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Introduction Hello everyone, been lurking around this forum for 2months to get a better idea on renovating my new home. TBH, I am a 1st time owner and have little to no knowledge on how to go about it, esp on a tight budget until I came here to read up. *Thanks all bros / sis for sharing!* Anyway, we have finally gotten our keys around end of August, thankfully, my flat is not 'bestowed' with tons of defects. Before getting my keys, have read a lot of bad reviews online for HDB optional component scheme and alas! I had opt for all the options. For 3 years, not sure if my decision to get OCS scheme was right and keep worrying that HDB might get me a lousy quality flat. Luckily, so far so good, only submitted 2 lines of defect, main door + 1 light switch. Others are checked by my I.D, he said, one of the best new flat he had inspected. (Some were no-eye see) Just pray a few years down the road, no funny tiles popping or such happen. *touchwood* Here's my floor plan, as my topic suggest, it is itsy bitsy teeny weeny ! But my wife and I are contended. It should serve our small family of 3 well I laid the structure of my furnishing on the floor plan, it is not drawn to scale cause I drew it myself on the paint app and my art is bad. Would like to share the journey of my renovation to all future flat owners on a tight budget and hopefully to learn something from the experienced ones as well. I.D sourcing with a 18k budget Most of the decent designs (even 3-room) which I saw online, cost around 40k+ without any furnishing, that reminds me why there are so little 3-room portfolio design around. I mean... if you are someone who can afford a $40k+ renovation, you probably have opt for a 4 or 5 room, make sense isn't it? lol Well.. many friends & relatives are aware that we are getting our new flat soon so they cannot wait to share their recommended I.D/contractors to us. With these contacts, we have met up with quite a number of them. I do not want to mention the I.D(s) which I did not shortlist. But one of the main reason is that they cannot work within my budget well even though they said they had tried their best. Most that I met up with are with positive attitudes though and I appreciate that, probably had my wallet to be blamed. So finally, I had decided to go with my friend's relative whom they themselves and a couple of our cliques had engaged him before with positive feedback. He offered me some advice to do away un-necessary wants, and focus on my needs such as excluding shower screen in my already usable toilet and common room wardrobe since my baby is still small. So we redirect the budget to my MBR which he proposed as it is our resting corner and we should make it as comfortable as possible. In general, we skipped all the costly stuff for living room like L-box false ceiling, cove lights / down-lights etc which will also incur more cost on your electrical works. Electrical works can be a killer for my pocket so I try not to install additional points. Squeeze budget! Final quotation Hacking works1 Haulage & debris removal Masonry Works 1 Supply labour to construct kitchen base Plumbing Works 1 Extend piping for kitchen & washing machine 2 Labour to install kitchen sink 3 Labour to install connect storage heater 4 Run & connect all inlet and outlet pipe Kitchen 1 Fabricate & install 11' bottom kitchen cabinet laminate finish 2 Fabricate & install 8' TOP kitchen cabinet laminate finish 3 Supply & install 11' solid surface worktop 4 Fabricate & install Full height Cabinet for oven 5 Supply &install 2x 11' tempered glass backing 5mm Living room 1 Fabricate & install 8' L full height shoe cabinet Master bedroom 1 Fabricate & install platform bed in selected laminate finished with drawer 2 Fabricate & install simple bed headboard 3 Tv feature wall & Ledge 4 Install false ceiling as proposed + 5 light point + 4 led light fitting + 2 T5 light 5 Fabricate & install casement wardrobe 6' L full height Painting works 1 Labour & material to paint whole house ICI / Nippon paint emulsion 5 colours Miscellaneous 1 Provide general washing upon completion 2 Provide floor protection with corrugated paper roll OPTIONAL (Included) 1 Fabricate & install 5' TV console & half height feature-wall with T5 lighting 2 Supply & install aluminum powder coated window grille for kitchen, living, 2 bedroom & service yard - Middle portion only 3 Supply & install sliding window at service yard Total $ 17,290.00 ALL CARPENTRY WORKS BASED ON SELECTED LAMINATED FINISHED C/W SOFT CLOSING & ABS TRIMMING INTERNAL WHITE PVC FINISHES unless otherwise stated Quotation still yet to include electrical / lighting installation works. Update 8th Nov (handover date) Electrical bill adds up to $860,thus totaling my renovation cost to $18,150

