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Hello everyone! My fiance and I have been following everyone's t-blogs ever since we decided to purchase a 5-room resale HDB flat for our first home...and now that renovations have just started, it's time to start our very own t-blog! It's also a good way to keep track of our renovation journey... We started house hunting in March this year, managed to find one which was acceptable to us and our respective parents and started the process of buying the flat. Once we exercised the option to purchase, we started looking for IDs and learnt quite a lot on renovations from reading this forum! Eventually, we settled on the ID we were most comfortable with and renovations started yesterday! So first up, our floor plan...we didn't want to pay HDB for it and so, we managed to get a copy from the previous owner! Pretty standard layout...only odd corner is in the master bedroom where there's a 45 degree angle corner right in the middle of the room...that corner gave us quite a bit of headache during the planning stage of our renovation. Initially, we had planned to put a dressing table there but after consultation with the FSM who advised us not to use that corner, we decided to seal it off with a glass door. Our poor ID had to make quite a few changes to the 3D designs after our consultation with the FSM...luckily, he was super nice and understanding about it

Selling brand new epic gate digital lock for hdb/bto gate. - Made In Korean - Unlock by using card, password or remote control - Register up to 30 user card - One Time Password - Scramble Code Function - Easy Installation Letting go as i bought 2 sets by accident. Self collection at yishun. Whatsapp/ SMS 81554069 to deal or request for more pic/video

Hi, Yesterday morning suddenly around 15-20 tiles in my 4 RM HDB Living Room pop-out. There was lots of cracking noise and we thought its an earthquake.Called HDB hotline and they informed that Officer will get back to us within 3 working days. Our is a 12 years old HDB in Punggol and presently we covered the area with a mat so that infant is not hurt accidentally. Any one else faced the same problem? What is the HDB standard procedure in such scenario ? DO we have to do the re tiling by our own or it comes under HDB warranty? Any advise in this matter is highly appreciated. Thanks

Customised Arts at LA31! Great varieties of themes and designs to choose from! None fits your liking? Fret not! We do customization as well! PM us and tell us your preference and we will do according to your needs! All designs are able to fit to walls, doors, windows, glass panels and are even possible to be made into posters (frame or without frames)! Design works are constantly in at LA31! So stay tuned to our page for more updates! * all designs are possible to customized to fit desired areas! * customization are available upon request * * free resizing means it will fit nicely according to your individual needs! * PM us or reach us at 9336 0634 / 9857 1568 for more details! Visit our stores for more available arts! - https://sg.carousell.com/lamedaleph31/ - https://sg.facebook.com/lamedaleph31/ - https://shopee.sg/shop/15170881/

Customised Home Decor Arts at LA31! Great varieties of themes and designs to choose from! None fits your liking? Fret not! We do customization as well! PM us and tell us your preference and we will do according to your needs! All designs are able to fit to walls, doors, windows, glass panels and are even possible to be made into posters (frame or without frames)! Design works are constantly in at LA31! So stay tuned to our page for more updates! * all designs are possible to customized to fit desired areas! * customization are available upon request * * free resizing means it will fit nicely according to your individual needs! * PM us or reach us at 9336 0634 / 9857 1568 for more details! Visit our stores for more available arts! - https://sg.carousell.com/lamedaleph31/ - https://shopee.sg/shop/15170881/

Heyya Everyone, So, just like so many fellow forumers before me, I am embarking on a renovation journey of my own. First things first, some details: Type: HDB Resale 5 room, Design Renovation for: Whole house Floorplan: Below Key collection date: Feb 2016 I have some special plans for the current master bedroom! We want to hack a wall and partition the current master bedroom into two halves and use Bedroom 2 as my eventual master bedroom. One half of the old master bedroom will be a sort of wardrobe area and the other half, we plan to use as a library/study area. For the partition, I wish to build a full height wardrobe in the middle of the room as shown in the modified floorplan below. Of course we will need to hack a bit of wall in the master bedroom and move the door more towards the living room side. Sadly, this is not going to be cheap, not to mention the complete renovation of the two toilets and the kitchen and plus the re-flooring of the whole house. Preferably parquet for the bedrooms and the library area and wood-grain plank tiles for the living room and the wardrobe area. The thing is, I do not want any IDs to give me more ideas, I would

