arnold

Hey there! Good to know that you met him. All the best to your reno! and hopefully, we could see your place on renotalks too!

Hi kimi, I was unable to send you any messages. think ur mailbox is full

Length of dressing table is 3ft. didnt measure the depth of the table though

Hey guys! I am terribly sorry for the late reply. Was busy with work as well as searching for my furnitures! I have since sent the contacts to you guys via PM

Thanks for the encouragement. Agreed that Boon was attentive. And yes, the floor plan drawings were indeed done on PowerPoint! hahha!

thanks! I'm sure yours will turn out well too!

Hey guys, I was away for the past week on a holiday. I had forwarded Boon's contact to you guys in PM.

I'm no expert on this, but I would have used the following as considerations: 1. I will assume that the bed comes fully unassembled, and if so, what are the dimensions of the different parts of the bed? 2. Is the entrance of the toilet near the opening that we refer to? that is a possible space to exploit for the movement of the mattress and the parts of the bed

Apologies but I couldn't remember the exact dimensions. I will measure it and post it up here when I go up the next time. However, the entrance to the platform area was discussed before with Boon and it was catered to our body width

Ah I didnt take a picture of it. will try to remember the next time i go up

Review of Contractor While providing reviews of the work, I thought it will be good to review the experience that I have with Boon. What He Did Well Personalising Your Home I liked the fact that he tries to personalise the home to the owner. I will be using the shoe cabinet as an example here. If you guys remember, I spoke about how he asked for our shoe sizes and the type of shoes that we wear. During one of the times I met him during the middle part of the renovation, I asked whether does he customise the shoe cabinets to small feet too. He said that there is a usual industry standard that is followed by most contractors. He uses the standards as a minimum. He tries to avoid going below this standard unless requested by the home owners. When asked why, he explained that you get the best price for carpentry when you follow the industrial norms. Any further customisation usually requires additional costs, as the carpenters will have to cater specially to your required dimension of wood. Some other areas that I did not mention were: (1) how he asked me to stand at my shower area with my hands stuck at my waist so that he can be sure that we have enough shower space after installing the shower screen; and (2) making sure that there were no tall people staying at my place. Why? You might ask. He explained that sliding screens will have a metal bar across the top of the screens, so it will be necessary to know the tallest person staying so that he can make sure that no one injures their head. Emphasis on Safety and Hygiene One of the example was given in the previous para.Some other examples were how he noted the potential danger of the position of the shower screen opening vs the position of the shower mixer, and also the reason why a floating shoe cabinet was not preferred. Honestly, I really appreciate him for providing us with this kind of input. As a new home owner, I am sure that many of us do not have the kind of experience to notice this. One of our family members might have been injured if we did not know about this before. Response Time Boon was really quick to respond to any of our queries during the renovation. We read many horror stories about how the IDs or contractors will take days to reply to a msg after signing the deal. We were glad that Boon replied to our msgs within the hour. Truth be said, we were usually slower in responding to his clarifications and requests! Timeline All in all, my renovation took about 3 months. Are you serious? 3 months with this scope of works and you say he did well? Actually, the cause of the long timeline was none other than myself! During the early stages, Boon already told us what and when he required us to provide him with (lights, fans, sanitary stuff etc). But because we were not in a hurry to move, plus it was the CNY period, we simply relaxed and took our own sweet time! He had to remind me many times about this before we finally got him the stuff that he needed. We took about a month to get him the lights and another 2 to 3 weeks for the rest of the stuff like sanitary ware and hob and hood. Considering this, our renovation could have been completed within 6 weeks if we did not delay the provision of items. We usually pop up to our place a couple of days after we provide him with the necessary stuff and works were already ongoing. Using the example of lights, he took less than a week to install them after we provided it to him! What Can Be Improved Lack of Interior Design Knowledge While he gives good suggestions on how you can do up your place, the truth is, he is not an interior designer. He doesn't have knowledge on the different themes like Scandinavian or Industrial. You can show him pictures to give him examples, but he might not be able to understand them fully. But well, he is a contractor after all, and this is to be expected right? Lack of Proper Project Management Tools Boon managed my project quite well actually. However, all scheduled works were updated via verbal means, at most through whatsapp. There were no fancy project timeline charts like what you see in this picture. Coming from a work area where I was extremely used to having project timelines, I found it a bit worrying at first. I wasn't sure whether he really have the capacity to manage the different projects without the project management different tools. Things could get a bit tense sometimes if the understanding from both parties were not aligned. I am glad to say that I did not experience this very often. Conclusion So there you have it, a short review on Boon. I will be happy to answer any further queries if there are any.

