hobbes187

Think I said this in Kajua's blog as well Maybe you can roughly share with us what you were quoted for and we can advise u if the quote is reasonable... You could have been quoted for a lot more things than what we did...

Maybe you can roughly share with us what you were quoted for and we can advise u if the quote is reasonable... You could have been quoted for a lot more things than what we did...

Give and take la. I think some of my items the foot run is more exp but I let it go. So maybe they earn elsewhere and give me some back in terms of freebies.

I dont have the soft copy of the quote. But maybe you can post/PM an outline of what you're doing and I'll see if the packages can fit. You can see the packages on their website also... Basically one package is the main one with the living rm tiling, painting, wardrobe, kitchen cabinet etc. The other package will help only if u are hacking your kitchen and toilet tiles. I got free 20ft kitchen cabinet with first package and free aircon with the 2nd one. You can choose another 20ft kitchen cabinet for the 2nd package also.

But the hob and hood are cheap cheap models la... The hood is the slim kind not the nice chimney kind. Max is working on the 3D drawing now... Cant wait to see it. Anyway I met steven while chooseing tiles last wk... Nice enthusiastic guy. 46k is before bargain price right? If you try hard enough I'm sure you can cut that by a few k... Your ID is Melvin rite (though I have no idea who that is)?

No worries, I'm not offended in any way! I just firmly believe that expensive does not equals good. I'm sure that there are value for money deals waiting for us everywhere... It depends on whether we're able to sniff around and find them! This is so true!

Anyway I'm at block 202A... Anyone stay ard there? Any issues? You cannot remove the steel panel! Even if you install casement it will have to be behind it. Is you layout same as mine? I guess u got it in the Jun ballot? I got mine for $355k during Dec ballot. Top floor. The thing I like of our area is the proximity to SK mrt and compasspoint. Only 5 min walk. Hope they develop that area into a bustling town center.

Yes! Thats what I told them too. Since they're already willing to replace the tiles why dont they let the houseowner choose something that we like. Anyway my home will be modern resort theme. Though the main colour scheme is white, brown and grey, I'm planning of injecting some more lifely colours in the form of pictures and decoratives.

I'm not trying to flame or anything but what makes u think that expensive = better? For all you know, for that price, you could be getting cheap materials also. I think the best way is to go and see their ongoing projects as well as be specific in the materials used when you make out the contract.

Just confirmed my hob and hood. Cuizino TS-92X and P8.3VCGSS2. Chose a 3 burner stainless steel hob and a slim hood (to maximise cabinet space). These are freebies from my ID so cant be too picky

I tried to get them to hack but they said they already replaced it a few months back... The tiles they used were just as ugly...

I believe u are at the 289 - 290++ area right? Those were my 3rd choice flats when I went for selection. I like the kitchen with 2 exits and the large study area. But only problem to me was too far from compasspoint. Anyway from your blog I think layout 1 is nice. Makes the house look spacious.

Thats a coincidence cos I'm at 202 also! Which 202 are you at? PM me if not convenient to list here. Anyway I'm covering the steel ledge at the balcony. I'm doing fixed window panels at the bottom part and casement windows at the top. This will hopefully give a full height window kind of effect !! I chose casement over sliding to maximise the amt of air coming in from outside. But if i'm not wrong, HDB rules state that we need at least 5 panels... I was hoping to install only 4 casement panels cos I saw some ppl in my block install only 4... Will get my ID to check that out. When did u get your flat and how much?

Hi my reno cost is $38k excl furnitures and electricals. I did full house tiling (living, dining, balcony, kitchen), kitchen hack and tile, 2 toilets hack and tile, MBR toilet vanity cabinet w/mirror, MBR sliding glass shower screen, kitchen cabinet (~34ft), 2 wardrobes (total ~11ft), full height shoe cabinet, TV console, shelter feature wall, full house window grills, casement window for balcony and service yard, mitsubishi sys 3 non-inverter aircon, false ceiling in living, dining, foyer, MBR, change both toilet bi-fold doors and hack off study rm. Plus all the other usual kerbs, pipes and stuff like that.

Anyway my T-Blog is up! You can take a look here: http://www.renotalk.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=12717

Selecting Tiles We went with Max to select tiles at Hafary Balestier today. The place was pretty crowded and we had fun choosing the tiles for the entire house. As we are going for the resort feel, most of our tiles are chosen to give a warm feel to the house. All the tiles we chose today - From this overview you can see the kind of warm resort feel that we are trying to achive Living room (top) and Balcony tiles (bottom) - The living room homo tiles will be in 60x60 while the balcony ones will be 60x30. Chose the rougher balcony tiles to give an outdoor feel. Kitchen and service balcony floor (top) and wall tiles (bottom) - I really like the combi of the kitchen. The floor tile is really unique. It will be matched by a wooden laminate on my kitchen cabinet. Kitchen toilet wall (left top), floor(right) and wall feature tiles (left bottom) - We are thinking of putting the feature piece behind the WC and the shower head. MBR toilet wall (left top), wall feature (left bottom) and floor tiles (right) - The flower tiles will be used in the shower area only. It should give a nice hotel effect with the new vanity cabinet and large mirror

