Llpl's New House @ Punggol Waterway Brooks

[duomaxwell 8]

The reason why i started to create this thread at this timing is because some of the brookers have started to collect keys for their new flats (Hope we can collect the keys for our new house asap, in time to get our new house ready before our Big Day on 11th Oct 2015). So thought this might be a good time to list down and contribute back to the forum after learning so much stuffs from other who had put in effort and created their own thread.

Wrote in to HDB recently and got a reply stating that HDB is unable to accede to our request for key collection in Mid June 2015 as our flat is not ready for key collection yet (Probable Completion Date (PCD) is 3rd Quarter 2015). Nevertheless, HDB have taken note of our request for early key collection and will include us in the first few batches to collect keys after the flat is ready for key collection.

Had started searching for ID during Mid 2013 as my wishful thinking that maybe our project (Waterway Brooks) can be ready in Mid 2014. (Also partly due to the fact that friends around me are collecting keys to their flats one year before their PCD, so the Kaisu element in me kicked in and there goes the search for ID).

The following are the few ID which we approach:

1) Ch** Interior Design - walked into their showroom at The Furniture Mall during Mid 2013 and was told by a senior staff (forgotten his name) that it's too early and told us to come back next year (2014)

2) Dar*** Interior Design - walked into their main showroom at Bendemeer Road during Mid 2013, got a bad impression on their workmanship as there were "creaking" sound when wardrobes are open (Thought that even their showroom which is build to show to potential customers are of poor quality, wouldn't the projects done by them be worst off?). So we walked out without talking to any of the staffs in the showroom.

3) No***W*** Interior Design - walked into their showroom at Macpherson during 3rd Quarter 2013, sat down with Vincent for an hour as he showed interest to talk to us even though he knew the PDC for our flat is 3rd Quarter 2015. He did some quick intro of materials used for table tops and the chemistry was not bad. Took his name card and told him that we will call/msg him to arrange for a 2nd meetup for further discussion.

4) Im*** Cre***** De**** Pte Ltd - stopped by their booth in expo exhibition hall and was offered to sit down with one of their interior designers (forgotten his name). As we were not prepared and did not bring our floorplan, discussion was done by using my iPad (displaying our floorplan). Chemistry was good, he showcased some of the projects handled by him and was impressed by sketches drawn by him on the spot for illustrations. But was turned off after we discovered that we will need to pay a fee (forgotten about the amount, not sure if it was $1K or $2K) if we are interested to have another session with him. He mention that the fee paid can be part of the renovation cost but i was thinking if i really pay the fee, i must choose him as our ID if not our hard earned money will be wasted, go down the drain.

4) Re** & Re*** - stopped by their booth in expo exhibition hall and was being guided by a staff (T***) showing casing a mock up kitchen cabinets. Sat down with him and he offered to help us print out our flat layout (was impressed by the fact that they had a printer standby to help customers like me to print out flat layout). Didn't not have a good impression of the staff (T***) as he feels and sounded like a newbie (after we gain some experience talking to other different designers from different ID firms). Nevertheless, we fixed a appointment with him on the spot as he wanted to propose the layout of furniture, concept of design to us based on our preferences provided to him. Time flies and the date of the appointment came (about one week later), we were a bit taken back when we saw that there was going to be an staff (Xav***) talking to us, Xav*** introduced himself as a senior designer and he will be presenting the proposal together with T*** as this is what they usually do (tag team consisting of a senior designer and a newbie which just joined). Anyway, the rest are all history and i shall not bored you all with all the details, We had chose Re** & Re*** as the ID for our new flat after paying a 20% deposit during the appointment.

P.S. If we are able to go back to the past, maybe I should not be "sales talked" into paying the 20% deposit during the appointment (tempted by the discount given and only valid for the day) and done more comparison of quotes by different IDs as we did not get the chance to compare quotes by other IDs (Quotation by Re** & Re*** was the only quote which we got). But all that is history and i can only cross my finger and pray i made the right choice.

Luckily all my prayers sort of come true as all the experiences which we had from all the appointments we got since Sep 2013 were not too bad (not perfect as there are still rooms for improvement).

All the show flats, open house which we visited are done with good workmanship. However, the final verdict will only come when they start to perform the "magical transformation" for our new flat.

[duomaxwell 8]

We applied for our BTO flat in Sep 2011, during that time, we were able to choose between Punggol Waterway Brooks and Waterway Woodcress.

After some discussion with Missy, we have come to a conclusion, a 5-room Waterway Brooks flat will be our new house after our marriage. (One of the reason is because Waterway Brooks is closer to a LRT station in terms of walking distance and Sheng Siong is within walking distance)