We engaged Home Success as our renovator recently. At first we were very impressed with my ID because he is very sincere and creative with his ideas on how to solve some of the layout issues. We can see that he has spent a lot of effort to overcome the small bedroom and awkward living room layout. We were impressed with the number and quality of solutions that he came out with and that he was able to sketch on the spot to help us to visualize. So even though his pricing was not very competitive, we decided to sign up with Home Success. However, once the renovation started, we encountered a lot of problems. Firstly, the ID was quite busy so he asked his colleagues to do most of the paper work. They screwed up the renovation permit, applying 2 weeks later than we had agreed on. There was little supervision on the contractors' work. We have personally drawn out the layout of our marble flooring but it was not communicated to the tilers properly. End result was the grouting was not in-line with the corridor. The most unacceptable is the workmanship of their cabinet. The laminates are horribly done. Jagged lines at all corners with superglue sticking out. We have complained many times and even supervised the contractor when he was doing but there is no use. The workmanship is simply horrible. When i was in their balestier office, I was already skeptical of their workmanship. I raised my concern many times to my ID asking if the quality of the workmanship will be as bad as the showroom. He said not to worry, he will ensure that the quality of his work will be good. But alas, it's even much worse than expected. We have no choice but to live with the horrible cabinet works. The project also dragged for a long long time. We did not specify an end date in the contractor but it was generally agreed to be done in 2 months time. But it just dragged on. It has been 3 months and 1 week and it's still not completed. We have been chasing but every time there is always some problems like permit not approved yet, contractor is sick or contractor does not know our house lock number??! There are still some good things about them. Like, the ID was willing to waive for us extra labor fees for the marble flooring labor for marble is much higher than homogeneous or ceramic flooring. He was also willing to throw in extra glass backing for our kitchen for aesthetic reasons. We are just very disappointed with the workmanship and project management. We are planning to set up a renovation blog. It'll take a long time to be complete. You can check it out at: plainwhitehouse.wordpress.com Lastly, I would like to recommend my flooring guy at this thread. I engaged a separate contractor for my parquet flooring. The quality of the work is fabulous. I simply love the finishing and workmanship. The company is called Kingston Sunrise (http://kingstonsunrise.com/teak.php) The website may seem a bit dubious. We found the contact through HDB building services. The pricing is good for parquet flooring. For the same price that we paid, we could have only gotten smaller strips (6 inches) at wood culture. But we managed to get much longer varying length strips, which looks more modern and grand. It's a one man show company, but it also mean that we have a very personalized service. He personally brought us around to show and recommend different types of marble flooring. We managed to source for our marble flooring from the supplier directly, thanks to him. The only hiccup was that he had to raise the price of the parquet just before the renovation because of the increase in price of parquet from Burma. At first we were skeptical but the price was still reasonable so we decided to still go for it. Conclusion, the quality and service that we received is excellent!
