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We have just started our renovation recently, and decided that we should start a blog to document our Renovation Journey, so we could one day look back at our experience =) There are like so so so many tiny details that one should keep in mind during renovation. So many tricks, tips & pointers to look out for. Hopefully by sharing our humble experience, fellow renotalkers can also learn something from our renovation process as well. Nothing fanciful here, but I guess I shall start off with some pointers on ID/ Contractor Selection Process, my ideal steps as follow: 1) Get your floor plan (the above is ours). You can email HDB and they will send the hard copy to you by slow mail. Then photocopy a few copies of your floor plan, for future usage (e.g. to give to potential ids/contractors). When to start finding? It depends, we started like 3 or 2 months before we get our keys. However, if you know you are finding someone popular, then you might want to check his/her schedule earlier. 2) Brainstorm & write down in details what you would like to do for your house. Be specific. Don't just say Wardrobe in the Master Bedroom, say instead, 6ft length wardrobe in laminated finish, and whether you want casement or sliding doors. Number of drawers may matter too. Soft-closing and what brand also must say. Your ceiling height matters too (normally they do until 2.4m or 2.5m high only... extra height must top up). Whether you want the insides to be internal colour PVC finish or the standard white colour (which may turn yellow after many years..) also affects the price. Choice of external laminates matters too as some laminates can be more expensive than others. Sometimes even mirror or any fanciful design or material can affect the price, so be specific on your requirements. *EDITED ON 26 JUN 2016* 3) After having written down your specific requirements, do meet up with at least 5 Ids / Contractors to get your quotation (bring your floor plan too). Doing this will allow you to: a) compare the various quotations on the SAME job that is being done. b) observe the person to see if it's someone you can "click" with.. His/her attitude and design sense, etc. c) collect ideas. a good id/contractor may also point out impracticality of your design and explain stuffs to you why it's not good & propose better solutions. Do note that engaging ids will cost more than contractors (duh....the obvious), usually at least $2k to $5k+ more... it depends. You may consider getting an id if you have the budget + if you don't know what design you want, etc. If you already have a sense of direction what kind of design you want, then perhaps a contractor may suffice. Some contractors have designers to draw 3D drawings for them, so you can better conceptualise the design. The cheapest option, however, is to outsource EVERYTHING (e.g. find your own carpenter, tiler, electrician, etc). But that would require a lot of time & coordination on your side, and it could be quite stressful too.. *EDITED ON 26 JUN 2016* 4) Find out all the hidden costs, and also determine which items are worth outsourcing to make the overall renovation cost cheaper. Here are just some areas you can look into: a) Haulage & Debris Removal Service - Should you really pay $800-$1200 for haulage & debris removal service to your id/contractor? Or will it be cheaper if you call the HDB appointed Haulage Service contractor (his contact will be pasted near your BTO lift), and then ask your id/contractor to liaise with him instead? Haulage service is basically carrying the heavy stuffs for you, such as Tiles (if your flooring is not done yet), and debris removal is where they help you clear any debris from your renovation. I'm not sure if those who have no hacking & tiling works still need this service or not...as it may seem rather redundant unless you need to do kitchen mortar base, washing machine & fridge kerb then maybe need some labour need to carry the required materials such as prepacked cement, etc (this may probably cost you about $250?). For us, we have to hack some walls & do flooring... so we need this service. The amount of works done (hacking/flooring works) & the size of your flat (if do flooring) will determine the cost of this service. Some ids/contractors will ask you to get this service yourself and they will not include this in the quotation..., some may absorb this cost for you and provide it "free" (while jacking up the prices of other items maybe?), and some others will include this in the quotation as $800 to $1200++ and say it will be better if you engage from them as it is their own workers doing the service directly, so there will not be any miscommunication or delays. I later realised that this is kind of not true.. The HDB appointed Haulage Contractor for our BTO is "Mr Tan", and he says the service would cost $600 if got hacking + tiling works for 4 room (I'm not sure if other HDB appointed private contractors from other areas have different pricing or not..). I told my contractor (let's called him Uncle S) about it and he says he actually knows him coz they sometimes need to work together. He also remarked that he charge me cheaper than him too (Mr Tan charges Uncle S $700 for haulage/debris removal services)! So anyway, I passed Uncle S the money, he help me pay and get the receipt from Mr Tan. And from there onwards they work together no need me to call or arrange any appointments with Mr Tan at all. I never even met Mr Tan myself, only phoned & texted him to negotiate the cost of service only. Thus, it's not as troublesome as you may think if you engage Haulage service yourself, the point is whether your id/contractor is willing to help you liaise with the Haulage Contractor or not. So far everything seems okay. My walls have been hacked with debris cleared. Floor tiles are already in our house & tiling works are progressing, might be finishing by end of next week b) Window Grilles & Doors - It's usually cheaper to outsource these to those companies that do these works as their primary focus. I will update again the contacts once I am in that stage of installing these. It is better to install