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Hi Everyone, this would be my second time posting my house renovation on renotalk. my last reno was a 4 room bto in fernvale 6 years ago.. and middle of this year, my hubby convinced me to sell the house to move nearer to my parents' and my daughters' future school.it was a dilemma as we were staying right opposite seletar mall and i love the convenience. but hubby had valid points on why we should sell and so i agreed to put our first hse on the mkt.We sold our house within 3 months but took longer to find a hse that we both like and so had to move into my parents' hse to stay for the meantime. House hunting We were looking at serangoon central 5 room flats initially, but the prices of the 30 year old flats were way above valuation and we learnt it the hard way as we had placed the $1000 deposit on a flat before valuation came out to be 55k less than the offered price!!! omg.. had to forgo the $1000 deposit as we did not exercise the option in the end. Le Sigh,gave up the dream of staying at serangoon central area and started looking at amk ave 10 ( prices were similar to serangoon central!) and even hougang but we couldn't find a flat we both like. moved on to serangoon north eventually and found a new listing for a 5 room flat on property guru and we made an appt immediately with the agent. hubby liked the hse after viewing as it was bit like "condo layout" i.e. rooms along a corridor.As for me,it was more of a "lets see if i can turn it into me dream house". We made an offer and seller wanted 90 days extension before putting in option and 3 months extension after sale is completed! can't believe we agreed and here we are, waiting for the day we can start renovation. here is our floor plan of our second home!

Hello everyone! I decided to start this t-blog not so much to document our renovation process (will try to as much as I can), but mainly to share things, especially tips and other little nuggets of info, which I have learnt during this period and during another renovation I was involved in 4 years back. Renovation is a time-consuming and multi-faceted process, and when I started out, I was so overwhelmed by the amount of things I didn’t know. Doing research helped (thank you, Renotalkers!), but even now there are still so many things I am still learning for my second renovation. Hopefully this thread will benefit others Contents for easier reference: Introduction & The Unit ID-Contractor Conundrum Theme - Moodboard & 3D Renders Hacking & Wet Works Tiling Special Request Going Green - Vertical Garden & Growing Herbs Air-conditioning - Toshiba System 5 Vinyl Flooring - Eco Pluz Painting - Dulux Colour of the Year & Colour Play Testers Painting Boo-Boo & DIY Paint Effect & DIY Spray Paint Switch Boxes DIY More Painting Plumbing & Citygas Piping Box-up & Concealed Shower - Insani24.de Carpentry - Laminate Selection Carpentry - Design & Planning with Results: Shoe Rack, Study Room Bookcase, TV Console & Feature Wall Dry & Wet Kitchen Master Bedroom Wardrobe & Bathroom Fibre Termination Point Installation at TV Console Hood Installation Hassle Fan Installation Doors, Main Gate, Digital Locks, and Blinds Vertical Garden Part 2 - Installation & Planting Final Photos Renovation Costs Choosing Our ID and Feedback of Our ID (deleted) Fantastic Furniture and Where to Find Them - M&M, Crate & Barrel, Etch & Bolts, HipVan, Naiise, Comfort Furniture Introduction: Husband and I got married in 2015 and we spent quite some time waiting to buy a resale flat because “the boss” has very high expectations and yet not-so-high budget, so took a while before “the one” came along…… … and even after marrying her, he asked for patience because he really really wanted to get a unit near his parents’ place. So bo pian, yours truly patiently waited but no good units came up and finally had to put my foot down and force the boss to look for alternative areas. Long story short, we did manage to find a good unit not-so-near his parents (I did a little hurray, I admit), price was a little high but boss willing to pay, and we also had to patiently wait for the previous owners to move out before we could get our renovation started. The unit: Our new house has a very interesting layout which appealed to us, mainly the long combined living and dining room. The master room is also situated away from the common rooms, which means more privacy, but also posed some challenges because the space is limited and we can’t knock down some walls to combine the bedrooms. No walk-in wardrobe, for sure... Here are photos we took right after getting our keys... If you noticed, the previous owners had combined the two common bedrooms into one, so this is actually the current layout:

