NingNing

The final draft - THIS IS IT! You know what is ought to be slapped? haha I think i am a person like that. Hokkien called it Gei Gan. Coz, after i love my new living room and everything did i realize how much of a problem it will create for me. This is the final product of my living room. I'm in LOOOOVVVEEEEE.... I love the curved parts. He really dig out the creative side of him when i tell him i want something DIFFERENT. It has our favourite colour in it too! But here's the dumb part. The amount of T5 i need to buy, has increased. =( also the fixing of the cove lights, the curve parts etc.. He did warn me. I was warned.. but i refuse to listen. dunno will he kill me if i say go back to original anot, (to save my hassle & moolah!) But, no la. we are sticking with this, because i love it! i have always looked at pictures and always imagined my house to be like that! i am a circle girl! Our final bedroom design: with the pelmet above our heads so i can do abit of reading or when we want to have romantic lighting.. (actually.. im just scared of the dark ) My final edited kitchen: without the left side cabinets Will probably use some stickers to cover up the bare wall. any suggestions?! So anyway, a few days ago, been shopping on taobao for the rest of my stuff. Will post up the items once it arrives. so again, patiently waiting for the lights to arrive from taobao! Sneak preview of our lights: I did mention i loved circles right? Saw this in a lighting shop and it costs about S$400! i got it for less than S$150 inclusive of shipping. SAVED A ALOT and the lights are E27 so means i can use either LED or PLC bulbs to replace. ] Got some downlights too. REALLY CHEAP! one is about MAX S$15 after all shipping. I am buying 15 of them. square, made of glass and quite thick. After purchasing these lights from taobao via peeka, a friend mentioned to me a situation that i never thought of before. How to take down these lights without damaging the false ceiling. She showed me lights that her ID recommanded whereby the led and the casing are in two parts for easy removal. its very cool.. but damnit.. i buy liao. nvm! we shall cross the bridge when we come to it.

FIRST DRAFT I have been really lazy to put up more blog posts.. and really busy too! Not only m i handling the reno at my place but also at my new office. so im torn between both projects.. Anyway.. Here was the first draft: The cool resccessed wall over our heads. It was to match the side table. but ALAS.. cannot. coz of our stupid headboard too tall. damnit! Here is the preview of the Final draft that made me finally stop making so much noise. It was done the second day after he got back from malaysia and helping us check our HDB defects.

I like the bars too... but it really looks like prison. HAHA maybe not the entire room but half the room to put bars will be nice!!

HELLO!! came over ur blog to see my twinnie same colour same theme fellow blogger! what is ur shoe size? if its 7 and below, confirm can fit. no need to slant. my shoes can go in. i measured already!

SECOND DRAFT Picture time!! Okie this is now the second draft. living room Bed room ( i actually loved the first one coz it was so cool. There was going to be a reccessed wall over our head so that we can put stuff inside.. but due to our bed frame, no way to do it.. =( so have to do this bedside table without the recessed wall above. Kitchen Was already happy with my bedroom. My kitchen, i will be removing the top cabinet on the left. I think by now, the theme is Blue and Grey and white. From the above post, can see i was unhappy about the stupid bars. ( yes... my stupid idea...) but i was so inspired by these pics: Looks so nice.. but when i do it.. on the entire ceiling.. it looks like a prison.. and i think my colour that i insisted on, is wrong..looks like a prison also, i saw on the 3d render, my cove lights will have dark spots where the beam is.. -.-" waste money like this.. haiyo.. this is what happens when you dont listen to your id.

We took a long time before we found this perfect one. i cannot imagine if we settled for something less. but my advise is not to go for Rozel although their prices might be quite okie. While we were at expo, this guy from Rozel talked to us and nearly didnt want us to leave if we didnt buy his sofa. from 1.888K, he slashed the price down to 1.488K.. like.. got so hungry anot. by doing this, it further proved to us that the sofa might not be of the 1.8K quality.. so why even say 1.8K in the first place? im that type of person that if i pay $10 for an item, i want to get at least S$8 of value or more from it。