them at a later stage in the renovation (e.g. as doors may hinder movement or get scratched unless you protect them with cardboards and stuff). Uncle S says he will help me supervise the installation when the day comes (I hope ). c) Electrical, Plumbing Works & Aircon Works - These are usually not included in the quotation. You may choose to find your own electrician, plumber & aircon installer, or use the ones that your id/contractor works with. d) 3D Drawings - Do the 3D drawings come with unlimited edits? Or each re-draw/change of a 3D drawing (to see another design) will cost extra $$$? Stay away from those ids/contractors whereby 3D Drawings will cost exorbitant price like $500 each per change, as this will only limit/force you to proceed with the current design they proposed to you, which may not be what you really want. e) Internal Color PVC (example above) - As mentioned earlier, this is for the insides of the Cabinets/Drawers. The "default" is usually white color, but it may turn yellow after some years. If you want it to be internal Color PVC (non-white, there are a few colors & patterns to choose from..), then you have to top up. Do note that this is NOT the same as normal laminate, which is used for the OUTSIDE / EXTERNAL of the carpentry works. So, in terms of price, Internal White PVC < Internal Color PVC < Laminate. f) Full-height Carpentry works - If you are staying with higher ceiling height, full-height carpentry works will cost more. ** 5) Create an excel file to break-down and compare the quotations. Copy & paste the various jobs you have written in Step 2. Now, add in the quotations you have collected in Step 3. It may take awhile, but this step is very useful in helping you see the differences between the different ids/contractors quotation. It also allows you to calculate your costs easier as compared to writing these in word document. This means you will have 1 Column of Items, and X number of other Columns representing the X number of IDs/contractors you've seen. Additional Items & freebies can leave it to the last rows, do it in whatever format that you are comfortable with. Example, Requirements ID A ID B ID C Item 1: 7ft Brick Feature wall in Craftstone finish. $800 $1000 $900 Item 2: 6ft Wardrobe, sliding doors, height 2.6m, color internal PVC, with 1 mirror, 3 drawers, external laminates can choose $75 and below, etc (write whatever specific details) $1300 $1200 $1050 Item X: Window Grilles? (FREE = $0) $0 $900 $800 Basically you can use any method you want, no need to follow exactly the format here. The point is, to break up the quotations so you can weigh the pricing differences for the various works. 6) After comparing the quotes, and having a rough sense of who is more "reliable" or "comfortable" to you... you may then approach them again to further discuss & revise the quotes. Revise the quote? Well, remember the comparison you did in Step 5? You may approach the id/contractor you like and say so and so ID charged me cheaper for this item, do you think you can match his price? If you are lucky, the price can be matched, or a slight discount if the price difference is too big. 7) Ask to visit his current project sites to see the workmanship. Basically to see if the workmanship is good. Are the cabinet doors misaligned? Do they close properly? Is the floor grouting too wide? Etc. 8) Request for a site survey at your new house. The purpose is for a more accurate quotation... those with high ceiling height may have to top up more $$ on full-height carpentry works. It could also tell you how keen the person is in taking up your job (those not keen will say after sign contract then come...) 9) Ask lots & lots of questions if in doubt. Questions regarding the different materials, design solutions, costs, etc. Double check their facts. Do not take their answers for granted if possible. For example, recently TV got show some unfortunate couple got conned by a "contractor/ID" that claimed to be Case Trust & Radac. However, the CaseTrust website do not have the id/contractor company inside. The "contractor/id" has since disappeared and never to be found. You can also check Casetrust banned list here. If the company is not case trust, then do a google or search renotalk on their reviews. Sometimes you can find a lot of bad reviews about that company, and it may be safer if you avoid them. 10) Check check & check the contract before you sign. For example, on hindsight, it may be better for your contractor/id to charge you just for the labour for laying the tiles, instead of Labour + Price of tiles. Why do I say that? Think about it, say your id states that Bedroom tiles you can choose $2.50 to $4psf, before GST. If the Bedrooms are about 450 sqft in total, it would mean that a $2.50psf tile would cost 450 x $2.50 = $1,125. If you choose a $4psf tile, then it would be 450 x $4 = $1,800. That's a difference of $675 between the 2!! T_T And no... that will not be refunded if you have opted for the cheaper tiles. Thus, if we had taken out tiles prices in our quotation/contract, we will not have to worry about whether the tiles we are choosing is too cheap or too expensive. We could just choose based on the design. So this ideally should be discuss prior to signing the contract... unless your id/contractor is OKAY with refunding any extra $ if the tiles you choose are too cheap. *EDITED ON 26 JUN 2016* I suddenly remember something that Uncle S told me: If your house is still in initial building phase/not yet fully constructed, and you are absolutely sure that you want an open kitchen concept, you may request for them not to do up the wall that is partitioning the kitchen (if any). Also, if you don't like highlighting tiles, you may also request them not to include them in the toilets or kitchen. Although I'm not sure how true this is because I never personally tried it before (my unit was already constructed).... I suppose there is no harm giving it a try by asking your BTO/housing developer or something. If it works, then this could save you a few hundreds of dollars from wall hacking, wall tiles overlaying, etc. Not sure if I missed out any tips or pointers.. but feel free to comment ^_^

