JCase

Finally selected our tiles. Took us 3 visits to do so. Kudos to Marcus and Leslie for their patience. Now waiting for some 3d drawings which will be ready by end of the week.

Ely, what type of cat? Really cute. Looks pretty young, guessing abt 6 mths old? Never been a fan of cats. 2 new years ago, a kitten walked through our gate and into the the flat. The kids were thrilled but me less so. I told the kids we will look after it for a day or 2 until someone takes it away. Called up AVA and they said sure we'll pick the kitten up but we'll have to destroy it Same response by SPCA. So in the end I managed to convince my mom to house the fella. I was unable to do it as we're at work all day and I'm quite sure HBD rules do not allow cats. So I had him snipped, vaccinated etc and he's not very happy at my mom's and terrorizing both the dogs there. The ungrateful fella occasionally takes a swipe at my legs with his sharp claws when I walk by him He may have grown on me a little over the last 2 years.

Pre Reno Pics The door there leads to MBR. Not sure why the tenants like the placement like this? Kitchen is the biggest headache. Very small. The current stove needs to be relocated to where the dishwasher is, so no hood at all as that is a window. Sainz. Family room. Ridiculous amount of carpentry here and the whole unit. Costing a lot to dismantle and dispose of.

Hui, I cab vouch for CLC. They will begin our reno on 3 May. Leslie is very personable and even my mom likes him. Fist impression was ... "Who hired Beng to design your place" ha ha. But he does have a good eye for design and color. Marcus is also very responsive and responsible. Make him meet me so many times. He came down to SBH with me 3 time to select and reselect tiles. Look fwd to your pics.

140 sqm Headache with the MBR slant wall. From FS perspective bed should be on that side of the wall, so will have to flush the wall and create some built in storage. The distance between foot of bed and wardrobe at opposite end is about 50-60 cm

Thanks Lady R. At work so not convenient to upload pics. Reno will start in May but I'll upload what I can tonite.

Notice that a name a horrendous spelling error for the word Abode. How do I change this? Anyway, the ID story .... Started in Sept last year. Naturally we 1st went to the ID who re did out kitch and 2 toilets 3 years ago. She didn't seem that keen as the project was 8 months down the road. Came up with some floor plan and quote. Not an unreasoable quote but having dealt with her before, she is very calculative. Only saving grace for us is she's able to communicate very well. Guess it just stops there. This ID is from a company that is named after a citrus fruit. Good ideas ( i qualify this as ideas for the kitchen only) and concepts but execution and attention to detail can be much better. After looking at peoples blogs and magazines and looking at the wayy toilets are down, I feel quite short changed. Our toilets look very ordinary. So after a month, we dropped them. We looked at the following IDs 1. IntraDesign - Angeline - Very efficient, thorough and professional. Nice showroom. Able to listen and give you what you require. Pricing was fair and decent imo. Only troublesome aspect was lack of transparancy on price of individual items. Also the ideas were generally generated by us instead of her. We probably would have used her if we didn't meet our current ID. More on them later. 2. Wide Angle Design - Used them when we forst bought our flat back in '04. Green and did not know much or anything about reno back then. They quoted and it was on the high side. Put a lot of items in that we did not ask for and said we can remove. Waste of our time so we dropped them. 3. Altered Interior - Seen their work at my friends place - superb, quality workmanship and finishes. Got them to quote and if we we engaged them we would have been financially finished. Highly recommended for those who are flushed with cash. 4. Gplan - Not much to say, so says it all really 5. Borouge - Was quoted via email. Cheap but we did not explore further. 6. Tree Affair - Sent email and have not heard back from them 7. Highly popoular contractor - innovative So after the entire ardous process we shortlisted our top 3 ... not in any order.. 1. IntraDesign 2. Popular contractor 3. Colours by Leslie Chua We finally sealed the deal with CLC Interiors. Both wifey and I felt that we communicated best with him and he was very accommodating. So far we has acceded to all our requests to meet at late times and on Sundays which is really the only day that we are free. We met 5 times before we signed with them. Their pricing is average, not to ex and not too cheap either. He is willing to work with us based on our needs and design ideas. Very promt in handling my queries and always on time for meetings. I have a sales designer assigned to me and he does all the running around at all hours. He's come twice to my office to drop off / pick things up for me. I will also have a PM assigned when we start reno next month. So far we have 95% selected our tiles. He has a decent sense of taste and is willing to be guided by us and not impose his design ideas.

