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Hi guys! A and I have been reading up alot of renotalk during the past few months as we are finally settling down and starting our renovation journey. We purchased a 5 room resale flat and got our keys back in January 2015. Like many couples, we started to source for good Interior Designers or contractors (Mr. K) that have been recommended by people on forums. I believe we met about 8-10 firms and have about 15 quotations from different companies and individuals. The highly recommended ones and big names interior designers seem to be either 1. too expensiveor 2. too busy... Some interior designers which were quite "bo chup" and for which we have to chase for the quotation were dropped immediately. We started to branch out and get different quotations from reno websites. On the other hand, the unheard ones can be quite enthusiastic and at the lower range. However, we did not want to compromise on the quality of materials by going for the cheapest quotations. After months of deliberating, we have finally settled on a small interior design firm. Why did we choose this company? Indeed it is a leap of faith because we could not find any reviews on this company on the internet ! 1. their sincerity (P & B) in assuring us that they want to do a good job 2. quote is reasonable to us comparing to other interior designers and contractors (yes definitely more expensive than contractors.. at least $5k maybe? But I guess we are paying extra for the project management service..) 3. comfortable factor / does not mind spending hours with us thrashing out the details and revising the quotation multiple times 3. our quotation is 8 pages long haha! details are important! (Most contractors only gave us a 2 pager quotation) 4. some freebies... On hindsight... - ensure that you are comfortable with the payment terms (check what is the "market rate") This is our floor plan : Some inspirations: What the hubby wants:

SCANDI So the wife decided to finally start the t-blog, but I'm being forced to post. So as usual, at the start of our home making process, I decided that she would make the decisions, since she had all the arty-farty ideas. But i guess this saves me all the trouble of hearing her nag in future, if she decides that she doesn't like any aspect of the house so i guess i'm making a very smart and tactical move. My only requirements to her were that I wanted a fully functional kitchen, since i am the masterchef, and even bookshelves for the bookworm that is me =) So here goes. As usual the arty-farty wife decided that we would call our blog - Colour our Scandi Home, and our first post would be called "SCANDI" or Super Colourful And Novel DIY Ideas Why? U should have guessed it, Scandi but with pops of light pastel colours. Similar to what some of the t-bloggers here have, just that we would have elements which we hope to DIY ourselves. So like many of us here, Pinterest became our best friend. And my wife started pinning into tons and tons of boards. Well, see good choice there. This is what we started out thinking how her house would look like. p.s. Pls don't be misled by the pictures - these were what the wife was dreaming of when she started out as she was very very excited to be making all the decisions =) So as u can see, she wants it to have light brown, pastels, grey and whites. As usual the skeptical me was like okay, whatever makes u happy. so we started going around talking to IDs to find out more about how to make our her dream house come true. Here's the sample layout of our place. Time to sleep will update another day - if the wife doesn't kill me for making fun of her that is =p

3 years ago, we managed to get a BTO flat in a mature estate. After a long wait, our flat is finally ready and we collected the keys recently. To start off, here's our 4-room flat floor plan. After receiving our house keys, we excitedly went to our flat the next day to check it out. We did a flat inspection and thankfully the built quality was acceptable apart from a couple of small defects. Here's some photos of our small place, pardon the poor quality taken by my phone. Main entrance (with the pineapple rolling in) Living room: Passageway: Kitchen: Master Bedroom:Forgot to take photo Master Bedroom Toilet: Bedroom 2: Bedroom 3: Common Toilet:

Hi everyone! This is Mrs JohnB here. We have learnt a great deal from the users on RenoTalk. Which heater to choose, where to route the air con trunking, how to spray paint, etc. What a treasure trove of helpful homeowners and information this forum is. Thank you. We are excited to finally have a t-Blog. Please feel free to share your opinion; we are new to renovation and would appreciate your advice. So, here goes.

Ero/S Chairs By Philippe Starck I have 8 chairs for sale. The Ero/S chairs are original pieces from Kartell, and designed by Philippe Starck- the highly celebrated French designer. Although the chrome legs have gone slightly rusty (chrome does need some maintenance to keep it shiny), they can be polished with Brasso to restore the shine. The Polycarbonate seat is in good condition. To note: out of the 8 pieces, 2 pieces have lost their rubber sealant. The chair is highly ergonomic and comfortable. The organic egg-shape and 'Eiffel tower' wire leg is a classic mid-century design. Timeless and and versatile as either dining chairs, lounge chairs, or study chairs. Kartell in the US is selling it for USD$580 (see link here). In the UK, it is selling at £390. I mainly use it as my dining chairs. However, we are changing the look of our house, and are getting some newer chairs to replace it. Want to clear it! So I'm selling it at a very low price. Grab before gone! Selling price: $120 each Dimensions: W62 x D70 x H79 Contact: Chris - 9005-6689 Pictures of the chairs: Styling pictures:

