bigkev

Go to Sim lim tower third floor. There is a shop that only sells tv mount. their products are also sold at homefix but its much cheaper of course. my advice is if you already have false ceiling installed, then i think its best to go with cantilever. if not ceiling mount is the best option. but if u notice i modified the ceiling mount as it was much longer than what u see now.

Dear fellow renotalkers, Many thanks for all the wonderful reviews on the outcome of our reno. It is indeed a long ardous journey before we see the outcome, which is all worth it. this house contains all the agony, stress, frustration, happiness and peace that all marriages will face. from the intial stages of looking for the ideal place to making the place look exactly how we wanted , all in all it has taken 1 YEAR. all thanks to the bureaucacy of our wonderful "HDB" and its systems, right down to the "effectiveness" of our ID, we must say it has really been a very rocky journey. Anyway its time to enjoy the fruits of success. We would like to thank all fellow renotalkers on sharing their experiences, which allow us to learn from and know how to avoid being taken for a ride. Albeit there are times where we are taken for a ride, and taken as a "robert" too....well we all learn from. Just to answer many questions that have poured in: 1) Glass Walls in MBR Toilet : From my ID's quote it cost $900 . Nonetheless there is a need to include the cost of hacking the wall, sealing up the previous entrance and modifications to the ceiling. we would safely say the total cost would come up to 3k. 2) Balcony Day Bed: It is available at furniture mall, name of shop geminis lifestyle. We manage to negotiate it to quite a low price. We know many seem to comment that the chair costs about 1.5k to 2k. well its less than 1 k to be honest. We are glad to be sharing these wonderful pictures with all of you. in the mean time heres wishing all in advance a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! Lets keep this forum going .....

Con't View of Guest Room View of MBR from Entrance View of MBR Cupboard from Entrance View of MBR Toilet No idea, becos id nvr tell us the price, we just went to pick the tiles. we got it at soon bee huat.

Con't View of Kitchen View of Kitchen 2 View of Storeroom converted into Washing Area View of Balcony Area View of Dinning Area from Balcony

Dear Fellow Renotalkers, We must admit the reno has finally completed. Main Door Entrance - featuring shoe cabinet, bench and partition screen View of Dinning Area and Living Area from Main Entrance View of Living Area View of Dinning Area and Balcony View of Entrance to MBR and Display Shelf in Living Room

the brown one is balcony, typo....hahah

Dear all, its been a while since any photos were put up, reason being, the works and progress are really going at snail speed.... but hey we managed to take some latest photos to share. MBR Toilet Wall tiles Balcony Wall tiles

hi mmycheng, we agree that the stuff there is a little on the pricey side, but i believe on cost matching quality. I have been to POH JOO before, and trust me those things that are sold in PJ are no way comparable to those in Tapzgallery. true PJ may be cheap, but selection limited. I am also not saying that tapzgallery is the best, but the fact is my wife and i did not bother to go shop by shop to match and compare. the time wasted, petrol burned, parking summons and cost, and other what nots, is more or less the price difference. my ID brought us there, and got so called trade discount and these are the stuff we bought: 1) 1 common toilet sink and tap and stainless steel u pipe 2) 1 Mbr toilet sink and tap and stainless steel u pipe 3) 1 common toilet bath set (massage jet shower head) 4) 1 MBR toilet rain shower set 5) 2 water spray head and taps 6) 1 washing machine tap 7) 1 washing area tap valve 8) 1 kitchen sink 9) 1 kitchen sink tap( can extend and withdraw kind) 10) stove and hob (stove is turbo, hob is rinai) 11) 1 oven (turbo) 12) 2 toilet bowls 13) 1 30 litre water heater tank I think all in 3.5k. We feel since we have spent so much on the reno to create a theme, and at the end of the day pick toilet accessories that dont seem to match the design becos they are less costly, does not really make sense. we are not advocating that all forumers do the same, its entirely up to budget constraint (not that we dont have, we are just trying to be practical.) probably looking at the pics posted in here previously, i wud say tapzgallery is selling to a different niche group of customers. those that want nice nice designer looking stuff at a reasonable price. to be honest , i think they are even cheaper than sim siang choon.

well i think all those contractors have a way or 2 to sell u why theirs is the best and why is it worth the money. to me it didnt make any sense hence decided to scrap it.

