autumnwind

Don't change lah, few more years can become antique le! They look so retro! Hehe

Not really...I asked Alan how many projects he has and he just replied he can cope, no worries, no problem...

This may sound dumb...I have been thinking about the "cold" drinks part for a while. Except for once when we went back during lunchtime, don't really know how else to leave cold drinks behind for them. Currently we could only provide them with room temperature drinks...(these days room temperature quite hot too...) So far I have checked their tiling. Being an outsider in the reno industry, don't really know what to check. Haha. Can see some tiles slightly off-aligned but I can live with it lah... Fixing the chandelier sounds fun! Like doing jigsaw puzzle, I like! Have fun!

We tried their braised pork ribs that day and it was only so-so. Read reviews that their assam fish head and salted egg crab/prawn good too! Maybe will try those next time!

Woah! I dunno if we can rise up to the challenge wor... the website seems so interesting!

Yahhor, I didn't notice its presence. Haha. But based on how I scrub the toilet floor with the broomstick type of cleaning brush, I think it's good that the kerb is there to prevent my brush hitting and abusing the bottom of the pipes?? We were quoted $1400 for our 3 room. I think my ID/contractor price not cheap, not steep but still feel heart pain. Haha.

Woah! Wall wood tiles look amazing! I am having this image of a log house for your home. Hee. Hope to see your whole kitchen soon, and the rest of your house with all the interesting tiles!

Your hacking and tiling work will be quite costly but can save from the carpentry. We are doing 40ft of top + bottom cabinets which contribute quite a bit to our reno cost. Boh bian, we need them cuz no storeroom. Good luck for your ID/contractor hunting! Hope you find one within budget and have mo qi with!

Congratulations! We are also doing reno and preparing for AD at the same time, and it is indeed quite stressful! Good that you still have a few months to getting your flat and AD. I can imagine how happy the elders are with the red red flats. Ours have been wanting red here and there too. Like how your house feel warm and cosy from the 3D drawings! I think it'll be exciting to see them materialize from drawings to actual home

I am beginning to appreciate how lucky we are. The workers came down on these two days, both Saturday and Sunday to work. We feel quite bad to give them so little time to work cuz we need to an chuang by next Sunday... Although they are also behind time, as long as they can give us the bedroom for an chuang, they can take their time to do the kitchen. Nice reading your t-blog! Hopefully your reno will be back on track soon!

Not related to renovation but too satisfied and must share! After our trip to the Swedish shop in the far east, my fiance drove down the road of temples to this dark and ulu coffee shop for dinner. Good Year Coffee Shop (15 Tampines Ave) The bak kut teh! The service good and bad. Food served relatively fast, considering how packed the place was. However, they didn't manage to serve our veggie at all. Payment was quite a long wait as the staff trying to use the iPad system for food ordering, order amendments, billing... But regardless of the service, regardless if I will have to sit outside in the hot air again, I WILL RETURN FOR THE BAK KUT TEH! Hahaha. I can't say what exactly made it so nice but I love the richness of the soup, not just plain peppery taste but something more... Apparently other dishes are good too (according to hungrygowhere)

Are you looking for ID/contractor now? What reno works do you plan to do? Good luck k! I think we have quite a bit of luck, can save here and there, especially since government upgrading our toilet/bathroom!

Thanks for your detailed review! I made a reference to your review on my t-blog, think it'll benefit many people!

Went shopping today! Bought lightings for installation next week. Bought six identical ceiling lights for living room (x2), kitchen (x2), bedrooms (x2) and two E27 bulb holders for the toilet and bathroom. Forgot to take photos of our lights! Anyway, to describe them in words, they are round, glass, plain ceiling lights with 32W circular tube. Round because I don't like squares and rectangles. Glass cuz it allows more light through than acrylic plastic ones. We didn't get electronic ballast, just took the traditional magnetic ballast. With magnetic ballast, the light will flicker a bit before switching on fully. However, according to the salesperson, electronic ballast shorter lifespan than magnetic ballast and more expensive (to be fair, by only $10). We think we can live with the short flicker so just took the traditional magnetic ballast. We went to Chan Huat at Balestier Road, didn't see what we like, went on to Jalan Berseh New World Centre. Think the lights there cheaper than Balestier Road. Rectangle glass ceiling lights were $80-$100 range at Balestier Road but two shops at New World Centre selling at $48. We didn't really do extensive comparison cuz quite lazy...just bought cuz cheaper, didn't look for cheapest. For more lighting shop review, I think these two are good! 1) http://www.vincentinteriorblog.com/singapore-interior-shopping-street-balestier-road-part-1/ 2) http://www.renotalk.com/forum/topic/60021-lets-go-punggol/#entry797382