Dear All I have bought the HDB resale house and the door has been used for more than 10 years. There are some cracks in the front side of the door. Initially we thought we would like to do paint spray and change some door accessories, but we are now considering to change it into the new door. I have been checking the door installation websites, not sure if the price and type of door is correct. Kindly advise. Thanks. Door size: 4ft (double leaf) Accessories: Magnetic stopper, eye viewer, press lockset (we purchased the digital door lock to replace with the key part here, though) Door type: Fire-rated.... in this case, Veneer OR nyatoh ply???? (most curious part) Price: I checked with suppliers, they mentioned no credit card and price ranges from $1350 to $1680. If add steel lines, $15-$50 per line. Payment scheme: 30-50% deposit upon order confirmation, the balance to be paid upon completion. ** we need a installation service for our digital door lock if can be provided.

Hi, guys Please see and advise me on this quotation if reasonable. Living & Dining ($4,650) homog.tiles $3.20~3.80 (60x60cm) ---- Size of the space: 5200 X 4900 (Less Bombshelter 3200 X 1500) + 3500 X 3200 Mater BR Flooring ($1,560) Parquet $9.5sqft (300mmX50mm) --- Size of the space: 3000 X 3800 Kitchen Flooring ($2,200) Price of tiles: we choose the European tiles. ($6.00-$9.00) Size of the space: 4300 X 2500 (Less Kitchen Cabinet 1000x2500, 2000x600, 2500x600) Thank you in advance!

Hi there! After spending months trawling the renotalk forums, and learning SO much from all you regular posters, I'm creating this t-blog to give back to the community by sharing my experience. Hopefully my 2-cents will be useful to some future home owner Renovation for our place has just started, so future updates will show progress of our home as well! Cheers, Alvin