we have gotten our 4 rms BTO flat at greenleaf tampines. It has been in the news a while back for its poor workmanship and tons of defects so we were kinda sketical during key collection day on 2nd dec. haha lucky for us, the defects are pretty minimal and they are implementing this tour thingy where the BSC contractor will walk the house with you to write down the defects so you dun have to write down yourself. so it is kinda a good thing. the skirtings were a shade of dark brown and pretty hideous and we r considering whether to hack it or paint it over. the flooring were a off white shade of yellow and the brown skirting make it even more obvious. the kitchen flooring and walls were also a yellowish tint.. duno y hdb uses this kind of ugly tiles.. cheap perhaps? 2 months prior to the key collection date, i start to stalk renotalk and etc and try to come out with a design that i like. i like things simple and thus was fancinated by the japanese minimalist and scandanavian look. I want to keep the whole house to a 60 percent white, 30 percent wood and 10 percent black color combi and maybe a bright color funiture to pop the colors in the living room i am a 3D artist by profession so i spent countless night trying to find the right funitures and look. i intend to find a contractor instead of an ID since i have the design. hopefully it will be cheaper since i am on a budget as well. i came up with the following concept. now while the BSC is fixing up the defects, we am finding a contracter. trying not to rush and find a lousy one , espcially after seeing so many horror stories on disaster renovation on renotalk and fb. hope u like it =)

Updated on showflat details! Remember to indicate which day are you going! ----- This blog shall serve as a frank testimonial of the ID chosen, the renovation we are going to embark and the selection process for your information. I believe blogs like these are valuable information for everybody seeking to do their renovation! We started our selection of IDs around May 2014 and received our keys only recently. This is our first home and we are extremely excited to get the renovation works going. The selection process was tedious fished out quite a fair bit of IDs and contractors (both famous and not so famous) and i shall list them accordingly Selection of IDs OM** L*****- Provided only a rough quote and insisted we should only talk to them upon receiving keys. Rough quote given was a mass template email sent to whoever requested for it. Wei***.com - Emailed them but received no reply Zi**** A******* - Was the first to provide us with detailed quotations. Price was on the upside as their design were great judging from their portfolios Re*** - Quite popular in 2014 as some renotalk users used his services. We were particularly impressed with the way he gave a layout sketch on the floorplan and offered a detailed quotation. Price is affordable. From portfolio, appears to be just a renovator and layout planner and design to be handled by the users. Quote was within our budget Tho* S******** D***** - The first ID which we met in real life. Joy has a pleasant personality and ain't your typical senior looking renovator. Though the company focuses on modern designs, we felt good communication vibes with Joy and she assured us our renovation will be within budget and still, achieve the scandinavian design we yearned. The 80** S***** - This is one of the up and coming companies in Singapore. Thats how they described to me. I was particularly impressed with the design portfolio. The quote was designed in such a way they would try and fit in stuff within the quote. Realised some items were way overpriced, wardrobe and craftstone wall in particular. But we could understand as there's a "design element" to it which has to be factored into the cost. Upon revision of quotes, we realised there's some tension within the discussion and pulled the plug. I suppose if you have a big budget, this entity would be a great great choice! Custom****** - Emailed but he was busy. Said he would get back but heard nothing from him. Preliminary quote was given. Pretty popular in renotalk Posh**** - After seeing Leon and Jenna's blog, i thought i should check them for a quote. Emailed, said would get back with a quote. Never got back despite insisting our budget is still all right. I suppose if you have a bigger budget, you could achieve like what was describe in the other tblog, which was really impressive! Renovator from friend (Decobuilders): We were about to confirm the deal when he told me he was removed from his position as there's some restructuring in the company. Quote provided was lowest of all and i thought having a friend to work out the renovation would be extremely beneficial. Didn't work out though. ----- Our choice was Joy from Thom Signature Design. We were pretty impressed with the way the company carried themselves on social media. They seemed pretty subtle with referrals from within. Joy was the first ID we met and our discussions came through a long way and we could see the patience in her. From our preliminary "don't know what we want" till "know what we want" and "change what we want", she was ever-patient in revising our quotes and all. We signed on a preliminary quote of 22k which is to be revised as we do not need the craft-stone wall anymore along with other stuff. We are determined to keep the overall renovation at 25k including electrical. Joy is aware of that and she's also witnessing this blog as we progresses. Would like to make a disclaimer that i would not be sharing the quotation for individual items and also for the entire segment of it till the renovation is fully completed. Even so i would only provide a rough guide on the items we do from the overall renovation cost ----- The house will be white everywhere, with pastel items making up the furnishing. Maybe some walls would be tinged with tiffany green, else it'll be all white. Just in case anyone of you wish to get a quote from Joy, can let her know Takaishi/Eugene recommended! 3D updated. Have to admit it ain't as tok kong as the rest of the drafters but doesn't matter. Our highlight is the furnishing

Hi everyone! I'm selling away my scandinavian styled fabric sofa. As i've fallen in love with another set of sofa.. Condition: 9.5/10 used for 3 weeks Colour: Light blue Dimensions: 1.65m width * 80cm depth Comes with 2 side bolster Price: $700 Transport on your own Viewing available @ pasir ris. Interested parties do PM me, many 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!

