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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!!

Here's my 5rm resale flat layout. It's a point block and I really love how spacious the living room is

Hi All This is my first time trying out a blog. I figured that we should document our journey of metamorphising our resale EM into our dream Sky Parlour. Kindly pardon if we get our formatting wrong. This is something very new to us. Just a bit of background. We have been married for many years, and have been living in a small 4-room HDB. Recently in the last few years, 2 little people suddenly appeared, and started running around in our house. There is a need for a bigger house for all our belongings now, as well as for the 2 little people to run around in. Hence we decided to move to a bigger house. But Singapore is so small, all our houses are merely pigeonholes, and getting private/ landed/ condo is definitely within the "Only in our dreams" category. So we decided to get an Executive Maisonette. This is only affordable after we sell our 4 room. But after taking all the financing / bank loan/ 20% down for the EM, we realised "Oh $#!Ϯ We forgot to budget in the renovation!!" Hence here we are, reading other people's experiences in their journey hoping to learn more. And now we're blogging our journey. Floor Plan Cheers!

Hello everyone! So I've been following lots and lots of t-blogs here. Thank you SO much for being so helpful with all your information. If you click on my profile you'll see I've enquired in so many blogs about contractors and IDs. If everything goes well, my husband and I will be collecting our keys around Nov-Dec after the completion. This is a 5i resale flat in Yew Tee, an area very dear to us. We love this area because it's still not as crowded as neighbouring towns, and its connectivity to Jurong East (and JB ) is good. Anyway, the title of my blog is 'A hodgepodge of ideas'. Simply because we aren't really 100% sure which direction we wanna take. The flat was renovated by the current owners and very well maintained. So we aren't planning to do an overhaul. Just the toilets mainly, and we are thinking about doing up parts of the kitchen. We are also toying with the idea of changing the common toilet's door orientation because unfortunately it's facing inside the kitchen right now. And the rest of the work will be general touching up work - checking electrical wirings, plumbing, painting, polishing of parquet floors for bedroom, washing the rest of the house, fixing skirting... as I type, it feels like the list just keeps going on and on. After reading through numerous t-blogs (and I am still reading!), we decided to do 2 things: 1) request for a quote through RenoTalk, 2) enquire about some contractors/IDs whose work we liked based on t-blogs. The problem with number 1 was that so many people started calling me. I felt like a celebrity! Anyway, a couple of them seemed promising so we continued the conversation. Number 2 was more helpful because we got to see the actual work posted by the clients so we get a good idea. Once we've met with the ids/contractors, I'll update as to who we've decided to go for. This will probably take a few weeks!! Ok, now going to try to figure out how to upload photos so I can upload our floor plan and some ideas for bathrooms (this is as far as I've got ). I hope to keep this blog going as our renovation work progresses. Stay with me!

Selection of the unit was kinda fast. It only took me 1 day of viewing to decide on the flat. (I think the property agent must be thinking this client is easy earned commission). Actually the property agent was recommended by one of my colleague. I contact the agent and he arrange for flat viewing. On that particular day, he arrange for 7 unit around the area I told him I would preferred. The first 6 was really not to my liking. The last unit, it was the only one that is situated at high floor and its a corner unit. Although the unit was not in a tip top condition, it did not really bother me much cause I have already intended to do a entire overhaul of the flat before moving in. The moment I step into the house, there is just this feeling that this is the one. To cut the story short, I put up an offer to the seller on the same night and he agreed. 5 Months later I am the owner of this house. During the 5 months (1st appointment and completion date), I have been to 7 Interior Design company and to be frank, I did not know that renovation can be so costly. To hack walls, rebuild walls, change the entire unit flooring (Living, bedrooms, kitchen, toilet), rerun entire water piping, rewiring the entire house electrical wiring.

