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Hihi, I am H - the husband... M is my wife... and so we are "H&M" (we are not that well known swedish retail clothing company). Warm - Our home is really very warm!! Or should I used "HOT" instead.. Haha... No wind at all despite that our living room is not block at the moment. ...view from our living room... Time seems fast forwarded once we got our keys. But before that, it was a looooong looooong....... 5 years wait! Every BTO seems building faster than our project. We are starting this blog to detail our reno journey for our first home ~ A tiny 83sqm HDB BTO 4 room flat before it's gone without us noticing it. ...our floor plan... cheers, H

Hi all, finally decided to start a blog here to share my reno journey of my old resell 4 rooms HDB. After paying rent for over 7 years I am super excited I can finally have a place for my own, can't wait to collect my key this Friday. So now is time to look for ID (I know I should have start early, but I only know that I can do that way before I got my key this week TT), this are the ID I shortlisted, really hope will find one that I really can work with. 1. Artis Room 2. Eighty Two 3. Space Factor 4. The Design Practice 5. Box ID Studio 6. three-d conceptwerke Anyone of you work with them before? Feel free to comment and give suggestion, look forward for all of your input.

Hi all! This home is called the contentment home as we are happy with where we are at right now. Regarding the theme of the home, it is ''You like, can already''. Hahaha, initially we were fussing about what theme we wanted in the home. We bounced between a Nordic-Scandinavian theme to a resort feeling theme to a modern theme to a minimalist theme. In the end, we just went with what feels right because that is the most important! Doesn't matter what theme the home is as long as the people who are living in it are happy with it's state. This home has initially caused us a lot of headaches when we did not know what we want due to us being fickle. But we made it through! And I'm here to share the next part of the journey which is renovation with you all House Hunting This was the worst part to the renovation journey as we could not find what we wanted We were looking for a 4 room flat that was not too big and was located near where we were previously staying (TPY). As everyone knows, TPY flats don't come cheap especially when it's nearer to TPY Central. Our only options were the outskirts of TPY as we wanted to have a 4 room while having it well renovated. We were very hesitant about living in the 'outskirt' as there was no MRT nearby but.... there are a lot of buses for us to take! So why not? A new change of pace and lifestyle for us to try. If we had gotten closer to Central, there would have been no way we could renovate our home to a level which was comfortable for us all and there's no point in buying a home where you're unhappy right? PS: We did look at other 4 room resale flats in AMK, YCK and Hougang area. But our heart was fated and contented with only our beloved old town, TPY. This is our floor plan and as you can tell, It is a very old flat. There's only 1 Bath and WC which is located in the Kitchen and theres no connecting Master bedroom toilet etc. Many might hate the separated toilet but.. we LOVE it. We have an issue with touching wet floors with our bare feet. Unless the area is meant for bathing, it CANNOT be wet. Even the WC area cannot be wet. We are adamant to having the bathing and WC area be separated if we had gotten a combined bathroom. To which the house agent shook his head as more work for him Contractors Search This is the part where we all sighed in disappointment. A contractor whom we thought was reliable turned out to be a irresponsible baboon. He quoted us unreasonably and forgot a lot of things in the quotation. Initially we trusted him and gave him the benefit of the doubt. However, all he gave us was crap. His quotes were reasonable for some but for others, it was completely overpriced. Seeing his quote was too over budget, we decided to source out other options to replace his electrical and carpentry. However, we wanted him to do our main works like tiling etc. He decided to not reply any of our messages and even left to go 'overseas'. Funny how when we called him, the tone could get through normally as though he was in Singapore. Not only that, he proceeded to message us and tell us that he was busy overseas. Hence, his colleague would takeover. Fair enough, colleague says yes, yes she can do it. Fast forward 9 hrs, at 1am in the morning. She dropped a Whatsapp messaging telling us she is also too busy. Gave them a good 'talk', if you know what I mean, before I deleted their contact completely. Never going to recommend that company. Main Contractor: Our next contractor (M) felt right the moment he talked to us. He was able to remember most of the things we wanted except he missed out ~3 things from the quotation? However, his colleague (C) was quick to help and communicate for us as there was a slight language barrier. M could speak Mandarin brilliantly, but his English was only on a ok-ok standard. But its ok, we were able to understand him and he was super nice in helping us try to keep to our budget. AND he understands when we wanted to use another company for their carpentry, electrical and air-con. So big thumbs up for his positive mindset! C too, super helpful. However, I do not know if they would do a good job, and frankly, I do not have time to be picky as we are rushing for time, having to move out by mid next month I will see whether they do a good job and if they do, I'll definitely update later after the completion! Carpentry & Electrical & Air-con As I said above, we sourced out a different contractor for carpentry, electrical and air-con. Carpentry guy (A) is a jovial bubble who listens and tries to help in whatever way he can. We know nuts about designing so we asked him to do the designs for us and we would tweak it as we see necessary. Just earlier today, he came down to discuss the design of the wardrobes and he bothered to listen to what we needed more. We will also see how his workmanship is as the progress moves on! J is our electrical guy and is friendly but he doesn't talk much unless necessary. At least, he has good responsibility when it comes to informing us that he is going overseas. Lastly, for Air-con, T is helping us. Nothing much to say about her as we never met before but she handled my current home aircon too. And it works fine, so yay? Before Renovation Pictures Yes, I am horrible at choosing the angles to take the pictures but I will improve! I hope.. Living Room Bedroom 1 Bedroom 2 Bedroom 3 Kitchen Bath WC Hopefully the pictures are okay as I do not know how to upload pictures here properly (edit: okay they are fine)

