durianking 1 Report post Posted November 19, 2014 Hi there! We had been a silent reader for a long time and this forum had benefited us a lot. We had found our dream "theme" and consulted a few of the recommended IDs in this forum to further enhance our knowledge of renovation. This is why we decided to pay back by sharing our experience! In the end, we had decided to go with the ID that we can communicate better as most of the IDs have similar idea, cost and reputation. We too have individual contacts for renovation (eg. electricians, hackers, tilers etc) but we do not have the time to manage the renovation, hence, decided on IDs. We have a budget of <$30k as we do not want to invest too much in our renovation and would like to spend more on our decos. Here's the few that we have seen: ID 1 - renovated my friends place. was told that he has good workmanship. but his prices were too high. over 30k for reno which uses laminate and solid surface top. took a month to revert to us on the quotation. ID 2 - recommended by fellow neighbor. prices were reasonable as compared to reno contractors. young chap and knows what we want. he is responsive and showed us his finished projects. Contractor 3 - legendary Mr K. he knows what we want. so it's very easy to click. revert to us on quotation within a week. prices were higher than ID 2 but I believed in his workmanship and materials used. told us that renovation will take 3 months we might choose him if we have the time.. ID 4 - we walked in to this shop after reading some reviews here. they organise open houses very frequently and have many likes on their facebook page. the ID who attended to us was very passionate about our project. however, after viewing their completed project..hmmmmm......their prices were very competitive and wanted to counter our offer from ID 2 :X ID 5 - read about the competitive prices offered by this "direction branded" company. perhaps it's due to us walking in, the ID attended to us was not very knowledgable and doesn't know what we want. dropped immediately. there were a few others that we met but no point mentioning them as they were really not worth mentioning. We just received our keys and things are moving so fast we are not able to catch up in time. We will update as and when we have the time as we are now too engrossed in our renovation! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
durianking 1 Report post Posted November 25, 2014 heres our floor plan! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
durianking 1 Report post Posted November 25, 2014 (edited) and our proposed 3D:there're quite a number of changes to our 3D and it seems like our 3D is not as 'wow' as what we seen here on renotalk.. but let's see how it goes when we see the real "3D"...as we hope to get the renovation completed before CNY, we requested for early keys collection with whatever reasons that we could think of.. we used reasons from feng shui master's date to wedding dates or even travels plan to push for earlier key collection... hee hee! and we successfully got an earlier date for it! you could even check everyday with the person in charge of your project for that day's availability as well! those that persevere will get its reward... Edited November 25, 2014 by durianking Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gyiastee 2 Report post Posted November 25, 2014 Nice Living Room! keep on sharing… Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
durianking 1 Report post Posted November 27, 2014 Day 1 - door opening ceremony "huat ah!". we attempted to check for any defects but we couldn't spot any. guess we were too noob in this line. so we contact our ID to check for us over the weekend.Day 2 - ID R was around our estate and so he came in to check tog with his wife. and then next thing he told us was "cham la..a lot of defects..20-30+". O-M-G. to think we can't spot any the day before. so we went down in the evening to spot more defect based on ID R's standard.Day 5 - we submitted defects formDay 14 - after a visit by the FSM, we can finally confirm our plan for an open kitchen and electrical work. applied hacking permitDay 20 - hack permit approved, rectification 80% completed. ID R says that he will start work on Day 23. Below is a look at our new home on day 1~ Living RoomDining AreaBedroomKitchenToiletHoping that the renovation will be a smooth sailing one! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
durianking 1 Report post Posted November 28, 2014 (edited) To our surprise, ID R’s tiler came in on Day 22 to start on the kerbs, washing machine base and kitchen cabinet bases. We only learn about that when we visited our home to say ‘good bye’ to our kitchen wall (abit of drama here..haha) And so, Day 23 wall hacked HDB is really very strict on hacking. They have people coming in to check on the work around 1 week after hacking. Bags of sand and cement coming in.. the workers took N-number of trips to bring in the materials ID R told us that he will start screeding on Monday, Day 27. We were super ganjiong as we could contact the electrician that we appointed (we didn’t not use ID R’s electrician as his charges were kinda high to us). The electrician was hospitalized and so we have to find a replacement who can work over the weekends. To achieve the effect that we are looking for, we decided on wooden like tiles for living hall and vinyl for rooms. we were affectedby the removal of free cement screeding as such, our contractor will be doing the screeding for us. Good thing is, its faster andsmoother (heard about bad workmanship from hdb) but down side is that $$$$$...It cost us nearly 1k to screed the 3 rooms. our neighbors screed his entire house for about 2k.Lucky we were in time before the implementation of the new eco-screeding rule (december 2014) or else the cost will be doubleof even triple!For carpentry, we will be using spray paint instead of laminate so that we can create the country style look. Lucky ID R’scarpenter includes inner laminate for all carpentry work with no additional charges. This is good so that we wont see the whitelaminates turning yellow. But we are also not sure if the colored ones will turn yellow or not. He has showed us the difference b/tthe laminate that they are using VS those normal white laminates. We think that this is a bonus for those who are doing openconcept wardrobe.We will be using Quartz kitchen top for durability. Although kompacplus will be more suited for our theme but we feel that thewood thickness is not there to give us the look that we are looking for (Ikea ones are much better but quality-wise is a big ??) andthis material is also relatively new, not sure about the durability although we