Hi all Just want to highly recommend Daniel Wong (9661xxxx) from New Nyew. He is in the finishing stages of doing a full renovation of our apartment. We have been very pleased with his drive and style, and overall build quality. Unlike some others in the industry, Daniel does not impose his taste, and takes the customer's input seriously. Daniel is well-trained - he is a NAFA graduate. I would urge those interested in engaging a well-priced interior designer with good taste to consider Daniel Wong. If interested, please contact him directly to view high-quality photographs of this project. Please also do not use the sample projects on New Nyew's webpage as a gauge of Daniel's work - this project looks very different. I have no stake in New Nyew or any of its interests. I am also not related to Daniel Wong. I just want to help profile an upcoming and talented designer. This is also my second project with Daniel. I was his first confirmed customer in 2011, for a much smaller HDB renovation. I secured his services again, having been happy with the first project. For less than the price of an entry-level Japanese car, this is the range of work Daniel did for us. - Hacking of 6 non-structural walls for bedrooms and kitchen. Replacement of all these non-structural walls with glass walls or sliding doors. - Relaying of all existing floors, using only designer Italian non-homogenous tiles. Tiles were laid in staggered patterns. - Removal of false ceiling, and incorporating of a 6m-high void with raw brick surface as a design feature. - Remodeling of kitchen. Blum hinges. Corian private collection solid surface. Full length glass backing for island. Installation of dishwasher, oven, ceramic induction hob. - Toilet works. Replacing of normal WCs with suspended/concealed WCs from top brands. - Work for two balconies, one of which was a 300 sq ft roof terrace. Replacement of canopy with an aluminium-polycarbonate canopy. Installation of bathtub on roof terrace. - A lot of other solid surface. All Corian. Solid surfaces for four bay windows. - Pelmets. Both window curtain pelmets, and tiled pelmets for concealing glass door mechanisms. - Doors. Replacement of toilet doors with glass sliding doors. Re-laminating of ugly bomb shelter entrance. - Lighting. Full LED lights. Cove lights, down lights, outdoor. - Carpentry. Full wall bookshelf with LED lighting, kitchen carpentry, queen sized bed set with glass surfaces. - Full electrical work. Schneider switches. Happy renovations! (Daniel has the capacity to take on new projects now!)

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, 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.

And so, my husband M and I decided to take the plunge to purchase a 5rm resale flat in Pasir Ris last September. As it was way ahead of plan (we were to only start flat hunting in 2017), we were not quite as prepared as many fellow forum-ers here. Thus I had to start speed-reading through the various Renotalk forums to try to acquaint myself with some renovation basics. The forums and blogs are like amazing treasure troves with so, so much information available and whilst I haven't spend enough time browsing all the reno blogs, I have learnt much and am thankful for the existence of all the Renotalk forums and blogs. We hope that we can be able to contribute back a little to this very helpful community!

Hello everyone~ After 3 long years, been through times living with both of ours parents, renting apartment overseas, Hubby and I finally bought our first home in Singapore! We've decided to go for resale instead of BTO because we do not wanna wait any longer, and we're very particular about location. Prefer walking distance to the MRT, have good variety of eateries, supermarkets etc.. And we're really happy and lucky that we manage to get one within our budget.. Here I will share my reno journey with you.. ID HUNTING Like many homeowners, we went through the tiring ID hunting process as well.. Especially when the cost of renovation works for resale flat seems to be higher than BTO, we want to ensure we don't bomb too much money into it. After all what we really want is just a cozy home, not a showroom. We asked around for friends and relative recommendation, before arranging for them to meet up and discuss the details, then follow by waiting for quotations and layout drawings (some didn't provide eventhough we specifically asked for it). ------------------------------------------- Initially we loved the 1st ID we met, Mr C. He is highly recommended by one of our good friend.. A honest looking man, not those sales man type. We saw his work in real life at our friend's place and its really good.. He gives us a lot of ideas during the meet up, hand draw really well, provided us with some knowledge.. but once his quotation is out, we were really disappointed because he is too expensive (GST company). So no choice but had to drop him. -------------------------------------------- Mr I. Very slow respond. Met up with him and he keep picking up calls in between our discussion. Quotation take forever to send us, no drawing. Price wise.. consider reasonable. But very turn off with the slow and bo chup attitude, so immediately out from my list. ------------------------------------------- Mr Z. He have some difficulty in trying to understand the concept I want for our house during the discussion. No ideas were generated at all during the meet up, he is basically just listening to what we want. His company is relatively new.. But he seems really passionate about his job, fast respond through whatsapp, and he also promise us he will give us a very good price. I asked him to give a rough figure on our renovation works, he said 30k. Turn out his quotation is alot more than the 30k he mentioned, but still is the lowest among the rest. So we continue with the details, but we later on found out that he missed out quite a number of details and then ended up adding a lot of money. He wasn't very apologetic about it too, we were quite sian with the keep-increasing-final-price. But he keep insisting that his price is very reasonable, and keep guilt trip us telling us he had to "bare" some of our cost as his contractor is charging him but he did not charge to us. -.-" Then there were also some miscommunication later on when we try to suggest some ideas to help save cost, he not only did not help, he also just turn my idea down and tell me that he had NEVER seen others do it like that before. I was quite affected, cos I thought the reasons we hire a ID is so that they can "customize" base on individual client's need? Many times I feel he just brush my questions off without actually answering the question. I can feel his eagerness to get our "sales" at that point.. but no.. I know I needed someone who can "solve my problems" and not one who just avoid them. So even though we went through so much time to "correct" his quotation, clarify details and take measurement already, we decided to hold him and continue searching..and eventually we did not sign him in the end. ---------------------------------------------------- We emailed a few other IDs after that to get quotation (without meeting up yet), and nothing really stands out.. so we went back to Dennis, who we feel is consider one of the best so far for us in terms of communication.. which we feel is the most important criteria in selecting a ID..especially for your 1st renovation. --------------------------------------------------- Dennis was introduced by my Husband's colleague. We approached him 1 day before CNY by email (at that time we were leaning towards Mr Z and did not really give him a fair chance). He asked us to send him our requirements details through email and say that he will send us his quotation asap. We were expecting to wait until after CNY for his quotation, and also expected to have a lot of missing details in his quotation since he is the only one who did not meet up with us for discussion..even those that meet up with us also miss out certain things on their quotation.. But not only he send us a very comprehensive quotation on the following day, he also send us a layout drawing to ensure his understanding of the requirements tally with ours. We were impressed by his prompt action and response, and his good understanding of what we want. But we were too blind folded by Mr Z at that time that we rejected his offer at first.. He gracefully wish us good luck on our renovation. After we decided that Mr Z may not be the best ID for us, we went back to Dennis and ask him out for discussion. Told him we want to give him a fair chance before making the final decision.. We invited him up to the house to take detailed measurements, and requested him to give us a more accurate quotation after that. He provided us with a number of cost-saving ideas (on his own without me asking) on site, telling us what can/cannot be done. He is also frank in telling me what are the additional cost going to be incurred which he cannot quote me yet as it depends on how much work needed to be done (electric works, boxing up of pipes, installation of gas pipe, connection of gas stove which will be reflected in PUB bill). And he again send his revised quotation to us in the next 2 days or so, and then patiently amended the quotation again and again as per our request because we are very "kiasi" want every details to be written black and white lol.. We went down to his show room to view samples, and eventually after tons of questions, we decided to sign the contract with him.. Both hubby and me feel very comfortable with him, as he always answer our (sometimes stupid) questions professionally. He also help to give suggestion when I cannot decide and then tell me why he suggest this and that (which often are quite convincing and reasonable). There are also times when we have different opinions, but he is also respectful enough to accept my point of view and doesn't make me feel bad about it. Fingers cross everything will work out well in the end...

