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Hi all, have PMed the contacts .. thanks.

Yeah, very nice decor .. I also intended to have some decor for Xmas when our place is ready ☆

Thanks Artist123, we actually have choose the tiles and we have also visited SBH at Jurong East and Hafary at Defu .. but we are not sure if the tiles we choose can fit the theme we like, just try our luck : ) We didn't choose the rough tiles for kitchen, we go for easier maintenance. For laminates, we have yet to choose .. will check with our carpenter about the brands you mentioned, thanks for your advices ..

:: ID / Contractor Selection - Let's summarize :: * ID from Linewerkz : Discussed with them during one of the expo exhibition, total quote was 65K and missing many items. We dropped this during the first quotation. * ID Loyd Pek from D Home : Emailed on 24 July and met up in his office on 28 July, know him from renotalk and quite like his design style but he was quite busy and will be out for a month. We didn't continue to follow-up with him as we believed that he cannot meet our tight budget. * Contractor Alan from Aian : Emailed on 24 July and 1st met up on 4 August and 2nd met up on 4 September. He was quite popular in renotalk and many recommendations .. but my husband didn't have click with him although I quite keen to work with him. His quote was quite reasonable except the L box price. * ID Kelvin Teo : Emailed on 24 Jul but I cancelled the meet up as I believed our budget will be too low for him to design for us .. though I quite like his works. * ID from Summit Design : Emailed on 26 July and 1st met up on 27 July and 2nd met up on 9 August. The ID we met was quite a young and pretty lady . The final quotation still not able to meet our budget .. a bit higher compared to contractor - 32k without including carpentry works. * ID from Artistroom : Emailed on 28 July and 1st met up on 1 August at their office. Was recommended from one of the t-blog owner, we didn't go further for 2nd meet up because we understand that their price was in high side and their design might not suit us. They are very "artist" and can have many special ideas. * ID New Nyew : Saw her design in renotalk and impressed with her works. Emailed her on 28 July and meet up at her place on 2 August. During the meet up, she brought us to see other units that she has designed. Both me and my husband quite keen to work with her but overall quotation was on high side .. Too bad that we cannot work with her due to our tight budget. * ID Jimmy from 3D Innovative : My husband was the one who emailed him on 31 July, and we met up on the same day. He was also one of the ID highly recommended in renotalk and his quotation was at good price which can meet our overall budget of 45K. His revised quotation was sent 2 days later after we confirmed with our current contractor .. else we probably will sign up with him. * Contractor Kevin Tee : Very popular in renotalk, others called him as Mr K. Emailed him on 5 August and meet up on 14 August .. as expected, his quotation is over our budget and we didn't proceed further. * Contractor Sky : Recommended by my friend, he helped her to do her place and was quite okay. We only contacted through email and phone, no chance to meet. Quotation is still higher than our budget. * Carpenter Ah Tong : Recommended by my colleague. Emailed him on 5 August and meet up on 9 August National Day. Immediately confirmed him after received his quotation on few days later ... he also provided some 3d hand drawings and his price was quite reasonable as compared to IDs and contractors. We decided to engage him to do all the carpentry works for our new home. * Contractor Ah Huat : Recommended by my colleague, he helped her to do for her mother's place. Emailed him on 18 August and 1st meet up on 16 August. We meet him again on 5 September after received his quotation. His quotation didn't breakdown into different items and most are lump sum into one amount, quite different from other quotations that we have received. And everything is written in Chinese, he was not good in paper works. Overall quotation was very close to Jimmy from 3D Innovative, which able to meet our budget of 45K including carpentry works .. and at the end we confirmed with him to be our contractor for all the demolition, masonry, plumbing and electrical works. Some other IDs that I have considered including : Inside Living, EHKA, Fervor Design, FSI, Fuse Concept, Museum ID ... but I didn't send any emails to them, quite tired to meet so many IDs. In summary, we shortlisted our contractor based on quotation given due to tight budget of 45K. i.e. have no opportunity to get an ID to do renovation for us. Using contractor will need ourselves to do design and on-site management, my husband almost everyday going to site. There is no guides or advices given when choosing tiles etc and we have to go by our own to shop for stuffs ... i.e. there is pros and cons of hiring contractor vs hiring ID. Will give more reviews again for our contractor Ah Huat and carpenter Ah Thong after our house is done .. to be continue.

