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if you had already started work with your builder and if your builder had indicated the supply and install of marble floor for you, you would need to talk to your builder on whether he can omit the item out from the contract should you decide to get from another supplier. getting building materials from another supplier is not like buying an electrical appliance from another shop. your builder would most likely have factored in the cost of raw materials (marble tiles, tiling adhesive/mix), labour for laying of marble floor/wall, labour for polishing of marble floor/wall into his quotation to you. so by you switching to supply your own materials, your builder would still need to charge you for the labour and materials for install and polishing. on top of that, he could also charge you for profit in attendance. also since you are supplying the materials, if there's any damage during installation and you end up not having enough tiles, you will have to fork out additional money to buy more tiles since you are now the supplier and not the builder. if you have a very big area for marble installation, supplying your own may save you some money. but do note that this amount can't be part of your construction loan (i'm assuming you have taken construction loan) and needs to be paid in cash to the marble supplier. anyway, talk to your builder on this and work out the sums should you decide to supply your own marble tiles at this stage when contract had been signed.

yes, they can build their boundary wall smaller than what their actual boundary is. but it doesn't automatically give the rights to that piece of land to you. last time (and even now in some cases), two adjacent houses are built with a common party wall in between them so the developer would save costs on building 2 sets of walls/fence. so when one house is redeveloped, the existing house would end up using the new house's party wall as their boundary wall as well. when the existing house is redeveloped, the owner would usually build a new party wall on their side and this new wall abuts the neighbour's wall. so for your case, I think you should just build a wall/fence to demarcate your own boundary at the part where the neighbour left out. if the electrical pole ended up in "no man's land" then so be it. at least you know that you are not encroaching on your neighbour's land by using it. If SP decides to access the electrical pole for maintenance, then they would be disturbing your neighbour instead of you since the pole is on their land and not yours. the worst case is if your neighbour one day decides that you are encroaching on their land with a garden and sends you a lawyer letter demanding for rental/fees over the years you have used the land. Not sure if it happened before in Singapore but I read an article online of something similar happening in USA recently.

for a detached house, the maximum site coverage is 50% for non CGB areas so the maximum building footprint you can have is about 2000sqf. so based on this, a "standard" 2.5 storey house would have a built up GFA of about 5000sqf to 5200sqf. if one wants to increase the built up area, basements can be added or mezzanine added as well. your builder's quote of 1.5m if based on a max GFA of 500sqf would be about $300psf which is quite reasonable as it seems that many are quoting at $350psf even before this COVID situation. do note that construction cost does not include professional and authorities' fees. so be prepared to set aside another 100k to 200k for these fees depending on the QPs you engage. I think what is important now is for you to find an architect who can help you design up the house first. once the house is designed, then you can see how you can cut back the costs by tweaking the designs.

interesting that your contractor's workers build the brick wall first before erecting a concrete stiffener to tie the brick wall to. my main contractor's workers always cast the concrete stiffeners first then build the brick walls. I suppose the recessed area on the left is for your meter compartment. from the photos it looks like the workers just lay the bricks to abut your neighbour's boundary wall column. hope that in future if your neighbour redevelops the house and tears down the column, it won't affect/damage your meter compartment.