The Search [https://jumbobnb.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/jumbo-bnb-2/] Welcome to our Blog which records our journey which started from the search of a HDB Resale Unit to finally the purchase and renovation of our Jumbo BnB! Our initial 3 main search criterias were: 1. LOCATION – Close proximity to MRT as we do not own a car and are too lazy to walk long distance. We are willing to pay a premium for location as we see it as savings from not buying/maintaining a car. 2. HIGH FLOOR – Great view, more windy, less insects, less noise from playground and void deck activities. If you get the top floor, you have the added advantage of not having to deal with waste pipes! In all honesty, for greater privacy, 5th floor is the lowest recommended before pedestrians can peer into your house from the ground level. Another consideration is that low floor units are too close to the base rubbish bin in the chute thus every time you open the chute, it is like you are under a chemical attack. 3. Non-Corridor Unit - For greater privacy. Our other concern is that we might get evicted by our neighbours as we are noisy… ok very noisy, not us actually but our Home Theater System and propensity to watch action movies… Using the above 3 search criteria, we spent 3 months scouring the TPY & Bishan areas. The prime candidate was the Blk 79 A-E series near TPY MRT. However the COV and valuations were crazily high. But we must admit the view from those above 30th floor was crazily good! To cut a long story short, we settled for a 5-room unit near Braddell MRT. It only fulfills one of the above 3 criterias (i.e. location); it is a low floor and corridor unit. However it has one unique feature – it is made up of 2 adjoining 3-room units (total 6 rooms if you count the 2 added utility rooms) – which makes it very exciting to do up! =) Being travel bugs, we love hostels and this unit offers us the chance to do up our house like a hostel… hahhaha it wld be like living eternally in a travel hostel. We made an offer to a very nice lady and her mum on the 2nd day and ta da – the Reno Journey begins! PS You cant actually rent your HDB out as a BnB as it is against the regulations and you might lose your unit. Read http://news.asiaone.com/news/singapore/two-lose-hdb-flats-renting-them-tourists

Finally its my turn to start a reno blog after months of reading the blogs on renotalk. Thank you to everyone who contributed to renotalk as i picked up so much information on where, what, how, who, why..... I got my keys in late July/ early August. After 2 months of searching for a good ID with the right quotation and attitude. Please do not ask me to share contacts of my ID yet as its too early to know if he is 100%. I will update along the way, I promised. But I must say so far my ID had been very patient with me and always try to accomodate. Next step.....let me find out how to upload pictures.