Review of Renovation Works This post is close to a week overdue. The pictures you saw above were taken when we met up with Boon last week for the inspection of works. I have quite a few queries on the workmanship and my level of satisfaction. I decided since there were so many queries, might as well put up a post to share my views with everyone. Scope of Works In an earlier post, I put up a list of the scope of work that I engaged Boon to take care of. It seemed that the list that was put up was not a comprehensive one. To keep everyone updated, here is the full scope of works that was undertaken by Boon: Carpentry Works5ft Wall Mounted TV Console4.5ft Half-Height Shoe Cabinet11ft Top and Bottom Kitchen Cabinet with KompacPlus Top5ft Bottom Kitchen Cabinet with KompacPlus Top3ft Wall Mounted Dressing Table7ft Full Height Wardrobe with Storage Compartment10ft x 8.5ft x 8" Platform Bed with Storage CompartmentVanity Top in MBR Toilet with KompacPlus TopGlass WorksSliding Glass Door at the Entrance of KitchenShower Screen with 2 Sliding Doors at MBR Toilet11ft Glass Backsplash between Top and Bottom Kitchen CabinetCeiling WorksL-Box **** RoomBox-Up of Aircon Trunking (only **** Room)Box-Up of Kitchen Sliding Door TracksWet WorksFabricate Shower Kerb (MBR Toilet)Fabricate Cabinet Base (Kitchen)Fabricate Fridge Base (Kitchen)Doors and Windows3 x Solid Veneer Doors with Lock and Magnetic Door Holder (MBR + 2 Common BR)2 x Slide and Swing Door (2 Toilets)Sliding Windows with Powder Coated Grey Sills (Service Yard)Window Grills (Service Yard, Living Room, MBR and 2 Common BR)Installation Works8 x LED Downlights (included in renovation costs)13 x Ceiling Lights 2 x Dressing Table Lights2 x Ceiling FansStorage Water HeaterAll Toilet AccessoriesHood and HobOthersRelocating of MBR Basin to Common ToiletPainting of Whole HouseNow with the full scope up, it seems like the work is quite substantial.Review of Renovation Works Carpentry Works I was extremely satisfied with the carpentry works. Of course, the carpentry was not perfect. There were some small dents on the inside of the kitchen cabinet. However, I decided to let it go, as the dents were: (1) extremely small; (2) at the deep end of the cabinet. As long as the dents were not in an obvious position, I am fine with it. The results after scrutinising, I found ZERO scratches/dents on the visible parts of the carpentry! Wah Lao! So Perfect Meh?? Of course not! While there were no scratches and dents, the silicon works weren't as perfect. There were some holes on the silicon works (the part which holds the carpentry to the wall). I expected the gaps between the carpentry and the walls to be fully filled up so that there are no cavities to attract creepy crawlies to nest in. I found a few areas which required filling and highlighted this to Boon. He agreed immediately without any questions. He later explained to me that the silicon, when used to fill the gaps, is in liquid state. Bubbles might form during the use of it in the liquid state. After solidifying, the bubbles will be seen as gaps. Doors and Windows The doors required some re-alignment as it does not close properly. Actually, this was told to me even before we started our checks, and it will be rectified. For the windows, I found a couple of scratches on 2 grills. When highlighted to him, he agreed to change it immediately too. Installation Works All lights and electrical points were working perfectly. Toilet accessories were also installed at the correct places. No issues with any of the installation works. Conclusion Overall, I was extremely pleased with the quality of work and the outcome of the renovation work. In previous pictures, it might seem that the house is a bit empty in comparison with many of the projects here. But I'm pretty much sure that the after the furnitures come in, the house will look much better!

Ah I think you refer to the parquets? My place is a premium BTO. During the time when we applied for the flat, all premium BTOs come with the parquet and we cannot opt-out of it. So yes, the parquet is below the platform

Hi, pls see reply below in red.

Snapshot before Furnishings (Master Bedroom) And now, the long awaited MBR pictures! I apologise for taking so long. Was busy last night and didn't manage to do this. Without further ado, here are the pictures!: Wardrobe + Dressing Area I apologise for this crappy picture. Yes the picture is grainy, and the lines don't seem straight. Rest assured that all these were due to the use of the panoramic mode of my phone. My phone simply cannot capture the entire space with its pathetic lens. But I trust that this should give a good overview of the area. Next up, the pictures will give you a good idea on how the light effects show up in the area. On the left pic, the area is illuminated by only the ikea light, and on the right, it's illuminated by the track lights. Both options seem to be bright enough for us! And now, for the favourite part that we want to boast about! The laminates! This is the open shelving that Boon suggested (detailed here). We were so pleased with the laminates we chose! To help you visualise, the grey laminates with lines are those of the wardrobe door and the drawers of the dressing table, and the rest of the carpentry are laminated with the checked ones. We thought that the two laminates simply complement each other perfectly! I regret to say that the below picture doesn't show this effect fully, and I hope that you can visualise it when you see this in totality. Platform Bed Now this is what many of you have been waiting for.... The platform bed! Like the wardrobe overview picture, the below picture was also captured using the panoramic mode, and thus, have the same jagged lines. rest assured that the lines are perfectly straight. I was very pleased with the platform bed. The size of the storage areas were of decent size. I could easily fit a set of bedsheet with quilt cover, 4 pillow cases and 1 pillow case in each compartment. The grooves were big enough for our fingers to slot in easily, but yet does not cause any potential tripping issues.