Rarely used chair / bar stool in excellent condition for sale ($160) Perfect for high tables or island countertops with industrial theme. Height adjustable Hate to let it go but it is too high for my table.

It's been a good 10 years since I last log in to RT; the last time I did, it was for my first home - a 4 room HDB. Reno was done through a recommended ID through my friend (who had her home done by him) and I have to say, it was a 8/10 experience except for minor hiccups then but nothing serious. Workmanship was impt to me and I am glad i got past that part since all the carpentry was still holding up well by time I sold my place. I learned plenty back then and from many masters hidden around the forum but how things had changed; now, it's all about TB shopping =) Time flies, a home for 2 evolved and went to 5 by 2013; needless to say and with every Singaporean's dream, I have to upgrade. I started calculating budget, monitor the property market and worked on convincing my in laws to let us move in with them. Luckily for me, it all worked out. I managed to convince the in laws, got what I want for my place from the 2nd viewer and hit on my choice unit for my new home; all within 2013. Fast forward to Jan 2016, I got updated that my new place will most likely TOP by this year and somehow, the most natural thing to do was to login to RT AGAIN. Going through all the blogs one by one for the past few months was tiring - especially so when i see so many wonderful new homes being done up; just watching the photos and reading lobangs shared is enough to make me drool with envy (you know that feeling of wanting to get things started immediately). Reading blogs after blogs do have it's benefits: 1) Taobao lobangs and links and "How to buy" 2) All reliable and updated ID/ Contractors contact I have since bookmarked quite a fair bit of TMall and TB links, as well as contractor/ IDs contact. To be honest, I am not the patient sort and will not have the time to go ID sourcing every weekend around Balestier, Ubi etc hence getting reliable feedback and truthful sharing from members here are impt. Having spend the last 3 weeks reading, I have narrowed and will work on getting quotations with the below 4: 1) J&E 2) Mr F 3) K 4) Renoguyz I will be sharing my experience once I meet them all soon. My floor plan below

Hello all! I have been a silent reader and follower of this forum since my fiance and I received our keys in May 2015 - we have been kinda chill about this so the process only started proper last month haha. Before I begin, I would really like to give my biggest heartfelt thank you to all the bloggers here who have shared their experiences because it has helped me so much, if not entirely in my own process. We are halfway through the renovation process now and I thought I would start writing about our renovation journey and hopefully, our experience would help all of you in your own exciting experience. The initials of our names form WHAT - hence the title ahha. We are both easties at heart so imagine our joy when we successfully applied for a sales of balance BTO in the Bedok area. It is about 10 mins walk to Bedok MRT, and we ain't got a good view (unless you count having a free show of watching your neighbours go about their business as one) but I gladly sacrificed that so that we could still be in an environment we grew up in. So here is our very humble home layout - a 4 room unit. I guess you could call our theme scandustrial (are you bored of this already?) but I love the woody warm feel, mixed with a little bit of industrial (black framed glass and wirings), and marble-tops - I will just let the photos do the talking for the inspirations. I guess you can say I am into a lot of white, grey and brown shades heh.

After reading through some of the posts here, my partner and I have decided to add in our experience too. Just a little background, I am in my mid 20s while my fiancee is in her early 20s so we have a tight budget to get our family life started. Not gonna be easy but it would be an enjoyable journey! How It All Started Early 2015, we applied for the sale of balance flats in Choa Chu Kang/Bukit Panjang and the number was pretty crappy so we scrapped the idea of trying for BTO/Balance of Sales since the units are smaller and lesser grants. Factoring in our CPF and savings, we decided to hit the nail and go for resale flats instead since the market is somewhat bottoming now. Flat viewing started around Sept/Oct 2015 and we have already decided on the location which was Bukit Panjang. Simply went to PropertyGuru and shortlisted a few units, arranged with the agent for a viewing and off we went. Yes, plenty of our friends were wondering where on earth is Bukit Panjang but having stayed in Bukit Panjang for 10 over years, it is actually a very convenient location with the upcoming Downtown Line and buses. 20 minutes to Orchard via 972 or 190, seriously?! House Hunting Our fruitful yet tiring house hunting journey took us about 2 months. We started off by viewing flats randomly within the area and realised it was leading us nowhere as none of the units was to our liking. We then decided to view 2 to 3 units per area and once the units were not to our liking, we eliminated that area out of our choices as the units within that area were usually within the same batch so layout and design wise would be similar. We had a few requirements: 1) Corner Unit (For privacy) 2) High Floor (Feels good to be up there ) 3) Squarish layout (Easy to manage in terms of design) 4) Bright and airy (Good for health to have ample natural light! ) Simple requirements yet it was a nightmare just trying to find the right unit. Finally, we found one to our liking but the owner was reluctant to sell at our price and the agent told us that the house was previously sold at $465k but the buyer screwed up so the deal didn't go through. Considering how bad the market condition was, we decided to go ahead and offer a price of $435k which kinda shocked the seller I guess. The agent told us that he could try for $460k but we had no interest in paying over the market for the unit considering there was quite a bit of renovation to be done. Credits to my fiancee for being firm by telling the agent that we would settle for $450k, take it or leave it. To cut the story short, we finally settled for $450k and valuation came about to $450k so there was no COV on our part either. Gotta give the credit to my fiancee as I was pretty alright with paying $460k which was $10k more but we really liked the unit and the house hunting was really tiring. I just wanted to get it over and done with! DIY Procedures We decided that it was pointless to engage an agent since he will just be doing the paperwork for us when we could do it ourselves which saved us at least a few thousand since buyer's agent usually go for 1% of the selling price as commission! Seriously, pay them $4k plus just to do paperwork for us? Nah! Signed the OTP and exercised it with a total of $5k as deposit. First appointment scheduled in Feb 2016 and keys collection in March 2016. We decided to take up all the grants available to us which summed up to $50k from HDB and ROM was not an issue since we would be solemnized before our second appointment. The procedures are pretty simple as it is all documented in the HDB website, I spent about an hour digesting the website and we were good to go. The seller's agent even told us not to bother with engaging an agent to save on the fees and we could approach him if we needed help, just that he could not represent both sides. Well, if we screwed up and the deal falls through, he will be on the losing end too. Feel free to call up HDB if you are unsure of certain things and they are pretty helpful I would say. Tadah! Here is the floorplan of our house. The house has minimal renovation except for wall cornice and floor skirting since it was the first owner. Flat is about 18 years old so a major renovation was in the plans with a budget of $30k and another $5k odd for furnishings & furnitures. Original Floorplan Modified Floorplan (After hacking of walls)