Hi everyone, First of all, thanks for visiting my blog. My wife and I bought a 5-room resale flat and here is the floor plan.

Hello guys, I'm excited to be here. Can I just say that this place is a treasure trove... First things first, some background: My fiance and I are awaiting for our 4-rm resale unit in Bedok. Estimated handover should be around end Nov to early Dec but we do need reno to be completed by end Feb at the latest. As such, I have been eating, breathing, sleeping, dreaming renovation ideas. Have done up a rough sketch of the design we have in mind. We're looking at something Bali-resort themed because the Indonesian islands hold a special place in our heart Please feel free to give any comments/ advice/ feedback/ suggestions/ recommendations that you might have about the design that we have in mind! Thanks in advance and we look forward to blogging our renovation journey here:)

Hello guys, I'm excited to be here. Can I just say that this place is a treasure trove... First things first, some background: My fiance and I are awaiting for our 4-rm resale unit in Bedok. Estimated handover should be around end Nov to early Dec but we do need reno to be completed by end Feb at the latest. As such, I have been eating, breathing, sleeping, dreaming renovation ideas. Have done up a rough sketch of the design we have in mind. We're looking at something Bali-resort themed because the Indonesian islands hold a special place in our heart Please feel free to give any comments/ advice/ feedback/ suggestions/ recommendations that you might have about the design that we have in mind! Thanks in advance and we look forward to blogging our renovation journey here:)

This is one of our i1Reno Pte Ltd project in Lilydalle Executive Condo We completed this kitchen facelift in 2weeks with our client staying-in, we tried our best to bring minimal inconvenience to our value client. 'One customer well taken care of could be more valuable than of $100,000 worth of advertising' - Jim Rohn

Finally have time to pen down my first renovation journey though nothing has officially started. Let me start with how I ended up with buying this 4A resale unit in Bukit Batok. Having stayed in Tiong Bahru for so long, it is really quite sad to acknowledge that with my budget it is very hard to afford a decent 4A unit in this area. So I extended the search further and further, and finally decided on Bukit Batok. Hard for me to find one unit within my budget from Tiong Bahru to Jurong (I searched based on the East-West MRT track, LOL). Chose BB because it is quite near Jurong, where the happening places are and the price seems okay for my budget. However, I have to admit that I hate Jurong East MRT and I think the authority seriously should do something about the crowd there. So I viewed close to 20 units in BB area and got a bit sian when I could not seem to find the "perfect" unit even after I extended my search. Have been viewing units from Jan till Jun and one fine day in June saw this unit that is abt 6 mins walk from the MRT and decided that is it. It is a 29-year-old unit with a floor area of 107sqm (the slightly larger size is due to its odd shape). The unit is in good condition but I still feel like doing an overhaul because the last renovation was done 10 years ago. When my friends and colleagues asked me about the price I paid, I tended to get reaction like "very expensive for a unit in BB leh, so ulu" or something along the line. It made me wonder whether I made the wrong choice due to my viewing fatigue. Sometimes when I check PropertyGuru and feeel a bit sad to see similar units with lower asking price. I tell myself not to regret and try to make the most out of what I have. Well, the choice has been made and I will be going for my 1st appt in early Aug. Here's the floor plan!

Welcome to my first post in Renotalk forum. I have been a silent observer for about 1 month ever since we put in an option to buy our new home in resale market. First of all a quick introduction: This is our second home purchase, but first attempt to be part of the renotalk forum. Our first home purchase was more than 8 years ago. At that time, we never had an idea about these forums etc. (So ignorant!). Hopefully being informed will help us! Timelines: 1st appointment: mid July 2014 Sale completion: end Aug 2014 We are going to get our keys in end Aug. So as advised by friends here in this forum, I'm now looking to start talking to IDs who can come up with good ideas at reasonable prices. I will soon upload my initial criteria for reno and floor plan soon.

Hi I have a 5 room hdb resale flat with sqm 130 I need to 1. paint the whole house 2. change the door handles 3. change the toilet doors. Any quotations?

