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We just collected our keys! Can't wait to start our reno journey! Had been quietly following all the t-Blogs that inspired us a lot and now it is finally our turn to document and share this adventure with the fellow Renotalk peeps. So exciting! YAY! Here is the floor plan... P.S. This will mostly be the wife blogging, I hijacked my husband's RT account to blog.

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.

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)

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.

Hi everyone. We received our keys to the flat in end March this year. after meeting a couple of IDs, we confirmed one in April and started renovation work in the first week of June! Both of us like wood, and we like textures. Along with the fact that we are beach lovers, we thus wanted a "resort" theme for our house. Woody, white, beige, clean, spacious looking, etc. Just imagine a villa in Phuket or a resort in Maldives. i know it doesnt tally with the topic title.. but read on =) Our brief to the IDs: Platform bed Built-in TV console Huge shoe cabinet with design cover-up bomb shelter overlay tiles for both toilets replace HDB given toilet bowls, sinks, shower heads etc. No walk in wardrobe (too dusty and takes up 1 room) vanity dressing table in the master bedroom and the usuals carpentry wardrobe in master bedroom and bedroom 2, toilet vanity cabinets. etc And the theme must be uniform throughout the house Review of the IDs: I screened the names of the IDs and companies (except for my ID) because I believe different people might have different experiences with them. Anyway one bad ID does not make the whole company bad. My best advice is to look for IDs that have experience doing the theme(s) you like. The first ID I contacted was actually the company that did Xiaxue's renovation. I cannot remember the company's name now, but you can easily google it. This ID wasnt the one who did XX's house anyway. The ID Wi***e wasn't very creative, and the ideas she gave are the standard stuff. She's the template kind of person, either lazy or can't be bothered. anyway even though the quotation was pretty close to what we eventually signed but it's just the lack of confidence that she will do a wow job for us that led us to strike her off the list. We then met with R*x from Fuse Concept, whom we signed with eventually. On the first meeting he showed us a house that he did which wasnt what we had wanted. He showed his creativity and sincerity early, and we really appreciated that he took pride in his ideas and dared to think out of the box (what we call "think like an ID and not act like a contractor"). The extraordinary part was that he unearthed what we truly liked. Because we like wood and textures, we always assumed we wanted a resort theme. however he had the foresight and proposed so many 'new' ideas to us that we fell in love with, at the same time, still maintaining the wood, textures and things we wanted to build. along the way while reading lots of Square Room and Home Decor magazines, we realised that resort theme just would not be achievable to the standards we think we want (no spacious hdb, no high ceilings, no sea, no balcony...). R*x tried his best not to recycle the ideas and materials (even tho sometimes we insist at what he thinks is common. I always tell him it's common to him cuz he is an ID but to me, it's new and innovative hahaha). Most importantly, he used our budget very well. We managed to do alot of things + capentry with the limited budget we had. Third on the list that we met was Da**el from Id*** H**se. Well we met up with him because he did the renovation for our parents' current house (2 toilets and 1 room). He was around our age, and thus quite easy to talk to. he has some interesting ideas here and there but needs to be pushed/encouraged to explore further. However having worked with him before, we knew that he was 'bullied' by his contractors sometimes because of his youth and minimal experience and that means as customers we may get pushed back in terms of schedule or workmanship because he cannot win them over. the good thing about him is that he's upfront about practicalities and feasabilities of designs. he would not hide the facts from you but helps you understand the pros and cons to make informed decisions. He quoted us around 30k from the first round but alot of things we wanted were not included or were compromised. We then reminded him we still have budget to play with, so pushed him to