kirinshibori

Budgeting When I said shoestring budget, it is no joke.The initial estimate was to complete essential works to get the flat in a move-in condition with $10k; with furniture, appliances and miscellaneous items, we wanted the entire process to take no more than $20k all in. After some planning, we managed to expand the budget, so it currently stands just north of $35k, and that's including all furniture, lighting, air-con, etc.; however, the initial outlay will be half of that. Sigh, talk about "no money still wanna do reno", haha… reminds me of another thread in T-blog.

Continued... Bedroom 2. Master Bedroom. Common Bathroom… tiles on the borderline of acceptability. Master Bedroom Bathroom… these tiles have to go.

Continued... Living/Dining Room. Corridor to the Bedrooms. Bedroom 1.

The Raw Flat The Foyer. View of the Kitchen from the Foyer. View of the Home Shelter from the Kitchen. Kitchen.

Floor Plan Quite a standard layout I must say, but our biggest lament was the lack of a service balcony. Well, we cook and do laundry every day, andthe two activities are not very compatible when they are confined to the same room, especially on a rainy day. So the initial design challenge was to have a kitchen that is friendly to both activities. After cracking our brains for almost 3 months, we gave up. The kitchen is simply not big enough to be partitioned, so we will just be using a gas dryer as well as dry our clothes indoors. The next design challenge was our bedroom. As my working hours are irregular, we wanted to have a walk-in wardrobe near to the master bedroom bathroom such that I would cause minimal disturbance to my spouse when I leave or return at some ungodly hour. Again, after wreaking our brains for almost 3 months, we gave up. As this was a last generation design, the windows are on the wrong side of the room, if it was away from the master bedroom bathroom, it would have been so much easier to segregate the sleep area from the ablution area. In the end, we opted for a very conventional layout for the master bedroom.

Introduction Welcome! Disclaimer: there's nothing fancy here, everything's about practicality and value for money… So no nice 3Ds, space planning diagrams, etc., etc… Do bear with us as we chart our renovation process. To be frank, we did not intend to get ourselves a new place to live this soon. There are a lot of changes in our lives at the moment and purchasing a new property was definitely not high on our priority list. Despite this, we were compelled to try our luck during the Sep 2011 Sale of Balance Flat exercise, and surprise, surprise, we got a queue number of 20! We thought that the queue number wasn't too bad, until we realized that there were only 34 flats available. Ah well, no worries, we told ourselves, as my spouse is non-Chinese… but we thought wrong! Anyway, to cut a long story short, our preference was to get a unit at River Vista @ Kallang, but when it came to our turn to choose, the only available units at RV were on the second level… After much deliberation (due to the ridiculously high selling price for the units at Kallang Heights), and some arguments with our customer service officer (mainly due to differences in the interpretation of ethnic allocation regulations), we selected a unit at Kallang Heights.

Fortunately, the MBR bathroom for 4 room units are located at the doorway, so I don't have your problem. I don't think I have any better solution than R&R's proposal though I feel that the powder room will make your room look rather cramped. If you don't mind moving your bed annually when you service your outdoor aircon unit, then placing your headboard against the aircon window wall could be a possible alternative. Maybe customize your bed with lockable castors? I'm wondering about your sink placement though. If you are going to hang your clothes out of the window, wouldn't the sink get in your way?

True, look out of my kitchen window and... faint. I'm hacking my walls too... hopefully it'll be done by tomorrow, cos it's seriously noisy and I feel so sorry to my neighbours!

Will be starting in the next 2 weeks, currently settling the rectification works. Yourself? Starting soon?

Hello neighbour! I also got a unit @ Kallang Heights from the Sep SBF. Mine's 4-rm though, and yes, it certainly is expensive!

The hob we're eyeing is made of tempered glass, and less than $300 for a three burner model. Well, we would have gotten the Rinnai RB-2CG if we had the cash to spare, but thought that we didn't really need all the fancy features. The Electrolux hoods were really powerful and quiet during the demos compared to other brands, but after reading your horrible experience, I'm thinking of getting the tempered glass model (only the chimney is stainless steel), haha... And we're most likely be getting our appliances from GC, cos the sales rep we're in contact with is trying his best to match the prices of other retailers... As to who would be installing our hood, probably our renovation contractor. The only Electrolux appliance I have now is the Ergorapido. It's really convenient, but in terms of real vacuuming effectiveness, my bulky Rainbow is unbeatable, lol!

Hmm... I was actually considering an Electrolux hood, albeit a cheaper model than what you have purchased. Incidentally, it was after reading your post on hood choice that I decided to consider Electrolux. The demonstration in the showrooms sort of cemented our decision to get an Electrolux hood as well, although we have yet to put down the deposit for it. We are also planning to get an Electrolux hob as the price is pretty reasonable. Anyway, I am sad to hear your experience. I hope that was the trough and things will look up for you from now. But now the question for me is... should I treat your experience as an isolated case or is there a systemic problem with Electrolux products...

Hmm... in your opinion, are the discounts really worth it? I suppose the 70% off applies to display sets mainly... usually I'll buy local just to have peace of mind, but the promotional price comes with a lot of limitations; I just wonder if the discounted price can rival that of buying direct from Germany.

Hope what the sales officer said is true. My customer service manager also mentioned that we should be able to receive our keys within 2 weeks of AHG approval. Mine is at Kallang Heights and I've gotten my AHG letter, but got held back as we had to extend our HLE by submitting a declaration form that our income has not reduced since our HLE approval.

My wife's colleague collected keys for their SBF flat yesterday if I remember correctly. I think their unit is in either Queenstown or Bukit Merah. We're still waiting for HDB to invite us to collect the keys, lol...

Hi Jerome, Could I get a quotation for the following: a. Sink (looking for single bowl stainless steel around 80cm wide) - Bravo 18181 and Kindred KSS5U / QSL2031/8 / QSLA2233/8 or equivalent b. Hob - Fujioh FG792SS and FG792GL - Rinnai RB-2CG, RBG-RN71W5GA1X2-SVL andRBG-S71W5GA13AX-STLM c. Hood - Fujioh FX-900R - Rinnai RG-90ER and RH-997CT d. Refrigerator - Hitachi R-Z481EMS and R-S37SYPS - Panasonic NR-BW414 - Mitsubishi MR-BF43B e. Washing Machine - Electrolux EWF10741 and EWF10751 - LG 1422TD and WD-12390TDP - Samsung WF8692NEC and WF0804W8E f. Fans - KDK V60WK and V56WK g. Dishwasher (any cheap and reasonably good models? Not particular about brand.) Thanks!

My first post... and kudos to your efforts, I actually bothered to post, instead of lurking... lol... I think it's a worthwhile idea, and since I'll have to do my reno early next year, I might give your service a try. I do recall there was a reno project management venture by NTUC called idConnect doggone years ago. I think it has gone the way of the dinosaurs... wanted to use them for my current flat then, but ended up going with a contractor instead. It'd probably be wise to learn why they went belly up and not repeat their mistakes!