AmberRose

Contractor / ID Selection: 1) Mr K Seemed more like a contractor to us and quote came out too expensive. Some of the items quoted are even doubled of other ID's price. 2) Ms A from E** Direct Carpentry Had a good sit down discussion for 2 hours on Saturday and was looking forward to a quote she promised to come by Wednesday. But the wait dragged on to 2 weeks instead and despite 2-3 calls of chasing for a quote, it never came. 3) Mr Ng Contractor Recommended by someone in our HDB FB page. Friendly typical contractor uncle but price was on the high side too. Quotation did not state itemised pricing but rather one full lump sum at the end of the quote. Somehow he gave us the impression that the prices are jacked up much higher so to prepare to give us a "discount" when requested. 4) ID Thomas from L***** A** Recommended by someone in our HDB FB page again. Sounded pleasant and sincere over the phone prior to meet up but sad to say, his smoker's breathe was too much to handle. Had to end discussion within half an hour. 5) ID Jesper from Arc Define Recommended by hubby's colleague this time. Was impressed with his previous project works and ideas he presented to us. Quote came in on time as promised and was within our budget too. 6) ID "LVH" Recommended by another 2 of hubby's colleagues. They were very pleased with the delivery of their services, ideas given, efficiency and response to queries. One of them was impressed that even after 1-2 months of handover, they still came over a few days later to rectify a problem that was raised to them. Good after-sales service checked. Quote that came in was also on time and also within our budget. We eventually chose LVH over Jesper as we feel that we are able to communicate with him better even though both their prices are comparable. We like the fact that LVH takes alot of initiative on reno details (as what we have seen in hubby's colleague's house) as well as good service attitude and responsibility. Lastly, the price quoted by ID LVH includes Internal coloured PVC Laminates for all our built-in carpentry which I think is a really good deal.

Hi All, we have just collected our keys in January 2015 after a good 3.5 years wait. Our search for a suitable contractor/ID started only after keys collection since we are currently staying with our in-laws and had no urgency to move. Also, we did not feel comfortable committing ourselves to any reno contracts prior to viewing the real thing as house planning/designs are subjected to frequent changes that may affect the end quotation. We came up with an initial home layout plan (below) which focuses alot on functionality, easy maintenance and something to suit the flow of our daily lifestyle. Given that we will not be engaging any part/full time helpers in the meantime and thus the weekly cleaning/maintenance/chores is left entirely up to the both of us, we came up with a few things that we agreed on to have and not to have so to lighten our cleaning workload: "Ban" List1) No cove lights (reduce the chances of having lizards/insects making their home in there)2) No track lights ( Hate looking up and seeing cobwebs shone forming along the track)3) No Curtains4) Not having too many display shelves = lesser cleaning Needs:1) Darker Coloured tiles(My previous place uses light-coloured reflective homogenous tiles which made hairfall and dirt all so visible. Even with shoulder length hair, I still had to sweep the floor every 2 days if not, strands of long, short and whetever kindda hair can be seen everywhere. Very sore to the eyes. Mopping is also another problem especially when mop is not wringed sufficiently and watermarks are left to dry on its own. An entire trail of white dots can be seen reflected back at me. **** sian when the floor looks even dirtier after mopping. 2) Sufficient Kitchen WorkspaceLearnt this from a fellow renotalker. I figured it will make good sense to have sufficient tablespace, especially beside the sink, for my electric waterflask which have to be replenished daily, my rice cooker and blender and still have some space left for food preparation. Which explains why we chose to have our hob and hood on the other side of our kitchen instead of side by side. 3) Sink DrainerAwesome invention for wetworks during meal prep and air-drying of large pots without having water dripping onto kitchen top. 4) Toilet Vanity Cabinets for extra storage space of toiletress thus "free-ing" the space in the bomb shelter for other stuff. 5) Blinds. Easier to maintain and it reduce the chances of having lizards hiding behind all those cloth and cleaning up lizard **** too. ( By now, it should be pretty obvious I have zero tolerance for insects and pesky lizards =D) 6) Big Shoe Cabinet /More Storage Compartments 7) Full Solid Room DoorsWe decided to go for full solid doors instead of opting in for HDB semi solid doors. A full solid door feels sturdier and most importantly, given that I am a light sleeper, a full solid helps to greatly reduce any outside noise when closed. That said, it also help to block out any conversations we have in the room when we have visitors or kids in the future.