Hi guys! So we got the keys to our 5rm BTO flat in October, waaaaaaay ahead of expectation. Both of us are the rather chillax kind, so we did not really do any research on reno stuff beforehand. We are in our BTO FB group and were quite amazed that people actually signed reno packages even before they got their keys . For me, I need to have a feel of the physical space before deciding anything. So, we only started reading up on renovation stuff one month before we got our keys. Our theme for the house was unanimously decided long ago: Scandinavian with essentials of wood, grey and white. Despite being an overly-done theme, it is something that we both hold dear, and one that works for us. This is our floor plan: Living room Floor--at first I had decided on vinyl/HERF because of the nice woody look. But she was concerned whether there will be a smell from the plastic in the long run, and also whether it is truly waterproof (since they are assembled using the clicking system). A valid concern; so we decided to go for wood-grain tiles instead for the whole house (incld bedrooms). Sofa/TV console/Feature wall-- We had a long discussion about this and finally decided to put our TV along the wall adjacent to Bedroom 3. There will be a feature wall of long vertical woodgrain tiles (1.8m high each) that look like wood planks. And on top of that line of tiles, we will install a thin ledge for us to place photo frames or posters. Something different from the usual brick walls. Something like this for the feature wall, just that it doesn't go all the way to the ceiling: Example of photo ledge: Dining table-- It will be placed along the wall opposite the TV console. She wants a really biggggg dining table, so we are prolly getting a 1.8m long one, with a bench to match. Planning to place a bar table against the household shelter wall as well. Built-in storage/display cabinets-- I personally hate having storage/display cabinets in the living room, period. The HDB living room is already too small for my liking (heng we chose a 5rm), having any sort of gigantic cabinets in the living room will just make it look even more cramped. So there will be none. Except for a shoe cabinet that we are planning to build into that recess to the right of the main door. False ceiling/L-box-- None of this too. It will just lower the height of the ceiling even further. Lighting-- Planning for track lights above the feature wall area. And a black ceiling fan. Hanging "spider" lights above the dining table. Track lights along room corridor. LED near the main entrance. Kitchen We are going to hack away the whole wall facing Bedroom 3, and build a kitchen island in the middle . Both of us like to cook, and can't stand claustrophobic kitchens haha. The island will be 1.8m x 1.2m, and the side nearer to Bedroom 3 will feature a counter with stools. There will not be any glass partitions or doors between the kitchen and living room. Yes it will be open but we are not worried about the smell! We don't do heavy frying anyway. There will be kitchen cabinets on both top and bottom on the other wall, and we are planning to get either Kompacplus or Pacnel countertops. Leaning towards Pacnel tops because as of now, they have more colour choices! As for the cabinets, we prefer the surface to be less "flat", contrary to the usual sleek, contemporary laminate surface. After Googling, we found out there's actually a name for this kind of design: it is called Shaker style. An example below: We are leaning towards dark grey cabinets with light grey Pacnel countertop. Along the wall adjacent to the toilet until the service yard window, we are going to build a bottom side-board cabinet; on top we are going to put stuff like my Nespresso Pixie, toaster oven, Hurom etc. Bedroom 3 We are hacking away the whole wall facing the kitchen and replacing it with a black aluminium-framed glass wall/door, to make the whole house feel even more spacious. This will be the gaming/study room! Going to put my PS4, a 40inch UHD TV with a Yamaha soundbar in there. Master Bedroom Making a L-shaped full height wardrobe! Was contemplating the idea of a platform bed, but decided it was too expensive and the ceiling will be too low (planning to put a ceiling fan). Going to put the usual queen-sized bed frame! Toilets Going to install a vanity top with mirror box cabinet for both toilets! Prolly going to use black Pacnel top for the vainty. For the MBR toilet, there will be a glass shower panel (not door), separating the shower area from the toilet bowl. Cos I feel having a sliding door is too claustrophobic. For the common toilet, there will be a shower kerb with IKEA's shower curtain rod (no shower panel, to save costs). Panel only: Contractor We met a grand total of one contractor and one ID. We invited the contractor to our new house and told him about our plans and ideas, and to give a quote. The moment I spoke to him, I knew I could trust this guy. There was rapport, we could click, and he was clearly experienced in his field. He suggested alternatives when our ideas were not feasible. We were very comfortable with him and were eagerly awaiting his quotation. It came back to be around $48K! At first it was shocking. But after calming ourselves down and looking at the things we wanted, we concluded that it was a reasonable (though not cheapest) pricing. (We later changed some stuff and the price dropped to $46k.) On the other hand, the meeting with the ID was unplanned. I chanced upon this FB post of a so-called renovation "open-house", where various companies will be there to showcase their reno materials (kitchen tops, cabinets, tiles, lights etc), so that we can have a better idea of what materials to choose for our reno. So I thought to myself, why not? Upon reaching the place, there was a group of young people smoking in the stairwell right outside the entrance to the openhouse. Impression down We walked in, one young guy approached us, and introduced himself as an ID from ___ company, and offered to bring us around. At this point, we knew it was not such a simple affair. He brought us to see all the materials, tiles, tops etc. Along the way, he kept emphasizing on how credible and accredited his company was (rolling eyes at this moment ). At the end of the tour, he made us sit down and listen to him intro his company's reno packages. Upon first glance, the pricing looks reasonable. But upon closer scrutiny, we realised the package was super basic (plain white tiles @ $3 per sq feet etc). So if we add on the things we wanted, it will prolly add up to a substantial amount. Then he suddenly whispered to us: if we sign today and give the deposit, his boss will waive the 7% GST. Ermigawd. Are you freaking kidding me. That's like the lamest sales pitch ever. Everybody knows you have already factored in the GST into your pricing right?! We walked out without signing anything. The silver lining was that our time was not totally wasted; we learnt quite a fair bit about the materials TL:DR version : Not impressed with ID company, signed with contractor.

Hi all, I would like to know if it's possible to have renovation bank loan with 2 different contractor. Example Contractor 1 - Quote $10,000 Contractor 2 - Quote $15,000 Reno bank loan of $25,000 Thank you in advance!