My way overdue first entry ... and im finally on the journey to share my renovation experiences We collected our keys a few months back in DEC 2015, but decided to postpone our renovation due to CNY. Sadly due to personal reasons, we had to drop our first contractor/designer just a week before our scheduled start of renovations. YESSSS MADNESSSSS ... so we had no choice but to scurry around trying to get another new contractor to handle our renovations! All in all, we met another 2 contractors before our decision! 1. Mr K (very popular here in Renotalk) - Speaks/messages only Chinese, very quick and fast guy, chop chop curry pok kind. We met him only once at our house to tell him about our ideas and what we wanted, waited for his quote which came in pretty fast like within a week. 2. Mr R (recommended by my colleague) - Replies to messages fast, friendly and easy going to discuss with. Also met him once at our house, and waited for the quote ....... and the final decision we decided on him! We just felt the chemistry and we could click better with him *fingers cross, let's hope everything goes well! xoxo, C

Great furnitures (solid wood tables, industrial look), wooden bench, eames chairs, decoration, sound system set. All customized and great quality. Please take a look at my carousell account for pictures. Or whatsapp me at 81814984 https://carousell.com/mnatalia80/ Thank you for looking

Hello. I am looking at building industrial steel pipe shelves pipe shelves at home like the attached picture. Does anybody know where i can buy such pipes and fittings in Singapore? Thanks Ken

Hi everyone, We will be going for our first appointment this Friday!!!and if everything goes smoothly, we will be getting our keys in mid-Nov :notti: Like many renotalk peeps, we have been following t-chat blogs diligently. We are inspired by the t-chat bloggers and we hope to share our reno journey with all of you. First, we started following the different threads in Renotalk and we asked around for contacts for their reno. Although we have a brief idea of how we want the house to look like, we are open to both ids and contractors. So far, we have met about 6 id and contractors. We will be meeting more id and contractors and update our progress soon. The general advice is to source for a decent number of ids and contractors. So far, the quotations we received ranges from 53k to 71k , more quotation to come in. Wsh us luck and hope this home building journey will be a smooth and enjoyable one!!

Axel coffee table from Timothy Oulton, made with genuine reclaimed vintage timber. L 152cm / 60" ; W 91cm / 36" ; H 46cm / 18" Condition 9/10 Less than 2 years, selling to redesign living space for coming newborn. Retail price ~$1.6k. Price negotiable.

