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Hello fellow home owners! Mr Z (aka The Boss) and I (aka The Secretary) have been silent readers of this community for quite awhile and started stalking t-blogs since 4 years ago (ever since we applied for our flat)! However, we have only started to be more "hardworking" in sourcing for ideas, concepts and IDs / contractors 2 years ago. We have learnt much from all the valuable sharings from this blog, and would also like to contribute our bits. Our BTO is located in Ang Mo Kio, and it is the first BTO that offered a open concept kitchen. Open concept kitchen means a bigger living room space without having to hack any walls. Sounds good, and so we opted for it But, this option has also resulted in many of our sleepless nights (trying to crack our heads for ideas on how to prevent cooking smells from the rest of the house) for the past 2 years Here's the floor plan: We received the keys in end January this year, a week before CNY. Here's a picture of our house (Can you spot The Boss in this picture? ) The whole renovation process took us 3 months, not inclusive of the delivery of our furniture. We must admit that it took a lot of time and effort to build a house to turn out the way we would like it to be (and also to make our hard-earned $$ worthwhile); nonethless a beautiful and enjoyable experience that we would not regret when we looked back now. If you would like to read more about our reno journey, do stay tuned for the next update! - The Boss and The Secretary

Finally! After applying for our flat in 2013, we now have a chance to share our renovation experience here. Been a silent lurker, love your ideas, etc etc, let’s just get down to business. We got a 5-room flat in the north-eastern part of Singapore (Seriously...take a guess. You’re probably right.) and PCD is scheduled end of this month. I’m not kidding when I say we began our research the moment we applied 2 - 3 years ago. Thankfully, my husband and I have very similar tastes, so agreeing to things came easily and without much hair tugging/crying. Here’s the standard floorplan. A rough introduction of our style: NON-industrial and NON-Scandinavian. I know this site has a huge following for the two “themes”, but that’s just not us, heh. Also another reason for contributing to renotalk – I thought it’d be a nice change to see something different for the rest of you who are looking for new inspiration!Warm, earthy, and a little bohemian. We travel quite a bit and have collected some strange and quirky items over the years. I’m a huge fan of Apartment Therapy, and am thoroughly inspired by the homes there.Plenty of dark wood accented with hints of brass and rose gold. And pops of colour. We plan to warm the place up with lots of plants and ethnic rugs.Next up - our experience speaking to a few IDs.

Hi all! We are nearing the end of our house renovation and we have finally decided to share our experience so far Our new house is a 5-room BTO in Waterway Brooks, and here's our floor plan for a start: Both of us prefer a simple and clean house, along the line of minimalistic and nordic feel kinda. We surfed extensively on (it's really quite a useful app!), renotalk (of cuz ;p) and various interior design company websites initially to gather our ideas on how we want our house to be. Being super fickle-minded, it took us quite awhile to come to a decision on the interior design we are both comfortable with. Here's our mood board: Living Room Kitchen Random ideas That's all for now!

Hi everyone! I was browsing this site many years ago for ideas for our first reno, and now that we're doing a second one I thought I might try to start a reno blog here. ABOUT US: Hubs and I are almost 40 years old. We bought a BTO a long time ago, which we sold when we moved to USA for work. About 1 year ago, we inherited my in-law's old 5I apartment, and we thought that since we would be shuttling between the two countries now, it made sense for us to have a place here we can call home. Lifestyle-wise - I like to cook and bake, and we like to spend quality time at home. We don't have (and don't want) any kids, nor do we have any pets, so this will allow us even more creative use of space in the apartment. THE APARTMENT: Here's the floorplan. It's a very standard old 5rm flat. It's quite lived-in, and while the condition is not shabby, it definitely looks a little dated for our taste. No pictures of the current place, out of respect for hub's parents. Anyway we have grand plans for the apartment so the pictures will be irrelevant! More to come in future posts!

After quietly reading so many blog posts here, and benefited a lot from them, we decided that it's now the time to contribute back. We got our 5-room BTO flat in Waterway Terraces 1 in year 2010. It was among the "hottest" BTOs at that time, since it was the first launch of “waterfront living” in HDB flats. 5-room flats were actually 20 times oversubscribed. So we consider ourselves very lucky to get it In Feb 2015, HDB started to hand over the keys. Our renovation is actually going to complete soon, with only a few items left, meaning this is not a 'live' blog. We are also busy with a lot of things at the moment, so will keep this blog short and simple. Nevertheless, we will try to include all the information that others may find useful. Below are the topics that we will cover: Planning - Floor plan and design ideaDesign - ID selectionDesign - Requirements and 3D sketchesDesign - 3D renderingPurchase - LightsPurchase - Kitchen and toilet accessoriesPurchase - FurniturePurchase - AppliancesPurchase - Networking stuffsKeys CollectionReno - Paint and laminate selectionReno - Door-arm replacementReno - Electricity runningReno - Aircon installationReno - False ceilingReno - CarpentryReno - Data points conversionReno - Moving inReno - CurtainsReno - Storage ShelvingReno - Completion photosLooking Back...