Hey guys! We have just started our renovation journey and thought to share with everyone who reads this forum! Everyone has been exceptionally helpful and assisted us a lot on the journey to finding our contractor as well as furnishings and such. Very excited to get the party started! Located just beside a huge canal, it kinda reminds us of a lake...... therefore the name: "Lake" House We collected our keys in May 2014 and spent a total of approximately 4 months settling our defects. At the same time, we were finding a contractor whom we are comfortable with. We already had our rough designs ready and needed someone to execute it confidently with professional suggestions along the way. We were really pleased to come across MrJ & MrE. They replied promptly and professionally to all of our doubts and understood what we wanted as soon as we had our first discussion. First up, here is our floor plan Our "Lake" View Day 1 (06/10/14) Signed at MrJ & MrE's factory and had a discussion with the both of them regarding all our designs and layout. MrJ did a sketch on all of our carpentry works and understood what we wanted. He then passed us a couple of booklets of laminates for us to browse through. Day 4 (09/10/14) Met with MrE and electrician; ironed out all of our doubts and did planning of lighting and other electrical works. Electrician was really helpful and provided some really good suggestions. Thereafter, we caught up with MrJ at the Lamitak factory to view bigger pieces of the laminates that we shortlisted(a whole bunch of them!) We had serious problem deciding on what laminates to use as the range was massive; when we always thought that a certain design was exactly what we wanted, we will come across another that wavered our decision. Looking at the bigger pieces really helped. It looked so different than when it was in a little sample piece in the booklet. Just when we were about to part our ways, we were informed that the electrician has already started work! How efficient Meanwhile, here's our styleboard Day 6 (11/10/14) A really fruitful day! Met MrE at Hafary (Eunos branch) to select bathroom and kitchen tiles. We were overwhelmed by the wide varieties of tiles. Thankfully MrE introduced us to the sales executive there and she was really helpful. Some pictures of the place There's a good variety of tiles which were in our budget, enough to drive us crazy while finalising our tile, therefore we would advise homeowners to not venture to too many stores to look at more choices because this would only confuse you - making your selection process a nightmare. MrJ met us soon after and we discussed on a couple of changes in our designs and they were really flexible about it. We were glad that they were not the kind who would request for a topup when informed of any changes. Looking at how confused we were, they also gave us ample time to finalise our tiles and laminates.

Hello everyone, I am a newbie here, and hope to ask a question to the renovation veterans on this forum. I am thinking of buying an HDB, and plan to do the renovation as indicated in the figure below. What is my chance of getting HDB to approve this renovation plan? I need to know my chance before buying this flat -- if the chance is too low, I might give up on this flat -- since I really want to have a 1.7m long bathtub. I really appreciate your expert opinions on this. Thanks! Alan.

Hey everyone, Just wanna share with everyone our experience relating to our first home (awesomely superb feeling!) and the renovation works in progress... A little backstory here: Basically my older sis and I are Malaysians working and living in Singapore, and being foreigners here, we never had the luxury nor privilege to have a permanent residence to call our 'home'. For myself, I have been here for almost 10 years and have moved a total of 14 times! Have had a share of nightmarish experience (loan sharks, crazy land-lady, backstabbing housemates) while renting, and despite the sky-high property prices, we have had enough and my sis made a good choice to get a pink IC so that she can buy herself a flat under the singles scheme. So, the place actually belongs to my sis, while I fancy myself a squatter, although my sis views me as her personal ATM (*cough blood*) and sai kang warrior to obsess over the itty-bitty details related to the renovation because I am that particular about aesthetics and comfort - but mainly aesthetics, job hazard, I suppose The story starts about 1 year after my sis got her citizenship, when we found a small, old 3-room with an excellent location (MRT nearby!). COV was painful, but the time saved from the travelling will compensate, at least that's what I keep saying for reassurance. Here's the floorplan:

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.

