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I now have 2 issues. 1) The toilet feature wall tile is on the side at the back of the WC but will be opposite my shower head. I think it looks quite weird but my Id says its ok. Meaning, the light grey tiles is on the side of my shower head instead. If I were to shift the feature wall to the side of the shower head, then it will be facing the WC which will be quite weird also. *sigh* 2) The kitchen wall tiles is 30x60 and has subtle lines going in a perpendicular direction to the long side of the tiles. This means that if I place the wall tiles verticall (the 60cm side of the tile perpendicular to the floor), the subtle lines on the tiles will be in a horizontal position which is what I prefer. However, if I were to place it that way, the ceiling will look to be much taller. My id says the subtle lines moving in horizontal will make up for the way the tiles is placed and that was the effect that he wanted. Not too sure how would it be as so far, I noticed that most kitchen wall tiles are in a horizontal placement (meaning the 60cm side is parallel to the floor). On checking with the ID again, he says either way is fine and that if I really prefer the horizontal placement, he can do it too. Now I am a bit worrried as to how to place the tile or to change it Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks inadvance!

I am also combining my MBR and the adjecent room. My reason tho is because I do not want to face the toilet door when sleeping

Yup, You are right. Only prob now i am facing is, the shower head will be on the opposite side of the toilet bowl. Meaning that the feature wall will be directly opposite where I place the shower head . Think that might look weird and make it hard for me as the water hitting the feature wall portion will be hard to clean off due to soap, etc.... Will raise this concern to the ID. Only thought about it last night...haha, keep thinking about the house's reno now... yup yup you are right. But cos we are pulling the sink outside of the toilet, we don't really have this problem. Just for curiousity sake, how did you solve your issue?

Dint state the quote cos might have things to add or minus. For example on tiles, we already have to top up quite a bit le ok next post will be the tiles selected!! MBR Toilet tiles for a spa resort like feel. The black textured tile will be on the side of my toliet bowl back's wall. Acting like a feature wall kinda thing. Common toilet tiles for a more resort cum vibrant feel: The wall facing the entrance will be the tiles with the stripes. Kitchen floor and wall tiles: <a href="http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php" target="_blank"></a> The wall tile is actually slightly off white with very subtle lines to match our kitchen cupboard lamiate. Can't seem to capture it on camera tho For the MBR toilet, I am actually very worried that it will look very dark. Comments?

The bad thing about a contractor is, you have to coordinate yourself. Meaning, if they face problems, they will call you and ask you this and that rather then propose solutions for you. The 3D pictures will not necesarily mean that you can do exactly the same. Another problem that you might face with contractor is that if they face issues and have to stop work, you might have issues getting him to bring back his workers cos he will send his workers to another site to do rather than idle while waiting for you to decide. the above are just some experience that I had when dealing with contractors on renovation works. The good side is of course savings should you engage a contractor if you have the time and already have the design and color scheme in mind.

Hi, I cant PM you. Can you PM me the firm and ID name too? Thanks in advance

think 20 over years ago that was how they did the HDBs? Even my ID was shocked that there were tiles on the outside wall which he has to hack.

Finally got my keys today!! hurray...marks the end of a 3 month wait for the house!! As agreed, here are the pics of the current state of the house. Looking in from the main entrance: The very long Kitchen with the sink at the outside: The MBR: More coming up in the next post The small MBR toilet: The Guest room: The house has been in this state for the past 23-25 years so we can't really keep anything There will be lots of demolishing to be done when my reno starts on the 4th Nov...hope to get my reno finished at least 1 week before Christmas so can spend christmas there.

Thanks pinkpetter. Me and my wife really like the sofa. Been sourcing high and low for resort type of sofa. Most of them are either wood or ratten. For wood, we find that it look quite chunky. For the ratten types, we are afraid that with time, the weaves might start to come loose and then might be pricky when we touch the surface. Hence, decided to settle on Bamboo. The sofa cost a whooping 1.9k!! We only managed to knock down the price by an additional 5% . Afte getting it, decided not to look any further haha...**** worried will find somewhere selling the same set for 1k Bought from ratten pacific at IMM. The sofa base cushion is made from some high density foam which is resistant to sagging. Hope it is really as true as they claim

space inspiration seem to be using lots of sales person at their booth. Not the main contractors that will be doing your coordination. hence, that was also one of the reasons why I did not want to sign with them in the first place. All they could show me was 3D pictures and some of them look vaguely familiar. When I wanted to leave, the guy asked me why, and is it cos of their quotation. When I said yes, they say its usually all the same, if you want less 1k, i cancel this loh...if you want lesser, I cancel this also loh....blah blah blah.....to me, very unprofessional and had a very mockling kinda attitude from that guy. When i left, he asked another colleague to mock us saying, aiyah, I know you 2 lah, you are those that till the last minute also wont be able to confirm one...then they started laughing..... feels like those timeshare companies at Delphi....they seem to be using the same tactics. Persuade and be nice guy -> price reduction -> mocking Just have to say, the above was me and my wife's experience with them in their show in Aug/Early Sept. not too sure if there are any changes by now. My advice, do not be overly impressed that they are ISO certified. As to date, their website is still under reno and they have not yet been able to show any actual project. 3D pics can be easily rendered....

