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After being a silent reader of many reno t-blogs and many PMs exchanges for ID contacts, I have finaly (and reluctantly) decided to start a t-blog to document our reno journey, learning process, and sourcing tips etc with fellow forumers and future readers. Have taken too much good info from this forum and this is our small way of giving back to this lovely and helpful community in Renotalk. First and foremost, like any other reno t-blog, our floor plan. Right from the start, I knew there's some design flaw (oh well, it's HDB BTO, either take it or leave it) 1. There's no way to hack the kitchen to create open concept, and my wife have to forget about any kitchen island. 2. Placement of dining table gonna be a challenge (I actually use this as one of my key selection criteria to determine if an ID is giving much thoughts about space planning, or they are quoting for the sake of quoting only). Some ideas/themes that my wife and I like, and inspired after reading many pages of t-blogs and other online sources ....

We (the husband and I) are starting our renovation in three days. After months of sourcing for ideas and IDs, we have chosen to work with a contractor to create a little cosy home that we have been waiting on for three and a half years. We are not doing any hacking as we need all three bedrooms. And due to budget, we are keeping all the flooring and toilet fixtures that came with the flat. Honestly, we think the finishings are ok and count ourselves lucky for that. So, our renovation will kick off with electrical works, followed by air con installation this weekend. First things first, the all-too-familiar floorplan:

Like most of us here, we were being introduced to Renotalk T-Blog when we got our own flat. Waited for 3 years, we finally collected our keys.... and stepped into the cement floor of our house. No, it's not a home yet, but it's our house! Yay!! Here's our typical 4-room floorplan. and again, like most of us here, we read up a lot in renotalk, and got to know about Mr K, The Contractor. The Hojichas think it's a waste of money to hire an ID since we have our own designs already.. so we decided to go with Contractors. Back in Mid-November, we collected our keys and quickly made appointment to meet up with Mr K, so excited about it... he was pretty tied-up and busy rushing projects before CNY, so the Hojichas decided to start our reno only after CNY.. Of course, in order to work with Mr K, we took it reallllyyy slow.. some of our neighbours already moved in! In the meantime, we met some others (e.g. The80sStudio, and some other contractors) and received many quotes as well. The strange thing is, the quotes all came back around the same price. How to pick?? So we are stuck.... * fast forward * anyways.... in d end, we signed with Mr K. I still believe if he wants to do things fast, he can be super fast, coz due to permit issued dates pressure 3 walls were hacked within a day, but now we are kinda stuck with the next problem, the electric works! Here comes the lil' story... sorry if it's a bit too lengthy and wordy.. The amount of electric works we required was first quoted to us as $2100. But we find it a bit expensive, and requested to see it in breakdown by points... so he replaced the $2100 with points unit price.. and we signed on that, coz when we calculated on our own, it's below $2100. Then after all the hacking of walls, it's time to work on electricity, so K brought his electrician up to our place to see, and this time, his electrician came back with a $3200 quote. >_< It's only now then we know, shifting concealed switches/points/fan points are separate charges, not in the breakdown K provided us with...... and installation of hanging lights Vs. normal lights have different price tags too! Mr K told me that if we are not ok with this quote, it's ok, we can find our own electrician....... so now we are in the midst of requesting for quotes from other electricians for comparison. Renotalkers, if you have any good recommendations, pls intro to us. Thank you very much. Story to be continued..... wish us good luck!