rethink his proposal and quotation. however due to unknown reasons he took a long time to come back with the revised quote, and by the time we signed with our ID he still hasn't come back to us, so naturally we dropped him. any vendors who take too long to get back to you without any updates is a bad sign in our opinion. at least a "sorry i have been busy, i will come back to you by xx xx" is better than radio silence. Then there was this OMG and still laughable story about the 4th ID from Me**r Squ**e. His name is Ja***. For all the IDs above, the first meeting took at least 2 hours to go through our requirements in detail. however Ja*** was done with us in 20 minutes. he asked very little specific questions in terms of measurements, said he was very concerned about social media because nowadays (facebook, forums etc) have alot of influence (on consumers). Even though we could not really click with him, we gave him another chance to present his quotation cuz who knows maybe he can come up with something good. He proposed (or kind of insisted) that we should hack the wall between the kitchen and service yard because it will extend the kitchen and that we should do a open concept kitchen even though we did not want to. Plus he told us that our budget was more than enough!! At the second meeting, Ja***'s quotation came up to a good 10k more than the budget we gave him and which he claimed was more than enough. He seemed to have forgotten what he claimed.. okay nevermind. his ideas were mediocre (honestly can't rmb much of what he proposed), but he wasn't well prepared. Whatever sketches or layout proposals he showed us at the second meeting was what other IDs drew on the spot during our first meetings with them. and the killer sentence was when he proposed that we have shower curtains instead for our toilets because they are so small........ followed by laughter. thereafter, he also changed his mind and said he now proposes not to hack the wall between kitchen and service yard (errr... you proposed and then you killed it without good reasons or explanation to your client). when we asked him if a PE endorsement is required to hack walls, he wasnt sure... He then tried to arrange a third session with us but inside us we knew we were saying goodbye to him. we were not comfortable with his working style, nor his personality. totally zero chemistry. The other innovative ID we met was Ke*** from Spa** Se**e Stu***. He is actually an ID whom we admire very much as his works are unique and daring. He did not give template solutions and he is also a furniture maker. There were many things that he DIY for his clients, like buying table legs from Ikea and customizing the table top. He gave us unconventional and unheard of ideas, like building ceiling beams, wall pipes that act as bookshelves, and leaning walls and surprisingly his quotation was not that expensive. It was a very difficult choice to choose between his creativity and R*x's. The reason we chose R*x over him was because we clicked better with R*x. Chemistry matters to us because afterall it is a long period of working relationship and we wanted to be sure we chose someone whom we could feel comfortable with, in terms of discussing and rejecting ideas. Ke*** was extremely professional and so serious such that the discussion felt a bit uptight and we were worried we may not be able to communicate our ideas to him during the process. However we would recommend him if you like loft and industrial designs, which seems to be his expertise. Lastly we met up with J**n from The 80s S***o. She was open and easy to talk to, and was also someone who takes her job seriously with 8 years experience in the industry. Honestly I like their designs very much. They have this knick knack ability to use simple ideas or materials that you don't usually associate with home decor, to demarcate an area or transform the space. However her quotation was the most expensive at around 55k-60k. Comparing the various quotes, their carpentry costs were like at least 10% higher than the other companies. Because we have alot of carpentry requirements, we were not willing to settle. However meeting up wtih J**n actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise even though we did not work together. She gave us a brilliant suggestion to enlarge the master bedroom, which we later explored with our chosen ID. We're thankful for her help unknowingly. Sorry for the lengthy intro/review. I am uploading the pictures... Edit: here's our floorplan so you can see the overall layout.