Our Sofa: Front View: Back View: Console:

Had an appointment with Andrew on Saturday. Took up his time from 11am till 4pm His suggestion to us for a resort theme would be to use warm earth colors. Hence, our home will be largely in the colors of brown, beige, white. Sounds quite boring actually but then again, how to make it nice will depend on his skills . What we planned to do was to tell him our concern that we do not want too dark a theme and then its up to him to work something out that fits our expectations This is def the reason why we wanted an ID instead of a contractor. Had a really hard time deciding the color as we found it hard to visualise how a large piece of wall will look like based on the color charts provided by him. Luckily, most of the suggestions made by him sounded good to us so we kinda managed to settle the paint and laminates within 2 hours or so. Giving him the benefit of the doubt of the colour combination cos he is the expert afterall. After the color selection, its off the to tile shop at defu lane. Spent about an hour there with him mixing and matching the colors. We werent too happy with the living room tile so decided to go back and ponder about it. Made another appointment with him and we had another 2 hour session today at Soon Bee Huat to look at yet more tiles. Nice and patient fellow thus far. This week alone, he has to meet us 3 times. Tomorrow night I will be bringing him to the house to have an on-site inspection. Kinda appreciate the fact that he knows we are out of time and agreed to make time for us these 3 days. Hope when works start, he will be just as nice and patient. Oh well, keeping my fingers crossed. Finally, choose all the tiles (in the end, we changed a total of 2 tiles plus selected the living room tile from SBH instead) and now, our hacking is scheduled to start on the 4th Nov!! Can't wait for it!! btw, will get keys tomorrow so will take some pictures of the current state and post online. So keep a look out!! We have also gotten the green light from Andrew that our furniture will fit the theme. Will post the pictures in the next thread.

My theme is resort. Rezt & Relax is an ID firm located at Joo chiat there.

Haha, he was aout an hour late and when he arrived, he was kinda slurring and his eyes were like out of foucs...look like just had hang over on Sat night. It is fine actually. But then we were just worried that if he were to do this at nights when he is renovating our house, then we might be able t trust him in the day when he is supposed to supervise the works anyway, heard lots of great stuff from him here so the above is just based on our first impression of him thats all no offence intended to him or anyone.

My first t-blog attempt so hopefully, I can keep up with the excitement and continue to update this blog Bought a 4 RM Flat at Clemeti West St 1. Had loads of issue with our ERA agent but decided to give up chasing the company as they have turned to ignoring me after telling me that I have to pay. Now, turning my full attention to my house instead. Getting keys on 28th Oct!!! *Whistle* Its a corner unit and a 4A 4 room flat. Total of 102 sqm. Would have preferred to buy a resale at Clementi Central area but the prices there are really really scary . In the end, decided to buy somewhere which is a couple of stps away. Fortunately, there is no lack of amenities around my area, with West Coast Plaza opening soon (Hope it will be much more successful then Ginza Plaza) and a wet market that is undergoing renovation just across the Plaza. The back of my house is facing the NUS hostel so its quite silent at night. A bit worried for my wife as its kinda isolated at night and quite dark. Hope all this will change once the upgrading completes and all the partitions are removed. Anyway, here is the floorplan of my little haven. We have been sourcing for an ID for 2 over months now and finally decided on Andrew Ho from Rezt & Relax. During our search, these are the following IDs that we have seen and were not very satisfied with. 1) Home Guide - Kean (Nearly settled for him if not for the carpentry) 2) Inzen - Roy (He was late and having a hang over on the day of meeting us so we weren't very pleased) 3) Innerview - Fabyen 4) Gplan - Kevlvin (Gave us quote but disappeared after a while and never got back to us) 5) Rezt & Relax - Andrew Ho (Nice and patient guy. Hope all turns all fine after we have signed with him) 6) Ideal House - Johnny (Very rush when talking us.) 7) My ex-contractor (His tiling works are superb and price is cheaper. But sadly, we have to co-ordinate oursleves which we did not have the time) 8) Space Inspirations - (hardsell tactics. No actualy project to show us and did not want to let us leave when we said not interested. bad attitude...) Will continue my update on my first appointment with Andrew after having signed the contract with him. Stay Tuned!!

Agency reply was **** SOP. just say agent apologies for being 45 minutes late and that they have investigated and that the agent had not lied or misrepresent the contra form and that i have signed it willingly. Sigh. If I had signed it willingly, I wouldnt even bother about writing to the agency at all. Anyway, i managed to talk to the agent again who feels that he did nothing wrong as both parties get their house due to his works. I also found out that he is only thinking in terms of his ownself. Apparently, the house belongs to a friend of his godmum. Hence, he realsies that he made a mistake with regard to the contra and hence, if I had refused to sign the Contra form, he will have no face to see his godmum and that they would view him in a different like. sigh. what has that gotta do with me? does this mean that if it were to be another buyer, he would also do his best to make sure that side gets a better deal out of it and can hack care the buyer side despite him being both buyer and seller agent? I mean, he was definitely selfish and unethical as well as unprofessional. I feel like some sacrificial lamb that was used to atone for his own mistakes.