Hi all, been a silent reader for the past 1 year and ve really learnt a lot from the RT members here in T-Blog, those precious experiences, ideas and tips which help us a lot through our reno journey. Its really wonderful to see how a place to turn from nothing to a home after concept, reno process, furnitures and decor. Hence we decided to start our T-Blog (we got our keys on 1st Oct) and as usual 1st thing - our foor plan http://renotalk.com/forum/uploads/gallery_48023_3_57614.jpg

Hey hey I am finally starting a T-blog of my own! Have been an avid follower of this forum for a short while... Since October 2013? But this forum has really helped my fiance & I alot & we managed to learn alot about house renovation from here.. the basic technical knowledge.. like the difference betweeen laminate & veneer... quartz counter top better or solid surface better... etc etc.. So new home owners don't fret!! This forum will be your best friend with all the helpful people around! Heh heh... Well my fiance & I are just a simple young couple trying to make a life together in our small red dot... getting married soon, so we wish that HDB will quickly hand our keys over to us!! Ok disclaimer: I hope I will find the time and strength to continue to update as often as I can… ahhh nowadays quite busy.. So, here I am! Just for this space to be a record of our renovation journey & appreciate all advice given by all you renotalkers.. Thanks in advance lei.. hahaha...

Just received our keys this month to our 4rm BTO Standard flat @ Fernvale... YAY! After being a silent reader here for the past 4 months, I am so happy to be able to start my own t-blog. Hehehe. We talked to a few contractors and IDs before finalising on a guy who really impressed us with his responsiveness, his professionalism, and of course, the good reviews from RT! Hope he lives up to it! Although our budget for renovation is only $13K, we do hope to create our dream home according to our fave theme - Scandinavian! Here is our floor plan, will share more ideas in next post!

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.

Hi all, I have been wanting to write about my renovation experience for a while now but have been putting it off until now . We took our keys back in July 2013 and officially moved in in Nov 2013. This forum has been a great source of information for me and I would like to give something back to the community. Hopefully, it will be of some benefit to anyone who is reading this . First of all, the floor plan: We started researching for our renovation since 2012. We read forums and flipped through home decor magazines at the library or bookstores etc. Take pictures - they might come in handy in future when you meet with contractors. A good idea is to write your notes in Google Drive so you can access them anywhere. We also kept a spreadsheet with all the quotation breakdowns from the contractors/IDs we contacted. This keeps things neat and easy to compare. Do include the prices of everything else you will need to budget for e.g. furnishings, electrical works etc. In this way, we knew for sure how much we spent in total for renovation (including all hidden costs!). Try to know what you want before going around asking for quotations. For example, we knew (after looking through countless magazines ) that we want a Scandinavian look for our house. That means: - furniture with simple and clean lines - bright, open spaces - light-color themes - wood-looking flooring - minimalism In short, there are lots of planning and research to do even before getting your keys. Do walk around home exhibitions (regularly at Expo) and furniture stores (IKEA). Shortlist the stuff that you like. Take note of prices and put them down in your budget spreadsheet. We had planned for a renovation budget of 40K (including furnishings) and I was quite proud that we spent within our budget AND did not compromise on the Scandinavian vision . Preview: I will try to narrate and dissect our renovation process in future posts in this topic so stay tuned! (I am rather slow in writing, so bear with me, hopefully just need a few weeks! ). P.S. In the meantime, you can head over to my wife's blog (http://yunzhijian.blogspot.sg/) for pictures and her views on our renovation (YES she has already finished her blog!! And I am still on my first post!!)

