Evi

Hi Kenjo, Thanks for the compliments, although 90% of the furniture choices were by my wife lol If you are talking about the pi table, it is a side table and not a coffee table. They do have a coffee table version though. This is the coffee table version. Its a great piece if you are keen to have a lamp in the centre. The wire can run through the hole and out the bottom, just to make the whole look neater.

Hi hi all. This is the Mrs of Evi. Thank you all for sharing your feedback. Yes, truly we are really hoping to see our home be completed. The hair pulling frustrations we go through everyday, perhaps is what many couples like you folks go through as well in the whole reno process. To confess, I secretly snapped a photo of a young couple, at McD's in consultation with their ID at the next table. Their ID had the whole detailed schedule out, armed with laminate and tile samples. Their ID gave them sound advice and all. Not for anything more other than feeling kind of envious and so shortchanged by our ID, wanted to show Mr Evi what another couple's IDs seems more attentive. I sent the photo to the Mr Evi and said 'look what they got...*envy*'. So sad huh. Having said that, we did meet some really lovely folks at these lovely furniture shops. Where we sat down and discussed about our layout, what works for our lifestyle and budget. Sincere folks who do not judge our sort of shoestring budget. Not inclusive of the snobs who badgered us like 'ah longs' every other day to collect our sofa that we paid in full. Strange how we paid in full and it seemed that we owed them big time or what. The epitome of painful customer experience for this shop-which-has-an-outlet-at-P**k-Mall furniture place. They did not even allow us to inquire about the price 'unless you really wanted to buy it, then we will check' was their response. Like huh??? *_*||| Seriously. Painful lesson learnt: never pay in full until upon collection, as some suppliers can't wait to shake you off once they get their monies. *Sigh~Burries face*. Tomorrow will be a better day..!! =p

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Anyways this is all that was done in the 3 months.

I basicallly followed adidaem's shopping list. That's where all the credit is due. The first shop is Pomelo @ Tan Boon Liat Building The second it Artsy-fact @ Blk 2 Everton Park #01-47

This is my latest acquisition TV console Hopefully when we line all the things together it does not look mismatched.

This is the colour palette for the house.

Happy thoughts happy thoughts......... Here are some other purchase that we bought for the house Coffee Table Dining pendent lights Kitchen light Downlight for study table area

I thought by doing my homework and all the research, it would help prevent such things from happening. What I really dislike hearing was when they mention that ours was a small project, can be done very quickly. But end of the day I see very little done. Now that you mention the rectification part, We have reach a point that we have met the carpentry sub con, just to iron out the details that was summited to them. During that meeting we manage rectify a few things before it entered production. I didn't want to be slap with a stupid V.O because if mistakes in drawing. It presently seems like we are the project management for this reno. I mean we hired an ID to make it easier for us as our work can get quite hectic, and in the end we do so much more that if we had taken the project on our own. Its to a point where I wonder am I hiring you to work for me or the other way round. This industry is brutal man.

Strangely this person is someone i consider a friend. He is great at the design and space planning things but totally irresponsible when it come to the organisational part of the project. I actually felt that 90% of the co-ordination work was done by us, he just did the drawings. We were so worried that we would delay the project from our end by not purchasing the items that need to be installed. We went out to purchase most of those by Oct, but now its all sitting in the store room.

I would have monitored much closer if not for work, but now that it is year end and my work is starting to ease off I'll start going often to watch the progress.

Pmed you.

At this point, we have decided to just go straight a head and contact the Main Contractor, and do most of the communication there. I must say it is almost as if we are managing the project ourselves. We were very meticulous in planning, we even when ahead to do a setup and timeline schedule on our own and also another one to keep track of all the purchase, invoice numbers, size dimensions etc etc..... In the end it all came to nothing as this was all not passed down to the Main contractor. Now presently we are screaming at the main con too, as he also seem to have the same problem as my designer.... He too also have other major project on hand, so the time put aside for this project is more or less minimum. I think it boils down to us never giving them a firm deadline.

The whole shopping experience was not all bad, I had great shopping experience with the two following stores. Purchase from the first store. I Initially bought the Joker picture form the series from www.esty.com from the artist, but the artwork came slightly crushed, so when i saw that they carry more from the series I went ahead to purchase more. Purchase from the second store.

The Deposit was 50%.........

