jeffcraze

Wah, so co-incidence lehz.. There's another forumer who's living in the same blk as me! he pm-ed me and realised we live on the same floor somemore.. I will let u know when i go down in the afternoons lah.. coz weekdays only can go at nite lah..

me at blk 134. u are most welcome to pop by.. Estimated 2 mths ba, by end of june. he will call u lah, no worries.. Hope he will be able to help u with your situation and u can shift in fast!

Yup, neighbourhood neighbour! My place haven't started reno yet. Tomolo will commence thou. U wanna come up to my place to see see or u advising me to go up see see? Will most probably be gg there almost everyday to see the progress and take pics to post.. Think jaskel shd be popping by yr place this coming week if he hasn't done so..

Thanx bepgof for the alternatives! Will be gg with the 2nd alternative as we dun like the existing wall tiles. Your information was very helpful!

It's been a week since my last update. Anyway, reno is starting on Mon le! So excited and apprehensive abt how everything will turn out.. Well, we have decided on using Jason (aka Jaskel) for our reno as we felt most comfortable talking to him. To date, he has been very accomodating with all our meet up timings to discuss the details. Which is a big plus point to us as we had heard of (and nearly wanted to engage) this particular contractor cum ID who made his customer waited for him for one plus hour past the meeting time! Went up to our house on Sat to do the "dong tu" rituals @ 1pm and was quite surprised that Jason was already there with his partner, Keith to do the floor protection and preliminaries. We had originally arranged to meet him at 1.30pm, after the rituals, thus was quite surprised. But luckily they were there before us, if not, my parents who reached the flat before us will be Been bz selecting tiles and finalising the layout with Jason. Now hoping that HDB will approve us to hack the storeroom walls. Below are the tiles we chosen from Harfary and Soon Bee Huat for our floor tiles and wall tiles Toilet floor tiles for both toilets MBR toilet wall tiles Kitchen floor tiles (hope this will turn up nice as hubby likes this colour a lot ) Didn't managed to take pics of the living room floor tiles and the common toilet wall tiles thou.

Haha.. That's my project u talking abt here rite?

Welcome, flomichbelle! So happy to meet another fellow Simei resident here!

Some updates: Decided on using Jason and am now in the midst of finalising the quotation with Jason and hope to apply for the renovation loan by next week.. Had met up with Jason twice during the week, once late on Fri nite to show us his 2D floor plan and once on Saturday to come to our house to take some measurements and brought us to view tiles at Harfary and Soon Bee Huat.. Huge headache on the tiles to decide on.. Selected one from each place and Jason helped us to get the samples for us to see and decide. Will take pics and post soon for some opinions from all!

Haha.. No lah.. Read enuff of his "famous" name in the forum le.. Will reveal this person's "real identity" soon.. Am on the verge of confirming him le..

Thanx boatgal for providing the address!

Hi there.. Can anyone provide me with the address of Harfary, the place highly recommended in the forum for tiles? Would like to go take a look at the tiles range there.. Thanx!

Our comments on the IDs/contractors that we have met up are: 1) Sam - Classic 3D: We received a flyer and went to look for this company. Sam was quite nice and frenly and gave us advices on some of the things tat we initially wanted but was not feasible. Quote came back in less than a week. Was one of the most expensive ($40k), perhaps because he put in a lot of things juz to let us know his pricing and included plumbing and electrical works also. We are still thinking of shortlisting him or not. 2) Andrew - Inspiration Living: 2nd person to meet up, till now, almost 3 months from meet up, no quotations and no follow-up calls from him. **** disappointed and angry! What kind of service is this?! Oh, actually, my husband did call him and made an appointment to view our flat one day @ 7pm. But guess wat? He called my hubby at 6.30pm to inform him that he wun be able to meet on that day! Definitely OUT for us! 3) Louis - *****: He did up one of my hubby's colleague's house and his workers' workmenship is quite good. Quotation came back within a week. But we wun be shortlisting him as his quote was way above our budget. 4) Alexane - -: Hubby and me went to the exhibition held at Expo towards the end of March and walked in to talk to Alexane. He was helpful and discussed abt the ideas we had in mind but was unable to povide us with fresh ideas. He promised to get back to us within a couple of days but well, no news from him till now. 5) Henry - Homesuccess: Henry's the second and last person we talked to at the Expo exhibition. He gave us a lot of new ideas that we had not thought off (like doing store room in bedroom 2) and was frenly and helpful. We spent close to 2 hours to talk to him and he did up a rough quotation using the package price for us. He followed up with a quotation within the week. Quotation was a little higher than we budgeted and had not included the additional stuffs that we wanted, thus unlikely to select him. Henry recommended this thing called "Ace design hub", which supposedly, one juz has to pay a refundable deposit of $50 and they will get 3 ID companies (including Homesuccess) to contact us and come up with quotations for us to compare and will refund us the deposit shd we not decide to engage any of the 3 companies. Sad to say, to date, we have only heard from 2, including Homesuccess, the 3rd one had apparently became non-existent, so u all shd be able to know tat I'm sorely disappointed. 6) Iz: Was recommended by one of the forumers (stray801). He was slightly late, but informed us early. Think he's more of a contractot though he did give us some recommendations on the way we wanted to do the new store room. Though he was highly raved to be quite reasonable in his pricing, IMHO, I think he was a little expensive as his quotation was one of the more expensive ones amongst the ones we received. 7) Ben - Summit Design: Very popular in the forum. My hubby called him and told him he got his contact through the forum and will only meet him and not anyone else from his company (after I told him how some forummers were unable to get him and was recommended to other ppl in his company). He was punctual and he give recommendations on the type of doors we can use for the store room. His quotation came back rather fast and seemed to be within our budget but he missed out a couple of things that we wanted him to quote. 8) Freddy - Homesuccess: Same company as Henry but he is more of a contractor than ID. He was working on one of hubby's fren house. Quotation was reasonable, after deducting the lump sum discount that he said will give us. Hubby's fren had highly recommended him, but still not sure if we should shortlist him. 9) Jack - The Interior Place: Turns out he's my hubby's army mate when we reached our flat and saw him. Jack was quite pushy and recommended a lot of stuffs to us to do, which we didn't really wanna do. Quotation was a little on the high side, thus hubby doesn't wanna select him. On a side note, TIP is the second company we heard from the Ace design hub thing. 10) My sec sch fren: He was alerted to the news that I was looking for reno contractors and contacted me to meet up. He didn't give us much recommendations as he was juz a contactor, not ID, only recorded down wat we wanted. Was a little slow in giving us our initial quotation. But as his quotation was approx the amt we budgeted, we will be shortlisting him. 11) Jason: My hubby's buddy called him and got to know we were looking for reno, thus he recommended his buddy to come up and see our flat. He seems quite experienced and nice, thus was a bit surprised when he told us he has only been in this biz for a year or so. Wun comment much as we are shortlisting him for revised quotations. 12) Steven: My father's fren. Nice uncle who's a contractor. So far, his quotation is the lowest one and fits our buget the best, amongst all that we have received. He is definitly on our shortlisted list.