Final Pics: Post from before: Hello everyone, after lurking around like many people here, asking for more information and learning more things as time goes, finally decide to contribute to future couples on their reno. Below is my floor plan. After much contemplation, I have decided to select a unit with the bomb shelter in the kitchen. Bigger living area, shorter but wider kitchen (I can live with that).. Requirements 1. Walk in wardrobe (wife want to enjoy life) 2. Dressing Table that can hold 2 people (my wife say I always snatch dressing table with her for work) 3. Closed but open feel kitchen (dunno how to explain this... basically is a close kitchen but must look like open kitchen) 4. Must keep all the doors, no sealing of any doors (wife is like garang guni.. everything must keep... thats why my current room like garang guni also)... 5. her theme is Scandiavian (which subsequently wifey gives alot of nonsense ideas... one of which is a concrete plastered wall... .. HELLO NOT INDUSTRIAL LEIII) 6. My theme is minimalist (which i subsequently give in to her theme more... makes my life easier) 7. Study table for 2 8. Island / high top (i forsee we wun be eating often at the dining table cos wifey likes to watch TV and eat... after eating she must stand like being punish for 1 hr.. told her doesnt help slim down cos she is still growing rounder ) ID / Contractor Search I have a total of 12 quotations or more.... I am lucky to meet most of the better IDs / contractors... My advice, don't go crazy like me and my wife.. Go for maybe 2 or 3 compare prices and get a feel... going too many only confuse and tire yourself.. I read online and notice alot of people being conned etc. hence I went for many many quotations which only confuses myself and my wife. Hence, we drag till 1 month after key collection, then we decided on the contractor. So let me get started on the list. Rejected *decide to delete away since no point putting IDs I have rejected* Worth a Mention Habitech - Top 3 of another fellow renotalker SingaSamurai, was shown into the flat of ID as her "Showroom". I must say, the couple really shows they know their stuff. They give a lot of ideas that newbies like us will never be able to think of. Their show room is those kind, open door.... WOW kind... But the quotation came back also.... WOWWWW.. Something I like about them is, they are very very very very detailed. Each customer will have an individual file with timeline, floorplan, carpentry measurements per drawer in details.... dun think anything will be missed out.. Go for them if you want someone you can trust with flair in design.. and abit more money to spend... The Interior Lab - Another top 3 of SingaSamurai.. ID is a honest guy. He is the one that proposed us on how to use our space efficiently.. quote came to be quite reasonable, but on the high side... did not shortlist him cos the price is not really within our budget after much calculation Diva - Selected by SingaSamurai.. Nice guy.. met him twice, feel he is those responsible kind.. he said, unless you want to let him earn, he recommend you to get lights or other stuffs outside that are recommended by his other clients that he heard is cheaper... He recommended alot of the practical stuffs.. Wife say no feel with him... maybe he too quiet and honest... Lol..

Hello! The renovation of our existing flat just started and the hubs asked if I wanna blog about it. Was undecided initially but made the decision to do so eventually. Treat it as moments la! Our humble abode is a 5 room flat where we’ve stayed for almost 9 years. Decided to renovate the house again because we couldn’t find a better place to move to and also because things are starting to fall apart. For this 2nd time of remodeling, the main objective is to increase storage space and change the look of the house. Remember the past mistakes and try to avoid them (hopefully). We engaged an ID this time around to help with the design and management of the project. I fell in love with one of the chosen ID's project and had more or less decided to engage him even though we did approach 3 other ID firms for quotations. 2 came and discussed then went mia. 1 came back with a quote and drawing - Quote was a tad high and proposed design didn't really catch our breath. And so we ended up with my favourite choice. Once the decision was made and details nailed down, we packed up and moved out.

Hello Friends and Forumers, like others, I have been lurking and hovering around all the wonderful t-blogs and asking all the seniors here for advice and tips... To mark my own renovation journey i'm starting very own t-blog! There will be no extravagant designs nor WOW effects, just a simple place i called HOME. Here's the floor plan: My first appointment is a month away from now so this give me sometime to decide on the long list of items to b done for a new place. This is a 30 years old resale so i reckon i will need to overhaul the whole place. I'm setting the budget as below: Budget for Renovation: $50-60K (was told it's going to be at least $50k for a resale) Budget for Furnishing and Electrical appliances: $20k Let's see if i can stay within this!

