summersann

Wow.. thanks for sharing your experience! I'll need to verify these points with her before I sign with them (if I do select them eventually). How's your renovation coming along? Is it just the carpentry left now? What could have happened to delay it by 14 weeks though..

Overlaying tiles for bathrooms' walls and floors. Not the most ideal, but after visiting the place yesterday night (the upgrading works are finally done!), we've decided to keep the tiles. Read too many bad reviews about overlaying bathroom tiles and decided against it. The color of the new tiles aren't the best, but at least I can stomach it. If it really gets on our nerves, we'll overlay/hack it sometime down the road. I also spotted this! I spot more details each time I pop by for a look The home owner did it herself, with a small brush. Very pretty

Anyone have opinions of or worked with The Carpenter's Workshop? Need some help deciding! Thanks in advance!

Met up with the ID from The Carpenter's Workshop today. We weren't very sure about this firm, considering they took quite a while to answer to our enquiry. And even after responding, the ID stopped replying our email after a while when we were trying to fix a time to meet. The ID called this evening, saying that she realised her email failed to send. Asked if we were available to meet. We were free, and decided, why not. The meeting was quite pleasant. The ID asked us some good questions about our lifestyle, which was impressive. She also gave a few practical suggestions which, come to think of it, none of the designers we have met so far have mentioned. Hmm... This is getting difficult! Any one worked with them before? Any comments?

Agreed! I was looking at the stuff and thinking, "Why does the house suddenly seem so small?" Haha

Yup! Grafunkt is on our list. We were really only planning to drop by Air to have a casual look because it was accessible. The sale did it for us Thanks for sharing! We're still deciding who to go with. It's currently a toss up between Artist Room or Three-D. The good thing is that we do have chemistry with the ID at Three-D. She was also willing to see what she can do with our budget. Guess we'll have a few more discussions to see what we can do. Their carpentry is really expensive. We may just decide to not have any carpentry done except for the kitchen and see if that fits our budget better. Otherwise, we may really have to take our business elsewhere.

Not too sure about when the sale ends, but we did speak to the service staff and she mentioned that they have major sales twice a year, usually once near the beginning and once near the end. You can drop by and check it out!

The boy and I decided to visit a furniture store today to get a rough gauge of what prices we'd be looking at for our dream house. Wrong move. Air was having their 50% sale. Spotted the desk that I've been sort of wanting for a while. Was so tempted to get it (especially because of the significant discount!) but managed to remain rational. It's really pretty, but just not big enough for us. If only it was wider. Then, we spotted this. It was totally up our alley. The boy totally loved it. I was the one who tried to keep rational (how ironic ). Looked around at the other consoles, but at every other one, the boy would go, "That one was nicer." In the end, we decided to get this and sort of plan the living room around it Been trying to find a bookshelf that looks like this. Completely fell in love with this one. Could. Not. Resist. The pieces at Air are just like what we imagined them to be. Especially the wood ones. Very solid, very gorgeous. We just bought two pieces of furniture. We don't even have our house yet. And haven't decided on an ID. We're insane.

On a separate note, this may not be too relevant here (and may have been mentioned earlier): Air is having their 50% sale! Popped by the store at Wilkie today and chanced upon it. The prices look so much better after the discount!

Thanks for the advice! We'd prefer going with an ID, simply because we'd trust an ID more with the style that we're going for. The contractors/renovators that we've met don't give us the feeling that they understand what we want. Guess we need to see if the ID of our choice is willing to meet our budget somewhere!

I guess ours will be considered an overhaul of the staircase. It's currently tiled with really old mosaic-looking tiles. The railings are old too. So our staircase is costing us quite a bit.

Yeah, you're right. The ID we're still considering did list out the difference between aluminum frame and wooden frame doors so that we can think about it. The price differential is quite significant. But it also affects the look we're going for, so we're going to have to see if there are other things we can cut first. Thanks for reminding us about the additional plumbing charges if we were to have a sink on our island! Think we're going to just keep our island as a working countertop and not have any electrical/plumbing things directed there. That would hopefully help a bit. Thanks for your advice!

Thanks for sharing your experience! We're going to look into engaging a main contractor. But we still prefer having someone to help us coordinate everything because this is our first renovation. Don't know what to look out for and don't know the details well, so we don't feel very confident. But we'll research! Can't wait to identify the right ID and get the process going!