Other than tt day recieving a sneak preview of the newly edited 3d, he yesterday sent me the final edited one which i ABSOLUTELY LOVE. I like Johnny, my ID alot because he actually listens and remembers. The first meeting, he realized that i kept praising those designs in his portfolio with curves because i love circles. I dont like straight and standard things. but my hubby looooovvvesss straight lines. me---> <-- my hubby (NB keep gen wo zhuo dui!! i like what, my hubby will like the opposite) I think i really put Johnny through alot of design and creative crunch and force him to use his creavity to satisfy my fussiness. wahaha.. and worse.. being a girl, i think i quite flickered minded. wahaha.. i keep changing my mind on things. LOL im the type of customer tt is a nightmare to designers. He must be cursing and swearing at home. But he has patiently ( at least on the surface) ignored all my flicked mindedness. <--- Johnny at home as i imagine during CNy holiday at malaysia. Before CNY: Me: i like the bars on the ceiling, can you do that? Johnny: can. but u sure anot.. will look like a prison. Me: i like it!! (shows him a pic of those dining room with wood beams above) Johnny: okie lor. Me: paint it BLUE. Johnny: ur cove lights will be useless u know... u wasting money.. Me: DONT CARE! do FIRST! Johnny: okie 1 day before he went on leave: After its done: Me: eeyer.. so ugly. i dont want. do back to original.. Johnny: okie okie.. 2 hours later. Me: ok i dont want original. i want something else. Johnny: .... ok. i warned u already it wont be nice.. you dont want to listen.. -.-" Me: CHANGE.. i want something SPECIAL. i want something other ppl dun have one! 2 days later: Me: I dunno what i want. i scared if do too special then i will sian very fast. give me something tt i will be impressed with. impress me lei... Johnny: try my best. u wait i come back from CNY then do. And he really do and show me a sneak preview on Tuesday. Tml if im free, i will upload the edited pics.

all pm-ed.

Only one reclines. and 1.9K includes cup holder. but we will remove the cup holder as the cupholder, the total length will be 2.4m Sure can one! actually star living is less than 1.5K for the same type. xclusive living has it too!

It is 1.9k. Without motor recliner is 1850.

So these few days have been quite busy so no chance to update. Our flat ETA will be in May.. coz im a pantang person, i rather not shift in during Qing Ming.. so the entire month of April, we will leave it empty. but my ID say.. slowly also good. let his contractors rest awhile, get their momentum going after their long holiday break then can do my house swee swee. OK la.. trust him ba. Since the day we collected keys on 5th Feb, we have been dragging our two poor friends around to see sofas. These beauties caught my eye so far.. 2040 length 2050 length RL] in black 2035 length There were a few others we went to look at, but not allowed to take pics. We went to xclusive living, Rozel, Full house and by chance, one of the friends we were dragging around suggested to go Expo to see see if there were any furniture fairs. Wa!! heng heng, just nice, that weekend, there was one. So that very weekend, we went to have a look. I saw a few that were so so.... but one in particular caught my eye. Half italian leather, L shaped and recliner (motor somemore!) and all within our 2k budget! heehee.. customization is free also. yay!! everything my hubby wanted! But, i have been known for making mistakes with impulse buy. So yesterday, v day, i dragged my parents to go with us to QC the sofa and see if its good. (also to acc them since my sisters are not around). They LOVED IT! so at the last minute (they were actually closed liao) I paid the deposit. So qiao, the manager who assisted me the first time and yesterday had the same name as my id, Johnny! haha.. he even taught me a few things on how to see fake and real leather, or if the leather is bonded with PVC. Pretty useful I'll say. i used this knowledge to test out other brands of sofa and realized that its true! real full leather when pressed have wrinkles, leather with pvc wont. and another test is smell test. leather smell stays on for at least 3 yrs. if the item has no smell, its not full leather. How some companies charge lower price for their leather sofa is by slicing the leather in half and bond them with pvc. (i dont say cheat la hor. end of the day really is still leather. but how many % no one say de la). Anyway, this is th sofa we picked. hubby's friend sitting and trying the sofa, testing it out... even considering getting a new one for their place.

