thehappykowple

Thanks! We love it too. We are using The Association.

... And I present to you, our floor plan! It already looks so much nicer with the pink outlines and pencil drawings. Anyway, we did not purchase any 3D renderings from our ID as he advised us that drawings are good enough. He usually sketches on the spot for the contractors so they understand what needs to be done anyway. We are already 60% into our renovation journey so far, and all I can say is, we've never had the need to use any 3D renderings. Reattaching the old plan for easy reference below: We were literally blown away by the simplicity of the layout and that all our requirements were fulfilled. 1) Annoying wall at the front door, gone. 2) Open kitchen but we have the option of getting a sliding panel to close up when we do heavy cooking (this was one of the major push factors for us because all the other IDs proposed a semi-open concept which still made the kitchen feel very claustrophobic. We decided not to do the partitioin yet though because of cost factors but will definitely do it once we save up!) 3) Breakfast bar was a good to have but he managed to fit it in! 4) Balcony bar counter to make use of the playground view that we had. We were very impressed with how he even thought of our external surroundings instead of just the interior. 5) Simple remodel of the toilets but solved the weird pipes and angles 6) Open concept doesn't mean no storage! He still catered for a storeroom, albeit smaller. One thing he kept advising us to do was concrete screed, which I absolutely looooove but came to terms that we weren't gonna do because of cost and because of our homogenous tiles, which were in extremely good condition. Anyway, we agreed in the end as it really did bring the whole look together and my husband, who works in the design and build industry, could get us a good price. So that was that! After finalising the cost and layout, we sat down for a 3 hour long design session with our designer where we went through every aspect of the house and chose materials, colours, finishing etc. Then, it was on to electrical plan. Then, lighting plan. It was really fun though! In the end, this was the mood board we came up with!

How we selected our ID Once we settled on the overall theme of the house, I browsed Home & Decor's mood board page, and Cromly to get a sense of ID companies, their portfolios and what they specialise in. A personal pet peeve, I eliminated companies with strangely spelled namezzzz coz I'm sorry, it juz doesn't scream professional to me. And it's trying abit too hard. Anyway, we narrowed it down to four companies and set up meetings with them with a list of requirements. Due to budget constraints, we told them that our priority was the two bathrooms and kitchen. Theme: Industrial-Minimalist Colour palette: Black aluminium, white walls, medium-brown (no red tones) wood, plants Design requirements: - As open and airy as possible, therefore remove all false partitions and ceilings - We couldn't stand the fact that the front door opened up to a big wall so we were ok with an open kitchen BUT it must be able to withstand heavy cooking if we wished to do so - While the kitchen was big, there is no laundry area - Maximise the small small toilets and the weird corners/placement of pipes - Breakfast bar good to have - Two extra rooms to be furnished minimally; will be used as a study/future play room and cat's room/future kid's room A couple of hours before meeting our first ID, we found out that he had worked on three of our friends houses and his style totally suited what we wanted. From the first meeting, there was chemistry and we felt it not from the suggestions he gave, but from the physical samples he pulled out in his office to show us what could be done. We felt very comfortable after our first meeting but continued with our other meetings just to give a fair chance to everyone and get a sense of other possibilities for the house. At layout proposal stage, we were 100% certain on using him but it just boiled down to cost. Actually, we kept asking ourselves if we were being too emotional in our decision but the fact that we could remember his layout proposal from that one meeting says a lot. The other proposals were just... either too complicated or too forgettable. One thing we've learnt about dealing with designers is to balance their creative input, your style and practicality. Your designer is not going to live in your home and any inconveniences that crop up due to their design won't be his/her problem to solve. However, it is also another thing to put your designer into a box and limit their creative freedom. We gave our designer quite a bit of creative freedom to experiment with little projects and while not all worked out, we all learnt something in the process.

Some before pictures. Yellow walls, claustrophobic window grilles, false ceiling everything and a lot of built-in furniture More built-in furniture... A common problem for HDB maisonettes is that the staircase tends to be dark. This was blocked by the altar cabinet left by the previous owner. To the right of this picture is the front door. Yes, open the front door and you are greeted by a big rounded wall. You may not be able to tell from this picture but the entrance to the kitchen is tiny. Just for laughs... the drain cover that doesn't fit into the shower fully Next up... ID selection.

I chanced upon Renotalk's t-Blogs while doing research for own renovation and thought it'd be a good idea to document this exciting process and our experience. Let me get started with some background info first! Home will be a maisonette in Clementi with my husband (let's call him Mr K) and our playful Burmese cat. We bought the place in January 2015 and started shopping around for interior designers shortly after. The house was in very good condition and was very well-maintained. Truth be told, it was in move-in condition but there were quite a lot of design flaws (in our opinion) and it just didn't suit our taste at all. Mr K and I like a similar aesthetic ie. minimalist but his taste veers more to the masculine side ie. industrial, while I prefer white and airy ie. scandinavian. Not wanting the fittings/bare structure of the house to look schizo, we decided to just go with one theme and stick with it. So, industrial-minimalist it was. The catch was that I get to choose softer loose furnishing to make the place look less like a man-cave. Before I talk about our ID selection process, here is the original layout and some before pictures.