I have been a follower of this wonderful forum for a long time, a quick check on my profile shows that I am a member since 2004! That was when I am renovating the current place that I am staying. Time flies and it has been 10 years, and it’s time for a mid-life upgrade. There are several challenges, thus I named the blog “Hopefully” as I am not sure if I will succeed. I will be hiring a contractor, thus I will be the “designer”. Challenges: Budget. After long discussion with CFO, the budget was set at $20k. With an upgrade to a system 4 air-con a cardinal requirement, effective balance is only 16k. Coordination. As we will be staying in for the renovation, extra effort will be required for the coordination to minimize disruption and stress to the residents (wife, 3 schooling kids, helper) Theme. After browsing through the tons of information in the t-blogs, I must say that I like the “Scandinavian” look. The challenge for me is how I can achieve this without making major changes to existing infra and within budget.Scope of Work L-Box & Plastering for 3 bedrooms Vanishing of Parquet for 3 Bedrooms Glass Partition to create new study room Laminate floor for Study Sliding door for Balcony Lay wood decking for Balcony (6m x 1.5m) Brick tile for TV wall Shoe Cabinet Cabinet for Master Toilet New System 4 Aircon Retrofit Oven and additional Kitchen Cabinets New WardrobeThe following is my floor plan just to get the ball rolling. It’s a 5A unit @ 136sqm. I had made some changes to the layout during the last reno by hacking away half the store room to create a new entrance to the kitchen.

After reading so many posts on Reno t-Blog, I've decided to also post my journey of how me and my wife begin creating our Punggol Scandi Home! Our new house is at Punggol Waterway! But we've yet to get our keys. I'd like to share my floor plan of my 5-rm BTO flat below. Next, I'll be sharing the theme of my home!

Final Product my lovely wife and i bought a house back 2011, now i just can't wait for the day we will be getting the key. Our flat is near its completion and so i decided to start researching on renovation, heres our floor plan HDB floor plan HDB suggested layout My own layout Color code: red - cabinet blue - table yellow - sofa green - wardrobe orange - bed pink - fridge i designed this layout based on the following reasons: 1. we will be living with my parents so we only need 2 bed rooms 2. Suggested study room beside living room will not be constructed as we prefer bigger living space 3. we will make a suite by joining bedroom 2 & MBR, bedroom 2 will be walkin wardrobe + study room. 4. kitchen service yard will be hacked to make kitchen more spacious, windows will be installed at the service yard my bro-in-law is an ID so he will help us draw an autocad version of our dream layout and give us some advice for the arrangement of furnitures, material to use, design etc The design we're looking for is simplicity and ease of maintenance, something like Scandinavian

Hi all, BRAND NEW scandinavian chair from Lush Lush (Ava from the NEST collection) for sale. This chair retails for about $240 (before discount is $350) BUT i am selling it for $220 if you can deal at my convenience. I have 2 of these but am only selling one. Keeping the other one. Please contact me directly at 84187675.

Hello guys, After patiently waiting for 3 years, I've just finally collected keys to my 4 room premium BTO!! Decided to start this t-blog to share my scandinavian renovation works with everyone as I'll like to contribute back to homeowners since I've been a quiet reader for the past one year. T-blog has been really 'educational' to me in terms of tips and tricks as well as contacts thus I'd hope what I will be sharing would contribute to those who are renovating their home or getting keys to their new place! Anyway, here's my floor plan for reference: My scandinavian design which I will be having are inspired during my stay in Denmark. During my stay there, I was influenced by the danish way of life, how their designs were clean and timeless as well as functional. I love everything scandinavian and my place would only be made of four colour scheme - which is white, brown, grey and black.

Hi All, Looking to sell the the below 2 items. Do pm me with your offer if you are interested - items comes with receipt. Thanks! 1. Sofa-seater for 3 Vendor: Jottergoods Purchased Date: 7 Dec 2013 Condition: 9.5/10 (still very new and mint condition) Original Cost: $1,690 (final SGD$880!!) 2. Armchair (SOLD) Vendor: The Shophouse Purchased Date: 6 Jun 2014 Condition: 10/10 (not used - understood only 1 piece in Singapore) Original Cost: $905

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!

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.

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 =)

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..

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.

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