gothique

Storeberry Very sorry to hear of your experience. Can i ask u... what did he / mrs quek say when u called to chase for quote? did they explain why they cannot give it to you in time? or were they very rude and just say that they will pass to you soon? thanks.

hi guys has ANYONE ever heard of Krono-Fix? and has anyone ever used them? Kindly share as i was thinking of using them but no one ever seems to have used them before... thanks....

hi all OMG, 21 projects is a LOT, no wonder i seem to be talking to Mrs Quek most of the time. haha. I just rec quote from patrick... seems to me that his pricing is significantly lesser than those ID firms. Can anyone confirm that? cuz i am a little amazed as compared to ID firms... his pricing is about 20% cheaper like that...? Or is it because the ID firms all trying to cheat me ah! thanks!!

hi peeps... yeah i think false ceiling not cheap, min will be $1k or more, and that excludes lights. Wall lamps also need trunking, if yours is old resale flate then cannot hide! Floor lamps nice but there will be wires running all over the place. to me, that is the same as trunking or even worse cuz when mopping the floor, will be quite headache to mop over / under all the wires! Anyone comment? oh and i also check with contractor, even if dun have PLC lights, min height drop for false ceiling is 4 inch due to the bracket min height. so that will be out for me... most likely going for L box... which is cheaper it seems. Still sourcing for quotes... haiz.. headache!

hello i think it's possible not to do any ceiling works in the "false ceiling / Lbox" manner. but i think one central light in a room is not enough cuz the corners tend to get darker. and there will be quite strong shadows. better to have a few sources of "milder" light spread over the ceiling, rather than one single strong source of light in the center. How to achieve that without false ceiling / Lbox, i am not sure! if u can live with the trunking I guess it's fine... by the way, false ceiling and L box is made of gypsum is it? the same material as we use for false wall partition? or different? any kind soul please enlighten. I actuallly thought of having just a board to cover all the trunking cuz i don't really want to get PLC lights which i understand needs 6 inch false ceiling. if just normal light, can just drop like 2 inch? thanks.

Hi peeps u mean the shower screen is not good enough to keep the water in? oh no, i thought that the purpose of the screen is to seperate a wet and dry area in the bathroom leh. i thought shower screen is more effective than shower curtain. if not what for spend so much $$ on it????? what's the point if the water cannot be kept out... Anyone care to comment on the screen's effectiveness on keeping water confined to bath area? secondly... well... i guess that if it's a frosted pane, it will be cheaper than having frosted windows that can be opened or closed at will. but then... won't have any interaction between bedroom and bathroom. any one have an idea how much these windows cost?

hi Crystal and all i got a flat in pasir ris too! yeah.. wonder how many of us are staying in an EA? Actually find that it is really very big, to renovate it is really going to cost me a bomb... haha anyone faced that as well?

Thanks Yoongf. Anyway after looking around, I realised that actually a lot of resort theme houses have homogenous / ceramic tiles in a off-white warm colour... and they put a lot of wooden furniture, bamboo blinds and plants and water features to make it resort-feeling. For this one, it is true that the floor is white. But it has this wooden panelled wall. (i think it will cost quite a lot to do that in my home) and a wooden platform for the bed (i think will also cost!) and wooden furniture. However i think that if we want to have other types of deco e.g. painting / sculpture, curtains instead of bamboo chicks, etc, then the floor has to be more "woody" so that the resort theme still remains. Do you guys think it's more cost-effective if we were to change the floor tiles to wooden type and decorate, or keep tht times and try to install things like wooden wall/ wooden platform, wooden furniture, etc?

Hi guys Sorry to digress back to the bathtub problem again. What do you think of this: But instead of the view of greenery, the windows will open to the BEDROOM instead. Also, the windows will be frosted instead of clear to ensure privacy. On the other side of the bath tub, i add a showerscreen so that the surrounding area won't get wet. and IF possible, add the rain showerhead on the part where the bathtub and wall join together. 1. U think for HDB toilet, it's possible? I thought of hacking the toilet wall to extend it a bit into the bedroom if not enough space. 2. How much do u think the window thing will cost... and where do they sell it. Or just use normal windows? Or they have some special window for bathtubs... i dunno. anyone got prior experience, do share... thanks!!

hi threecharacters thanks for the link. i will go and check them out. however, i can see that for solid wood, the difference in color is due to the different type of wood right? (not like laminate where basically the material is the same but just print a different color.) so i think what happened is that i saw only the teak flooring. was explained by the salesperson that other types of flooring such as maple, oak, etc is rather unsuitable for our climate. So it's harder to maintain. And also need to have some kind of sub floor, etc. Anyone here have installed wood floor other than teak? Is there other types of wood floor besides teak that is suitable for Asian climate? Care to share your experience? thanks.