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

Our 5 rm BTO is now already undergoing renovation. Tiling works and wiring are in progress. Pardon me but let me do some back dating work here. Renovation is really more hectic than we though it would be! We'll let the pictures do the talking. Here is our floor plan. Very typical 5-rm floor plan. Had thought of hacking the wall between bedroom 3 and living room so as to make a, very popular now, semi-enclosed study room complete with glass doors and black frame. This would very much fit into the modern scandi feel. But then did away with it after consultation with our feng shui master. Decided to do away with the wall between our master and bedroom 2 instead! [bEFORE] [AFTER] Much space and light after. Didn't know how much space was the wall hiding! Since I am in the mood of hacking, why not just remove the hideous white plastic box with mesh-like PVC material covering the drainage in the master toilet. Somebody may like it, somebody don't. This was an inital idea that alarmed our ID a bit but then was accepted cause it fitted our design! Alright the picture doesnt do it justice. But trust us, it's a lot bigger with the damned box removed. The black stuff is preparation work for our overlay~~ That's the update for another time..

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

After months and months of reading the various t-Blogs on Renotalk, I finally managed to get down to starting my own t-blog to document my renovation process and journey. My apartment is a ground floor unit with a huge patio and the reason i bought it is (besides the location) is actually the big patio that I could make use of for hosting dinner parties since space is a luxury these days. Oh well, if given a choice obviously I wouldn't get a ground floor unit given it's potential privacy issues. Below is the original layout of my apartment: I got the keys to my apartment during mid-June and the renovation started on 5 Aug.. phew! I actually spoke to a few Interior design firms before choosing my current firm as I feel that the designer is able to achieve the look i want. My last experience with another ID firm wasn't good at all but that doesn't deter me from choosing to use an ID again. I'm just more cautious this time round , hoping that my ID is able to deliver what was promised! keeping my fingers xx Many people actually asked me why am i doing such a major renovation when the apartment is actually pretty much done up. The reason is becos im really tired of shifting around for the past few years... i think my record is 4 times in the past 6-7 years.... really very tiring! Therefore, i wana make my apartment a place i could call HOME . Given the new property measures, it's impossible for me to sell my apartment for the next few years so i might as well do it up to my fancy and park myself there for the many years to come

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 all, I've been silent reader all this while and I must agree this is really a very informative reno forum! And yes, I am another Alanist. Hehe.. I've collected my keys in early Dec'13 and my renovation started in late Dec'13. Till now, my renovation is almost completed. I must say that I am quite lucky as there wasn't many hiccups in the process of renovation. When there is minor hiccup, Alan is usually fast in doing rectification. I usually do site visit like once or twice per week. I enjoy working with Alan and his team of sub-cons. I have talked to his tilers, electrician, carpenter and his Bangladeshi painter. They are all very friendly and soft spoken (especially Ah Gui, the carpenter). Ah Gui was telling me I was his fastest client. Usually carpentry discussion takes like 1.5 to 2hrs. For my case, it only take less than an hour. Haha! Ok, before I go on further, let me share with you my floor plan and the original state of the house. Floor plan: Living room: Kitchen: Master bedroom: Master bathroom: Common bathroom: http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c297/Bashful2014/48352C05-7FA6-452B-A1B3-3066C1FCCFD1_zpsforgoccc.jpg Bedroom: http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c297/Bashful2014/4D3A2E2F-7746-4EB6-9110-F3EAB6AB102D_zpszt4vynke.jpg Following is the renovation plan. I have quite a lot of hackings and wall building. http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c297/Bashful2014/36DBE00D-2191-466B-A9C5-ACED400CFD61_zpsgg721vkm.jpg And that's it for now. I will try to post the renovated photos ASAP. I am still doing the final cleaning up. Stay tuned...

First of all, I would like to start by making a small introduction before going into our renovation details. We had just bought a 36 years old 3NG resale flat in Telok Blangah Drive. The flat was mostly in original condition, which was what we were looking for all the while. Besides, it was also due to the nice and quiet ambient, and amenities nearby. After the First Appointment with HDB, me and my wife discussed who shall we approach for our renovation. This is when we spend a lot of time reading reviews here and there, but there are too many ID companies with mix comments, which make us lost and confused. One of our friend had gave us a contact of her ID that previously renovated her flat, and this is where the whole story begins. After making an appointment with him, we met him on one Saturday afternoon. With the floor plan, we share with him how we wish our new home to be like. He understood clearly what we wanted and gave us the confidence that he could make it come through, our dream home. We trusted him, and that is why we did not approach any other IDs. Till now, our renovation had been started about a month, and definitely we had selected the right person to do it. He is our transformer, transforming a 36 years old flat to a condo-like 3 room flat. What else could I say? We couldn't be any luckier. PS: I've shifted my blog here instead from Community Blog as I think here is more appropriate for blogging our renovation details.

