tiyiz81

Hi Whalegaga, thanks for dropping by our blog. I am hopeful that we would be able to realise the designs.

5k for top floor Corridor end EM in Serangoon North. December 2014

Wed 18/3/2015 We went to our place to have a look at how things were getting on. While we were walking to our unit, we saw some workers setting off for the day. It was supposed to be a day of hacking and indeed it was. Living room Kitchen Cabinet Carcasses

Thanks for the well wishes potatoes. It does seem that we are neighbours...

Here is the floorplan of the unit that we bought. A corner, top floor EM. This would be the suggested floorplan that we have agreed on.

This journey began in Feb 2013, when we reached MOP for our old place. We felt that the unit was too small and we had 2 young children growing up and they need the space to grow as well as making some changes to our living arrangements. We advertised to sell our unit. Fast forward to Mid 2014, we finally had an offer and we accepted, looking at the market, it was going down and for our location, Sengkang, prices were depreciating and so we sold at an amount that we thought was a reasonable amount. Once the OTP has been signed, we began looking for our new unit. We decided that we wanted a maisonette, as we are now a family of 5. With us also moving in my parents-in-law’s family, we will be having 9 + 1 cat so, i think we need as much space as we can get. The search brought us to Yishun, Hougang, Bishan, Toa Payoh and finally to Serangoon. After going through so many maisonettes, the Serangoon unit was kind of a worthy buy although it was not the design that we were looking for but we thought, with good designers, we can work things out. So we made the choice, and the negotiations were quick. After the second viewing, we made our offer, thinking that it would take a few days before they reverted but it was barely 10 minutes later, while we were driving back when the agent called back and said our offer was accepted. Now with house done, the next journey of selecting ID begins. ————————————— We already had a selection of IDs to choose from. We had been stalking some of them ever since we started to market our old unit and so our ID selection journey began. For me, our shortlisted IDs would have impressed us with their past projects. Once we engage them, we would then like to be able to see innovative designs. Its not to say that i am a very adventurous person but with 9 people in the house, i am not sure if a typical design would be able to work for me. We had 1-2 designers that we wanted to engage and so we went to 1 more to even out the playing field. 2 of them i believe have featured here in Renotalk forum while 1 more, most likely not. Our needs were: to house 9 people and a catthree growing kidsenough personal space for allpreferably to not have dark areas in the housei believe there were more that we gave the designers.. hope it wasn’t too demanding. In the end, because of budget, we had to choose the one that is the most cost effective and i am very thankful that they were the most innovative with their design as well. As they were just designers, we now had to search for contractors to realise the design. The search for contractors were also tedious as we do not have any contacts, so we began looking around and got a few quotes. Our requests for contractors were that they were accurate in their quotes. We had hoped for them to come down to carry out measurements on site so that it would give them an idea as well on how the house would be. We finally decided on one of the contractors that we reached out to quite late but they were very willing to meet up and carry out measurements. Well, that was a summary of what happened in our journey of our new place.

Double Post... May save for table of contents later...

18 March 2015 Our entry starts midway through everything, our renovation is just beginning and its slated to complete in about 2.5 months. We completed the purchase of our Serangoon Maisonette mid December 2014 and decided to wait till after CNY 2015 to begin the renovation. Will take this space to document the reno journey and share our thoughts and purchases as well. The next post will provide the catch up for the initial few months before present day.

Heya Kissgurami, Would you be able to share your id through PM? I know that you mentioned this would only be revealed at the end.. So kind of asking for a favour as we are looking for IDs currently as well. If you don't mind, do let me know the ballpark figure for your Reno. TIA

Hi Vicx1234, My wife and I are about to begin our Reno journey. Still looking for IDs. Your house is indeed an inspiration and the info that you readily share is very helpful indeed. Could you help to PM the rough breakdown as well as the cost of renovation. And if you don't mind as well, total cost inclusive of furnishings? TIA