Hello So sad to hear of ur horrendous experience. So what happened to your friend the ID? Assume that the friendship was spoilt because of what happened? By the way, how long have u known ur friend and have u seen his/her previous projects? before you ask him/her to do your reno?

Hey guys thanks for the tips. i am still undecided. do you think the tiles in the pic is worth keeping? or should i overlay with laminate / parquet... to get that tropical look? Yoongf - i think that photo is not bad. it's the wooden bed plus the plant that gives the look... plus the lights. if add wooden floor = overkill? or still okie? by the way, anyone tried what Nin said - get a huge bamboo mat? where can we get it anyway... thanks.

Hi guys To save cost, we're thinking of saving our existing tiles. It's white ceremic tiles, with some grey patterns designed to imitate marble. The size is about 600 by 600. And it's the whole house, including living, dining, and 3 bedrooms. The tiles are still very new, and grouting is clean. We intend to get contractor to do a chemical wash as well. However, we wanted to do resort theme. Do you guys think we can still achieve it with this type of floor? For example put more wooden furniture / plants? Or achieve the effect with lighting? If you have any photos of resort themed homes with similar floor, kindly share. All comments appreciated, thanks!

after thinking about it... i think reno is really for yourself and no one else... and there is not a lot of value to it. cuz at the moment, i am thinking of reno ideas and i ask all my friends.. i get mixed reactions from all. and so i realise that different people really got very different taste man. so conclusion is... it will be quite difficult to "value" your reno. cuz even if u spend 100k on it and you have a marble floor that can last for the next 20 years, chances are that the next buyer won't like your reno and will not be willing to pay a premium for a so-called well renovated flat... and by the way.. i guess that is why ID and contractor can earn mah! cuz new homeowners always want to renovate the house even though the existing ones can use. haha.

Hi guys Anyone here have done parquet for living room recently? i'm trying to choose between those wood strip parquet OR laminated floor. after seeing both, i still feel that no matter what, laminated floor cannot give the "solid wood" feeling. And the patterns will repeat after a while. However, they have a lot of colors of "wood" to choose from e.g. maple, oak, beech, etc as for parquet, it is very SOLID feel. but only comes in one color (unless u wanna pay more for darker stained varnish of course). so it is kind of boring? anyone who has photos of their parquet living room, please share with me here... thanks!!

Hello guys thanks for the feedback. i just wonder if 10% of price is too conservative? I guess it's IMPOSSIBLE for that to include furniture. maybe just furnishing ah. Yes i also heard about the renovation being a factor in the valuation price. but i didn't know about the "shelf life" of renovation = 5 years. Do you feel that it is worth it so spend a lot on the reno seeing that after 5 years = no market value???! OMG! Personally for resale i would also look for plain flat so that i can do my own reno to suit my taste and preference. but are there people who look for fully renovated flat so that no need the hassle of doing own reno?

Hi forumers Recently bought a flat and looking to renovate it. My relatives gave me a guideline for budget saying that 1. Renovation should not be more than 10% of your flat price and one of the reasons for this rule is because: 2. You will never be able to get back the $$ for your reno when you sell your house. Any experienced forumer who has renovated house and also sold your home before, do you agree with this? Is it really true? Actually I thought that 1. A house with nice renovation will sell better and that people may be willing to pay more cash for a well-renovated home. 2. We're going to stay there for the next minimum 10 years. So should spend more $$ to do up the house properly and use good quality materials so that there is less repair or maintenance to be done in the years to come. What is your personal experience with the above? Thanks for sharing!!

hi pieces A reply at last... anyway I would also like to ask around... has anyone tried to knock down their MBR bathroom wall? and have "open" concept for MBR bathroom and sleeping area? I am thinking of installing a bathtub. but as pieces said, HDB toilet is too small. so i thought of hacking the wall. and intall a bathtub plus window that can slide open or close for privacy. Kinda hard to describe but hope u get what i mean? but basically idea is to do away with the boundary of toilet and room. Anyone? please share.