cleong

I'll show you when I get around to taking a photograph of it! Because its not a very significant part of the renovations. I have a photo of its general layout but not the interior. The door to the storeroom faces the balcony and the partition is made out of MDF board. It has a hidden latch.

I have installed a pair of KDK 15WUD for my upstairs bathrooms, each is installed in the middle of a top hung window. It was quite cheap to buy from Malaysia, so I bought two to go along with the V60WK fan. Its actually quite effective in drawing out air from the bathroom, because you can feel the air rushing in from around the gaps of the closed door. There was a recent occasion where the contractor had to come back to do some grinding and it was very dusty, and the fan helped to suck out a lot of the flying dust. You'd have to turn it on long and often enough to obtain the advertised benefits in drying, but KDK claim $2.30 per month even if you turn it on continuously. I don't find that the fan cuts down on the light coming through the window though.

Under the staircase? You can have a little storage area there. I managed to slot in two Toyogo 4-level storage chest of drawers in there and still have space on the side for ironing board and vacuum cleaner. The alternative is also that the lack of the utility room forces you to minimize the tendency to hoard and add clutter.

Not only that but its also financially taxing to pay COV + renovation + furnishing for the flat. All told, its going to cost you 100k. Coordinator, because there's no design input from him. I show him photos and work with him how to get it done like in the photographs. He's like a site foreman with the required contacts for various services, such as window contractor, wetworks contractor, parquet polisher, marble polisher, carpenter, electrician, false ceiling contractor, etc. I did source for my own A/C man as the prices offered by Coolserve and GainCity are pretty close to their tradesmen rates. I've not bought curtains in the 2-3 weeks since I've moved in, because we've been so busy! But I also live on the top floor and there's no other blocks around me taller than mine, so there's quite a lot of privacy from waist down But we'll be getting our curtains this coming week!

Hi, I don't have a T-blog as yet, won't post it until the renovation is completed. Its 95% now with a few minor touch ups to finish. The process was quite trying because of late delivery clashing with wedding. I did not hire an interior designer - instead I got a coordinator to oversee things. I combined various elements I picked up while doing research much like you have, also largely the same sources as you but you can also look at flats for sale and pick up renovation ideas from there as well. The way you have parked your bed against the window's wall makes it hard for the person sleeping against the wall to wake up without climbing over the other person, or turning around and crawling down the bed, instead of rolling off to the side. This comes into question when you want to go to toilet or take care of a baby at night.

Congratulations on getting your EM, you have the same layout as me, and I see you're planning the apartment largely like how I completed mine. One thing people had suggested to us was to hack bedroom 2 & 3 to create one large master bedroom with a walk-in wardrobe, with the common bathroom becoming the new MBR's ensuite bathroom. The reason is that if you placed a King size bed into the current MBR, it becomes very cramped. What you would end up getting would be two bedrooms upstairs each with their own ensuite bathroom. My current layout is the same as yours because I have the same considerations as you - wanting to put up parents in our place in the future, futureproofing for kids, etc. I find that my MBR is a bit squeezy because after putting in the bed, and TV console, there's no place for my wife's vanity desk. My theme for my apartment is pretty much no theme - I just wanted the feeling of spaciousness and modern simple furnishings. As long as the furniture matched/didn't clash with each other we were OK with it. Just take note that you will have less space to work with than the floor plan suggests, particularly for the toilets, due to the common pipes.

Well as the rest have said, its all relative. I stay in Serangoon North now, with three schools in the neighbourhood, a kindergarten downstairs, NTUC a 10 minute walk away. The only drawback is that the nearest MRT station is too far to walk to. The valuation in January 2010 was 445k.

Wait so long, because I was also getting ready to get married. We now know that HDB valuations are very resilient, but in those dark days of 2008 no one was really sure how bad it would get. Hindsight's always crystal clear! I feel we've "lucked" into buying an EM in a not-so-ulu location for below 500k, because since then prices for my area have risen 30-50k. But then I probably contributed to the upward spiraling prices also.

Its cold comfort, isn't it? I started looking at HDB resale flats in late 2008, and only OTP-ed my current flat in January 2010. Keep in mind that 2008 was the time of credit crunch, and in the one-odd year that I'd been looking, the market had been strongly and steadily recovering. Even in 2008, though COVs came down, HDB valuations remained pretty solid, without crashing like private property did. I started out looking in Queenstown, and steadily moved to cheaper areas as prices of HDB flats started spiking. So now I'm living in Serangoon North...... after a while you just have to settle on something.

Just get what you can afford, no point chasing the impossible dream?

If you've read your instruction booklet that came with your fan you'd see the suggestion to swap the fan blades around to achieve a more balanced fan.