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Hey hey I am finally starting a T-blog of my own! Have been an avid follower of this forum for a short while... Since October 2013? But this forum has really helped my fiance & I alot & we managed to learn alot about house renovation from here.. the basic technical knowledge.. like the difference betweeen laminate & veneer... quartz counter top better or solid surface better... etc etc.. So new home owners don't fret!! This forum will be your best friend with all the helpful people around! Heh heh... Well my fiance & I are just a simple young couple trying to make a life together in our small red dot... getting married soon, so we wish that HDB will quickly hand our keys over to us!! Ok disclaimer: I hope I will find the time and strength to continue to update as often as I can… ahhh nowadays quite busy.. So, here I am! Just for this space to be a record of our renovation journey & appreciate all advice given by all you renotalkers.. Thanks in advance lei.. hahaha...

Hi all, It's finally time to start this blog that I've been dying to start.. Literally, itching fingers! And here's how the story goes~ Somewhere in 2012 when my then bf was in Canada on exchange, we started talking about the "queues" for flats and how we knew of people that couldn't get a number even after 8 tries. The horror and disappointment these friends experienced were not lost to us and we decided given the lag time for building, we were going to try our luck with applications as well. It was an in thing then, I'm sure it's still the in thing now. True to the high demands back then, our first application fell through! To be fair, we weren't expecting to get it. After all it was the premium flat in Punggol with the balcony units 11x or something oversubscribed. That was one of my dream home styles, having a balcony! Well, I'll have to settle for a service yard and consider it "THE BALCONY" then. *Sighs* So when we got the it the next time with a decent queue number to boot, we were like "wow.. that was easy?!?" Imagine our embarrassment when we told the same friends who still hadn't got there flats. Fast forward 2015 It's been 3 years now and we've grown up, graduated from university, accepted that we will never get any of the carrot grants that the govt has dangled for making flats more affordable (20k then turned to 40k now), and engaged to be married next year, we are finally planning for our new home together... Ok it's really just me with the planning and the fiance to approve the plans and the budgets. I'm the one with the very specific ideas including a kitchen island (woohoo!) and he's my true blue CFO (give me the main points! chop!). As you can already tell, if you leave it up to me to decide, I'd think we'd be or at least be going bankrupt by now. There's so much to learn from the forums here that, it's also time for me to pay it forward. We've actually signed our IDs on over the weekend and I will share a little later our interview process with the 4 we picked out and how we ended up with the ONE! Hurray! *Jumps with joy*. Meanwhile, I'm sharing my floorplan so that you can guess what I plan to do with the place! You will note how interesting where the household shelter is placed unlike the convention of blocking the kitchen wall off. Till then, hasta la vista, baby! *winks* XOXO, Sapphira

Starting this blog to document our renovation journey. To start off, this is the layout of our humble abode. We've just gotten our 3D rendering done but will still be making amendments. Pictures of tiles we chose for each area. These are our gorgeous kitchen tiles. At first we wanted a different color to segregate the service yard but looking at the 3D we changed our minds and preferred to just have the peranakan tiles. Hexagon tiles for master bathroom shower feature. Matched with the wall and floor tiles. Love the grey marble tile for the common bathroom wall. I've always wanted some hexagon tiles but in order to save costs we kept it to the foyer area which isn't too big. Due to budget constraints, we decided to overlay vinyl for our bedrooms and living rooms. We chose the combi on the right. The lighter tile to be in the living room and the darker one in the bedrooms.

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Hello everyone! My fiance and I have been following everyone's t-blogs ever since we decided to purchase a 5-room resale HDB flat for our first home...and now that renovations have just started, it's time to start our very own t-blog! It's also a good way to keep track of our renovation journey... We started house hunting in March this year, managed to find one which was acceptable to us and our respective parents and started the process of buying the flat. Once we exercised the option to purchase, we started looking for IDs and learnt quite a lot on renovations from reading this forum! Eventually, we settled on the ID we were most comfortable with and renovations started yesterday! So first up, our floor plan...we didn't want to pay HDB for it and so, we managed to get a copy from the previous owner! Pretty standard layout...only odd corner is in the master bedroom where there's a 45 degree angle corner right in the middle of the room...that corner gave us quite a bit of headache during the planning stage of our renovation. Initially, we had planned to put a dressing table there but after consultation with the FSM who advised us not to use that corner, we decided to seal it off with a glass door. Our poor ID had to make quite a few changes to the 3D designs after our consultation with the FSM...luckily, he was super nice and understanding about it

Welcome to my first post in Renotalk forum. I have been a silent observer for about 1 month ever since we put in an option to buy our new home in resale market. First of all a quick introduction: This is our second home purchase, but first attempt to be part of the renotalk forum. Our first home purchase was more than 8 years ago. At that time, we never had an idea about these forums etc. (So ignorant!). Hopefully being informed will help us! Timelines: 1st appointment: mid July 2014 Sale completion: end Aug 2014 We are going to get our keys in end Aug. So as advised by friends here in this forum, I'm now looking to start talking to IDs who can come up with good ideas at reasonable prices. I will soon upload my initial criteria for reno and floor plan soon.