Ya, its call tapzgallery in balestier

That furniture is known as a setee, but unfortunately we are not doing it because of budget constrains and future reasons. firstly, the wood used to make it shd be quite strong, as humans can sit on the custom made cushion. This kind of setee is similar to those u see at clinics. The opening of the setee can be opened from the top or from the front in the form of sliding doors. Mine was quoted $1350 for a 5 foot long setee. hope that answer your queries.

Dear all, Apologies for not uploading the latest and hottest pics, as firstly the progress of the reno is really taking quite abit of time and we cant possibly take the photos at night (the only time we are free on wkdays). But hey, you guys have privy to the latest pics we took this morning....... Wall tiles of Common Toilet Wall tiles of Common Toilet 2 Wall tiles of Common Toilet 3 Floor tiles of Living Room Floor tiles of Living Room 2 Cont MBR Toilet Wall Tiles MBR Toilet Floor Well thats all that we have folks for the time being!!!

Hi Peacesom, Glad to know that you have gotten your keys and enroute to the next big step of renovating it. For us, having a resort theme was the first thing off our mind, as we are both busy people, but yet does not have enuff money in our pockets to travel to luxurious resorts every weekend to chill..... What we would recommend you to do are these 3 things: 1) What is the best resort you have been to? 2) How would you visualise your resort to be? 3) Compare 1 and 2. The above exercise lets you conceptualize what the house would look lilke. No need to rush into all the details about what each corner of the house needs, all u need is to ask yourself how bright, and cosy u want the house to be. For us, we wanted a light toned coloured house, to go with off white lights, that are easy on the eyes, minus the glares. A resort theme house need not be all woody, and balinese look alike. The beauty of a resort theme house, is the flexibility in it, whereby you can tweak certain aspects of it to suit yourself, not necessarily being a sterotype. Once you are clear of what you want, start researching on certain ideas by going to PAGE ONE at vivocity. Trust us, this place has all the books and pictures u need to browse through for free. We have even seen people carrying digital cameras, taking pictures of every single page of interior design books. We are not advocating on copy right, but hey these are certainly some money you can save on and splurge it in the house of yours. As for the interior designers or contractors recommendation, we must say it all depends on the chemistry you have with them over the chats and discussion. of course first and foremost they can fall within your budget. no point having an ID that say yes to everything of yours and at the end of the day, drops an atomic bomb on you. For us if the ID or contractor is sincere, they would bring you to current projects they have on their end and show you their workmanship. Of course, this is an entitlement and not an obligation. We tend to give more positive points to those ID that does it, just like my current one. We can recommend Fuse Concept (though price abit steep, vincent), Ideal House (ours are not the star studded crew of those mentioned in renotalk, ours are the calefare of Ideal House, but so far so good). So good luck!!!

Many thanks to all the feedback recieved about our hse design. we must say the hotly commented part of our hse is the mbr toilet, which is yeah....pretty open concept. actually, we have been wanting this resort theme for quite a while, we did alot of research on resort like toilets, but to our dismay, to achieve those kind of design effects, a lot of elaborate stuff are needed for the bath room, but hey the bath room aint that big. so to make it look big and relaxed, we decided to tear down all the walls of the toilet and use glass walls instead. this way the whole toilet will look spacious, unobstructed and peace....tranquility when taking shower our own home. of course to adapt to this design one must be really OPEN to the idea. Fortunately we both are. as of today, it is officially the second week of our reno. things are done pretty ok so far, of course there is nothing much to complain about the hacking. The workers have plastered the walls of the kitchen and the washing bay, lay the wall tiles and floor tiles of the common toilet, built the base of the kitchen cabinets, the fridge base. thats all we saw when we vistied the house earlier today. oh yes, and of course the new door frames for the rooms are up as well. will update with more pics when the reno progresses.