Wah! Ur living room really is bigger!

master toilet common toilet This was the cracked and exposed brick i was talking about hidden in the ceiling of the common toilet behind the pipes. the black thing u see there is the hole. the red thing is the exposed brick. didnt take a pic of the uneven ceiling. but my neighbor popped by yesterday and he saw it too. i tot it was just me being fussy. Also, on Monday when my ID came to check the place, he mentioned to me that because my wall of the kitchen is on the right, means my fridge should be left hand swing (open from right to left) instead of the usual left to right. omg.. his advise is that i will have to leave a 1/2 -1 feet gap for my fridge door clearence to swing open, so that I can remove the fridge drawer in future if i want to wash it. so that means, 1/2 feet of wasted space. my dream of having the stove, sink and fridge on one row is gone!! so upset. nearly wanted to cry on the spot. and plus because we got a S$688 voucher from samsung, die die must get their fridge. tt leaves me lesser choice! (btw, f&p got left swing door fridge if anyone is wondering). then hubby asked me "how often u cook ah?" me: never lei why? hubby: that means we dont put much stuff in right? so fridge wont get dirty.. so means no need to clean. then why u need to remove the drawer to clean? me: ... oh ya hor. haha I also consulted a friend and future neighbour about it. and she agreed to just put the fridge with a little gap. no need to leave half a feet. her house is doing just that now and for 7 yrs, they have been fine without pulling out the drawer all the way. so we are going to go against our ID's advise and give probably a 5- 10cm gap from fridge to side wall. my dream of one row stove, sink and fridge is BACK!! but of coz, this means if i cant open my fridge fully....and i cant blame my ID for not telling me. BUT I CAN BLAME My HUBBY!! hehehehehehe...

pictures of our house in its current state. IDs of my neighbors told me that our HDB contractor did a rush job. But BSC rectified the mistakes quite quickly. i complained on monday, now some of it has already been repaired. My living room (from kitchen) My passage way. (can anyone spot what is wrong with the passageway? other than my bag hanging there!) Kitchen masterbed room

pmed pmed i pm you the solution pm-ed LOL.. thats not the name of the company of course. you cant recieve pm.

LOL he never added me in fb.. but he did go into Facebook to look at me and find out more things about me like who were my friends and if he done any of their jobs before. abit creepy but i do it to do my homework on my clients too before i meet them. YES! some IDs are crazy enough to ask for deposit first then do drawing. later kana trapped also cannot run. read too much horror stories to be a carrot for them to chop! My ID yesterday fast hand fast leg, already sent me a preview of what my amended living room will look like. later will post it up when im free. He very smart. i think he know i getting impatient from all the wait during cny.