have seen those burning videos of kompacplus.Another concern is the selling point of the house in future. So we have decided on white/off white quartz top. Actually grey will suitthe theme well too..but Mr prefers white… Day 27 - Tiling and screeding begins~ After looking at the day time picture of the tiles, we went to have a peep at the tiles at night! One piece of tile sample VS one room of tiles looks so much different.. kinda like taking risk..and we were really satisfied with our choice Tiling was completed in 2-3 days. Day 30 - Plastering of kitchen walls + preparation of wall for tiling of subway tiles Day 31 - Delivery of subway tiles and brick wall tiles We supplied ID R with the subway and brick wall tiles while he provided us with the labor. Our initial plan was to use the tile shop’s labor as well..however, they were not willing to accept the job as we have already engaged tillers for flooring. Our experience with this tile shop was not really pleasant as the contact person was always busy, we arranged for a meetup at our place to do the measurement; he was late for 2-3 hours. After that, I had to call him every day to chase him for the quotation and he only get back to me on the 5th day. We went down to his shop on the 6th day to make payment and arranged for delivery. Delivery was prompt though. Actually, for our 3m wall (9.7 ft), ID R’s quote was not expensive – 1.8k. Mr K quoted us 2.5k. So, with all these hassles, we saved around $500 from ID R’s quote. Edited November 28, 2014 by durianking Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
chilarvet 7 Report post Posted November 28, 2014 To our surprise, ID Rs tiler came in on Day 22 to start on the kerbs, washing machine base and kitchencabinet bases. We only learn about that when we visited our home to say good bye to our kitchen wall (abit of drama here..haha)And so, Day 23 wall hacked HDB is really very strict on hacking. They have people coming in to check on the work around 1 week after hacking.Bags of sand and cement coming in.. the workers took N-number of trips to bring in the materialsID R told us that he will start screeding on Monday, Day 27. We were super ganjiong as we could contact the electrician that we appointed (we didnt not use ID Rs electrician as his charges were kinda high to us). The electrician was hospitalized and so we have to find a replacement who can work over the weekends.To achieve the effect that we are looking for, we decided on wooden like tiles for living hall and vinyl for rooms. we were affectedby the removal of free cement screeding as such, our contractor will be doing the screeding for us. Good thing is, its faster andsmoother (heard about bad workmanship from hdb) but down side is that $$$$$...It cost us nearly 1k to screed the 3 rooms. our neighbors screed his entire house for about 2k.Lucky we were in time before the implementation of the new eco-screeding rule (december 2014) or else the cost will be doubleof even triple!For carpentry, we will be using spray paint instead of laminate so that we can create the country style look. Lucky ID Rscarpenter includes inner laminate for all carpentry work with no additional charges. This is good so that we wont see the whitelaminates turning yellow. But we are also not sure if the colored ones will turn yellow or not. He has showed us the difference b/tthe laminate that they are using VS those normal white laminates. We think that this is a bonus for those who are doing openconcept wardrobe.We will be using Quartz kitchen top for durability. Although kompacplus will be more suited for our theme but we feel that thewood thickness is not there to give us the look that we are looking for (Ikea ones are much better but quality-wise is a big ??) andthis material is also relatively new, not sure about the durability although we have seen those burning videos of kompacplus.Another concern is the selling point of the house in future. So we have decided on white/off white quartz top. Actually grey will suitthe theme well too..but Mr prefers whiteDay 27 - Tiling and screeding begins~After looking at the day time picture of the tiles, we went to have a peep at the tiles at night! One piece of tile sample VS one room of tiles looks so much different.. kinda like taking risk..and we were really satisfied with our choiceTiling was completed in 2-3 days.Day 30 - Plastering of kitchen walls + preparation of wall for tiling of subway tilesDay 31 - Delivery of subway tiles and brick wall tilesWe supplied ID R with the subway and brick wall tiles while he provided us with the labor. Our initial plan was to use the tile shops labor as well..however, they were not willing to accept the job as we have already engaged tillers for flooring. Our experience with this tile shop was not really pleasant as the contact person was always busy, we arranged for a meetup at our place to do the measurement; he was late for 2-3 hours. After that, I had to call him every day to chase him for the quotation and he only get back to me on the 5th day. We went down to his shop on the 6th day to make payment and arranged for delivery. Delivery was prompt though. Actually, for our 3m wall (9.7 ft), ID Rs quote was not expensive 1.8k. Mr K quoted us 2.5k.So, with all these hassles, we saved around $500 from ID Rs quote.Hi,Nice savings on your tilings. I am also doing brick wall and country style kitchen. Contemplating on using the laminate/paste on wooden strips/paint. Hope to hear your reviews and pics on the spray paint when your carpentry is up. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
durianking 1 Report post Posted December 1, 2014 Brick wall and Kitchen Tiles are up! but we had an extra box of craftbricks unused as the contractor had miscalculated the total number of boxes needed for the whole wall... putting it up for sales in the garage sale... interested can PM me... pictures of the walls!! >.<hope that it will look great after the carpentry is up! more updates as we progress... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
aSteRuS 1 Report post Posted December 1, 2014 Hi, how much are you selling the craftbricks? Also, like to know the box of craftbricks cater to what length wall. Cheers,Asterus Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
durianking 1 Report post Posted December 2, 2014 Hi, how much are you selling the craftbricks? Also, like to know the box of craftbricks cater to what length wall. Cheers,AsterusThe craftbricks is $65 per box and cater to 1m^2 of wall. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
am1pm 0 Report post Posted December 17, 2014 Hi durianking,mind sharing your id's contact...Thanks in advance. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