welcome! U finalised yr reno contractor le? Me also a newbie here..

Eh, I am a bit confused. Coz my kitchen's current condition is half tile and half bare (enamel paint, I guess). So any suggestions on how I can save costs if I don't wanna do tiling?

I was thinking of doing plastering for my kitchen walls as well, to save costs and also coz we dun think tat we will cook that often.. Is it the same as cement screed? How to maintain? Apologies to kinggadget for highjacking yr thread..

To date, we (actually hubby did all the talking) have met up wif 11 IDs and contractors. We are too tired from searching for more and already have a good idea of wat we want already, thus decided to stop our "hunting" for IDs/contractors le.. Now in the process of narrowing down to the last few and asking for revised quotation and hope to finalise on one soon! We are intending to: 1) Hack all the floor and wall tiles in the whole house 2) Hack the store room (the L-shape in the kitchen only) 3) Lay tiles in kitchen, toilets, living room and all the 3 bedrooms (thought of doing laminates but impossible coz we have a dog which likes to scratch the floor. ) 4) Paint the whole house and bedroom doors 5) Construct L-shaped wardrobe 6) Construct kitchen cabinets 7) Construct TV console and feature wall in living room 8) Replace the windows in the living room and bedroom 3 and put grills for all the windows 9) Replace main gate 10) Plumbing 11) Rewiring (coz our flat already 22 years old le) 12) Construct shoe cabinet 13) Re-construct store room in bedroom 2

Bedroom 2 - the odd angled room which will be converted to a study cum wardrobe room (but not WIW) Bedroom 3 - along the corridor

Living room - view 1 Living room - view 2 MBR MBR toilet

Juz to share some pre-reno pics.. Albeit not taken very nicely.. Kitchen Common Toilet Store room wif ugly stain on floor - will be hacked off to make the kitchen cum dining area bigger

Finally able to scan our floor plan.. It's rather small, but, still, it's our very own love nest! Anyone with any comments or suggestions on wat can be done, please share! Most willing to listen..

juz a little update.. we have already been sourcing for quotations from contractors and IDs.. some recommended in the forum, some by frenz, some at roadshows.. am pending 2 more quotations before relating abt our experience with those we met up so far..

I got scanner cum printer at home, juz tat my hubby has yet to set up the scanner.. he promised to do it tonite.. will "irritate" him till he sets it up..

wcseow -> u staying in simei too? which part?

Thanx for the welcomes! I wanna show u guys my floor plan too! But... the thing is my hubby forgot to do the settings for our printer to be able to scan the floor plan.. now trying to see if can get the soft copy from hdb website..

I'm a newcomer in the forum had been reading the threads for quite a while. Finally, it's my turn to start my own t-blog after silently reading thru so many people's blogs! Have gotten our keys to our love nest on 26th March 2010! Have been looking around for IDs and contractors (some recommended in the forum) even before we got the keys but have yet to narrow down our choices yet. Tight budget, but wanna do a lot of things. Will post a pic of our floor plan by this weekend and share our experience about the IDs and contractors that we have met up to date and also to get some insights. Till then, ciao!