Hi all I definitely learnt a lot from this forum and I some friends working in the construction industry hence they taught me many tips to save money in the renovation process. My semi finished living room Many of my friends has since asked me how to reduce their renovation costs and here is to share my whole journey. I also included post-reno stuff to save some headache which I faced being a first time home owner. Tips to reduce renovation costs. 1) Use a contractor instead of designer if you can. By doing this, you save at least 30% of your costs. Designer act as middleman between you and the contractor. Of cos, good designers faciliate the reno process, but if you want to save cost, faciliate it yourself. 2) Know your design to the details. If you say, you want an industrial loft theme, then you dont know what you are talking about and leave your hands to slaughter fest. You need to say, I want a brick wall, 2.4m x 1.8m, done using beige white brick craft stones. I want a industrial light, with 3 light heads, warm colour at this exact position. You get the drift. If you cannot spell details like this, you open for either contractor or designer slaughter fest, where they intro you things that make them the most money. If you can, then you dont need a desiger. Google images or flip magazine, then find exactly what you want, component by component, wall by wall. 3) Pick a reliable contractor not the cheapest one. No brainer i hope. But here are some tips. Years in service - You want a reno firm to be at least a few years, not one that is set up 1 month ago. How long is that few years? You decide. Kiasu can take 8yrs onwards. Check here - hdb registered contractors You can also check if they violate reno rules and got demerit points Chemistry - if you dont like each other, you get ****. Reach and return call - If he return miss calls, and easy to reach, you know he can be reach to retify your post reno problems. See finished goods - Good and reliable contractors are confident of their work. Ask to see their finished or almost finished homes. The good ones ask you faster come, the shady ones will say hard to arrange for viewing. Good contractors got a few jobs on-going, there is no such thing as hard to arrange. When viewing, check workmanship of tiles. It should be aligned very straight. Check workmanship of wardrobe, open and close their drawers. Questionable Expo interior designer shows - A good contractor once told me, he do a good job, then he get referrals and referrals, no need any advertising. Food for your own thought. 4) Price reference check Here is my market research as a price reference. If you are paying significantly more, then you kena chop. Simple as that. Tiles Laying of tiles for my 4room BTO, 3 rooms plus living room and walkway. 8K with tiles costing $4 per sq foot. (slightly high but luckily i got good workmanship) Tiles supplier Harfary Soon Bee Huat lian seng hin - Defu lane also have a few smaller ones for you to explore. Carpentry Kitchen - $120 per foot run Sliding wardrobe - $230 per foot run Casement wardrobe - $210 per foot run Craftstone for brickwalls - $78 per box. Harfary sells at $99 per box. Get from malaysia JB even cheaper at ard $40 SGD or so. Electrical - $8- $10 per point installed. Meaning 1 light source $10. Sanitary Items suppliers - Basin, taps, etc Universal Union Heritage Amazon - Kraus sinks (they ship to singapore) Hoe kee - (a bit ex, but can go there just to see and compare) Tabletop - Solid surface : $70 per foot Granite - $85 - $110 iquartz- $120 Doors supplier Yontat - Bad attitude, but some doors still cheap. Tip: They sell to contractors cheap, so pick your door, as your contractor to install for you and ask your contractor to buy the door for you. If you buy and ask them install, then kena chop a bit. Canwin Wood products trading - They dont have installers, so you need a contractor that can install. Price not bad. Best industrial pte Ltd - Many doors for viewing, good service. All located at Eunos Avenue. If driving, visit all 3 shops at once and decide. Don't need to kena chopped by those door retailers or HDB. HDB doors very ex by the way. 5) Air Conditioning This should be done right after your floors are done and before your carpentry because of the trucking cable. Make sure your select inverter models, otherwise you pay alot. Think you whether you need system 2,3 or 4. Killer qn: do you need air con in living room? Choose a reliable air-con contractor or provider. Use at least 1/2" of Amaflex insulation. Insulation is to prevent sweating of air-con. Air con sweating is a very big headache. 5) UseTaobao (Sea freight to ship lights and bulky items like chairs) Ard 1 mth ETA Lights - Save at least 50% or more Taobao. Most sg shops I went all bring in China lights, so buy them yourselves. Try to avoid Balestier road shops if you dont want to get chopped. See models from there, get elsewhere. Chairs - Save at least 50% or more Aesthetics accessories like clock, ornaments all can get from taobao and ship them over. Post Renovation Money Saving Tips 1) Electrical appliances Consolidate all your purchases, noting all the model numbers. Then go bargain at these shops. Parisilk Goh Bee Huat Goh Sin Huat Woodlands domestic electrical pte ltd You can also negotiate on prices with Courts, Harvey Norman, Best Denki. Then use card like the Amex to get 5% cash rebate. Or your preferred credit card. 2) Home broadband and Netflix M1 fiberbroad band. - I chose M1 because it is cheaper. at $39 per month. Have been with them for few weeks now and from a Punggol perspective, my connection is stable, so far no downtime. Read my review a few posts down. Netflix I also subscribed to netflix for my new home after being recommended by forummers. Very shiok. For less than $10 bucks, can watch unlimited shows and movies. Got many shows and dramas, including orange is the new black, which me and wifey is watching now. you can read this netflix setup guide for assistance. simple to follow. 3) Bomb shelter shelves I followed the recommendation of fellow forummers and took a look see at the Toyogo. Those are made of plastics and good enough for my usage. they cost only $69 for 4 tier and is quite sturdy. Metal ones are more costly so I did not go with that option. *** To be continued ***

Hola fellow forumners, Thanks to helpful forumners with their Taobao links,amazon links and lobangs for shops based in SG. Also special thanks to Freb for his cement screed appeal . Save $$ must say thanks lo. To give back to the community from things i learn from fellow forumners ,young,old,lao chiao or sin chiao. lol After nearly 3.5years of waiting,finally got the keys to my home .Yes that long due to the fact the original main con went bust. Sad case.