I miss Perth. I miss sitting at the Sail and Anchor havibga Red Back in the crisp winter weather. Sigh

So I've finally bit the bullet and started a blog. The journey began sometime in May last year when we started looking for a 2nd property. Timing is never right as we were waiting for prices to ease but it did not seem to be happening. Our criteria for a place was relatively simple. Upgrade to condo, leasehold as FH and 999 way out of price range. The place had to be near to my mom's as weneed to drop kids there during the day. Close by to amenities although it does not come anywahere close to our current place in AMK. We were looking for something with 3 toilets and 3 bedrooms. After looking at many condos e.g. Seasons Park, Seasons View, Bishan Point, The Gradens at Bishan, Grandeur 8, Castle Green and Serenity Park, we decided on a 16 year old unit along Sin Ming Ave. This is along Bishan Park 1 and there is currently a plan to convert the longkang into a river (via Kallang river). It'has actually shaped up very nicely and we can walk to the longkang / river or lets refer to it as water promanade from the back gate of our block. The development is old but it has charm. Very green landscaping with adequate facilities. A total of 300+ units in total and each floor only has 2 units - so very private. Our unit is decent in size (1506 sqft compared to our current 1184 sqft flat) and we now have 4 bedrooms and 3 toilets and the benefit of a family room in addition to the hall. The balcony is rather poxy in size but what to do? Can't have everything. Made an offer and held our breath. After quite a bit of nego we agreed on a price and signed the OTP and exercised it soon after. Thankfully as the new changes about 2nd property ownership kicked in just as we completed the entire sales process. This was end August 2010. To date we haven't moved in yet as the place was bought with tenancy. They leave in end April and we can begin our reno in May. I really look forward to this as I can finally park my car on ground level and not go round in circles in a MSCP and end up on level 5 More on ID selection and some photos later.

Front end handling fee of 2%. So if you takeing max of 60K it's 1.2K for them to approve your loan.

I've asked a loan specialist about this and it is not true I'm told. Same situation, I apply personal loan from 1 credit card means and I can't get loan from different cerdit card / bank?

No blog yet, lazy May start one over the weekend. It's only the MBR toilet floor tiles that are slippery, the rest of the other toilets no issue. Pour water over the sample already, so confirm slippery.

After 8 days and tiles partially up. Fast. Hopefully my reno will be as fast. Many headaches as I needed to re-select MBR toliet floor tiles as initial selection the CO feels is too slippery for her. Rush down to SBH after work yesterday with ID and selected 2 alternatives. Still haven't decided.

6-months.

This is a issue of basic ability and competence. If don't know how to do then best just admit. I find it hard to believe that a tiler is unable to do this .... bread and butter stuff nowadays.

Normally once hack everything looks really small. I was surprised to when we reno our 2toilets and kitchen 3 yrs back that after they hack and remove debris the space look really tiny. It's much better after all the tiling is up. Envious of your balcony. Proper balcony not like mine, pokey and small. Can't fit a chair or anything. Looks like just plants only.

50mm drop down is quite standard? My toilets also have 2 floor traps, 1 in shower and 1 in main area, so issues.

Wah, your contractor one kind man. This is relatively simple work to do. Wack my ID on his head 2 x if he cannot do mine later.

Fridge looks good. How many litres?

My turn to resurrect this thread. We engaged CLC after a fairly long process of screening and evaluation. We saw / spoke to 5 IDs and shortlisted 3. Leslie eventually got the gig as wifey and I felt most comfortable with. We found it easy to communicate with him. The turn around time to my initial query was very fast and within 3 days he had an initial quote. The first meeting was with a sales guy Marcus who met us at a location and time at our convenience on a Sunday. Prompt and on time. Naturally the initial proposal was revised and a 2nd was prepared with 4 days.b On the 2nd meet up Leslie came and spent 2 hours with us. Subsequently we meet another 3 times and we finally signed on the dotted line on the 6th meeting. The service level even after signing has been superb. Went to SBH last Sunday and spent close to 3 hours selecting tiles. Leslie had some ideas and managed to gel the overall theme of what we are after. This evening I made Marcus meet up with me to go thru the floor plan at Turf City. As usual he was on time and obliging. On Wed night Marcus, Jeremy and the carpenters came by to the unit at 9pm to measure for carpentry. Took more than an hour. Have to commend them as the unit is currently tenanted and the tenants get back fairly late. May well possibly start a blog and document this reno journey which will begin in early May.

She is. I felt bad for rejecting her at the end of the day. Very efficient. The ID I selected in the end was just a shade batter in terms of chemistry and communication. Look forward to your pics.

Can someone PM me the price of the veneer doors and contact details. Much thanks.

Looks good. Kudos to HDB for using timber skirting instead of tiles. Makes the place look more classy.

This will be a long battle. These blood suckers not easy to eradicate. I would use a pro pest firm. Usually they do 2 treatments. I remember we used Aardwolf and withing the guarantee period I made them come back every week to check and spray whether there were BB or not. This is stage 1. Stage 2 is to use steam - this works.. Stage 3 is to use whatever off the shelf product designed specifically against bb and continue treating on your own for at least 3 months. These vermins can life up to 7-8 months w/o food. Good luck.

Agree that 25l for 2 toilets is small. Our new place has 3 toilets so not sure how to configure? 20L for MBR bathroom? 15L for common bathroom and junior MBR bathroom? Currenly we are using Ariston 25L, really cannot make it. I hear that Joven is better in terms of heating coil and reliability. Anyone know?