My family have been staying in the North for more than one and a half decade. We work in the city and our journey to/from home/office is about 58km. We had enough of the distance, and we started looking for a place nearer to the city. We can't afford an apartment in the city area, so we tried to balance between distance and cost. After more than 2 months of search, we finally found our place.

It is an apartment located between Hougang, Serangoon, AMK and Yio Chu Kang. I tested the distance between my office and our new place, metered the distance to be about 13km. Thus to/fro trip has been cut down by 2/3 to 26km. Cost and time saving.

Like the rest of the forumers, we went through a few IDs and come down to the our final one. Here's a list of the IDs that we have spoken to:

1. B&* - This was recommended by my sister as they have did her place. Workmanship is good but I was utterly shocked by their quotation. It's twice the quote of other IDs. Immediately strike off the list.

2. C@s** Im@** - The guy that talk to us is a PRC chap. However in the second meeting, the boss, a malaysian, came with the PRC guy and took over the whole show. The PRC guy just sat quietly and let his boss talk. Their quote is within the range of the rest of the IDs. Anyway I found some bad feedback about the boss in some other forum, we don't really feel comfortable with this company. Strike it off our list too.

3. Ex1* - The ID is a young chap. Frankly, his quote was the cheapest among all. However we have to dictate him on the design and layout. He is not creative in the process. But he is very dedicated in his job, he drew the 3D for us even though I told him we have others in the evaluation. We doubted his experience and also he cannot meet our schedule so we decided to strike him off the list.

4. H@** Gui** - We clicked with this young lady. Their price is slightly above my budget. She tried her best to accomodate my budget but we feel that like #3, she might not be experience. Sadly we strike them off the list.

5. N@r**We*t - The ID, KH Lee was recommended by a colleague who had his house done by him. Their quote is similar to #4, but we managed to squeeze him to fit our budget. A nice guy, also he had done one unit in my block before so he's pretty familiar with our layout. He is very experience. Signed him up.

We have not finalised on the design yet. Our objective is SPACE, STORAGE, BRIGHT and MODERN. However Lee's initial design did not fit the objective. He re-do the design, but he still owes us the bedrooms for the kids.

Hacking starts tomorrow!

Here's our 3 bedrooms floor plan.

Here's the proposed and accepted layout.

Edited August 14, 201313 yr by blue218

sounds like serangoon north?

sounds like serangoon north?

A YCK street away from Serangoon North.

I am in Hougang St. 92 and 300m away from Rosyth School for my son.

oooh~! u are prolly 500m away from me then..LOL

welcome to renotalk! looking forward to read your updates

Some of the items purchased.

Master Bathroom Basin:

Common Bathroom Basin:

Kitchen Basin:

oooh~! u are prolly 500m away from me then..LOL

welcome to renotalk! looking forward to read your updates

Thank you.

Here's the selected tiles. They have ran out of stocks for my selected living room tiles, but it's essentially the 600 x 600 off-white homogenous square tiles. I am kind of worried about the grout line turning black, but I was told that I can apply marble gum that will ensure that it will maintain the grout line and give you a smooth feel between the tiles. However that will set me back by another 2.9k, we have not decided whether to proceed with that yet.

The bottom tiles are the floor and top ones are for the wall. For master bathroom, we have an additional feature wall for the shower.

This is Regentville?

Here's our 3 bedrooms floor plan.

Those keyword are reflective of part of my design philosophy for my flat : SPACE , STORAGE , BRIGHT.

Happy renovation.

A YCK street away from Serangoon North.

I am in Hougang St. 92 and 300m away from Rosyth School for my son.

Congrats in getting a place near to the school of your choice. Your layout looks similar to condo design....unique

What's the floor size?

This is Regentville?

Spot on! Are you staying there too?

Congrats in getting a place near to the school of your choice. Your layout looks similar to condo design....unique

What's the floor size?

Thank you, we are close-border neighbours.

It's a small 3-bedders. The area is 1152sqft.

This was the opening - rolling the pineapple. And since we are not religious, we didn't have any praying or offering after the pineapple.