Hi all! This home is called the contentment home as we are happy with where we are at right now. Regarding the theme of the home, it is ''You like, can already''. Hahaha, initially we were fussing about what theme we wanted in the home. We bounced between a Nordic-Scandinavian theme to a resort feeling theme to a modern theme to a minimalist theme. In the end, we just went with what feels right because that is the most important! Doesn't matter what theme the home is as long as the people who are living in it are happy with it's state. This home has initially caused us a lot of headaches when we did not know what we want due to us being fickle. But we made it through! And I'm here to share the next part of the journey which is renovation with you all House Hunting This was the worst part to the renovation journey as we could not find what we wanted We were looking for a 4 room flat that was not too big and was located near where we were previously staying (TPY). As everyone knows, TPY flats don't come cheap especially when it's nearer to TPY Central. Our only options were the outskirts of TPY as we wanted to have a 4 room while having it well renovated. We were very hesitant about living in the 'outskirt' as there was no MRT nearby but.... there are a lot of buses for us to take! So why not? A new change of pace and lifestyle for us to try. If we had gotten closer to Central, there would have been no way we could renovate our home to a level which was comfortable for us all and there's no point in buying a home where you're unhappy right? PS: We did look at other 4 room resale flats in AMK, YCK and Hougang area. But our heart was fated and contented with only our beloved old town, TPY. This is our floor plan and as you can tell, It is a very old flat. There's only 1 Bath and WC which is located in the Kitchen and theres no connecting Master bedroom toilet etc. Many might hate the separated toilet but.. we LOVE it. We have an issue with touching wet floors with our bare feet. Unless the area is meant for bathing, it CANNOT be wet. Even the WC area cannot be wet. We are adamant to having the bathing and WC area be separated if we had gotten a combined bathroom. To which the house agent shook his head as more work for him Contractors Search This is the part where we all sighed in disappointment. A contractor whom we thought was reliable turned out to be a irresponsible baboon. He quoted us unreasonably and forgot a lot of things in the quotation. Initially we trusted him and gave him the benefit of the doubt. However, all he gave us was crap. His quotes were reasonable for some but for others, it was completely overpriced. Seeing his quote was too over budget, we decided to source out other options to replace his electrical and carpentry. However, we wanted him to do our main works like tiling etc. He decided to not reply any of our messages and even left to go 'overseas'. Funny how when we called him, the tone could get through normally as though he was in Singapore. Not only that, he proceeded to message us and tell us that he was busy overseas. Hence, his colleague would takeover. Fair enough, colleague says yes, yes she can do it. Fast forward 9 hrs, at 1am in the morning. She dropped a Whatsapp messaging telling us she is also too busy. Gave them a good 'talk', if you know what I mean, before I deleted their contact completely. Never going to recommend that company. Main Contractor: Our next contractor (M) felt right the moment he talked to us. He was able to remember most of the things we wanted except he missed out ~3 things from the quotation? However, his colleague (C) was quick to help and communicate for us as there was a slight language barrier. M could speak Mandarin brilliantly, but his English was only on a ok-ok standard. But its ok, we were able to understand him and he was super nice in helping us try to keep to our budget. AND he understands when we wanted to use another company for their carpentry, electrical and air-con. So big thumbs up for his positive mindset! C too, super helpful. However, I do not know if they would do a good job, and frankly, I do not have time to be picky as we are rushing for time, having to move out by mid next month I will see whether they do a good job and if they do, I'll definitely update later after the completion! Carpentry & Electrical & Air-con As I said above, we sourced out a different contractor for carpentry, electrical and air-con. Carpentry guy (A) is a jovial bubble who listens and tries to help in whatever way he can. We know nuts about designing so we asked him to do the designs for us and we would tweak it as we see necessary. Just earlier today, he came down to discuss the design of the wardrobes and he bothered to listen to what we needed more. We will also see how his workmanship is as the progress moves on! J is our electrical guy and is friendly but he doesn't talk much unless necessary. At least, he has good responsibility when it comes to informing us that he is going overseas. Lastly, for Air-con, T is helping us. Nothing much to say about her as we never met before but she handled my current home aircon too. And it works fine, so yay? Before Renovation Pictures Yes, I am horrible at choosing the angles to take the pictures but I will improve! I hope.. Living Room Bedroom 1 Bedroom 2 Bedroom 3 Kitchen Bath WC Hopefully the pictures are okay as I do not know how to upload pictures here properly (edit: okay they are fine)

Size:111 sqmNo of rooms : 3+2Asking price : 510k(Negotiable)Design & buildRenovated All Races eligible Singaporean / SPR may apply very spacious, low floor, windy, no west sun, next to park 5 mins (sheltered) walking distance to Boonlay Mrt,but interchange & Jurong point shopping mall<2min walking distance to CC,Jurong library,Medical Centre, childcare centres Open to interested Buyers & Buyers Agent only Please sms or call 9-8-6-5-7-6-56 to arrange for viewing Thanks

