infatuation1527

Actually, I'm not exactly sure if this is called scandinavian. I just plonked every photo that hubby and I liked in (and hope that it fuses nicely together). So I sourced Pinterest a lot to get pictures and I realised that it's also helpful to save some of them to show the contractor what some of your ideas look like in real life. So this is our mood board (from Pinterest): The price of my quotation increased a great lot because of our hacked bedroom 3. To achieve this look, Mr K suggested the use of tempered glass with metal frames. I did not like the thick aluminium frames and insisted that the "black lines" must be slim. The price of using metal frames with tempered glass is 3 times that of aluminium frames with normal glass. We will be overlaying our entire toilet and I had a hard time looking for my "dream toilet". I sourced high and low and this is the closest to hubby's and my liking. Anyone has better suggestions of how to overlay the toilets? Oh yes, I'm a total fan of floor standing basins so this is a must! No vanity because hubby and I feel that if water leaks, the cabinet is gone. We were pondering hard whether to get a white + wood kitchen or a black + wood kitchen. In the end, we decided to have an iQuartz white counter top with wooden cabinets. I have heard stories about black countertops - how water stains will be more visible. And white countertops - how curry stained on it will cause a permanent yellow stain. So I'm really lost! Any kind souls can advise on this? No KompacPlus because hubby and I (or maybe just I) don't exactly trust it. Purchase of Furniture and Appliances We did some research at Harvey Norman, Best Denki, Courts, Gain City and finally found the the prices at Gain City were the best among all. In addition, their air-con installation has been widely raved about too. Hubby like the idea of purchasing everything possible at one place so we also bought the following for our house: Hitachi Made in Japan Refrigerator R-F6200S $3,750 Bosch Induction Hob PPI82560MS $1,399 Bosch Chimney Hood DWB097E50B $1,099 Bosch Serie 8 Compact Oven CSG656RS1 $2,920 Bosch Washer WAW32640EU $1,730 As you may have noticed, we bought many Bosch items.. probably because I like this brand Oh and please look for Devon at Gain City Sungei Kadut if you are purchasing your items there. He's very knowledgeable about all Bosch stuff. I recall we went down twice (the first time without purchasing anything and he was patiently explaining the functions and differences of each oven). The second time we went, he still explained everything again because we told him that we were still undecided. And because we bought quite a number of Bosch items at a go, they were able to offer bundle discounts. The refrigerator is crazy I know, but hubby and I just cannot resist the look and feel of it. And according to the sales person at Gain City, it keeps food fresher for a longer period of time? Purchase of Sanitary Fittings I did some research on where to purchase floor standing basins because most places sold vanity kind of basins. I finally found this place called Universal Union at Geylang. The aunty who served us was quite lost to be honest (she did not know that the Vento Fino fan existed). Anyway, she assured us that the price was the best and we told her we will come back if we cannot find a lower price outside. As we were about to go to Hoe Kee, we saw Heritage Bathroom just beside Universal Union and decided to take a look since they sold lights too. We were served by this chap known as Ah Lim. Prices stated were not the final prices and Ah Lim gave us discount on almost everything. We purchased our Made in Thailand Grohe items and our KDK fans from them in the end because their prices were lower than Universal Union. We were quite sad to find out that Hoe Kee is the sole reseller for Blanco sinks so we had no choice but to go there. My forum readings told me that Hoe Kee at Tanjong Katong had the best service. Heritage only carries Carysil sinks. They are also granite sinks but unlike Blanco which is 100% granite and made