I have the feeling that there is really nothing i can do. However, i still hope to highlight this incident to add another item into the long list of errand agents. hopefully, one fine day, some agency will enforce a bill or something that will protect us buyers or sellers.

we will write to the comapny and also CASE and see if they can help us with anything. But, seriously, i don't have any high hopes on this. yes, it's heart pain to see your money going to the pockets of people like him. When we are signing the comm agreement form, he still can say so loud, if his service is not good, he will not take any money from us. only say for fun loh... got money to take he will don't want meh... and the worst thing he says by his standard, he feels that his service is very good already. Yes, this is by HIS standard. how 'high' his standard is sia...

i was thinking that it might be pointless as we don't have anything black and white to prove anything... Have read other forums about some unethical and unprofessional agents but there's nothing they can do either... Read about cases whereby the agent just disappeared into thin air after the 1st appt, call them no answer, 2nd appt didn't turn up either... agents are really very horrible nowadays and because there are no relevant authority to govern them, they get out of hand and resort to despicable means. Seems they are no different from con men and there's no professionalism to talk about anymore... Lesson learnt: i will be my own agent in future. anyway, here are some of the other things that had happened... 1) Lied to us about what the offer he gave the seller and nearly made us lose the house. Reason cos he know if they don accept my offer, i will appoach owner directly with a higher offer and do my own paper hence bypassing him. 2) Never tell me of the other upgrades going on in the house. Only say lift and say only a few hundred bucks. But I checked with HDB, its more than 1k cos non lift floor 3) Never tell me have other upgrades gg on for that unit which I will be required to pay. e.g. toilet upgrade. ask him check when i read online, he ask me call HDB myself (at that point i already appointed him as agent) 4) Found out everything the terms, the requirements all by myself by reading HDB cos he knows nuts and doesnt wanna help me find out 5) Made lots of assumptions on behalf of the seller but in actual fact, its all wrong. E.g. that they will take HDB loan to get new house, will move out and not delay th house even if they cant find house. 6) After exercised OTP, signed all papers at seller's house, suddenly 2 days later say 4got give me a form to sign. The form is an acknowledgement form with guidelines required by HDB to say that the buyer agent informed us of etc etc..in actual fact, he nvr explain much to us. most is we find out ourselves but cos have to sign b4 he can submit so i sign 7) after get first apptment date, suddenly ask me sign dunno what contra form. When i refuse cos scare delay he put the blame on me say if i don sign, will cos the seller to lose their dream home and that they will lose the deposit that they paid. In actual fact, its his fault that he advised them to pay the deposit without consulting me or informing me. Why should i sign anything they want? 8) I had to go thru the terms and engage a lawyer to tell me what the contra terms are. He merely say its super common, no delays, etc etc and thats it. He cant be bothered to explain but want me to sign 9) When i refuse to sign, keep pestering me day and night saying its to my advantage etc to sign. Ask him how, he keep saying that it will enable the seller to move out fast and also they can get the house they want. however, i don see anything for me other than a possble delay as informed to me by my lawyer and HDB. 10) Told me the following when i refused to sign a) seller may angry and refuse to turn up for 1st apptment and delay me b) Ask me to take back my 5k deposit and he will find another buyer. c) Can complete in 4 weeks even cos house seller buying is live in condition (apparently this is a lie now) All this i find is not to my interest loh..he is only thinking of his comm. and he has the cheek to say i don trust him as my agent... 11) After much tussle, he promise 6 weeks completion and as required by me, got the seller to sign an assurance letter that they wont delay and the date will be set by HDB. but at first apptment today, he suddenly say there was a request for 8 weeks. 12) when confront him, he say he hid it from me cos he knows i will not sign...and that this is actually for my own good as it will prevent further issues. 13) Late for 45 minutes cos he cat wake up in time. Ended up i had to figure out how to register and get queue number for my first appointment. Even the HDB office helping me register ask where is my agent....nearly ended up gg into the room without him.. he came 5 min b4 our number was called and some more......sigh...

Finally the first appointment today, agent was 45 min late and we had to do our own registration and nearly had to go into the resale room without the agent. Reason given: He could not wake up on time. Then suddenly have new changes which we werent aware unfolded. We questioned the agent and he told me that he did tell us some 'white lies' and hid some stuff from me. Reason being that he knew that if he told me all the details, I might not have signed the contra form which HDB has informed us that we do not need to sign as first apptment date is already fixed. HDB said 6 weeks can complete and have the 2nd apptment date but suddenly the agent jumped in and say that the seller requires 8 weeks. This was not wat he told me when he was trying to get me to sign the form (contra form). He specifically told me that if HDB can do 6 weeks, with the contra form signed, the seller will follow accordingly as they have a house that is move in and no reno required. **** sad..nothing I can do now since I already signed the contra form. To be honest, I am fine with the seller needing 8 full weeks before the 2nd appointment. it is just that i felt cheated as the agent himself admitted that he dint tell us this requirement cos he feels that we might not have signed. He should have been honest to me and let me decide.....now i felt manipulated and cheated.