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Hi all, its been long overdue, my house has been completed since September thanks to the speed and precision rate at which my ID worked, but i've been crazily busy with the move in and the settling down of my family, and also with playing with my "new toys", which i will upload later on. I'm doing this as a token of appreciation for my ID Kenneth, who owns his own company Abstract Design Pte Ltd, who was recommended by a friend who had his place done up by him also.

As this is our first house, my wife and i had absolutely no idea what or how to begin with, and the internet is so jam packed with information that all the designs we seem to bookmark are almost something from every theme. We then decided to leave this in the hands of a professional and we contacted Kenneth who was recommended by a friend of mine who had his place done up by Kenneth 2 years back.

During the first meeting, we had an information overflow for him, bombarding him with countless things we had plans for and showed him all the pictures we had saved in the bookmarks of our iPad, Initially we had doubts for the first part of the meeting, he doesn't write anything down, throughout the initial part of the conversation it was all my wife and me talking, and he just sat there quietly listening. When we were done with our bombardment, thats when we were surprised. He repeated from living through kitchen everything we said, without missing a beat, and checked back on whether was that the requirements we wanted, and summarized my theme requirement to simple scandinavian and showed us prior projects of what he thought we liked. And truly it was exactly what my wife and i were confused about, and we were immediately assured that the decision to engage a professional was a right one. My key collection was scheduled for June end, and we met him in the early parts of June, so we had a month to prepare, so after that first appointment, i had scheduled to meet another two ID's as we thought it was only right we get a few more opinions before we made our decision. Feeling a little more confident of the style we were looking for, we decided to allow the 3 ID's we met a week's time before we arranged to meet them to see their proposals.

Kenneth came back with a text to inform us he had a proposal in mind, and would like to meet us, only two days after we met, and again i was impressed by his rate of work, we did mention to him that we were not really in a rush as we were only planning on moving in to our new place in September, but his logic to us was that he believed that after the first appointment, with the information still fresh in our mind, we would not forget what we had wanted in the first appointment. Which is true to a certain extent, so i arranged to meet up with him that weekend, excited to see what proposal he had in mind for us.

Our second appointment was the weekend, four days after we first met him. I would learn later on that the works and proposals he did for me was far more than what the other two ID's had prepared. 2 dimensional floorplan space planning, quote, and what he did extra was he actually did a sketch up on his idea for the kitchen which was what we were going to spend more on. Although the google sketchup figure he did was just a simple sketch, the other two ID's which we would meet later on didn't provide this additional service. We were impressed by his professionalism and knowledge on the buildup which he selflessly shared with us even though we hadn't confirmed with him, even to the extent of sending us the photo image of the sketch which the other two ID's had informed us that the design would require an upfront design fee before they would share it with us.

After the meeting with the other two ID's , who were also professional in their proposals to us, what made our decision easier was the impression of the rate of which Kenneth returned to us with his proposal and his second meeting presentation to us. We decided to go ahead with Kenneth.

I'll be uploading the pictures of the progress of work and why even though my house has been completed, i want to make sure i do this to show my gratitude to what Kenneth has helped us with in our renovation.

 

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Join 46,923 satisfied homeowners who used renotalk quotation service to find interior designers. Get an estimated quotation
Kenneth visited the place together with us before our start of works, and the moment he stepped in, he did a thorough defects check for us and saved us a lot of time and trouble as we had no idea what to look out for,
We had a couple of issues with HDB during the process of the rectification works, and due to the architectural design of our place, we were faced with numerous problems which i would point out bit by bit.
Electrical works were carried out first together with the construction of kerbs for our shower areas, kitchen cabinets and washing machine area, where we faced our first issue. HDB only allowed a spacing of 40cm beside our service yard door to house a washing machine. Where do they actually sell such small washing machines!?! This point was pointed out to us by Kenneth during the defects check and whilst he was doing measurements for us. It caused us a huge panic when he pointed out the issue, and we got almost hysterical and didn't have the slightest clue to how to solve this issue. Luckily for us, Kenneth suggested running the outlet pipe across my service yard, and then concealing it up with tiles so it looks like a kerb to the other side of the service yard which has a depth of 60cm, which would allow space for the washing machine to sit in snugly, and solved the issue in a matter of minutes. Heaving a sigh of relief, we continued on with the measurements and found another issue, for my kitchen entrance, one side of the wall has a depth of 70cm, but the other side has only 50cm, we had plans to have kitchen cabinets on both sides of our kitchen, and now with this issue arising, we looked helplessly as we were on the verge of giving up one side of the kitchen cabinet. Then Kenneth suggested lengthening the wall by building up a hollow block extension and the kitchen will look just like it has enough space on both sides for the kitchen cabinet. At this point in time, my wife and i really felt grateful that we had Kenneth with us during this period, at points where the constructional error of HDB has stumped us, he has solved the issue just by looking at the space. And we're truly thankful and felt assured to leave the place to him to complete.