When we pass the cheque to him, we thought by now we were safe to make purchase for the home. How wrong were we. The first thing that we purchased for the house was the Sofa, initially we wanted to have our house have the mid modern century look with a touch of quirky. But the moment I decided on the sofa we knew that it was not going that direction anymore. When we bought this piece it was the last piece and on a discount, I think that was why it feels a bit impulsive now and also a pain. When we purchase this piece the Mrs was pretty put off by the staff, so that got off to a rough relation with the store. Because it was a last piece and at that point they were selling it on a discount to create more space for new stock, they were not keen to hold it too long for us. We asked that they hold the piece till end November. As we were told that the reno should have tailed off by then Now its December and the reno is still at a snails pace. They started calling us to enquire when will we be taking the piece from the start of November. With all the problems that we were facing on the Reno end this just compounds all the problem. In the end we decide to send the piece over to my present place to hold on to it till the reno end is ready, we just have to fork out unnecessary money to get it move to the home when its ready. We also purchase this table from them, expected date was suppose to be in December but now it is also on the way to my present home.

The Problem started the moment we met our designer to pass him the cheque for the downpayment. He had to travel for work over the week and he failed to mention that to us. We waited till the end of the week to enquire about when we will be able to see the layout and detail drawings. Only then we found out that he was overseas..... That was just the tip of the Iceberg. Over the whole process there was a lot of miscommunication and misinterpretations. Either between him and his main contractor or him and us. We took 1 month plus just to hack the whole house. The first time was due to him not giving the contractor the latest floor plan. The contractor end up hacking a wrong wall. In the end we just left that wall there and decide that we are going to build a shelf over the wall that was hacked Second time it was due to vague instructions. We wanted to have a Glass panel on the second room the create a store front feel and to open up the space. In the end we end up with what was sort of a second door..... here is a picture of what we sort of inspired to do, and what was the result of miscommunication. It was due to the his instruction that the end point had to meet the actual window in the room. The third time that we had to hack was when we finally met up with the main contractor and did a walk through on site. We asked the question when will the kitchen tile be changed to match the ones in the living room. He said it was not mentioned to him. By this time it was about almost 5 weeks since we gave the cheque.

Here are some picture of the house in its original state, but I guess there are enough breezer here that the community is pretty familiar with it.

Here is the layout and the proposed layout.

Hi All, Just a quick intro to my experience for my home reno which is on going. I have been reading up on the home reno once my partner and I finally decide that we have saved enough to fulfil our idea reno. We actually got the key to our home all the way back in February, but because of circumstances we held back doing up the place. When it came down to our selection of ID, thinking back I felt we never did enough research, should have started earlier. We basically went through these ID. 1) D*sig*R*B*rt* This company was a friend's husband, great experience they were engaging, practical and also creative. They had good space planning and practical advise. (some of the present space planning was from this discussion with them) The main reason that we decided to drop them was all down to cost, if not for the cost they would have been my preferred choice. 2) Freelancer This was a former school mate, since she majored in interior design and was a pretty close friend we decided to seek her for our ID. After a few meeting with her, my partner felt that her designs were not really what we are looking for, and she was a pretty insistence on some of her design. No matter what we did incorporate an idea from her previous work. 3) Thr**DCo*c*ptw*rk* We saw their site and love some of their portfolio but We made an enquiry and they took forever to reply. When they finally did reply we have already selected our designer. 4) Proj**tF*l* Again we saw their website and they seem to have the looks that we were looking for for our reno, all in all they seem pretty uppity when we spoken to them on our budget, they did say they will arrange another meeting with us to show us they draft drawing, that was back in July - August haven't hear from then since. *shrug* owell...... 5) Archit*l*gy This just happens to be near my present home and we drop by to take a look at their furniture, somehow in the store I bum into an acquaintance who happens to be the part owner of the place. So that conversation led to us taking a look at their portfolio, what turned us of was that he mention that they do not take any job that is less than 60grand.......without furnishing and fixtures. 6) Mr K We manage to get his contact from theitsybits (Thanks a lot) Over all we would have engage him but we were insecure with our own ability to design the space, especially lighting plan. Presently looking back, I would have totally went with him just on project management alone. sigh~ 7) This is the person that we engage. He is our ex lecturer from our school, although he was our photography lecturer he now also freelances as a interior designer, this is on top of his other many facets. Part of the reason that we decide to take him was that that he was able to meet our price point with some extra things included. Problem now is that he has so things on his plate that our home reno seems like the smallest project and he travels quite often so its difficult to get hold of him. Anyways through the whole process I took a lot of inspiration, leads and advise from this forum.

Hi, I was just wondering since you did so much research into looking for fans, might you know were to get this? Air fan by Boffi

Hi Itsybits, May I enquire whether it is convenient for me to get your contactor's contact? Thanks!

Just curious, how does your present study area look like?