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 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!

Finally starting my own t-Blog! Have learnt a lot from fellow renotalkers and enjoyed reading abt all the reno journeys! Hope to get some suggestions/opinions for my reno as well! Home is a 5I flat in Jurong West. Bought it 6 yrs ago and did minimal furnishing so now we're ready to do a major overhaul! So excited!! We do not have a specific theme.. Initially wanted a modern resort look but we felt like we have some decor items which may look out of place so we started leaning towards: industrial / rustic / mid-century ... Simply put: ROJAK! Lol Thankfully, my other half and I have similar tastes so it's not so bad.. Both of us love ethnic decor stuff hence the title of this blog.. Ethnic Chic. Will be having some balinese, indian, peranakan touches and we also have some antiques like the gramophone, steel trunk, some vintage posters.. So we just have to see what fits. Most importantly, we want the house to look spacious and bright, has to feel cozy, giving us the feeling like we're relaxing in a villa. Okay now on IDs/contractors. We have approached at least TEN of them. Will comment on some: 1) Chew Interior Too ex! I don't need my home to look like a showroom! The ID was also quite reluctant to give ideas and had the yaya papaya attitude.. Maybe we looked like we couldnt afford his services?! -.- 2) Add S p a c e (met at expo) A lady attended to us and kept pushing to sign up a package as there were only "3 slots left". BS! 3) Unimax Creative (met at expo) We spoke to a lady then halfway a guy joined her and started giving "creative" ideas. But they never got back to us on the quote. Waste time! 4) Rezt & Relax (met at expo) Spoke to a soft-spoken lady. Never got back to us too. Waste time again! 5) Ciseern (expo) Asked us our budget. Told him 35k. "Oh not possible". ?!@@@? We walked off. 6) Inspire by D'Trenzo (recommended by friend) Quote was not bad but we felt that they are more specialized in modern designs and would not be able to achieve the look we want for our place so.. Dropped. 7) D'zign Station Met up few times and even went to check out ID's other completed projects. Quote was not bad too. Almost wanted to sign up till we saw the 3D drawing. Felt that ID either did not understand what we want or he forgot. Dropped. We got tired of sourcing for IDs but thank God there's Renotalk! Quite interested to go for the famous Alan or K but was afraid they might be too busy and hiccups will arise. Then I came across June's and Stinz' blogs.. Love what the ID did and met up with him. My other half was not comfortable with the fact that this ID works from home and he's quite young.. But when we stepped into his house and started discussing, the other half was impressed! I just gave the "I told u so" look. LOL Alrightey then! Sorry for the long story. Let me figure out how to post pix then I can post my floor plan on the next post.

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!

BRAND NEW "Heather" storage seat - $690 1. Imported waterproof Sunbrella fabric (from Glen Raven Mills USA) used to make the high density cushion. 2. Current finish is raw, but can be varnished also. It's a personal preference so we let our customer decide if they want varnish or not. 3. Very solid, sturdy and heavy frame >10kg. 4. Seat cover can be removed to reveal spacious storage beneath. Can seat 1 or 2 people. 5. Cash & Carry or $50 delivery within Singapore. 6. Fresh from the oven! Only 1 of a kind in the world. Made to order, not factory made! BRAND NEW "Caspian" lounger - $750 1. Imported waterproof Sunbrella fabric (from Glen Raven Mills USA) used to make the high density cushion. 2. Current finish is raw, but can be varnished also. We don't advise varnish though, because it looks better without. 3. Very solid, sturdy frame with a low centre of gravity. Can seat 3-4people. 4. Can join 2 together to make a pool lounger or to lie down for reading a book. 5. Cash & Carry or $50 delivery within Singapore. 6. Fresh from the oven! Only 1 of a kind in the world. Made to order, not factory made! Please PM to buy/ view. Thanks!