Though will only get our keys most likely towards the end of Q4, we have decided on our ID (ok, maybe not yet, gonna confirm on Sunday). And the ID that we are getting is... PoshHome After looking at @leonjennawong T-blog, we went to PoshHome that same weekend. We like the fact that: a) Their quotation is within our budget (we casually asked 3-4 IDs and they quoted us like 30-40k and mentioned that our budget of $30k won't be sufficient. But PoshHome mentioned that our budget is more than enough ^^) b) Their style is what we're looking at c) Their ID "wowed" us with some of his design. Though he can be quite forgetful about our request, we are ok with him Ermm.. can't think of anything else for the moment. But they must be good lah, cos we recommended another of our friend and she signed him up! (When we havent confirm ours). So yup, can't wait to confirm with him on Sunday! p.s. We actually only went to 2 ID (gonna boycott the 1st ID and talk more about it later). We like to "chop chop" everything and based on 直觉. Just like our wedding. hahaha Oh. bad news for those who wanna engage them. They are gonna implement GST T.T I think ours won't be affected because our ID (Potential), have "locked" in our preliminary quotation. Will update again!

Yeah!! Finally it is time for me to write my very first reno T-Blog, had been reading T-blog for like near 1 year, and had been patiently waiting for the time for my key collection so I can start on my T-blog soon. As per tradition, here is my 5 room Floor plan, got my keys on 3rd Jan, my reno (hacking first) will be starting on 2nd Feb. Now is the rectification period with the BSC folks. Already 2nd round, hopefully coming week can clear all the defects. I guess it's pretty standard layout for most of the BTOs, below is the HDB suggested layout. And this is my 2D layout, this is not the latest, there are some changes, yet to get the updated layout plan from my ID. Because this layout plan was done before i got the keys, so after getting the keys, realize that there may be some space constraint, so waiting for the latest copy.