in Germany, I think Carysil is only 75% and made somewhere else. Anyway, we also purchased our Grohe faucet at $140 each and shower head and mixers at $150 each. We chose the Made in Thailand ones as the Made in Germany ones were like $400 each. We did consider insani24.de and Amazon.de but the hubby prefers seeing the actual thing before purchasing it. We purchase our Blanco sink from Hoe Kee Genting Road (because that's where my friend bought her stuff and it was quite a huge warehouse). Indeed, when we arrived on a Sunday afternoon, it was crowded! Hubby wanted the biggest Blanco sink so we went for the 86cm Naya 8 Silgranit Sink which cost us $688. The lady did not want to give us any discount because we only bought one item. Their Blanco (commercial-style) faucet was $2,300 before discount so we did not get that. It looks like this: So how? We turned to Amazon.com and got a Kraus KPF-1640SS instead. Costs us SGD $398.03 including shipping. Order was placed on Jul 8 and it was shipped on Jul 13! Can't wait for it to arrive. Looks almost the same right? Kraus sinks are also highly raved apart from Blanco sinks. So I thought their faucet should be not bad too. Kraus is not sold in Singapore and I've read that their stainless steel sinks are quite good too. One way to shop easily on Amazon.com is to filter the items by "eligible for international shipping" and "sold by Amazon" as this would entitle you to get free global shipping if your order is above USD 125. Taobao purchases When we ordered our lights from Heritage, I got a hunch that Taobao may be cheaper so I just went online to check if they have the dining lights that I wanted. True enough, there is! Link to dining lights: 北欧餐厅LED灯具饭厅餐桌灯客厅办公室书房吊灯 简约现代日式吊灯 The one that we wanted was Type E. Heritage was selling it at $150 (after discount) each! And on taobao here it is only RMB 48 which works out to be about less than SGD 20?! As we only paid a deposit for the items at Heritage, we told Ah Lim that we would like to cancel the lights and just go with the KDK fans. Talking about fans, I have contemplated buying them in JB as it is so much cheaper. And my Vento Fino fan I think over there in JB the price is 1/3 that of SG. But, hubby and I do not own a car and we did not want to trouble any friends. So we have decided to just purchase everything in Singapore. We also bought this 现代简约led吸顶灯圆形卧室灯客厅灯书房餐厅走廊过道灯阳台灯具 for our toilet which is half the price of that sold in Heritage (looks exactly like it): Purchase of Furniture For our sofa and dining table, we did some research and couldn't afford Grafunkt or other atas furniture places so we settled for Star Living! Prices are not as cheap as fortytwo.sg or hipvan, but cheaper than Castlery! We also like to have a feel of the items before we make any purchase so their showroom at Labrador Park MRT fits the bill. The sales person was normal, not pushy nor very friendly. We bought our Dory sofa and dining table and chairs there. Dory 3-seater sofa - $790 (there was a bundle deal for 3+2 seater @ $1,190) 1.5m Striell Dining table with additional tempered glass - $499 + $120 (glass) Vest dining chairs - $59 each (we bought 2 of each colour) Perhaps our mattress purchase was my biggest regret so far. A month ago, I chanced upon the furniture fair at expo. I thought that prices at expo cannot be higher than anywhere else. We were quite set on getting a Simmons so we immediately zoomed to the brand at the fair. Well, the sales person was quite knowledgeable and so we bought a BeautyRest @ $3,350 inclusive of a bed frame which we could select from their warehouse / office at Kaki Bukit. Upon placing the deposit of $1,350, I realised that they were merely an authorised dealer of Simmons mattress (Sleep Savvy) and to my horror, I searched for reviews online and saw stuff that wasn't very pleasant. Let's keep our fingers crossed that I get my mattress in the end. I always liked purchasing items from the brand itself, so excited homeowners, please do not make the same mistake as I did. Sometimes, a little patience and less kan chiong-ness helps.