Everything hacked in the bedrooms! The reason for hollow tiles for the entire living room and master bedroom, and no hollow tiles in the first bedroom: I don't know which contractor the previous owners got their tiling but apparently they only prepared the floors in the first bedroom and not the living room and master bedroom. According to my ID/contractor, they are supposed make holes in the ground, chemically treat the floor, then do tiling on top, such that the tiles will be securely laid. However, the living room and master bedroom floors were so smooth!! No wonder the entire flooring was hollow... We are glad that we decided to fork out that extra money to hack them all.

Repeated post.

Updates: Applied for fibre broadband. Courts @ HDB hub quite convenient! All the 3 telcos are there, can just go sign up for telephone/internet/cable TV after HDB appointments. We arranged OpenNet installation and broadband installation on the spot. Bought mattress and bed frame at furniture fair. Money wise, it definitely wasn't a deal. The good thing was that we could try many brands at one go. To caution people going to furniture fairs, be firm about walking away and coming back if you are really interested. Many sales people refused to let us go... Mum recommended the neighbourhood electrical appliances shop from which she bought most electrical stuff from. We went to check price, is indeed cheaper than big name shops. Came back and checked online, realised it's in the list of cheap electrical appliance shop on forum. It's Kong Tai Electrical Trading at Blk 504 Jurong West St 51 #01-221 Singapore 640504. They do delivery island-wide. Can drop by for the west-side people.

Review on IDs/contractors... As mentioned above, we made contact with 13 IDs/contractors. Have decided to keep them anonymous so will just discuss generally what we learned along the way. The profile of these 13 IDs/contractors: some are relatively big ID firms, some are small ID firms, some contractors, some well known on RT, some not mentioned anyway on the internet, some recommended by colleagues... We don't really like... 1) expensive reno. hahaha =P 2) IDs sometimes tend to be more insistent on their "design" and tend not to listen to our preference (as in they will try relatively hard to convince us) 3) some aren't really meticulous...revised quotations were quite disappointing, missing the points we discussed in 2nd meetings. somehow don't feel that we can trust them to do our reno 4) some IDs don't have much technical knowledge or will suggest things that contractors frown at We like... 1) meticulous IDs/contractors - their quote quite comprehensive and detailed 2) IDs/contractors with experience and knowledge to suggest alternatives (especially since we don't know much...) 3) IDs/contractors who dare to provide warranty on their workmanship (though that's not a real guarantee too lah)

We are thinking of revealing at the end, after the reno works are done. Glad the budgeting info helps! I think budgeting is kind of hard, without knowing much about the reno world. Initially we told ourselves to keep everything to the minimal and set $12-15k budget. Now we are looking at $23k... I know what you mean by the 1st ID! I was hopeful and thought we would be able to select an ID/contractor after a few (i.e. < 5) IDs/contractors. We ended up contacting 13!! (We didn't realise that many!) Out of the 13, we met 8 face-to-face. Out of the 13, 3 didn't reply us, 2 gave us very rough quotes, 1 requested for on-site quotation. The reason for us meeting IDs after IDs is cuz of our budget...we did like a few of them along the way but their quotation... I hope you will be luckier than us, that the 2nd ID will be the one for you! If your 1st appointment is still quite some time away, I think the IDs/contractors will take their time to get back to you. That was what happened to us. We started in early March but only signed early May. We had to wait a bit (not unreasonable) for their quotations to find them too ex and had to look for new IDs/contractors, and the cycle went... Your seller doing contra? The process should take a bit of time with all the coordinating and paperwork... can use time to find a good ID/contractor! That's quite a bit of hacking! Your house will sure look very spacious when it's all done!! Big space in small flat. Thanks =) Must be cuz we haven't been very active here. Time really flies! Didn't even notice it has been 3 weeks since our last update.

Yah! Our sellers quite friendly and cute. So we close one eye to small things too lah, and crossed our fingers along the way. We are super lucky with wonderful agent and neighbour too!

