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This house got a big window overlooking the park.

Would definitely recommend option B for the long run, but it depends on your budget constraints

Option B. The pros outweigh the cons. Don't use the kitchen cabinets to hide the pipes / trucking.

So we have seen a total of 5 IDs. 4 of which I chose based on photo scanning and set up an appointment. I don't really like to critique other ID firms because what does not suit me, might suit someone else. However, I should comment that in general, I find this line of business rather poorly regulated and that few ID are true designers who take pride in what they do. Due to this bias I have, I was quite fast in making my decision in eliminating ID firms. 1. How to tell if the ID you are talking to is a sales rep/actual designer... Ask them to draw out what they propose on the spot. Most true designers would not have a problem drawing a decent looking kitchen or built-in cabinet in 3D on the spot. If what they drew out looks amateurish or something you can draw, most likely that person is just a sales rep or extremely inexperienced. 2. How to tell if the ID has adequate experience/just a kah-kia to someone more experienced. Most ID work for big firms who have very nice websites and portfolio. It might be useful to ask them to tell you which of the projects in the website did they do. To save effort and time, when approaching the ID firm, you might want to directly find the ID who was in charge of the projects you like. Sometimes, the person you meet might be an understudy or a pao-tui. Nothing wrong with giving someone young a chance, but if that is not what you are looking for, sometimes it is best to ask directly if they are the pao-tui. Some signs of evidence are comments like "let me get back to you" or "let me check before I confirm". 3. Most importantly, the ID to me should be contactable/respond when messaged. As a pretty busy individual myself, I make an effort to respond to emails at work. Even when I am unable to comment on something, I will always acknowledge receipt of a mail. As a result, I do not understand why some ID simply do not respond. one day is fine, 3 days maybe and anything more I think is ridiculous. This is something that I cannot tolerate. IT will be adequate for them to just say "give me some time to respond, but I have received your message." instead of just not replying. 4. ID firms that have many condo projects. This might be important for us BTO folks. A lot of condos come with concealed piping/false ceiling and even air con. So if you are drawn to the portfolio of certain ID, just make sure they have the expertise in handling HDB BTO. Some ID I talk to, did not even know what is allowed by HDB and what is not. If you are on top of such things, then I guess it is fine. IF not, you might be due for some unpleasant surprise when reno starts. 5. ID firms who keep trying to Xian me with their discounts. I don't ever believe any discount in the service line is a real discount. If they give you a waive of design fee, they must be earning from you somewhere else, or during the reno process, adding things to the quote. There is always fine line written somewhere. I hope the above advice helps. Again this is based on my own requirement. If I am going to spend 40-50 k on reno, I want a **** good reno process. I will write more on why I chose BPS in a later post.

Bought my first landed house in serangoon 2 years back, it was a 1 storey private house with 1800 sqft of land area. Decided to demolish it and rebuild it into a 2.5 storey house GFA 4000 psgft which will be able to give me larger space and more rooms for my kids and wife. Gone through the tedious stage of finding contractors, and finding the best price as we wanted it to be affordable as we can be, just needed a house with more rooms and no need for too much attas and fanciful interior design and decoration. A few rounds of interview, managed to sieve out the good contractors and the bad ones. Went to the site to monitor the progress of the work once a month, and will pop by to make sure that the contractors was not up to below-par works. This builder was able to coordinate all the site works properly and on time, many times when I popped by he was there on the site to discuss the work progress with the electrical and plumping supervisors and me, really glad to see such hands on contractor boss. (Most of my friends actually say that these contractors are lazy and only cared about money, luckily for me this was not the case.) Managed to get my house done early quarters of last year, even though the projected timeline given by them was 13 months, they manage to let me top around 11.5 months, saving me the rental of my condo out as I can rent them out for extra cash. Was really happy with their work attitude of this contractors. There were a few times where my wife was actually not happy with the tiling of the rooms, and we changed the floor tiles to marble. And this contractor was actually quite ok with it, and did not make any complaints about our change of mind. Advise to all homeowners, do sit down and discuss with your contractors and make sure everything is in place before signing your contract with them and make sure they are good contractors with enough liquidity to sustain the cost of building, and try to get them to stay focus on just a few projects on hand so they do not run into cash flow problems and give u poor quality of your works. A good communication with the builder is definitely worth it!

Don't worry, what's the worse that can happen? Don't renovate! Just save up and do only whatever necessary, most important is to stabilize your financials and play with "spare cash" and not "future money", don't get lured into trying to make your "dream home", it could turn out to be your worst nightmare. I know of people who took out more loan than they could handle, even maxed out their credit card for furnishing, end up in $50K-$80K total debts with outrageous interest rates, all for that "dream home", lucky for them there is CCS to help them negotiate repayment, some of these people even have children, how can they put their family at risk for that "dream home"? Think carefully before committing to any loan.