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 guys!! I've been stalking renotalk for over 4 years omg! Decided to start a t-blog to share my experiences so far My husband and I balloted for our Punggolian home like 4 years ago! And we've finally gotten our key collection date! We'll be collecting our keys on 15th June after a freaking long wait! Am glad to see some fellow Punggolians threads here too! Hello future neighbours! *waves* Actually last week, I wrote a post on my blog about things to prepare when searching for an Interior Designer! Basically the main gist was, we learnt the hard way about going in blind. It is best to have kinda of an idea of what you want. And after a couple of meetings, we finally decided on what we wanted. Woohoo! This is our floorplan! #nadskaihome is a 4 room Premium BTO. Unfortunately for us, our kitchen is tiny! Even if we decide to hack that tiny little wall there, it isn't going to help much! Honestly, when we compare our floorplan to others, I find that we have very little unusable space. Oh well, we'll just have to make the best of what we have! For some reason, our project is extremely green! It's like our contractor Sun Huan is OBSESSED with green. The outside is green. The lifts are green. There are many ugly mosaics in the house. many ugly green bits to be covered. Will be taking pics when we collect our keys and will share pics of the royal greenness. More updates coming soon!

Hi all, emergency. Am looking for someone (preferably freelancer and not contractors who don't answer calls and make you wait forever) to do my cement flooring. About 200+ sq ft, budget around $250 only. MUST start the work tomorrow, Wednesday 27 May 2015. NOT looking for those epoxy paints use roller brush kind... but the self levelling type with hardener that you pour and use squeegee to level it. I want more like those HDB carpark kind of effect where you can see the 'cement pattern' and it's matte (OMG the glossy ones look so fake!). Hope someone can kindly pass me their contacts... Thanks!

After the success of my bathroom reno, I decided I should start another thread about Phase 2 of my reno to share ideas and experiences with other Renotalk kakis. This time, Phase 2 involves the overhaul of a 15yr old bedroom. The bedroom, that has not been lived in (except occasional visits on some weekends) for the last 6yrs, seemed to have been stuck in a time warp just like the bathroom previously was. It was a mishmash of nonsensical concepts that the room's original occupant neither liked nor wanted: - Parquet flooring - Purple/ psychadelic walls (omg) - Heavy solid wood European Da Vinci furniture - Peeling paint from roof leakage or something - Heavy solid wood wardrobe The decision to overhaul was conceived many years ago, but there had been simply no time nor resources before. Now that the opportunity has presented itself, the room is going to be turned into a chill out room for hanging out with friends over a movie or for working in. It will be designed with an underlying industrial concept, mixed with a bit of highbrow pop art concept (whatever that means LOL) The interior designer (me) is still in the process of making the furniture and buying whatever things that we are not making ourselves... so please bear with the slowness of the process. If you have any ideas or advice, please feel free to post them here! Kam sia..

Hello! Decided to start a T Blog here after reading so many interesting blogs from you guys! Have been a silent reader since late last year and now my reno is almost ready hence would like to share my buys and progress. My crib is located in the north-east area, we got our keys in mid jan. Renovation did not start until mid march as i want to avoid the CNY period. First up, my tiny 4 room floor plan : Floor Plan Theme As per the title, i am going for the super overuse wood,white & black color board in my new crib because i love the ambiance of those cafes which are sprouting over in Singapore over the past 1 year or so. Hence i decide to create the same ambiance which consist of a little of scandi, loft style so that i will not spend so much money on cafe-hopping. A few must haves : Woodgrain laminates White laminate Brick wall Black electrical conduits Contractor/ID We have decided from start to engage a contractor instead of ID mainly because i have the design more or less in my mind. I have read through so many blogs here and the first one i approach was Nicholas from Renoguyz. He is the first and the only contractor we met up. We decided to engage him as our contractor after 2 meetups. He has a reputation of being sloppy,straight forward but that is what my husband like about him. Both of us are comfortable with him throughout the 2 meetups with him and we get along quite well with him hence we decided to take the plunge and go with him. His ideas are more to the practical side and if he thinks it is not nice or will not fit, he will voice it out instead of accepting whatever i have suggested. Budget We did not take up any renovation loan hence our budget is quite limited and we allocated under 20K for renovation. Nick gave me a very satisfied quotation 1 day after our meetup and its well below our 20K! p.s : we opt in for tiles and doors from HDB. Things we did : Taobao I have been an avid fan of TB since 5 years ago and It is in my natural instinct to get stuffs from TB since i am quite well verse with it. . I have engaged AMCON for all my sea shipments till date. Their prices are slightly cheaper than other forwarders and they are fast! My 3rd shipment only took 5days! It is true that they say cheap will not be good, good will not be cheap because their customer service is like non-existence. Shall not rant on that part however i will still use them because of their speed! Did not receive any damage on any of my items so far and i have to give credit to the AMCON warehouse staff and delivery uncle and of cos to TB sellers who wrapped it so well and sturdy! I will write a separate post on my purchases on TB. Progress I do not have the before and after photos because i am not always around when they are doing the works. I only do checks on weekends and most of the time it is nicely done! So i only have the almost-done photos. Every weekend checks are like opening presents during Christmas because our crib is changing every single week i went up and check! Next post will be the almost-done pictures! ************************************************************************************************************************************* Decided to do up table of contents for easy viewing: 1. Taobao purchase 2. Taobao Unboxing 3. Taobao Unboxing part 2 3. My completed Taobao brickwall 4. Progress #1 5. Progress #2 6. Progress #3 7. Taobao Unboxing part #3 8. Installation of Matt black bombshelter 9. Taobao unboxing part #4 10. Amazon purchase 11. Progress #4 12. Amazon unboxing 13. Taobao purchase #2 14, Progress #5 15. Amazon purchase #2 16. Electronic appliances purchases 17. Misc online purchases 18. Progress #6 19. Progress #7 20. Taobao unboxing #5 21. Post renovation cleaning 22. Blinds and curtains 23. Appliances delivery 24. Decoration #1 25. Decoration #2 26. Decoration #3 27. Decoration #4 28. Decoration #5 29. Decoration #6 30. Taobao purchases #3 31. Taobao unboxing #6 + reviews