Hi Guys! I've been lurking on this forum for quite a while now. I didn't think that key collection would come so fast, but it has!! HDB just messaged me today to collect keys on the 3rd! We got a 3 room unit BTO.. So our design will be pretty different, because we prefer bohemian designs but at the same time I can't take too many rugs because of the dust. We have already met up with a few IDs.. surprisingly contractors are very hard for me to come by lol. I'll do a write up on the IDs later, but I'll probably only give full details at the end of the whole renovation. So this is what we plan to do: 1.) Vinyl Flooring (any good brands to recommend that is not so ex?) :) I'm pretty fussy about the brand of vinyl because I think that a lot of them have a lot of unknown chemicals in them that can be bad in the long run. 2.) Platform bed with storage in the master room. Now the thing with platform beds is that if you get it without storage, you can get it laid with vinyl, but if you get it with storage it will be laid with laminate (those they use on the cabinets not on the floor) .. haha. So I think the storage-less will last longer maybe.. but then no point ah.. the house is so small, plus my fiancee has A LOT OF STUFF. In our case its really reverse.. he has A LOT OF things and I don't have much. hahaha. so you won't see me saying "walk in wardrobe for a lot of my clothes or need a lot of storage for shoes" #stereotypes. 3.) Pole system wardrobe with sliding doors. I don't see that many posts on pole wardrobes here. But what do you guys think? supposedly its more flexible and configurations can be changed more easily. 3.) Ventilation fan in the bathroom. Do you guys think this is useful? lol 4.) Tic Tac mirror door extending along the DB box. 5.) the usual for kitchen, but I will be doing some open shelves instead of top cabinets on both sides. I plan to write some stuff maybe later tonight. Until the next post.. ;) Stay Creative and Hopeful !

Hi all I have been quietly collecting data, (like a squirrel!) and learning everything there is to know about renovation from this forum for the past 6 months. Never knew what is kompac-huh? until now, plus there are so many different types of flooring, each week a new type appeared and it's back to good old Google for more research. And dun get me started on those wall tiles selection, there are like a hundred choices out there! Anyway, since I have a tighter than a bark on tree budget, I will have to scale down a lot of stuff and even make-do with whatever existing there is. So finally, I collected my house keys and now I can start on this exciting (really?) journey to renovate my bachelor pad. It is a 3 room HDB 30 plus years old resale and here is the floorplan. Do-able for 20k? I hope so.

Hello everybody! I have been secretly reading this since I have applied for my SBF and now that my key collection is happening soon, I'm really nervous about it! I am intending to handle the design and reno on my own by engaging a contractor my friend intro to me but I am still kinda lost about the procedures and stuff like that. Hoping to get some inputs and ideas and also to document this journey down since I realised that this is the best part about getting a place of my own and I will miss this phase once it's over! For a start, here's my floor plan! Do feel free to interact fellow tbloggers

Hi, I got quoted the following for my 3 room HDB renovation, to summarize:Design (include 3D, Warranty, application for permit): $500Chemical Wash: $200Painting (whole house): $1000Hacking (2 bedroom and storeroom): $1700Lay homogenous tiles (2 bedroom): $3500Vinyl flooring for hacked storeroom floor: $600Sliding door for kitchen (Aluminum+glass): $2900Electrical works (whole house): $2400Total: $12800, around 13k.Is this quotation reasonable? I noticed the sliding door seems quite expensive (to be fair it is spanning the entire kitchen width, it is quite a big door).Thanks for your expert advice!

Thanks to renotalk forum people and many bloggers to have posted their renovation adventure online, i have learnt so much over the past year and i would like to share my experience with you as i go along. Currently my unit is under going retification works since 5th may as there are alot to be done.. My theme is modern scandinavian theme.

Hi there, Could anyone explain to me how air-conditioning installation works for HDB? I'm waiting for my BTO T.O.P in 2018/2019 and I have no clue about the requirements for HDB regarding the air-conditioning. I want a really cold aircon but I know that there are some restrictions to installing certain air-conditioners in HDB. I'm considering on a total of 2 condensers and 3 air-con units in my flat, anyone can help? xx Sarah

Today is considered the first week of renovation. ID said they will start hacking the floor.

Hi all, I will be getting a 3room bto(floorplan attached below) soon and having look through quite a few websites, it does not really suits my needs. 1. For the kitchen(i think it will be a 2 side), is there that only comes with the kitchen cabinet set preferably with sink, hood and hob. 2..As for the toilet, i would like to install only hard tempered glass doors for both bathroom. Any suggestions to the listed?? Thank you very much in advance.