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Henceforth, once the renovation began, my wife was pregnant, and she was unable to go up to the place during the reno, and i was in the midst of a company change and was busy with training and work that we didn't have the chance to go up to check on the progress, but Kenneth was really helpful, during the progress of the works, he posted photos in our whatsapp group everyday on the progress of the work. First with the aircon pipe running and false ceiling installation.

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Thereafter the painting completion

 

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Prior to my reno, i signed up with Legate at one of their roadshows at expo for invisible grilles for my place. thinking that this wouldn't be part of the contract so my ID wouldn't have the obligation to arrange for me, i checked with him on the schedule on when best for the arrangement so i can take leave, but without any complaints, he just requested i passed him the number to the person who i signed with, and days later, my grilles were installed, and like normal, i didn't have to even go down to the place to check.

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After which, the major work came, and our excitement gauge was extreme. Carpentry installation.

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Delivery of the Carpentry

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Installation of the Carpentry

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and an ingenious idea by Kenneth on how to conceal the unsightly air con ledge window, a pull out full length mirror

 

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Then came the light installation.

entirely happy with the way the cove light design panned out, kudos to Kenneth

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He even made a trip down at night after another appointment as my wife wanted a glimpse of how it feels at night

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Then the installation of my blinds and curtains.

Venetian

Venetian blinds for my Living

Zebra Blinds open

Zebra Blinds closed

Zebra Blinds for my bedrooms

MBR curtains

Bedroom

and two layer curtains for my MBR

Then came the final part of my reno. . .the touchup works.

Along the way, i purchased a number of lights from taobao at a really cheap price, and installation etc was all handled by Kenneth. The thing i like about him is not everything is about the dollar sign, many things along the way were done by him without cost, for example, one of the light holders was damaged via shipping of the equipment, and i mentioned to Kenneth to just reinforce it with masking tape and just install the light, but Kenneth refused, citing the safety purpose, he immediately took the holder and left my place, and returned in 2 hours with a brand new one, and when i offered to pay for the holder, he just refused.

I'm certainly satisfied with the renovation process and works, and more than happy with the service and help that Kenneth has provided me, as you see, i'm truly grateful to his updates, and in times where a crisis seems to have struck a dent in the renovation process, i could count on him to be there to solve my queries, which is why i really wanted to do this t-blog to thank him for his services.

Service Yard Window

Granite Top A

Granite Top B

Entrance Light

Dining Lights

Ceiling Fan

 

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Maxed out the number of photos i have in the album, so i'm going to try to link the photos

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ab7l12cl4oslx0k/Kitchen%20A.jpg?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/c5vp9jmwruc9bha/Kitchen%20B.jpg?dl=0

Completed Kitchen views

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e3o1tm77dgakeyo/Washer%20Dryer.jpg?dl=0

Washer Dryer, as you can see on the left hand side, the kerb that he constructed to conceal the outlet pipe

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4de99wcdwd11z4u/TV.jpg?dl=0

My TOY for my PS4. :good:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mnqdees7ba8cmad/CityGas%20Heater.jpg?dl=0

City Gas Heater

dropbox folder only allows links, can't see the images, sorry. . .forum albums only allow 50 images max. . . :bleah:

anyway, i'm really happy throughout the reno process, yes i'm repeating, but you have to experience his services before you would understand what i mean. do drop me a msg or query if you would like his contact!

Edited by nichsua
 

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welcome to RT! glad that you had an enjoyable reno process thanks to a responsible ID.

I am also one of the lucky fella with a decent ID.

Do continue to share pics of your entire new home :)

 

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Thanks for the kind words DaddyWinter, yes i feel lucky that i didn't make the wrong choice, yes i have purchased a new SLR and will be taking photos during my housewarming later this month, will update full pics after the mess has calmed down!

 

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Hi diva79, thanks for the compliment, was actually apprehensive when my ID suggested the blinds,

but surprisingly it isn't really as bad as i thought, feather duster twice a week and voila. . .haha

 

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Hi nichsua, happy that you had a smooth reno process.

We also got venetian blinds for our living room, its white, and i am worried about the cleaning. relieved to hear that its not as bad as you thought.

Looking forward to more pics ;)

 

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