our ID selection process Selecting ID to me was at first a very exciting task. then it got more and more tedious. Because Im in account management, I have the opportunity to run around to meet IDs during office hours, in between meetings of course! Anyway, i think I met up to close to 20 IDs and contractors. seriously an overkill. It was my job to find the ID and once i selected a few, my hubby will join in the discussion. I was finding IDs while preparing for my wedding which was in nov and planning for one of a national event in oct. omg... NEVER DO THIS! i nearly tore out all my hair. I started my ID journey in July because we heard news that our keys will be given in Dec. I'm the fussy kan chiong type of person and dont want to be caught unprepared and with my pants down. SO! here we go!! We did our ID searching in 2 batches. in July - Aug and in Dec. I submitted my floor plan to places like renotalk and other websites and the contacts just start to pour in. I set my budget at 15K. my actual is at 21K but i want to weed out the real and fake IDs. Those tt can do my hse in 15K, i will read their quotation like a crazy person for any hidden cost. and plus, i wanted a buffer in case i wanted to add on stuff later. We did our homework by scouring renotalk and other sites for reviews of ID that we met. The top 3 IDs that we liked, had very little to no reviews. So we trusted our gut insticts and advise from family and friends. These were the outstanding ones that I remember out of the few that I went. The rest that i met, either after first meeting they never got back to me or i didnt leave an impression. July - Aug IDs Lionel from Absolook (dropped) Lionel was the very first ID i met. In fact, his company was the reason i started my frenzy in finding IDs. His company contacted me through fb. He came down to my place very late at night to go through his standard package for me. hubby and me had good vibes from this guy as we felt that we could click. But after awhile, when comparing his quotes and getting abit wiser from meeting more IDs, i realize that there might be some hidden costs here and there. and also, he was supposed to provide me with a revised quotation which he did not. so we dropped him. I guess my budget too small. D'Trenzo Inspire(dropped) OMG this company left a bad taste in my mouth. Their organisation skills are very poor. I have nothing against the ID but i seriously dont like his manager. Firstly, when they contacted me, the manager contacted me. After that, another guy from the same company contacted me. Both didnt seem to have communication with each other and both asked me to submit floor plan. when i pointed out that they both were contacting me, the manager first told me to ignore the other guy. Since the manager contacted me first i tot "heck. okie lor..." end up i was very rudely called and after a few verification of the situation, he handed me off to the other ID in a bo chup and rather rude sms. . LOL I met the ID. The first impression he gave me was not good. He took out the WRONG floor plan. When the right plan was taken out, he wasnt listening to my requirements or what i wanted. he just kept on telling me what is good and what others did.. etc. by the time he drew out a draft, half the things i wanted, was not inside. i dont like wasting my TIME. Lastly, He didnt drive. now..... im not against ppl who dont drive, ****, i dont even drive. But i worried that if i gave him my project, he may not visit my site as often as others with cars will. I dropped him immediately after i met him. Rest and Relax (dropped LIKE A HOT POTATO) Met at expo. er... again, another ID who doesnt listen and further more INSULT me. say that my budget so low, how to do nice. told me minimum is 40K. ARE U CRAZY?! i 3 room flat lei! i MUST have bought a 3 ROOM BTO because I dont have tt big a spending power right?! THINK! And the worse part is that every ID so far had allowed us to take back their standard quotation or draft quotation. She didnt allow me to. Even tried hard selling me to sign up now, put deposit for designer drawing. Faith interior (dropped) Nice boy i met. abit too young. he's actually my age. but when i asked him how long he worked in this industry and in the company etc, i can see him skirting the question. that made alarm bells ring in my head. so nope! Famous Mr K(dropped) M K... we dropped him because his quotation was nearly the same as one of the more expensive designers that we talked to... but without design. and he spoke in chinese which i felt was hard to communicate. but he was a nice man. Maurice from 3d innovation(shortlisted) We had super alot of "great" ideas and wanted to incorporate every single one of them, like hidden doors and 80x80 homo tiles. But instead of laughing at us or telling us no, Maurice would thoughtfully look at us then explain why it was great but not practical. He used himself as an example and put himself in our shoes and tried to understand why we wanted what we wanted. He has sort of the ah beng uncle look. I guess my hubby being quite.. "ah beng" had abit more click ability with him. He was easy to talk and laugh with. never felt embarressed about our low budget with him. in fact, he asked us one important question that no one asked. "how long u intend to stay". AH! the golden question! we didnt intend to stay in our flat long because my hubby is the only child and his parents are old. we plan to move back into his parents home if they needed us. He advised not to go crazy and do too lavish a reno. stick to our budget so we can have left overs for our furniture. Do a simple reno. My hubby liked him very much. He was in our top 3. Ended up dropping out of the race because we wanted to shortlist only 2. Allen Nah from Thom Signature( Top 2) Allen was someone who was in the top 2. I gave a review about him somewhere else. Allen left a deep impression in my mind. No hard selling. He was actually recommended by a very close friend and future neighbor. Again, another Ah beng which my hubby could super relate to, since he was about the same age. But dont let the ah beng look fool u. This guy was good at what he did. He carefully listen to my requirements then finally dug out from me, what i really needed. He was the first ID to point out a design flaw that I never realized with my L shape cabinet. He solved it by thinking out of an idea to help me reduce space wastage in the dead corner which i felt was very cool and futuristic. My hubby was originally very adamant about signing with Allen. The price, the clickability and also Allen's sincerity. During our meetings, allen will answer calls and the way he handled situation with his workers impressed us, calm and direct which i feel will be good during reno. but I was afraid that Allen will not be able to match up with My ID's designing skills. He was very much in the running that so much so, one week we were about to sign, we were still considering Allen. But our ID gave us too good an offer that we couldnt resist. Johnny formerly from Plush Living (releasing his name now as I reciving many PM for his name) I met my ID the same day as I met Maurice. My ID from the first time he called, he was very PR. He did my ex colleague's flat before. so the first thing he did was facebook me! haha talk about smart. We had a very nice chat and he got me to come down to his office. I am the type of person who wants ppl to come to me, not i go to them. But there was something about him that made me go to him. Anyway, met him at his office. He showed me several works that he did and the first thing tt came to my mind was " i LIKE!". I gave him a problem of not having enough space for a table and he on the spot drew me a design of a hidden table. Now, this is not the first time i heard of it, so its no big deal. but what impressed me was how he solved the problem i had. A hidden table is great, but the problem with it is the hinges. My hubby is in the furniture line and he highlighted to me before that hinges after awhile, will wear and tear and become misaligned. My ID solved it by using simple methods which i loved. I cant disclose the method because its his idea. not nice to share out here. This hidden table idea and solution was one of the reasons i have confident in him that he will be able to solve functionality problems in our design plus, his design was pretty strong. He listened to every idea i had, gave suggestions and counter idea. He was from a "big" company and was an assistant manager. He was the only one who followed up with me from July till the day we signed which was in Dec. Talk about perseverance. Throughout our search, he was always giving me advise and insider information without even knowing if we will sign. I did my homework by talking to my ex colleague and her process with him. Had pretty good reviews on his attentiveness to detail and responsibility. I wanted to sign with him, but his offer was quite over budget. And hubby was very keen on another ID Allen, and will only give me the go-ahead if his quote was nearer to our budget. I explained to my id that another ID was giving us a better price for the same items. And that my budget is burst if i sign with him. I really didnt want him to waste his efforts of following up with me for so long. So he went back to his management, talked to them, and gave me a new quotation. The new quotation was brought nearer to my budget. Signed with him because he put in much effort for us to talk to his new boss. *By the time we wanted to sign with him, it seemed that his original company （Plush Living) had merged with another company. =( i didnt like the new company at all, it had a reputation!! And some items he could originally give us at his old company, couldnt be honored in this new one. but i wanted the ID so bo bian. just pray hard no cock ups. We finally put our deposit in on Jan.