Hi guys! So we got the keys to our 5rm BTO flat in October, waaaaaaay ahead of expectation. Both of us are the rather chillax kind, so we did not really do any research on reno stuff beforehand. We are in our BTO FB group and were quite amazed that people actually signed reno packages even before they got their keys . For me, I need to have a feel of the physical space before deciding anything. So, we only started reading up on renovation stuff one month before we got our keys. Our theme for the house was unanimously decided long ago: Scandinavian with essentials of wood, grey and white. Despite being an overly-done theme, it is something that we both hold dear, and one that works for us. This is our floor plan: Living room Floor--at first I had decided on vinyl/HERF because of the nice woody look. But she was concerned whether there will be a smell from the plastic in the long run, and also whether it is truly waterproof (since they are assembled using the clicking system). A valid concern; so we decided to go for wood-grain tiles instead for the whole house (incld bedrooms). Sofa/TV console/Feature wall-- We had a long discussion about this and finally decided to put our TV along the wall adjacent to Bedroom 3. There will be a feature wall of long vertical woodgrain tiles (1.8m high each) that look like wood planks. And on top of that line of tiles, we will install a thin ledge for us to place photo frames or posters. Something different from the usual brick walls. Something like this for the feature wall, just that it doesn't go all the way to the ceiling: Example of photo ledge: Dining table-- It will be placed along the wall opposite the TV console. She wants a really biggggg dining table, so we are prolly getting a 1.8m long one, with a bench to match. Planning to place a bar table against the household shelter wall as well. Built-in storage/display cabinets-- I personally hate having storage/display cabinets in the living room, period. The HDB living room is already too small for my liking (heng we chose a 5rm), having any sort of gigantic cabinets in the living room will just make it look even more cramped. So there will be none. Except for a shoe cabinet that we are planning to build into that recess to the right of the main door. False ceiling/L-box-- None of this too. It will just lower the height of the ceiling even further. Lighting-- Planning for track lights above the feature wall area. And a black ceiling fan. Hanging "spider" lights above the dining table. Track lights along room corridor. LED near the main entrance. Kitchen We are going to hack away the whole wall facing Bedroom 3, and build a kitchen island in the middle . Both of us like to cook, and can't stand claustrophobic kitchens haha. The island will be 1.8m x 1.2m, and the side nearer to Bedroom 3 will feature a counter with stools. There will not be any glass partitions or doors between the kitchen and living room. Yes it will be open but we are not worried about the smell! We don't do heavy frying anyway. There will be kitchen cabinets on both top and bottom on the other wall, and we are planning to get either Kompacplus or Pacnel countertops. Leaning towards Pacnel tops because as of now, they have more colour choices! As for the cabinets, we prefer the surface to be less "flat", contrary to the usual sleek, contemporary laminate surface. After Googling, we found out there's actually a name for this kind of design: it is called Shaker style. An example below: We are leaning towards dark grey cabinets with light grey Pacnel countertop. Along the wall adjacent to the toilet until the service yard window, we are going to build a bottom side-board cabinet; on top we are going to put stuff like my Nespresso Pixie, toaster oven, Hurom etc. Bedroom 3 We are hacking away the whole wall facing the kitchen and replacing it with a black aluminium-framed glass wall/door, to make the whole house feel even more spacious. This will be the gaming/study room! Going to put my PS4, a 40inch UHD TV with a Yamaha soundbar in there. Master Bedroom Making a L-shaped full height wardrobe! Was contemplating the idea of a platform bed, but decided it was too expensive and the ceiling will be too low (planning to put a ceiling fan). Going to put the usual queen-sized bed frame! Toilets Going to install a vanity top with mirror box cabinet for both toilets! Prolly going to use black Pacnel top for the vainty. For the MBR toilet, there will be a glass shower panel (not door), separating the shower area from the toilet bowl. Cos I feel having a sliding door is too claustrophobic. For the common toilet, there will be a shower kerb with IKEA's shower curtain rod (no shower panel, to save costs). Panel only: Contractor We met a grand total of one contractor and one ID. We invited the contractor to our new house and told him about our plans and ideas, and to give a quote. The moment I spoke to him, I knew I could trust this guy. There was rapport, we could click, and he was clearly experienced in his field. He suggested alternatives when our ideas were not feasible. We were very comfortable with him and were eagerly awaiting his quotation. It came back to be around $48K! At first it was shocking. But after calming ourselves down and looking at the things we wanted, we concluded that it was a reasonable (though not cheapest) pricing. (We later changed some stuff and the price dropped to $46k.) On the other hand, the meeting with the ID was unplanned. I chanced upon this FB post of a so-called renovation "open-house", where various companies will be there to showcase their reno materials (kitchen tops, cabinets, tiles, lights etc), so that we can have a better idea of what materials to choose for our reno. So I thought to myself, why not? Upon reaching the place, there was a group of young people smoking in the stairwell right outside the entrance to the openhouse. Impression down We walked in, one young guy approached us, and introduced himself as an ID from ___ company, and offered to bring us around. At this point, we knew it was not such a simple affair. He brought us to see all the materials, tiles, tops etc. Along the way, he kept emphasizing on how credible and accredited his company was (rolling eyes at this moment ). At the end of the tour, he made us sit down and listen to him intro his company's reno packages. Upon first glance, the pricing looks reasonable. But upon closer scrutiny, we realised the package was super basic (plain white tiles @ $3 per sq feet etc). So if we add on the things we wanted, it will prolly add up to a substantial amount. Then he suddenly whispered to us: if we sign today and give the deposit, his boss will waive the 7% GST. Ermigawd. Are you freaking kidding me. That's like the lamest sales pitch ever. Everybody knows you have already factored in the GST into your pricing right?! We walked out without signing anything. The silver lining was that our time was not totally wasted; we learnt quite a fair bit about the materials TL:DR version : Not impressed with ID company, signed with contractor.

Finally bought my own flat and i'm really excited about it. Not really into any specific style, but i like something simple, clean and neat. I shall share my reno experience here. Here's my floor plan: Before renovation starts: Reno began last Friday, with the hacked wall, to turn it into an open-concept kitchen. Plastering the kitchen and hacked walls To be continued......

