID, suggests. They tend to assume a lot in what the industry does, in the name of budget-saving. We, as designers, need to fit with them, rather than the client fit with us and our creativity. Thats why they said creativity dies. And the whole glamorous job of designing interiors has become more than just a mere trading business, comparing "whose prices is lower and i-will-hire-you" that kind of ideas. It is hard to find such clients now, who trust us so so much. It is sad, i know.

I like this topic. Firstly, this ID field is not a profession by its nature. Thats why any Tom Dick and Harry can proclaim themselves as INTERIOR DESIGNERS. Recently, may graphic designer claim themselves that they can design house, which i find a total bull**** out of it. I totally agree with you that it is unregulated in some sense. Allow me to intro, i received 3 years of Interior Design education, plus 5 years in NUS architecture. And now currently working with a big company. I am not here to advertise my capabilities but as my own standpoint, i am raising my concerns for this industry's future. Negative reviews does not mean the contractors is bad. Maybe most new homeowners does not have a better understanding of what the ID and contractors does, thus assuming a lot of issues and expect the ID to work on it. Also, some client's requirements differs from one another. Some can be simple, some is very complex. In my 4 years dealing with freelance projects, i have my fair share of experience. GILBERT

http://postimage.org/image/l7lulr6ud/ Dear Sir, I took your layout and plan a bit for your reference. You might want to consider this as what i feel that it helps to free up spaces. It is not too advisable to cut up small space as it will feel very cluttered. You can contact me at ***@yahoo.com.sg for any doubts you wish to clarify Gilbert

Dear Mister, Very interesting and it is definitely not a typical HDB layout. Mind i ask if it is some old private apartments, commonly seen in areas like yio chu kang or bukit timah? Next, the layout of toilet in your kitchen is rather awkward. But rest assured that smell and sound will not be a huge issue in this flat. Reason being is that the door is facing the kitchen, rather than the living area. There is a solution where you can either keep the toilet window open at all times, when it is vacant. Of course when someone need to use the toilet, close the window for privacy. Another method is to install the fan outlet, which costs less than one hundred dollars, that you commonly seen in public toilets. As for the location of stove, you can plan it nearer to the window, below the clothes hanging area. The fridge can be placed beside the household shelter door. The sink can be between the two mentioned area. It is not the end of the world. There can be possibilities explored. Don't worry. Gilbert

Dear Mdm, Platform height for the futons cannot exceed 50cm from floor level. I have personally seen platform as storage area while the mattress is lifted up. But it will be tedious. Moreover, storage area on bottom of bed will not store much bulky items. My advice on that. Gilbert

Hi Rach, For minimalist style, its quite generic. Of course many local designers uses white, off-white, grey and black as a duplicate from the Japanese way of interpretation the style. If you really look at actual minimalist style adopted by the Japanese, they are simply white in spatial volume and uses timber flooring to highlight the ground tone of the interior space. The Japanese believes in the idea of meditation and the balance of the earth and sky elements. In short, minimalistic ideology derives from the way of life by the ancient Japanese and adopted the notion into spatial qualities. Sadly speaking, when we look at some "minimalist" interiors in Singapore, it is utterly misused in some sense. Sorry if the sentence offended anyone. I hope you have a better understanding. G

Hi Rave, Its not a high pricing for a 5 room flat, given the fact that the BQ breakdowns are quite a lot of information. But low quotes does not mean good workmanship. A few pointers you might wanna take note: - You can check with your contractor if the items include warranty. It would be a liability if they can give you half-baked workmanship, with the amount of price they quote you. - I noticed that there is no breakdown of area measurement by your contractor. By right, they should put it black and white in quotation. For example, item (I)(1) Supply & install aluminum grill l i v i n g What is the total length of the window grille? What is the square area. Usually, good contractors will be as transparent as possible. - Check the level of details for their carpentry. Ask if you can visit their workshop or something - Lastly, The quality of material. For example, granite kitchen cabinet top. Is it made in China?... it really matters a lot as most building materials nowadays do not last that long. I hope these pointers help. As i learned them based on ALL my experience with contractors. Cheers and have a good day ahead.

Why choose to hack off the master bedroom toilet wall?...are u leaving it as an open concept? You had made ur masterbedroom space even smaller, let alone visually cramped. The insertion of the so-called platform near the window takes up a lot of space. When u start designing, ask urself a few questions: 1. How often you use the spaces? cause u need to start giving priorities to the area usage. 2. Who is using the spaces? For example, how many people staying in this house?... If only 2 of you staying there, ( u and ur spouse ), u might wanna hack off the bedroom 1 wall and make the master bedroom bigger. Hacking of the toilet wall is not too good of an idea. Hope my post does not offend u or something. Just being constructive in thoughts

Hi do u need a freelance interior designer?

Dear Dragon888, 1. Remove existing shoe cabinet cum divider due to wear and tear are u replacing with a full ht shoe cabinet? 2. Have some new design at foyer area for privacy What is foyer area?... u mean living area? 3. Remove balcony sliding door and frame 4. Replace bi-fold door of common toilet 5. Replace shower screen of both toilets 6. Painting entire place and maybe with some wallpaper/decal Painting entire place cost 1000 to 1200 in workmanship. But if u wanna place decals, it might not work on rough surfaces, unless ur wall is the smooth texture kind. 7. Replace bed, dressing table, study table for the 2 kids. Are u doing build in bed, study table?? 8. Replace furniture in MBR 9. Is it advisable to get ID for above??? From the situation i foresee, u need not engage a "professional" ID for this aspect. Maybe u need to seek sub contractors and carpenters, painters, etc Rough costs for your revamping project might really to depend on the complexity of the project and also how much work are u focusing on. I am guessing around 10,000 to 15,000, or even lesser from: ***@yahoo.com.sg

Sorry are u still looking for designer? If you are, drop me an email ***@yahoo.com.sg

Hi sarahparker, I can provide some tips for u... u can call me 93624764 From a freelance interior designer

Dear Sir/ Mdm, you might wanna try TATMING for wallpaper design. They are cheaper than Goodrich and Senjenco. By the way, not that i want to disrespect your decision in wallpaper, but do u also wanna consider wall decals that are way way cheaper and stylish than the big full height wallpaper. Wall decals are easy to maintain and trendy looking. I have done projects with wall decals and they look stunning. Do consider about it. GILBERTYANG