ya.. i realized that not many 3 rooms in this blog when i was doing my research. so i decided to TRY to blog so that in future others can use this info. and congrats on ur keys!! its an exciting feeling when u get keys! haha.. my house is going to be VERY cramped thats for sure!! my living room is super TINY! I pm u my id name. THANKS! =DD =D hopefully he wil continue staying great! oh its 2011?! haha my stupid brain keeps telling me 2010.. then like tt its fast! we actually balloted 7 times before we got parcvista. originally got WW2.. but the price was so much different for a flat across the road. so we gave it up and then parcvista came up. faster ballot liao! mai tu liao!

Hi all, have been reading renotalk for years but hardly ever made much of a sound except to ask questions. We balloted for our flat in 2010 and patiently waited for our keys. We FINALLY got our keys on the 5th of feb and straight away rush down to open the door. I am very pantang so hubby has to tahan the later change of key collection at Punggol Parcvista. With our frens, we went down to punggol to check out the place. after rolling our pineapple and screaming HUAT AH! at the top of our voices, we stepped in. Its small.. but its our home!! Our flat : We actually wanted to start our reno immediately as soon as possible but our ID just came back from his new yr holiday. What to do? people need to go home.. brain understand but my excitment can get the better of me. I thought he will delay abit longer but he was all rearing to go. the minute he stepped back into singapore, he gave me a call to ask me if he can go to my flat to check the defects. He knows my pattern after liasing with me, that he knows how fussy i am, so he knew it was best tat he went down to check for me if not anything happen, ill have his head!! (lucky i carry the padlock key with me everywhere i go now, if not have to rush home to get it) So yesterday was the billionth time we went down to our flat but this time, it was with our ID to check the defects. and omg.. the number of defects he pointed out was crazy. End up, BSC has to replaster EVERY　SINGLE ROOM! even the CEILING. all the walls were uneven, the ceiling had a very obvious uneveness in it ( the middle portion was slopped upwards at a sharp angle then down again..like they ran out of plaster halfway and left the job, probably praying hard i didnt mind). the worst part was my toilet ceiling, in a corner, the brick wall was exposed and cracked. lucky my ID very xi xin and spotted it if not i will never have spotted it because it was hidden behind the pipes! Lucky he suggested to come and check.. because all the time we went up there, we never notice all these things.. i guess... new owners syndrome. blind to all our flat's faults. and these are just SOME of the defects. if i list down all, never ending. although my flat is so humid and hot, he still climb here climb there, stretch here stretch there.. btw.. if you looking for ID remember to find a tall one. our ID is much taller than me and my hubby and he was able to touch the top of the door ways to feel the walls. by the time we were finished, it was quite late, but he still stuck it out with us for more than 2-3 hours to go through the entire house for defects several times and run through what will and can be done. thats what i call good service! while BSC is doing the defects, my ID is going to resend me the amended 3d drawings from our discussion yesterday. so we are now "patiently" waiting for them, trying to keep my crazy down and not calling him everyday to see if its done! *patiently waiting..........*