Selecting ID This is the most time, energy and brain power consuming part of my reno so far. I had to go thru 8 different quotes, compare every little detail,meet up with the seemingly reasonable ones and select the special one from among them all! I narrowed down to 2 IDs but eventually selected Max Ng from Ideal House due to his reasonable quote, responsiveness and most importantly, the ease with which we could communicate with him. (I have met yaya IDs who think their ideas are the best and dont care about what you want! ) Anyway we've signed our package with Max and now we're officially begun our reno! Hopefully we can start work in early May as planned. Selecting Fengshui Master As my parents believe strongly in fengshui, they wanted me to get a FS master to have a look at my place before reno begins. So I engage Mst Tan from Wayonnet who has been our regular FSM for years. He visited our flat and after looking at the FS, he recommended us some colours. Our auspicious colours are beige, white, red, blue, yellow and green. And our inauspicous colour is BLACK! There goes the contemporary modern theme that we were planning to have... So now back to the drawing board with our ID and decided to go for the resort theme with emphasis on brown and beige.

OPENING OF DOOR We collected our keys in late Jan, went to open the door that very day and this was what the flat looked like. The first thing that struck us was the ugly bathroom and kitchen tiles. We had long discussions over these and finally decided to hack them all off Living room Dining room - We plan to hack away the wall to the study room to make the living/dining room larger Study room - This will be converted to part of the living room Master bedroom - Not the biggest of bedrooms but still passable MBR Toilet - Ugly tiles and ugly vanity top! Both will go! Kitchen tiles - Will be hacking them off as well. Why must HDB lay such colours? Cant they just use white? Kitchen Toilets - Again the same peachy colour. Hacking them off! Bedroom 2 Reporting Defects Well, after searching through the entire house trying to find every little thing, I reported all of them to HDB. Some of the tiles sounded hollow to me so I thought I'll try my luck and ask them to hack. But after the HDB officer and contractor came down, they told me all my tiles were redone a few months before I got the keys and those that I tot were hollow were not (sadly, a fact confirmed by my ID ). So I had to fork out my own money for all the hacking of the tiles but I did manage to get HDB to replace all my power points, tel sockets and SCV points to new ones cos the old ones were yellow. Also theychanged my door bell button, viewfinder, cleaned my balcony doors and polished all the windows. Other than that I couldnt find much problems with the flat.

Hi all, finally got down to starting our own t-blog here. Anyway to cut a long story short, after 2 failed attempts in the Aug 07 and Oct 07 bi-monthly ballots, we finally struck gold in Dec 07. That was the Sengkang/Hougang Punggol ballot and there were 5000+ applications for 270 flats. Although our number was 179, we managed to get our choice unit, a 15th floor (top level) EA within 5 min walk from Sengkang MRT and Compasspoint.

I tot I gave you Max's number? Did u call him?

I am thinking of doing the same white and green coulour scheme for my kitchen toilet. Do they have a brighter shade of green? Will look like a Nintendo Wii toilet Anyway you chose your tiles at Hafary? Max asked us to go to some shop in Toh Guan, cant rem the name. He says the selection there a bit more...

KAJUA: Hope to see your completed reno soon. Anyway I saw that u have bought a sealy backsaver mattress for $700+? How is this different from the posturepeadic series what cost from $1000-$4000++? Cos I'm considering a good mattress like sealy or simmons for my new place.

Actually I got the aircon and false ceiling as part of the package. I took 2 packages i saw on their website - the Elegance package (comes with free 20ft kitchen cabinet) and the resale dream package that takes care of 2 toilets and kitchen hacking (comes with free air con). Max suggested taking the packages so I can cut costs. U mean u didnt take any package? Also I think since mine is brand new, I saved on a lot of the hacking fees for floor and existing furnitures. The hacking is for a small wall only la so it doesnt cost much. Anyway so far Max has been responsive and I think he looks like an honest chap. The willingness to negotiate and give me a good deal was the main reason I signed with him. My reno starts in May... Hope that Max can good job cos I have lots of referrals waiting

My quote is $38k. I did full house tiling (living, dining, balcony, kitchen), kitchen hack and tile, 2 toilets hack and tile, MBR toilet vanity cabinet w/mirror, MBR sliding glass shower screen, kitchen cabinet (~34ft), 2 wardrobes (total ~11ft), full height shoe cabinet, TV console, shelter feature wall, full house window grills, casement window for balcony and service yard, mitsubishi sys 3 non-inverter aircon, false ceiling in living, dining, foyer, MBR, change both toilet bi-fold doors and hack off study rm. Plus all the other usual kerbs, pipes and stuff like that. Did u do more? Anyway mine is an EA (130sqm).

KAJUA: So far I have only dealt with Max but he mentioned Steven is his partner and we'll prob get to see him soon. We're gng down to select tiles this weekend. How much did your whole reno cost?