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!

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.

Looking for reccommendations for id who experience in doing vintage industrial design for hdb?

Floorplan: 4 room Type 3(H)

There used to be some a thread for those who love industrial theme and vintage items. Here im starting a new one with more updated pictures & inspirations to share. We are not bias on designers or ID companies. its just a visual references. I love brick walls, Cement, pipes, wire mesh & factory lamps! so here are some looks im share with u guys, Feel free to post more pictures of what's relevant and avoid nasty comments.

Finally I decided to have a T-blog here, simple reasons that we will like to share our gained sweat & sweet that from unit sourcing till renovation, and of cos furniture expenses! We rent HDB, condo and landed property for the past 5 years and really tiring to share the unit with others with limited freedom in the space such as laundry, kitchen and of cos living room! We had good housemates who become our very best friends and bad housemates who don't care others' feeling, do what they like . Long story short, we are easterner hence those units that we hunted all located in east. Having said that, it's not a cheap place to stay in east due to most of hdb all are very expensive. We had to test water of the HDB market in mid 2012 and we engaged an agent source us unit. The agent brought us to Marine Parade 3I HDB selling at 410K but asking 60K COV . That's really turn me off although I like the location very much due to we have not much cash to pay for the COV and of cos we are looking at least 4 rooms. We have no choice continue stay with our rent unit to save more bullets for our dream house. A year later, mid 2013 we begin unit hunting again...however after thoughts we decided to focus in Bedok Reservoir with few reasons: * it's located in east * it's nearby central of SG instead of Tampines, Pasir Ris area * those unit selling history in HDB website mostly within our budget * there is future MRT to be completed in 2017!

Excited to transform this old unit into our dream pad. The theme would be industrial chic coupled with ps cafe feel. And a hinge of nostalgia from the colonial days. I love an open and spacious home. So we would hack down quite a few walls. Hacking and transforming the middle bedroom into a walk-in. Hacking our store room to a dry MBR toilet where the sink and make up area would be. Hacking the wall in between the wet MBR toilet and old store room as well. We would also be hacking parts of the kitchen. and separating the kitchen into a yard n cooking area. the black metal grille with glass separating the two areas is to keep cooking fumes from tainting the clothes. We would be using vinyl to layover the existing reddish marble floor. Hacked the old kitchen,bathroom & balcony floor and wall tiles. Update as of 27th OCT: We engaged an ID to redo our house for us. Why we decided to go along with them is because they are a married couple running everything themselves. Meaning no dealing with sales person but the bosses directly. After interacting with them for 2 months plus, here are somethings we really like about them. They have a very good relationship with the contractor - they have been working together for a long time and things that needed to be amended or redo, the contractors are willing and helpful and has initiative. They make me feel very comfortable as they are trustworthy and I have a peace of mind. I know they will not try to hoodlewink me. This I appreciate a lot. They always tell me the truth, like what I have to anticipate if I go down a certain path. They will try to dissuade me from something too fanciful that is not cost worthy. They lay out the options for everything - like if i go for this is cheaper. and the quality is ok so just go for this. go if i go for that its more expensive but the mark up is worth it... because.... so on and so forth. and ultimately after laying out the cards on the table, whichever i choose they wont feel unhappy. I really like knowing what I am paying for. I wanted bricks for the balcony area, but the price for craftstone added up to around 3k because the surface area needed to be tiled is really quite big. I could not afford it so they gave me various options. At first we agreed on normal bricks, but when we saw how bulky it was, they found brick tiles for me. Now I settled for normal brick tiles at close to half the cost. Of course its not at nice as craftstone but I could live with it because its still very nice. At first, I was very against plastering. I think it is a waste of money. They convinced me to go for it. I was a bit half hearted and went ahead. I must say, the plastering is one of my fav things for the house. It totally transformed the unit and gave it an instant age rewind. (my unit is from the 80s) At first, I wanted colonial wooden lourves windows panels. They tried very hard to dissuade me but I wanted it very badly so they went ahead to search for one... The reason for not encouraging me to go for it is because of the high cost. It took them two weeks to locate a supplier and I was happy. 2 months down the road, I finally came to senses and told them that I shall go for blinds instead. They were so happy for me. I felt very guilty cuz they spent a lot of time looking for the supplier for nothing. But they did not think of it that way. They told me its always good to increase their knowledge and they are happy that I get to save 7k from this decision because its really unnecessary. They are very responsible. Always trying to think of the best the client could have, places they bring me to buy things like toilet accessories and lights, they will haggle for me. Even the blinds that I am making, they managed to help me reduce $ by haggling with the supplier The lights are definitely more expensive than from taobao but the tracklights and stuffs are guarenteed to be the lowest in SG. They come in a range of pricing depending on whether its from Germany or TW. I could tel that they are really great people because they are on good terms with all the people working with them. There is a lot of respect between everyone and I really like the their workmanship. The quality is impeccable especially for carpentry work. Ultimately, choosing an ID depends on what kind of experience one is after or willing to go through. For me, I needed the peace of mind and assurance that these people are good and honest and responsible. And what I get at the end of the day will not be a disappointment. I dislike being lied to about datelines and being led to accept decisions that has consequences I am unaware of. I like how they will ask if I want the decision to be based on asthetics or practicallity. I will continue to update this section. As of now, I must say I am really pleased with them. 3D Drawings