Hi All, I would like to share one of my upcoming project which is an 5 room resale flat located @Cassia Crescent. Concept Layout Living Area perspective Dry/Wet Kitchen perspective Thanks for viewing.

Hi everyone out there! Just wondering if anyone is willing to share their experience if they had renovated their house based on the 'Scandustrial' (Scandinavian/Industrial) theme. Also if you had used an ID, how did it go in that aspect as well? Hopefully everyone gets to exchange tips on where to get all those beautiful lights and furniture according to these themes as well! Cheers P/s I hope someone got the pun hehe.

Being a silent reader (on and off) since 2011, when we first applied for our BTO, I guess it's time for me to make some worthy (I hope) contributions to this community! Having heard of how difficult it was for couples to apply for a BTO flat, we are indeed thankful to be able to secure a mid-level unit on our first try, given that our queue number has exceeded the total no. of units! Well, maybe I should thank those people who applied, but given up their chance. Fast forward to 4 years later in 2015, we finally collected the keys to our first nest in Jan' 2015. We didn't carry out rituals like rolling pineapple, sprinkling of salt in 4 corners or screaming "Huat ah, Huat ah" etc.. Instead, we were snapping away! Having seen my sister's BTO flat, I wasn't expecting much, but it came as a pleasant surprise that it's slightly bigger than what I expected! Hehe! Starting off with a mandatory picture, the Floor plan! In my opinion, it's a rather standard one in these days BTO. Upon entering, this is the view that greeted us.. Living Room. It's pretty Long-ish & square-rish. Up next is the Corridor, leading up to the bedrooms & bomb shelter (double up as storeroom). Okay, that's another standard thing. Realized that I do not have any pictures of the rooms. Actually all of these pictures are taken by the husband, and he said something like, there isn't a need to take as all the rooms looks the same! Hahah! We forgotten about the kitchen too! But I managed to find a saved pic of the kitchen in my gallery. I think it was my neighbour's, which I chanced upon in my project's facebook group. So, the credit of this picture is to him/ her! Being someone who enjoys cooking & baking, this kitchen came as a big disappointment! It's so tiny!! I think this would be a nightmare to people coming from my mums generation, their kitchen is easily 3x of this size? After looking around, we proceed to spend the next hour or so checking defects, but we were quite tired out by the bending up and down in such a warm weather.. All we wanted was a chilling can of drink! So we decided to call it a day, we shall come back another day to continue with the defect checking! Hiak Hiak Hiak!

So how we got started on our journey or processes on our NN Loft? I must say that it all started out by proposing to my girlfriend / fiancee who is now my wife by asking her to apply a BTO flat. I know it sounds funny but isn't it a fact that some or even most couples before they get engaged, the guy pops the question of "Wanna apply a BTO flat together?" LOL! So that's where it all started...............Nov 2011. My wife and I logged in to the HDB website to see the sales launch in November 2011. There were a few locations or sites for us to choose. Punggol Waterway Banks and Ridges, Hougang Capeview and Dewcourt, Yishun Acacia Breeze, Bukit Panjang Fajar Spring and Bedok Golden Cassia. We went through all the locations that HDB launched and we decided on Punggol Waterway Banks and Ridges. This site will be located along the iconic Punggol Waterway. WATERWAY BANK AND RIDGES (IMAGE TAKEN FROM HDB WEBSITE) FLOOR PLAN OR RIDGES AND BANKS (IMAGE TAKEN FROM HDB WEBSITE)

Hi All, Just like to share with you all one my completed project at Casa Clementi. Here is the proposed layout. Due to some fengshui concern from my client, we actually change the location of the entrance for the kitchen and added in a sliding door. For the rest we keep quite simple as the items that stand out will be the furnitures itself. In the MBR we also hacked away the dividing wall to built in a wardrobe and maintaining a comfortable walkway. Concept Images Like I mentioned most of the design elements will come from the furnitures itself and the space will emphasis more on the materials and textures used. Stay tuned for more of the completed photos. Thanks for viewing.