Hi @matchalatte! Having lurked around reno talk for quite some time, indeed many have commented that Mr K's quotation is always on the higher side for a contractor. I just cross my fingers and hope that what I pay is what I get. For our quotation, he lumped the counter top, kitchen cabinets and tall unit into one lump sum. He also packed the plumbing works like the installation of sinks and bathroom accessories in a lump sum. Have you started your reno? Who did you go with in the end?

Like many others, I have been getting ideas from fellow renotalkers for our home. After 4.5 years of wait, we finally got our keys to our 4-rm BTO! As you can see from the floor plan, our bomb shelter is in the kitchen And these are some pictures of the rest of our "kosong" house as we did not opt for any flooring, doors or sanitary fittings. We did not have any wash basins in the toilets as well. So basically, we only had kitchen floor and wall tiles and a toilet bowl in each toilet! And so because we waited for 4.5 years, upon our collection of keys, we went straight in to roll all the pineapple, sprinkle rice at 4 corners, etc. I am not that superstitious, but the hubby wanted to follow the rules and whatnot so I complied. We did our defect checking on the very same day and I must say that we were lucky to not have that many defects. These were the few things which we spotted: - cracked wall along the entrance to the master toilet - stained / cracked tile (only 1 in the entire house) - hollow "openings" below the windows - scratches on main door and metal parts of windows We submitted the defect list the following day and we were told it would take 14-16 days for rectification to complete. To our surprise, it was all done after 1 week! ID and contractor selection As I was constantly excited about our house, our search for an ID began about 1 year before our key collection as I always heard that the TOP will be a year earlier (in fact, it wasn't). We were rather naive and gullible then and went to meet almost 10 IDs who gave us quotations just with the floor plan. By the way, we relied on q a n v a s t heavily during our search for an ID as we wanted to have a look at their past projects before meeting them. Sky Creation I forgot his name but we went to his office twice to discuss about the things that we wanted. He wasn't very pushy, but he still wanted to talk us into placing a deposit on the 2nd meeting. We wanted to look around so we turned him down politely. Fortunately, we didn't place any deposit as we have heard quite horrendous reviews about them over the 1 year. M3 Studio This lady was very frank (too frank actually). She did suggest some ideas and drew what we articulated quite well on a piece of blank paper. She also suggested quite a few ideas which other IDs did not managed to. It got quite uncomfortable when we told her that we haven't gotten our keys and she went like "I know you definitely won't come back if you leave now. It's ok, it's your choice ultimately." Starry Homestead Again I forgot his name, but he looked very decent (and totally like a salesman more than an ID) and discussed some ideas with us. We were at their office which had a showroom so the discussion went on and it was time to leave. He did not press us to place any deposit and told us to think it over before getting in touch again. However, after turning him down, he contacted the hubby several times and asked "so how?" many times until he finally gave up after 1-2 months? Lux Design We got to know them through q a n v a s t. We liked some of their works shown. I think they are contractors turned IDs because they have their own carpentry factory. Our meet up was always with the two of them because one was an apprentice. We did not take them up as we did not feel comfortable letting an inexperienced apprentice take over the design of our house. Also, most ideas were from us and they just said "ok". Chapter One Design After reading positive reviews about them on renotalk. We had a pleasant meet up with Fadhil. However, somehow Jonathan was roped in and the project became quite "grey" as we did not know exactly who was in charge of designing our home. Fadhil is a very nice guy and his ideas were also in line with ours. He also wasn't pushy and checked back with us even after 6 months! The hubby really wanted to sign with them, but I stopped him because I was so engrossed in reading all the renotalk tblogs and came to know of a few popular contractors. Contractors J & E I texted Edmund on the very day we collected our keys. Perhaps it was my fault to text him at 10.15pm so I did not receive a reply. The next morning, I texted him again with a "hello?" and he finally replied and we met the following week at our "kosong" house. As we communicated our ideas to him, he was constantly busy answering calls. I sort of expected this but still, I appreciate the fact that he was still trying his best to listen to our needs and wants. He jotted down briefly in his notebook and drew some rough drawings in it. The quotation came 3 days later as promised and we were quite disappointed to see that it was on par with an ID quotation. However, the hubby reminded me that at least this was an accurate quotation as compared to IDs who relied on floor plans to quote us. I told him to let me have some time to look through the quote and I'll get back to him next week. It has been 2 weeks and I never got back - and he never did as well. Although we have heard great reviews on their workmanship, the hubby and I were just not comfortable to engage someone who was constantly busy and unable to attend to us. Contractor K from h2o Interior Another renowned contractor is Mr K from renotalk. I texted him on the same morning I texted Edmund "hello?" and he replied almost immediately! I thought that his reply was fast because he was excited that he would be getting another project to work on. However, throughout our 2 weeks of communication, his replies have been quite fast. Even when I was upset about an increase in price in the quotation (also because hubby and I kept changing our ideas), he called me immediately to explain the reasons and that he doesn't mark up prices for no reason. I calmed down and listened (the hubby also talked some sense into me) and everything was back to normal. We changed our quotation a total of 5 times within 2 weeks! Even with so much going on, Mr K never once mentioned about taking any payment from us. Oh yes, he came down to our house twice because we needed to clarify some stuff. It was hard to fix a date to sign the contract as he is also very very busy! Weekends were out so we are going to sign the contract with him the week after next and choose our tiles and laminates for the cabinets and wardrobe on the same day. With no payment collected from us yet, Mr K has passed us 3 forms to fill up (installation of service yard windows, hacking of walls, commencement of reno) which we have since passed it back to him. He has submitted those forms to HDB which means that reno may commence very soon once we select our tiles at Hafary! In my next post, I shall share the things that we have bought thus far from Amazon and local stores as well as Taobao. Oh yes, and my mood board

Could anyone kindly share boon's contact please? Thank you...

Hi there, could you share your contractor's contact please? xiao_evil_13@hotmail.com

Hi, could you send me your contractor's contact please? xiao_evil_13@hotmail.com