can you share the link for your toilet roll holder? its very nice!

Hi charisluv, I am doing many many things for my house, so I dunno if my quotes will apply to you anot. but i what i can tell u is, out of all the ID firms ive met (about 10?), Thom's final quote is mid pricing. the range Ive gotten so far is 20-25K. his is around 22K-23K. ( I have no floors and no doors tts why the quotes are high) Actually i honestly, genuinely like Allen from Thom Signature very much and i really want to award the sale to him. Not pushy. i don't feel pressure from him to give him an answer soon or right away or anything unlike other firms. One good thing about him, i told him we have a budget although we want to do so many things, he cut down the prices for me. I am in the line whereby i oversee reno for my clients doing commercial and I agar agar know the market rate. from what i see, he is cutting on his commission to give me the price which i am very grateful. Easy to talk to and gives constructive feedback about the feasibility of some things tt i want to do. an example is the L shape cabinet. He pointed out something that NO ONE cautioned me about. The space in the L will be hard to reach and will be a waste of space; wasting my money to make and also will make the room very cramped. I never thought about it until he pointed it out. but seeing that i REALLY wanted it, he stared at it for about 10 mins before coming out with a solution and I loved that solution very much. ( im not going to share tt solution because I feel tt the solution belongs to him and his creativity). Dont get me wrong, Im not trying to promote Thom, im just very impressed by the way they have "brought up" their designers and project managers. And I agree with you that they are understated. In fact, I feel that they dont do any marketing at all which may not help very much..but at least we know we are not paying to fund their marketing like the bigger names like weiken.com. Since yesterday, while we are still in midst of deciding and the 3 has finally dropped down to 2. Its between Allen and another ID who has abit more experience in the design department.

Since i also looking for ID now, I have seen some from your list.. i give you my feedback. Mine is a bto, getting in Dec or Jan. Our journey started in August/July. Those i didnt see, i wont comment. but i D'Trenzo. I didnt see it from feedback here but i experience it myself. First a guy name chris approached me, then another called jimmy. It was so confusing. but end up i reject because i find jimmy not very professional and dun really know what he is doing. 9Lives Interior Design - met a ID from here. brought her colleague. was supposed to quote me. After meeting me, couldnt be bothered to quote me so i just dropped the firm. wasted my 1 hour. heng my hubby not there if not he ki siao. Darwin Interior - Never approached them, but they did my fren's place. heard they were much better when they first started. made my fren very frustrated during reno. Rezt and Relax - rejected. saw them during expo fair. was more interested in locking down our deposit then anything else. insulted us saying our budget too low. 3 room flat ask us for 40K. siao or what? tot i print money? was not interested in hearing what i want or need, but just rattled on about whats the trend now, what her customers did blah blah.. what the... Thom Signature Design - he is one of my final shortlisted out of the final 3. The guy we liasing with is Allen Nah. Abit ah beng pattern but very responsive. He just gives us a good vibe. Price wise, i wont say he is the lowest. but what i like about him is that he is very upfront. A friend did reno with him recently. Told us end of the day, no hidden cost. everything needed to quote is quoted. not like some ID hide here hide there to match ur budget. Give practical advise but also listen to us.

Hi., can pm me ur friend contact for the downlighting and LED strips? Also can i have the contact of the guy who did your wall decal? its very swee!!

does anyone know which brand of downlights to buy from taobao? and what is the chinese words for downlights? im looking for those square ones.

i will also like a review if possible.