Updates for the week! We have not made much progress, still pretty undecided on who to go with for our renovation, and confused about what we should do first / later... Though we are quite excited about the HIP (Home Improvement Programme) too! Just to share, we will be getting the following for free (essential improvements) - repair of spalling concrete/structural cracks - replacement of waste/soil discharge stacks - replacement of pipe sockets with new clothes drying racks (done!) - upgrading of electrical load (optional improvements for our 3-room with 1 toilet and bathroom at $380, govt pays $7220) - upgrading of existing toilet/bathroom, including waterproofing of floors, tiling of floors and walls, and provision of new pedestal pan, wash basin, doors and vents - new decorative door - new metal grille gate - new refuse chute hopper There are 3 choices for each optional improvements. These works will be carried out in 10 working days. Our property agent was very helpful in finding out details of the HIP, when we were deciding whether to purchase this unit. He went down to HDB branch office to enquire if we could still change the option for HIP as the previous owners did not opt for any optional improvements. He also went down to the site office to get more information, including getting the proxy form for us buyers and sellers to sign. He even went round the block undergoing HIP to talk to the neighbours, to find out how it is like living through the 10 days. I think we are blessed to have met our property agent! We are also blessed to be still in time to make changes to the HIP option (can be changed as long as the works have not started). Hopefully these information will be useful to people considering to purchase resale flats that will be affected by HIP in the near future, as we were pretty clueless to what can be done or not and there were not much information available on the net too.

Updates on budget Hopefully the following will be useful to fellow renovators at the budgeting stage! We have received four quotations by now and, yes, we have burst-ed our budget spectacularly. Thought I will put the cost to each category of works as reference to others. Tiling (range $4400 - 7700, average $6000) - hacking of existing floor and wall tiles - hacking of sink and stove concrete support (currently, the kitchen has two concrete support for sink and stove and no cabinets, so dismantling existing kitchen cabinet cost is not included in our quotations) - floor and wall tiling (range: $2.50 - $3.80 psf) - waterproofing - chemical wash - floor protection - disposal of debris and haulage - application of relevant permits Kitchen cabinet (range $5300 - 7100, average $6000) - cabinet base - top & bottom cabinet (incl. stainless steel dish tray) - solid surface worktop - installation of hob & hood - installation of sink & tap - stainless steel piping (cold) Rewiring (range $1600 - 2300, average $2000) Painting for our 3I flat (range $900 - 1400, average $1200) Change of all windows and grilles (range $2000 - 2900, average $2600) Change of two bedroom doors to hollow veneer doors (range $580 - 750, average $700) Kitchen door (sliding / PD) (range $400 - 600, average $500) Replace air con piping (~$900) New hob & hood (~$1200) New sink & tap (~$500) Total cost: $21,600 (and probably ++ along the way) We have seen varying degree of details in the quotations received, so for people looking for details for their budget, probably the best thing would be to make appointments with IDs/contractors and get quotations specific to your needs/wants. As for us, we are still thinking what are our needs and wants, and considering alternatives to some of the works...

Thanks for the heads up! In the end, we busied ourselves with wedding preparations and gave IDs/contractors more time to work on the quotations.

Hi Marwar! The layout is really exactly the same! When are you starting your renovation? What do you plan to do? We are still a bit lost on what works to do...

Our parents may come over occasionally, so should be getting a dining table. But yah, most of the other times should be the two of us only... No problem, please confuse us more! Hee We are thankful for the comments and suggestions, many of which we wouldn't have thought of ourselves. It's better to be confused now than to go ahead with reno and then wonder why we didn't think of alternatives earlier! Yup, we changed our minds again! Now thinking of doing top and bottom cabinets on the left side of the kitchen (stove and sink side), and full height cabinet next to the fridge. I suppose we will focus more on the open space than the looming tall cabinets on the right. The space beside the fridge is only 1.2m (we're hoping to get a side-by-side fridge!), not really enough to put a dining table. Though the idea of horizontal top cabinet is really interesting! And the transformation of the one room flat is amazing!! Good reno can really do wonders to a house! Congratulations! I would say just go ahead and speak to IDs/contractors! We thought we knew what we wanted but how things have changed after speaking to a few IDs and RT forummers! Just call a few shortlisted IDs/contractors up or walk-in a few ID firms to see what they have to offer? As you will only be getting your keys in Aug-Sep, I suppose the IDs/contractors won't reply you fast on quotations, so you can take your time too. After getting quotations, you can have more time going through the list, see what you can fit in your budget. We are getting our keys end of this month, at our first appointment! Our sellers have happily moved to their BTO flat before CNY so they're allowing us to do early reno. *fingers crossed crossed that everything goes well* Update: 3rd working day since speaking to 4 IDs and 1 contractor. Except for one on-the-spot rough quotation, no other quotations came in...perhaps will very gently remind them end of week...? We feeling gan cheong now that it's April! Lol.