It is 4 room flat(101sqm), but only master bedroom(include master bathroom) and 1 common bedroom available. The other common bedroom is locked. Owner is not stay inside the flat. Air-con available in all bedroom. The flat is on middle floor. All rooms are spacious, squarish and bright. Facing high tree and greenery front and behind of the unit. Washing machine, fridge, pipe gas cooker, wall to wall tv cabinet, dining table and chair, dining small cabinet, storage full steel frame, water heater include. All bedroom have wardrobe. Master bedroom have hardwood flooring. Fiber optic internet and home telephone line ready. No smoking and pet allowed. No partition allowed in any part of the flat. All direct neighbor is non-smoker, family with young children and non-pet owner. 5-7 min walking (under shelter with elevator and escalator access) to Toa Payoh central/ MRT/ bus interchange/ Fair Price supermarket. 5-10 min walking to many kindergarten (Q-Dees, Toa Payoh Methodist Church, etc) 5-7 min walking to CHIJ toa payoh 8-10 min walking to kheng cheng primary school 7-9 min walking to Philips 10-12 min walking to wet/ traditional market. 1 min walking to multi story car park. 5-7 min walking to many GP(general practice) doctor/ dentist 5-7 min drive to MacRitchie Reservoir 7-10 min drive to KK children hospital 7-10 min drive to Tan Tock Seng hospital Rent price - $2,300/ month. Rental agreement 1 year renewable. Rent direct from owner(baron.abadi11@gmail.com) and no commission needed. update: - no sofa - available from 1st June 2016

It is 4 room flat(101sqm), but only 2 common bed room and 1 bathroom available. The master room is locked. The flat is on middle floor. Spacious living and dining room. Facing high tree and greenery front and behind of the unit. Washing machine, fridge, pipe gas cooker, wall to wall tv cabinet, dining table, dining small cabinet, book shelf, storage full steel frame, water heater include. Home telephone line ready. Fiber optic internet network ready. No air-con in every room. Suitable for family with medium budget to rent a flat. No smoking allowed. All direct neighbor is non-smoker and family with young children. No pet allowed. All direct neighbor is non-pet owner. 5-7 min walking (under shelter with elevator and escalator access) to Toa Payoh central/ MRT/ bus interchange/ Fair Price supermarket. 5-10 min walking to many kindergarten (Q-Dees, Toa Payoh Methodist Church, etc) 5-7 min walking to CHIJ toa payoh 8-10 min walking to kheng cheng primary school 7-9 min walking to Philips 10-12 min walking to wet market. 1 min walking to multi story car park. 5-7 min walking to many GP(general practice) doctor/ dentist 2 min drive to enter PIE-Changi 3 min drive to enter PIE-Jurong 5-7 min drive to MacRitchie Reservoir 7-10 min drive to KK children hospital 7-10 min drive to Tan Tock Seng hospital Rent price - $2,300/ month. Rental agreement 1 year renewable. Please email your enquiries to baron dot abadi11 at gmail dot com No agent please. only for direct tenant.