Hi everyone!! I've been lurking around this forum ever since my family and I started looking for a new place at the start of 2014. After numerous house viewings and disappointments when our offers were rejected, we finally found an apartment in a neighborhood we love, Marine Parade! This blog will hopefully chronicle the experiences we have throughout the renovation process, as well as offer any tips and lobangs that will help make the journey easier and more affordable. Firstly, the floor plan! Typical 4-room layout no?? The flat is in original condition, i.e. ugly green terazzo flooring in the living room and even worse beat-up parquet flooring in the bedrooms. At least there's a utility room for our storage needs. Another problem about this flat is the ultra tiny toilets, whose walls in between can't be hacked as there's multiple pipes along one side in the shower room. Seeing that there are many areas to renovate, we decided to overhaul everything, walls, floors, doors, windows, nothing old will still be left after we're done lol.. Our theme will be rojak . This is because my mom and dad, bro and I have differing styles and tastes, so we decided that we will handle our rooms individually, while the living room and kitchen will be done up in a 'light' industrial style. The living room will have a white brick tv feature wall and black electric trunking, while our kitchen will house a small L-shaped kitchen and our dining area. Here is an amateur preview done using Autodesk Homestyler This program is a lifesaver as it helped me visualize and play with the layout of the flat. It also helped the IDs/contractors we met see what we actually wanted, which was a practical and simple house, with a hint of design. As we knew what we wanted, we focused on finding contractors to do up the place. The search (we didn't engage a contractor in the end) will be elaborated in a later post, and I hope we made the right choice! So that's it for the first post! Our 1st appt was in the morning today, and we hope to start renovations in two weeks. Wish us luck!!

Hmm...have been procrastinating for a while to start this thread on our home. Finally decided to sit my a** down and start sharing our journey with you all. We are noob homeowners, so it is a learning process and hopefully what we share will be interesting and useful for you too. Do share with us too...especially those who are at the same stage as us, and those who had 'attained nirvana from this process Because I had procrastinated for so long before starting this thread, we had already finished on the early stages of confirming our ID...haha. One hand I am happy to get the ID confirmed and move on with the process, the other I don't suggest anyone to be like us. Despite reading so much from the 前辈s here about how to choose ID, we only applied maybe 20% of what we learned here and depended the rest on gut feel. Now, starting to worry and regret for acting so impulsively. Sigh~~ Time will tell, if our gut feel is reliable. So, in summary we contacted 6 IDs. Who did we get? 1. Space Sense We liked K****'s portfolio in industrial style so we sent him an enquiry. He replied to ask for our budget and requirements, then there was a long delay before he turned us down citing it is impossible to fulfil our requirements with our indicated budget. To be fair to us, we really do not know what would the cost for the intended renovation of our scale, so we mentioned an estimated of 35-40K hoping that our conversation can carry on and we can make more realistic adjustments to the budget. It is a pity that we were not given the chance to further our enquiry, or perhaps there was too much projects to handle for the ID firm. In another words, no fate with Space Sense. 2. BoxID Saw their work on an article from renotalk.com. Sent out an enquiry but no reply until a full month later. By then we are already in closing talks with the final ID so we did not proceed to meet up anymore. 3. Artist Room Read about them on renotalk, but no reply on our enquiry. 4. Three-D Conceptwerke One of their designer, Will, contacted us the next day after we sent our enquiry. Initially, I had my reservation because Will is not a local, and thought someone local will contact me since the firm is local. But not willing to discriminate, we proceeded to meet up with Will, who turn out to be quite an enthusiastic and friendly chap. It was easy to talk to him about the concept we are after, but we left the meeting feeling a little iffy if Will will understand what we really what and how he will propose the layout to accommodate what we want (will show below). But boy, we were pleasantly surprised by Will's proposed layout. It was interesting and quite similar to what we were thinking, only perhaps better. We were quite blown away. (And this is when our gut feel started to kick in over rationality...sigh). 5. New Nyew I really like New, and her hubby. We first visited New at her place, and both of them are very nice people. She spent 3 hours going through our floorplan and proposed her ideas right on the spot (even brought us to see her showroom in Yishun). She was also the only ID whom brought to site immediately following our first meeting to view our place, and she was the quickest with her response including the edits we requested to the initial proposed layout. Frankly, we were so closed to confirming with New had we not gone on to meet Will and saw his layout. I would still strongly recommend New to anyone who is looking for an ID 6. The Design Practice We found R****** from vincentinteriorblog.com. He was one of the recommended ID, and after viewing The Design Practice portfolio online, I found that he was the designer for a flat reno that I really like and bookmarked since the day we got out flat. Told myself my future flat can possibly look like that. Unfortunately, fate is not with us for R******. We waited long for his responses, and never get to fix down an appointment date. So, in the end, we decided to drop this enquiry as well. By now, you should have guessed it. Since our gut feel was so strong...we decided to go along with Will from Three-D Conceptwerke (TDC for short..lazy) Hmm....any renotalkers who had also used TDC before? Do share your feedback =)