1000miles, 1k is including the engagement fee of PE .. still expensive for this little RC hanger, not sure what's the use of this hanger, I really cannot see any purpose of building this thing on the ceiling.

ladygeorgette, yeah ~ so coincidence. Hope the result will turn out good as we don't have ID to help us to visualize and give suggestions. I choose these tiles just because I like the outlook of the tiles, I not sure if they will match each others. Saw your tblog, we have really quite similar tiles section. What did your ID say? Will he come out the 3D design using the tiles you choose? Then I can see also .. hehe. 1000miles, you are right .. the beam is above the door for storeroom and we staying at the highest floor. According to HDB officer, it was a RC hanger and can be hacked with PE approval. Mine is a corner unit and I saw the big water tank is located at the center of the block, i.e. don't think there is big water tank above our unit. We will get PE approval to hack away this RC hanger, but will need to pay extra 1k just to hack this from ceiling

Yesterday was the 2nd day of hacking .. everything is approved except that we cannot hack the RC beam (the picture below with red color tag). This hacking will require PE approval which we haven't applied .. wonder if anyone of you have experienced this RC beam when you hack away your storeroom? Wonder if it was due to the unit was the top floor so having this RC beam? Contractor said need extra 650sgd to engage PE.

Yesterday was the 2nd day of hacking .. everything is approved except that we cannot hack the RC beam (the picture below with red color tag). This hacking will require PE approval which we haven't applied .. wonder if anyone of you have experienced this RC beam when you hack away your storeroom? Wonder if it was due to the unit was the top floor so having this RC beam? Not sure if want to live with it or apply permit to hack away this RC beam ...

Great to hear your good news ... 45k is reasonable to renovate your house, ours also around this number ...

Your place is big ! The rubbish chute is inside the house or ? We also bought a 5 room in tampines ... Didn't realised that's a nice unit in 4xx , congrat ~ Like your bathroom door n kitchen tiles too ~ nice.

Nice decor ~ green color blend well in your guest room.

Finally collected our key yesterday, today will start the hacking process. Update with 3D design for living room done by my husband ... he follow the dimension of our sofa and make this, still need to do some amendment on the lighting effects :

Husband wanted to have 10 sockets installed in our new study room but contractor didn't recommend and he suggested us to use extension .. I have the same thoughts, 10 sockets were too much. What do you guys think? Husband want to use these sockets for 2 laptops, 1 monitor, 1 printer, 2 handphone chargers, 1 keyboard, 1 guitar, 1 camera drybox ...

Continue ... the bathrooms and kitchen :

Continue .. some snapshots taken for bedrooms :

:: Some snapshots taken before owner move out ::

bb_1314, thanks for your comments .. seems like we have to ask citygas technician for house visit too so that they can advice, is it FOC or we have to buy the city gas heater first before ask them to come to our place? We plan to install at our kitchen, which is just beside of our 2 bathrooms .. gohlex, thanks ~ enjoy playing with the floorplanner. I will update again on our renovation experience and hope it is good so that I can recommend our contractor to others.

So u going to collect your key today ~ congratulation first ! Today we supposed to collect our key too, but our owner is Muslim .. so we will collect after Hari Haji.

Hi 1000miles, great to see you created your T-blog ... hope to see more photos and progress. You got a big house !

1000miles, your first post made me feel so paiseh .. I didn't give any ideas to you and overall, I also copied ideas from others. So, no need to mention about this : ) Your EA is big, and it was a new EA with bomb shelter ... your layout is quite similar to ours but yours are much bigger. We both sold our house in Bedok but you going to move to west and I going to move to further east .. How much you plan to do reno for your EA? Have your ID gave you the quotation? Anyway, you have budget .. hehe, lucky one. If the unit already vacant, you can ask the owner to sign the authorization form so that you can start your reno first ... Good luck ~

Hi gohlex, I didn't engage ID but I engaged contractor name Ah Huat - got his contact from my colleague but I do not want to share his contact first because I not sure if his works are good. We have some problem on the hacking permit issue as he was not good in paper works, the quotation sent by him was written in chinese also. For works wise, I still not sure as we haven't started our reno ... will share once our reno started. I used the floorplanner (you can google it and it's free) and photoshop to draw the layout floorplan.

May be need to call city gas officer to check and confirm if old flat not adviceable to install gas heater? We called them to check if can install in kitchen, they asked us try not to conceal the city gas heater .. of course we won't conceal due to safety issue.

haha .. I think overall is depend whether we need the thing - either car or house. So, the COV or COE is depend on market demand .. whether there are needs.

Hi crypaz, husband has called to city gas and we can install it in the kitchen but we didnt mention about the water pressure. The city gas officer also didn't mention to us regarding the water pressure .. we will check again on this. Thanks for your advice

I also struggling between storage n city gas heater but at the end we decided to use city gas heater .. I personally prefer it is smaller compared to storage heater n can save more in long run .. Reno hasn't started, will update again after use it ..