This t-blog chat is meant for documenting the process of both my HTB and myself on how we went about getting the resale flat with HDB loan, finding the renovation guys, the renovation and hopefully all the way till the house is ready when we get married in November. Yes, this sounds like more than a handful and very high probability of driving someone insane. I used to document all these in my "Little Brown Book" which is getting out of hand. Like literally. Scraps of paper spilling from the edges of the book and tags that no longer able to serve its purpose if i really were to tag them down. So a sneak peek of how my "Little Brown Book" looks like: I happened to talk to a previous Event Organizer which my company had engaged when i served the Company Welfare committee and we chanced upon talking about looking for a housing agent. The very nice lady, Carol recommended me Gilbert. I had told Carol to provide my contact number to Gilbert and i receive the phone call the very next day. We got to know that Gilbert is from K*****f**n*. Originally my HTB and myself were thinking, doesnt knightfrank does more commercial than hdb? But well, lets give it a go and see how well it goes. We were almost sure what we wanted and told him our requirements i.e.: Which townWalking distance to MRTMin floors and aboveOnly corner unitSizing of the flatBudgetDoor facing (with the advice from the fortune teller previously at farm mart, now at pioneer point) The next week, we met up and saw at least 7, sorry it is 9 houses that fit all the requirement in 6 hours. A marathon that got us really exhausted but we saw two houses that caught our eye. One is fully renovated but shows some signs of design fault with regards to aircon ventilation that got the wall a little murky in the Master Bed Room which i fear for. And the other one is just a plain old house with no built ins at all and it is just clean and spacious though areas that needs to be done, needs to be done say for toilets and kitchen. We picked the second option which we called it "our place" and told Gilbert to express our interest to purchase the house, the whole buying thing got a little bit exciting as there were other buyers who are interested in the place. But we got it. (HE HE HE ) It is a spacious 5I which is very boxy and filled with beams across the house.Floor plan as below: And it is time to source for Renovators....

I had sign up with A&D for my 5rm resale flat renovation and my ID is Elijah Yeo Renovation completed for almost 1 month and I'm very satisfied with the work done, some minor rectification that need to be done are done. Elijah was punctual for all our meetings. He kept his promises and knowing that we had to get the renovation done quickly, he went all out to help us achieve this. We were away for a week and he made sure that work was done properly while we were away. He's very easy to work with and helpful - he volunteered to wait for the delivery of our equipment eventhough it's not his job. When we texted him at 10 plus at night on a weekend, he even called us back to give us feedback. Afterall, the job was done so smoothly and without any fuss.

Finally starting a T-Blog here with my free time! This post is over-due because I collected my keys 6 months ago, our first house at Anchorvale (5 Room) after getting married in May last year. The bare, clean and white area that we spammed lots of pictures before the commencement of all the renovation works. My fav part was the huge living room which made up for the tiny rooms.

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We started hunting for a HDB resale flat early this year and after a long process, we finally found a place that we love in Tampines. As we are starting our renovation, my husband (Tikiman) suggested that we should start a t-blog on renotalk. After all, we have gained a lot of information scouring through this forum, and it would be nice to share our own journey. The reasons we chose to buy a resale HDB unit : 1) Older units are bigger in floor space. 2) We dislike the bomb shelter because it is located in the middle of the unit like a sore thumb. 3) New HDB are built so close, neighbours can share salt/sugar via the kitchen/yard. In our search for a HDB apartment, we identified few requirements to fulfil: 1) Quiet and peaceful neighbourhood 2) Square layout without odd corners 3) No bomb shelter 4) Airy units with large windows / high ceiling 5) Corner unit 6) Last but not least, LOW COV haha... Tampines is a mature estate and individual neighbourhoods show unique characteristics. In the course of our search, we have walked the different neighbourhoods of Tampines at nights, off-days and on weekends to have a sense of the surrounding and to shortlist the neighbourhood that we like. Afterall, we can renovate the internal space of our apartment to fit our taste/requirement, but we usually have little control over the outside surrounding. Will share more details on our unit in the next post... Tikimum