Hi fellow Renotalkers, I have actually been silently browsing through the renotalk forum for quite some time now, soaking in ideas and getting information and tips on what to do or not do during reno, and also what to buy and where! Having learnt alot through the t-blogs and posts here, I figure I should also share our renovation journey and perhaps some things experienced along the way. Perhaps 1 or 2 of you may also take something away, be it an inspiration or a practical lesson. Our story begins on the 14th of April 2013, when I successfully proposed to my then gf, now wife (who shall henceforth be affectionately referred to as "E"). Having successfully sealed that part of the deal, we set out looking for a place to call home, which as a lot of you know isn't the easiest thing in the world. Some of the factors we considered were as follows: - Near to either E's or my parent's home (easy for childcare needs in the future) - Within 0.5 km of an MRT station, especially on the North East Line (so that E can get to work easily) - Size of the apartment must be at least 1100 sgft (E grew up being used to lots of space at home) - Toilet must not be in the kitchen! - A yard area separate from the kitchen - Preferably North/South facing (so you don't get the evening sun) - Has to have sufficient natural light! We didn't want to ballot for a BTO because that would mean we would have to wait very long for our unit, but we were willing to do so for an EC. In particular, we tried balloting for some return units at The Topiary, but after umpteen failed attempts at balloting for 4-rms, 3 rm dual keys, we decided to look at resale flats instead. Plus, it's easier on the pocket. Our search was narrowed down to the following locations: - Upper Boon Keng opposite Kallang MRT (superb location for both private and public transport; flats which just finished MOP; but friggin expensive for a HDB) - Serangoon Central (great location but relatively old flats; expensive as well) - Potong Pasir (again, great location but the oldest flats out of our shortlist) - Sengkang (not as busy as Punggol, and valuations seem to be the cheapest here. Flats are also bigger) For those of you with more money and want to buy a HDB, you should really consider Upper Boon Keng and Jalan Membina in Tiong Bahru, but that's just my opinion haha. We viewed over 20 flats before we stepped into our current home. In fact, we put in an offer for 2 other units before this one. The first unit that we liked had a condo style layout on a high floor, relatively close to Sengkang MRT. BUT, the owner was then asking a COV of 100k (crazy!!). I think it was because he had marble floors through the living room and real parquet elsewhere. We put in an offer which was slightly in excess of half that amount, but was rejected. On hindsight, it was good that he didn't accept because that would be an insane amount just to pay for COV. The second unit was a fair bit away from the MRT, but the layout, space and facing was just superb. We put in a bid for less than their asking, but was quickly told that somebody offered them their asking. A bit of regret felt on not being able to get this unit. We were starting to get a bit tired and exasperated with the search when our agent suggested another area in Sengkang which we had not personally scouted in Prop*rtyG*ru, and we went down not expecting much. You know that feeling where you step in and feel so comfortable that you know it's home - that's the feeling that we got when we first stepped into our new home. It also helped that the former owners were very warm and nice people. We sealed the deal that evening when the owners accepted our COV offer which was a bit less than their asking. It isn't by any means the perfect home in terms of fitting all of our criteria, but it certainly comes close to it. Sorry for being long winded, so without further ado, here's presenting our floor plan: Uploaded with ImageShack.usTo be continued on my next post..

Hi guys, We're starting our renovation soon and thought we'd like to share the process here, as we've gained many tips from reading the Renotalk forums and blogs the last few months. Here's the floorplan. It's a four-room resale flat in the North-east. Hacking works include all existing wall and floor tiles, and a doorway opening between the masterbedroom and bedroom 3. Carpentry is minimal- just a wardrobe and only bottom cabinets for the kitchen. For the kitchen counter top, we decided to go with quartz rather than solid surface as we will be doing quite a bit of heavy cooking. We also don't plan to have a TV feature wall. Overall, we're going for a simplicity meets Scandinavian look, and hope to do so within a modest budget! We'll be reviewing the IDs/contractors we met up with in our next post!

Hi! We have been on this forum for over 3 years and have learnt a lot thanks to the generous sharing of information and ideas here. Now that our very own first home will be ready soon, it's time to give back. Our home is a 4-room unit in Punggol Emerald that was launched in April 2010 together with Punggol Waves. At the point of writing, some of our future neighbours have already collected their keys and commenced renovation works. Even though our PCD is still stated as 4th Quarter 2013, our block still has quite a bit of work to do and as the title suggests, we are looking at a more realistic moving in date of March to April 2014. In terms of the unit layout, we are really pleased that the kitchen is large by today's 4-room BTO standards as we are looking forward to finally hosting dinners in our home. On the other hand, this means the living room will be smaller but we feel the area distribution is balanced. The only gripe is that due to the way the Main Bedroom and Bedroom 1 are placed, the available options to hack or combine the 2 rooms are limited.