Newest EM are probably in the Toh Guan, Sembawang, and Seng Kang area. I don't think you can change the staircase but I may be wrong though. Best to check with HDB for approval.

Just doing the two toilets upstairs, plus wash area/toilet downstairs, plus kitchen would probably cost you in the region of 20k already. Just think of everything in each toilet, times three. 3 mixer taps, 3 shower heads, 3 toilet bowls...... the kitchen is a pretty standard sized kitchen so it should not cost more than your regular 4A or 5I kitchen to do up. Don't forget the amount of tiling work and cabinetry involved. Have you got any pre-sale photographs to show? If renovation is more than 10 years old, you'll need to do quite a lot. All the walls probably need replastering. You can save 2-3k if your windows and grilles are in good condition. Keep the existing doors if they aren't falling apart. If you don't mind the flooring design it can simply be refurbished. Cracks and deep gouges cannot be filled in but everything else can be polished back to look nearly like new. Avoid custom carpentry work like feature walls, cove lighting, etc and you'll save again. Just paint the walls and move your furniture in.

Nice. You could perhaps take photographs at night - it might show off your house in a different sort of atmosphere also

Prepare for renovation by figuring out your budget and what needs to be done. Do your homework and read reviews about contractors and ID services. You can get ideas for renovation by raiding the library for local interior design magazines that feature EMs. You can also get ideas from property ads for EMs that are in move-in condition. What's necessary to do depends on what the condition of the place was in. The money I saved on re-redoing the floors was spent on the staircase and balcony doors. I've seen some EMs that have very outdated flooring tiles or are in very bad condition. You haven't got a choice but to redo it. The oldest EMs are in excess of 20 years old, the youngest are coming close to 10 years. You can save some money coordinating your own work, such as skipping the interior designer's services, bringing in your own aircon/plumber/painter/etc but what you save in money you pay in time. Hope you have a lot of annual leave ready to spend on monitoring your renovation. Expect to spend quite a lot on toiletware, kitchen cabinetry and appliances. Even going cheap for everything I don't think you can renovate and furnish the whole apartment for less than 50k. Be prepared......

Here's a picture: Be prepared to deal with fingerprints though

Marble plus parquet flooring I think it was less than 1.5k, the railings was about 5k because the glass had to be custom cut and fitted for each panel. EMs are quite a lot more expensive than back in January. Good luck finding one, don't give up.

Yes, you can't do anything that increases the GFA of the unit.

Its a problem if there's bugs in a brand new home. I guess you'll need to find the root cause and address it. I know they can bait termites and ants and stuff, but lice, I don't know. Good luck with it though.

OTP was signed in January 2010. We waited till July for 2nd appointment as we let the landlord see out his tenant's lease. We renovated everything except the marble and parquet floor, which we repaired/refurbished. We used the flat's original structural layout, and only slightly enlarged/shifted the kitchen entrance to make the kitchen brighter. I also had the upstairs common toilet bowl area swapped with the shower area. And I changed out the staircase railings. Otherwise it was a basic refresh/refurbishment of the existing unit.

I also had my staircase railings changed out for a quote of $4000 plus $150 for demolition of existing staircase. If yours is $2000 its a good price, but take care that it is structurally sound. From this: To this:

Hi Mark, if you were a seller's agent, would you negotiate pricing on behalf of the seller in the presence of a prospective buyer? If you do, my respect to you for being honest and aboveboard about it. If you don't, perhaps you can share why you do not do it?

Seems high, which block is it, and what condition is it in? Move-in condition, renovated in the past 1-2 years perhaps still ok. I paid 35k COV and spent 50k odd on renovation including fittings but not including furnishings on mine in Serangoon.

Not to knock on a fellow forumer, but it was a blessing in disguise for us because not long after we found one that better suited our needs and didn't cost as much COV.

When you've seen enough flats, you will know to separate the good flats from the bad flats and know how to grab the flat at a given price the moment you see it. For now, you're still rather inexperienced and don't know to seize the flat. From my 9 months of flat viewings, the seller's agent would NEVER talk prices in the presence of the home owners. You will find as you go along that home owners are less greedy than the agents, simply because the agent has to work very hard to increase their slice of commission. Thus they either create a bidding war environment or conjure up phony offers telling you that you have to pay more. I've been in one bidding match with a fellow forumer here over a flat in Hougang Ave. 1 and didn't like the stress and agony of waiting to see if that home would be yours. I opted out of the match after 55k COV, when realization struck me that our resources wouldn't have let us have enough money left over for renovation. I heard from that forumer that they had signed OTP late in the night for that unit.