Hi Masters! this is my first post on reno talk, and i would like to seek some advice from experience folks here. I just purchased a 4-room DBSS unit (resale, 94sqm), and i'm planning to do a full overhaul of the entire house. I have a 30-40k renovation budget to turn my hdb into a nordic scandinavian vibe home. I would like to make the following changes Full hacking a demolition - living room + kitchen + 3 bedrooms + 2 toilets. I think i need to take down nearly everything - tiles, carpentry work, false ceiling, etc. Full painting in every room Minor electrical work touch up; addeding a few power points. Living room - New floor tiles (Vinyl or homogeneous tile), shoe cabinet, TV wall mounting, new curtains, and possibly a featured wall, installation of hanging fan Bedroom (master) - New floor tiles (vinyl or wood-like tiles), built-in wardrobe Bedroom x2 - New floor tiles (vinyl or wood like), 1 study table in 1 of the room, 1 built in ward robe in 1 of the room. Toilets - New floor (granite or other matt/rought materials) and wall tiles (Granite, ceramic or homogeneous tiles), sink/toilet bowl/vanity counter purchase + installation, glass wall Kitchen - New floor tiles and wall tiles, cabinet (white modern looking), kitchen top (granite or marble), new sink and cooking hobs + installation. I don't think my budget allows me to engage an ID, hence i'm looking for a contractor to help me with my renovation work. Any good intro?

Indezign Homedecor had just completed a project which based at Penang, Malaysia. Company : Indezign Homedecor Property : Ideal house Location : Penang, Malaysia Type : Double StoreyTerrace (Residential) Concept : Modern Comtemporary, Scandinavian Contract sum : $120,000 Kindly contact Indezign Homedecor for further enquiries ! Contact : 83601588 (CW) Email : indezign_homedecor@outlook.com

Hello everyone, Like many young couples, my SO and I are really excited to get the keys for our future home. Since then I have been lurking around renotalk, absorbing experience and ideas shared by so many passionate homeowners. As I will be starting my renovation soon, I feel that I should share my experience here, to contribute a little back to this awesome community. My home is a 4-room BTO flat, located at the northeastern area of Singapore. As this is a premium project, it comes with HDB flooring and I opted for HDB door. Below is the floor plan and pictures of the living room. Typical 4 room BTO floor plan. Realised many of my new neighbours hack away the wall between kitchen and dining area. Decided against an open concept kitchen as both of us are too lazy/busy to keep our kitchen neat and tidy all the time. Recess wall in the living room. HDB should just fill up the recess area to make life easier for us. TV console will be placed here. Still thinking of ideas for dining area feature wall. Dislike the wooden skirting around the living area and will be asking my ID to hack and replace them with matching tiles. We have collected our keys in early March but the last month was spent rectifying the defects with HDB and sourcing for contractor/ID. Both tasks are long and daunting, and I am glad both of them have been sorted out. During the meetings with different contractors/IDs, I have these criteria in mind: 1. Must incorporate our fengshui beliefs into the design 2. Pet friendly as we have a dog 3. Scandinavian theme (love the clean and simple look) with splashes of blue 4. Keep within our budget 5. The contractor/id must be able to commit and take care of our project personally, as we both work late Finally found our chosen one and signed the contract over the weekend, journey should start next week. Next, shopping time for air condition, hod, hood, sink and fridge....