Will be moving into a new apartment soon and we realised that there this Scandinavian theme homes are very suitable for our 90 square metre space. Downgrading from our parents 30yo HDB to a new BTO is painful but can't escape. Would like to find some like-minded individuals to share some ideas on Space [& possibly Cost] saving ideas to achieve this look. Our Living room isn't this spacious but i think by hacking the wall we should be able to make it look more spacious. This is the look that me & my hubby instantly agree on.

Hahaa... initially I had started a community blog but then decided a T-blog here seems more fun as the useful input from people (who are more experienced than I am when it comes to home renos) is more instantaneous and that would really help to guide me along in real life as I'm battling through my crazy renovations. So... here's the story. I had initially set out wanting to DIY my bathroom renovations. I had lofty ambitions of doing it as I'm in a 'transition' period at the moment so have some free time on my hands to, err, do something with my hands. Also, my budget is(was!) very small... I was only able to afford to comfortably fork out $3k max for these renovations, which I reckoned would mostly go towards the materials and only in the case of really needing the professionals to do stuff I really knew I could not do (i.e. plumbing and waterproofing) would I use part of that small budget I had squirreled away for engaging them. I am very confident in my own dexterity and my skills; on top of that, I am also someone who never ever thinks anything is beyond learning and doing. I was adamant I neither wanted to use an ID nor a contractor, as I have done some brickworks and other cementing work before in my life. Plus, I've been spending the last few months watching Youtube videos so am now suitably qualified as an armchair contractor! However, after several heated arguments with my parents (neither of whom was forking out a single cent for this reno), I gave up and was forced to engage 'professionals' for this job. I calculated, albeit naively, it would cost me 'a bit more' than my initial budget, probably in the region of $4k, which from my extensive research was a general estimate for most bathrooms. I thought that since I simply wanted a very SIMPLE and industrial theme, it was not at all like all those expensive showy bathrooms with gold taps and other such nonsense. I mean, my name doesn't start with TT Boy was I wrong. And stupid/naive/egotistic/narcissistic to not have seen this from the start! Sure, some of you are saying "If you don't have money, why waste it on something so useless and impractical as a bathroom renovation?". I know we don't spend most of our time in the bathroom, that not everyone who comes to the house will use the upstairs bathroom and besides, here's the funnier thing-- I don't even live in the house! But. Sadly, I have always hated my family house because the design, colours and funishings are so puke-worthy fugly. Every time I use the bathroom (and I don't even go back that often! Like once every 3months??) I am reminded of how it looks worse than the kampong toilets I've been to in my lifetime. Kampong toilets are actually decent looking, even though they aren't too hygienic. Anyway my bathroom is so fugly until I cannot stand it. I don't know what Keppel was thinking when they built the place-- was the designer a 5000yr old Englishman stuck in delusions of the 17th century? It's that bad. So, anyway. The fact that I was so adamant to do this is testament to my deep hatred for the bathroom, and to the fact that I'm not doing this to 'show off' to people but instead this is a real personal issue I have with the bathroom. I want to go in and feel "Ah...such a nice, clean, modern bathroom. I feel so relaxed, happy and peaceful...", not "OMG this place is so fuglyyyyyy, this would be the perfect place to hang myself in!". Basically too much of the spaces I do use when I go back are very shamefully fugly, and such an eyesore especially when nobody bothers to take care of anything. It's bad enough that fugly is not something you can wash away with bleach... imagine fugly and years of willful neglect. So I decided to take remedial action as soon as I had saved up enough. As a result, I am now almost $8k out of pocket as the cost of this g-**** reno keeps escalating by the day. And when I say I really, really, really cannot afford it, I mean it. I'm not one of those people who always claim they're broke but in their bank accounts there's enough money to feed the entire continent of Africa for a week. As an entrepreneur, I have no savings. Zero. The first time I saw more than 2 zeroes in my bank account was when I was 29, when I got a good project that paid well enough for me to save a little rather than live from hand to mouth. And now, because of this bathroom reno, I am back to square one

Yeah!! Finally it is time for me to write my very first reno T-Blog, had been reading T-blog for like near 1 year, and had been patiently waiting for the time for my key collection so I can start on my T-blog soon. As per tradition, here is my 5 room Floor plan, got my keys on 3rd Jan, my reno (hacking first) will be starting on 2nd Feb. Now is the rectification period with the BSC folks. Already 2nd round, hopefully coming week can clear all the defects. I guess it's pretty standard layout for most of the BTOs, below is the HDB suggested layout. And this is my 2D layout, this is not the latest, there are some changes, yet to get the updated layout plan from my ID. Because this layout plan was done before i got the keys, so after getting the keys, realize that there may be some space constraint, so waiting for the latest copy.