Some of the Lights purchased Balcony Lights Kitchen Lights MBR Toilet Lights Common Toilet Lights Drop Down Lights

Some purchases made...... Kitchen Sink Toilet Bowl Common Toilet Sink MBR Toilet Sink Kitchen Sink Tap

Some 3D drawing from Ideal House supporting cast Living Room Shoe Cabinet at Main Entrance Kitchen MBR

Day 2 - Day 4 Living Room Second Bedroom MBR Toilet Second and Third Bedrooms Store room in Kitchen being hacked. To be converted to washing room

The start of RENO...... Day 1 Main Entrance to living room Kitchen MBR Balcony

Well, I should say I did secure an ID way back in March, even before the keys were handed over to us. They are I-deal House. No i did not get their ang pai designers steven and cant remember their other names. I got their supporting crew instead. I was thinking out loud, can i trust the supporting crew??? But of course what matters the most then was, Ideal house was in GST registration transition. Meaning dun have to pay additional GST. That itself can save up a lot of money, rather than give it to govt. Of course other considerations went into place, like whether they can come out with wat we want and such, their service attitude and most importantly price!!!! To be honest, the reason why i signed up with them, its because they even took the trouble to bring me on site to houses that they are currently in the midst of renovating and those that have completed their renovation. It really shows that they have nothing to hide about their teams skills and experience. I was impress with what I have seen, a total of 3 units. I shant disclose the supporting crews name just yet, because the renovation has just started only.......so far i think nothing much to complain about, but more updates tmr....yawnssss.

Ok, the long and short of our house buying journey in chronological order: 1) 2006 - 2007 Took part in countless balloting for WIS and SERS. Qualified only for SERS for ulu ulu sembawang end. But the queue number for us was 442/442 meaning last of the lot. Last one to get to choose a unit. So decided against taking the flat. 2) July 2007 ROM. So now can also consider resale. Really wanted to have a place of our own as planning traditional wedding for 2008. 3) 2007- 2008 Went for countless viewings did not manage to secure any. In the midst of it, being pushed around by irresponsible agents with the aim of securing their fees, and not looking into providing a service. Agents from Oran*e T*e especially. Did not agree to even those that we really like, for eg. massionette and EA, as during this period of time if you recall, the property prices are sky high. The cash above valuation the sellers are asking are cut throat at 70k, 80k, displaying take it or leave it attitude. Lan lan suck thumb, think we open bank meh. Start work only 2 years, where got so much spare cash, at most 20k only after scrimming and saving. 4) Jan 2008 Viewed a flat in north part of singapore. Mid floor, 5I, near MRT, 20 yr old flat. Kind of like it when we stepped into the flat. As the flat encompasses the old design, the whole house in squarish, which means easier to design and decorate the house. Not bad, looking around further, we reckon this is not a bad place after all. After some consideration, or dont know whether is it because we are too tired of looking around even further houses or is it we really liked what we saw, WE AGREED ON THE SPOT TO BUY THE HOUSE. As i think the price involve is of a rather sensitive nature, lets just say the price was pretty ok for a 5I near MRT in the north side of Singapore. Our monthly CPF contribution is more than sufficient to cover the monthly installment. 5) May 2008 The keys were handed over to us. But to back track a little, we started sourcing for IDs and contractors for our place. We went to countless ID firms, exhibitions in EXPO, then so happen I chance upon renotalk, that I thanked my lucky stars. Here is really a one stop info counter on whats good and bad, and whos in and whos out in this industry. Its always best to get the real info from the horses mouth. My edited floor plan which incorporates our intial design layout of the house

Let us start the pics rolling: (1) View of main entrance door and door way (2) Another view of the displays in the living room (3) Dining Room (4) A view of Dining Room and balcony (5) Kitchen These are the general and limited pics we took when we went for viewing back in January 2008. More details in the next post.

Good Day to all loyal patrons of Renotalk.com. Having seen so many reno t-blogs being created, I am tempted to create one here to share my experiences and journey with all. More pics and updates coming right up....

Dear fellow forumers and home owners, anyone used Desprit before? (www.desprit.com) care to give some opinions on them? Thks.