I started this blog to document down the journey that we will be going through and when the renovation is complete, to read and relive the “I told you so” mistakes or the “that was wise” decisions. A little backstory on us: We got our keys in early 2014, but was not in Singapore at that point of time. We did very basic renovation (kitchen cabinets, toilet accessories and fridge/washing machine/aircon), signed a power of attorney to our mother, seeked approval from HDB and managed to rent out the flat. Fast forward 2 years+ later, we came back to Singapore and waited for the lease agreement to end. Disappointingly but I guess unsurprisingly, the house had deteriorated quite badly. The floors and countertops had huge marks and dents, the washing machine lid could be detached, and the aircon leaked like a sieve (I don’t think they did any servicing at all!) We decided to bite the bullet and spend some hard earned cash to redo the house. The requirements were simple: 1. To redo the kitchen cabinets but this time with a built in oven and a bigger fridge compartment. 2. To overlay the 2 bathroom tiles and replace the toilet bowls, basin and shower mixer. 3. To have a built in wardrobe in the Master Bedroom and the study. 4. Master Bedroom to be able to fit a King size bed 5. To have a study table in the study (captain obvious!) 6. To have a TV console and built in cabinets in the living room We didn’t have a theme in mind but we knew that we love the clean sleek modern look with a touch of earth tones to make the house cozy. The budget that we had in mind was at $25K. We set about checking in , Renotalk and asking friends for any recommendations. In the end, these were the IDs that we met. ID 1: One of our friend was an ID and we were very impressed with his house. We trusted him but his quotation was over what we wanted at $35K. In the end, we decided not to engage him, only because of the fact that we wanted to preserve our friendship. ID 2: A couple that we have been friends with for a long time recommended their ID. We liked their place and even asked if we could copy some of their designs and they graciously agreed. The ID had some chemistry with us and we liked him a lot. On the 2nd meetup, we went down to his office and he had a proper office with carpentry space and had workers that were all uniformed. Very impressive and with that setup, we knew he wouldn’t take our money and run. Additionally, the couple friends mentioned about several issues that they encountered, which the ID fixed it for them without a complaint. However, his quotation was at $50K! We tried to cut some stuff out and reduced it to $40K, but in the end we felt that we were compromising too much, hence we rejected him. ID 3: Referred via Renotalk. Their quotation was at $35K, similar to ID 1. The ID certainly knew his work as he recommended some ideas that were enlightening and fresh. I wanted to pursue him, but my other half didn’t like any of their past projects that they showed us. ID 4: Referred via Cromly. This ID was a total letdown. We invited him to the house, he came and when we started telling him of our expectations, he kept saying “can be discussed later, can be discussed later.” I was kind of pissed off at that point. Yes, he was the professional but shouldn’t he listen to our requirements as well? We told him our budget, he left in a hurry and we waited for a quote back. 1 week later, there was no reply and my other half dropped him a message. His reply was “I have many projects so find someone else.” Grrrrrr....... He sure must be doing very well to be able to choose his customers. ID 5: Referred via . Looks can be deceiving and I must admit that our first impression of him was he will take our money and run. However, he listened to our requests and was willing to look into them. His quotation was $30K, which had set some alarm bells ringing as it was lower than everybody else. After the 2nd meet up, we didn’t want to consider him due to the above factors, but he dropped a message 2 weeks later asking if we can meet up to go through the quotation and if we had any concerns he can address. My other half didn’t want to meet him at all, but I suggested we gave him a try. We prepared a list of 25 questions to asked him, some of which were personal and met up with him. He answered them all, some by throwing some smoke bombs which we immediately caught him but overall he addressed our concerns. We asked for several extra things and the quote increased to $32K. As of today, we still have not chosen any IDs yet. Still considering if we should see more? I have seen several reno blogs and they are usually filled with requests for PM of ID contacts. I won’t reveal the IDs that we declined but will reveal the ID that we chose. To be fair, the ID will only be revealed at the end of the blog once the renovation is complete. I want this to be as non-judgmental as possible and for our final review to be done after completion. Please don’t ask for PMs, I will do my best to answer any other questions

Hi Guys, i would be interested to hire a contractor just for a simple double platform bed with a few drawers storage. Would not need an ID because it's quite straightforward. Appreciate any help i can get, thanks! Jamie

Hi everybody, I desperately need advice on what to do with all the doors in my house. Currently going through reno & my doors arrived yesterday. To my dismay, it was nothing like the one I selected, color-wise. I was doing confinement last month and ordered these doors through the contractor. I was told that it will be like what I ordered. Then last week I got a call to say that it's still that color but slightly darker so I thought okay, no difference like that. I asked the workers & they said all doors are yellow, especially with varnish. I will not be able to find a non-yellow door in SG. I feel very cheated, having paid $2050 for all the doors. Main door, 3 bedroom door & one storeroom door. I was told that I cannot return or refund and cannot complain as they said that the catalogue stated illustration and actual product may vary. I decided to look for alternatives and came down to 3 solutions, namely Wallpaper, Decorative paint or changing the doors. I do not know how much it costs to wrap the door but the salesperson online all advised against as too many movement on it may cause it to peel. As for decorative paint, I am quoted $1800. Changing doors means throwing another $2k in. Last alternative is to spray paint at $600+ or paste Formica onto the doors which will affect the closing. Please advise me on what I can do, I intend to move in on the 8/9/16. Ideally I would like to have white/light-hearted doors to match the floor tiles. Many many thanks in advance!! (I had chosen VP15 without the middle board. On the catalogue, it looks light enough to match my floor and not as warm as the website and definitely nothing like the actual product )