Hi everyone!! Finally decided to start a t-blog after reading so much from Renotalk for the past 2 months! We only started planning for our renovation after we got our key in June 2014. Didnt realise that it really takes a lot of time and effort to plan for a reno and I strongly advise anyone who have not started planning to start at least 2-3 months before the key collection. We started off by deciding on the theme for our house. We browsed through many home design pictures on the internet which are of modern minimalist, scandinavian, industrial theme etc. They all look nice but none of the pics made us feel like.. OK! This is it! .... Therefore, we spent quite some time deciding on our theme. There were many changes to our initial ideas, themes and concepts along the way before we finally settled on Greek(Santorini) inspired beach theme. WX (my fiance) and I both fell in love with Greece after we had our holiday there in Dec 2013. I have always love the beach, the sea, etc... and WX proposed to me on a beach in Green Island, Cairns... so we both feel that a Greek-inspired beach home has a special meaning for both of us. There are also other reasons for choosing this theme, such as WX likes blue and I like green, and since we will be living together, our place will comprise of blue-green (turquoise), which also fits in our Greek inspired beach theme. Also, I love to have wooden furniture in the house and so beach theme is a good choice for us! In short, when this idea of Greek inspired beach theme came to our mind, both of us got very excited and we knew that Ok! This is it! This is the theme that we are looking for.

Hi everyone, our renovations are ongoing now. We have viewed over 20-30 units over a span of 3-4 months. We loved some units but some was way over budget. The agent was very nice and she kept showing us despite us being so flicked minded. Finally we decided on this house! The reason being it is NS facing, high level, unblock view from bedroom and windy. It fits neatly into our budget too! Our floorplan: Our main aim for this house: not to look like a conventional HDB. We have no money to stay in condo, but at least we can stay in condo like HDB and so we were telling ourselves. HAHAHAHA. (So pathetic) Like our house hunting process, we went to 10 different IDs (IMM, Balestier Rd, Eunos...) then asked for quotations online. Some IDs are really "chui" and their designs are worse than a 10 year old drawing. Others are very "smoky" and they don't know how to handle the requirements. (Told me cannot be like this, be like that) Of course, there are a few whom I loved the designs but the price quoted is way too high for us. One of the quotations was 120k without changing windows and floor! We have a contractor friend and we asked him to quote as well. However, he kept telling us that this can't be done and that can't be done . Is our design really that hard??? And so after seeing SOOO many IDs and was about to choose my contractor friend to do the renovation already. I chanced upon reno blog and read the review of several IDs. We went to some and called some. Finally, we shortlisted one of the IDs. I called him and he sent us the quotation within 2 hours. Seeing that he is quite keen and prices are reasonable, I went to research further about him on the renoblog. No negative comments, check. Doesn't look like ID, nevermind. Mouth quite itchy, I think I can handle. Ok, him then! This is the design that I want. Hack the wall between the 2 bedrooms, build WiW, hack away the kitchen and extend it so we can have an island. I want to have a room within the kitchen (for maid next time in case)

Hi everyone, our renovations are ongoing now. We have viewed over 20-30 units over a span of 3-4 months. We loved some units but some was way over budget. The agent was very nice and she kept showing us despite us being so fickled minded. Finally we decided on this house! The reason being it is NS facing, high level, unblock view from bedroom and windy. It fits neatly into our budget too! Our floorplan: Our main aim for this house: not to look like a conventional HDB. We have no money to stay in condo, but at least we can stay in condo like HDB and so we were telling ourselves. HAHAHAHA. Like our house hunting process, we went to 10 different IDs (IMM, Balestier Rd, Eunos...) then asked for quotations online. Some IDs are really "chui" and their designs are worse than a 10 year old drawing. Others are very "smoky" and they don't know how to handle the requirements. (Told me cannot be like this, be like that) Of course, there are a few whom I loved the designs but the price quoted is way too high for us. One of the quotations was 120k without changing windows and floor! We have a contractor friend and we asked him to quote as well. However, he kept telling us that this can't be done and that can't be done . Is our design really that hard??? And so after seeing SOOO many IDs and was about to choose my contractor friend to do the renovation already. I chanced upon reno blog and read the review of several IDs. We went to some and called some. Finally, we shortlisted one of the IDs. I called him and he sent us the quotation within 2 hours. Seeing that he is quite keen and prices are reasonable, I went to research further about him on the renoblog. No negative comments, check. Doesn't look like ID, nevermind. Ok, him then! Actually one of the things that made us chose him is that he is not afraid to "scold" you if your design is unreasonable. That made us trust him and here we go! This is the design that I want. Hack the wall between the 2 bedrooms, build WiW, hack away the kitchen and extend it so we can have an island. I want to have a room within the kitchen (for maid next time in case)