Thanks for the recommendation! Will check it out

Been getting quite a few comments from friends that our renovation is so expensive. We know But we don't really dare to engage a contractor because of the coordination involved and amount of time needed. We're also afraid that the contractor won't be able to understand what we're trying to achieve. Are we right to think so? Shall put up what we're doing here and see if anyone can give advice on our quotations so far. Thanks for your help in advance if you do advise! 1. Hack off existing living/dining floor tiles and skirting 2. Hack off existing balcony sliding door and door frame 3. Hack off existing balcony wall/floor tiles 4. Hack off existing kitchen cabinet, sink, stove 5. Hack off existing wall between kitchen and dining area 6. Hack off existing kitchen wall/floor tiles 7. Hack off existing staircase tiles and hand rail 8. Hack off existing storeroom below staircase 9. Hack off existing wall between Bedroom 2 and 3 (to combine both bedrooms into one, creating new master bedroom) 10. Lay decking for balcony 11. Install timber bi-fold door at balcony 12. Lay homogeneous floor tiles for living/dining/kitchen area 13. Change all existing windows/grilles 14. Construct kitchen bottom cabinets 15. Install island unit 16. Install kitchen and island countertops 17. Plaster smooth entire unit 18. Lay parquet on steps 19. Install mild steel hand rail 20. Reconstruct storeroom below staircase 21. Change all bedroom doors 22. Install wardrobes for both rooms 23. Patch up parquet after hacking wall between bedroom 2 and 3 24. Create new wall to change entrance to bathroom (so that the common bathroom can become the new master bedroom bathroom) 25. Change all bathroom doors 26. Overlay tiles for all 3 bathrooms (we're not allowed to hack the existing bathroom tiles, unless we wish to void the HDB warranty, because the entire block just got their bathrooms upgraded) 27. Install glass swing doors in bathrooms 28. Vanity counters in 2 bathrooms upstairs 29. Revarnish parquet on 2nd floor 30. Paint whole unit That's roughly what needs to be done. And the quotes we've been getting (from IDs) are in the range of 80-90k. Reasonable? Should we be considering a contractor?

Thanks! The boy particularly liked the balcony too It's 146sqm. Similar to the usual gen 2 EMs, I think? The condition isn't great. The current owner moved in 10 yrs ago and didn't renovate anything except for 1 bedroom. They mentioned that the previous owner before them stayed for 5 yrs, so we deduced that the last renovation was probably at least 15 yrs ago. We're going to have to do a major overhaul, especially to the entire kitchen. Have to hack down the tiles on the floor and walls in the kitchen, they're very old.

Haven't approached a contractor yet. Currently only approaching IDs because we're afraid of the hassle of engaging a contractor (the coordination and what not). Do you have one to recommend? We're hacking the first floor and retaining the second floor's parquet. Also hacking walls. The staircase needs to be re-done and the walls need to be plastered because the current one uses the uneven and bumpy kind of paint or something. The quote doesn't include rewiring, plumbing and furnishing yet

Met up with Three-D Conceptwerke again last night to discuss some changes. Waiting for our quotation to be revised. We mentioned to the ID that we've actually exceeded our budget with the current quotation (which makes us super worried about the revised quotation, considering some of the changes!), and she was very nice about it. Told us to let her revise the quotation first, and when we next meet up, we can look at how to bring the number closer to our budget. She also reminded us to fix a time with the current home-owner so that she can come down to take a look at the place and take some measurements to make the quote more accurate. Regardless of our decision, the ID from Three-D Conceptwerke has impressed us with her service and willingness to accommodate. I can only hope we manage to work out something in the end!

Forgot to mention that The Carpenter's replied a few days ago. Hmm. Guess we'll meet them since we did contact them. Contacted another firm after seeing an interesting concept done by them in the latest Home&Decor magazine. DistinctIdentity. Time to arrange for an appointment! Updated List of IDs 1. Ideal House 2. 3D Innovations 3. Intra Design 5. Three-D Conceptwerke 6. Artist Room 7. The Carpenter's Workshop 8. DistinctIdentity 9. Project File 10. Plush Living

Yeah, our quotations are about 80-90k Haven't done any renovations before, so this will be our first.

We considered starting reno after 1st appt so that we can move in before CNY 2013. If you want to start reno before key collection (2nd appt), you need to get the seller to fill in an indemnity form. So the seller has to agree to let you apply for a renovation permit under their names. Which also means they may be liable for any renovation hiccups because HDB will approach the current owner of the unit if anything arises. So not all sellers will be willing to sign that form to let you start renovation early. Also, I'm under the impression that the house is not yours until after the 2nd appt when you officially get the keys. So should the seller play you out, you're running the risk of having done the renovation for the seller. Read somewhere in the renotalk forums about that. Guess it may still be safer to just wait till you get the keys. Or you can get the seller to fill in that form so that you can apply for permit early and start renovations right after key collection (so that you don't have to wait another 1-2 weeks for the HDB permit to come). That's what we're planning to do.

Thank you! Can't wait to begin our reno journey.

Major overhaul! We're totally feeling the heartache looking at the quotations we've gotten from the IDs we like

Woohoo! Hopefully The wait to the 1st appt is such a pain, isn't it

Haha, yeah, the boy was very interested in the balcony when we viewed the place. Thanks! Hope we pick the right one