Hihi guys! Hope the day have been good for you so far! Well, I finally joined the renotalk family today after my many visits to this portal for reno ideas and reading the blogs of some of the forummers here.. Finding the read every rewarding in many ways and that many of you open my eyes to the world of renovation such as the material used for the reno, design ideas and even the type of furnitures, appliances that you all eventually got for your home.. Ermm... In other words, I litterally getting myself "poison" along the way coz whenever I read the blogs, I'll start to think "Hey, maybe I should get this for my house too!"... Arghhh!!.... Kekeke.. I have been toying the idea of starting a t-blog for awhile now coz I'm quite worried about no time to maintain the blog... However, decided to start it so that we can document our reno journery and that we can see how far we manage to achieve the look that we want as a home.. So... I hope that all the qian bei here can help to guide us along if we happen to ask some noob questions about renovation.. Thanks in advance yet! Ohh... And I also want to declare that I'm not officially MrsKhoo (my username) yet but am going to be in a week plus time.... So very very busy during this time. Hoping the time could fly till after my wedding.. Very tiring now... So enough of the lengthy introduction.... Let's get down to the main topic on our new place! We bought a resale EA in the Northern part of Singapore in January 2014 and finally got our keys to our new place just last month... The search to our marital home was completed in only viewing about 5 to 6 houses.. Hahaha.. Yes! yes! I know.. I know.. That was fast right! We decided to buy the house as we find that it is bright and airy. We did viewed a few houses before this place and we were attracted to it on our first visit there.. Maybe because the few houses before that were ermmm.. yucky with some of the units having their floor & ceiling super dark and dirty.. Some have weird design with the orientation of the door to the bomb shelter / storeroom in the middle of the living room wall (wondering why HDB built it like that) and 1 unit asking for high COV for a place that is so rundown when alot of houses were offering $0 or little COV at that time.. And so we went back to this only house that we like again on a 2nd time at night to have a look and we still like it. So that's when we decided to make our offer that was $10k lower than the valuation price. But... the owners refused to budge on the price so no choice lor.. Since we like it then just got to accept the price lor.. Ok.. Thats all for my first post.. Will share the floor plan to my place once I find out how to attach photos.. Hahaha.. Forgive me k for the long grandfather's story and that I gong gong didnt go find out how to attach photo first before writing my first post... Will be back soon de! Cheers!