Hello World!! So we embark on a whole new journey of RENOVATION after collection of our keys last Wednesday!! A home to call our own =), and a simultaneous butt-full of debt. Ah well, an exciting journey nonetheless. Here are some IDs we encountered: The authentic IDs who have absolutely stunning designs (but who also demand more moolah than we could part with) 1. D-Home 2. JQ Ong 3. Metre Cube And others we met up with: 1. Roman (spam) Professional guy, met up with him twice to discuss the renovation details. Gives constructive advice, but felt that he had some unconventional ideas although we found them somewhat difficult to visualise. Learnt quite abit during was discussions. Quotation was reasonable (perhaps slightly over out budget then), but I think we side-tracked when our soon-to-be neighbour highly recommended a cheaper ID. 2. JXXXX (SXXX Interior) A whole bunch of us popped by the shop, led by above-said neighbour. Very attractive pricing in the mid-20K range inclusive of lighting and carpentry work. Quite a few of us signed on, and we paid our first deposit to obtain our 3D pics. And this was when we realised that our ID was somewhat lacking in his artistic flair. And after a few meetups the general feel was that he played more of a salesman/middleman role. Things got far more expensive with further amendents, was seriously overquoted for some carpentry work; Also got sick of empty promised. So we thought we should probably re-consider our options. Back to ID-hunting. 3. Nicholas (Renoguyz) He was pretty highly recommended on Renotalk: quality-work, reasonable pricing; Some said he was odd. Conversation went from fish to flowers and finally to our reno requirements. Was told of some impracticalities in our previous design, renovation cost more likely to be between 30-40k instead. Hmm, probably can consider. So now it's still ID-shopping. Wondering if it's worth looking up Mr K (H2O) or Calvin Tan (PoshHome)... Hmm.

Hello everyone!!! Beginning I've been a silent reader for many months now and I thought it should be my turn to contribute what ever I can back to this community! I had this sudden urge to pen down my experiences since we are 3 days away from the ACTUAL renovation. I am surfing the net for all the nitty-gritty stuff for our house, stressing myself out over those and thought coming here might be a good idea at 3am! So here goes! How it started... After my 'then' boyfriend proposed to me last year, we started looking out for properties in the eastern and north-eastern side of Singapore! R (now husband) and I prefer a newly empty space for us to build a home together so naturally our first choice was to ballot for a flat through "sale of balance". We didn't pin our hopes too high cause our queue number was out of the number of available units and there were little units among them which we shortlisted. We started browsing through resale flats for months while R was still optimistic about our ballot (never say die). Months and months of waiting and finally our prayers were answered! We got one of our favorite units! Search Early this year, we finally locked in our first 'love nest' at TPY HDB Hub and we started searching (almost frantically) for both ideal moodboards and ID/Contractors. Before we started anything, we sat down and had a serious discussion about finance. Zero loans. So we have extremely strict budget to work with and we broke it down into 3 sections. Renovation (quote given by ID/Contractor) Electrical (wirings, sockets, switches, lightings) Furnitures & Appliances (Bed, W/C, fridge etc) I must say this budget has been working extremely well for both of us cause we made it as detailed as possible, itemised, and did quite a fair bit of comparison! Be as realistic as possible and ask around with your family or friends for quotes! Most of them are more than happy to share! Back to the search for ID/Contractors. Thanks to renotalk, my knowledge about renovation widened, deepened and saved me from looking too noob infront of those guys. lol. Both R and I prefer engaging an ID because we both lack quite badly in the creative department and we are hoping to minimize the need to liaise between different suppliers or contractors. Nevertheless, all in all we met up with 4 IDs and 2 contractors (semi-ID) over a period of 2 months. This is by far the most tedious process for both of us cause it fried our brains so badly. It's not until we met these professionals that we realised renovation has A LOT, A LOT, A LOT of details and factors to consider. 1) ID A A was the very first ID we met and we had no idea what to expect from the meeting! We met up near my place, he was early, dressed well, pretty young and speaks well. He nervously took out few sheets of papers with drawings on them and I could see his hands trembled a bit. When I saw those papers infront of us, I like him already! He came prepared with proposed space-planning sketches according to my specifications through a 20-mins conversation prior to our meeting! Of course, he also prepared a drafted quotation based on what he drew and the quotation wasn't too bad! Though not all details were captured, he was really patient in jotting down our needs/wants and identifying any potential difficulties in our ideas. We were having our hopes high on this ID and really excited in receiving his revised space-planning sketch and quotation but sadly, he did not send us till almost a month later. 2) ID B We met up with B right after ID A and we weren't really pleased. First of all, he was late for our first meeting, I refused to wait for another 30mins so I called the meeting off. R was being kind and suggested we should give him another chance since he apologised genuinely, we did. Okay, so our first meeting happened and unlike ID A, he is very down-to-earth in both his dressing and his personality! He was punctual, cheerful and very approachable. He also came to us with a draft and he is definitely way more experienced than ID A. As much as he would accommodate all our crazy ideas and wants, he would stop us nicely to inform us of the pros and cons of materials/ placements/ appliances etc and the potential roadblocks we may face. The first meeting with him took 2 hours and he didn't even at any point sneaked a peek at the time. I couldnt remember how long, but he came back to us within 3 days with a hand-sketched space planning + 3D of EVERYTHING we discussed via whatsapp. We could feel his eagerness in our projects and was pretty sincere. I shall continue the rest another day. it's 3.20am now and I should catch some sleep! Will try to post the visuals next time Night night!

Hi, my fiancee and I just bought a resale 5rm flat. We are at an impasse regarding the design of our recess area. We would really appreciate any kind advice from the experts here at renotalk. Thank you!! Her Idea: Break a portion of the corridor wall to create an entrance to our living area at the expense of our kitchen. My idea: To extend the corridor and align it to our living area space, so that we have a bigger kitchen.

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......

After reading so many posts on Reno t-Blog, I've decided to also post my journey of how me and my wife begin creating our Punggol Scandi Home! Our new house is at Punggol Waterway! But we've yet to get our keys. I'd like to share my floor plan of my 5-rm BTO flat below. Next, I'll be sharing the theme of my home!

Hi everyone!! Finally finally finally! I am delighted to be able to contribute to this ever vibrant platform to capture the journey of your home-making process! the previous owner of our house finally moved out after extending 2 months of stay in our house and soooo let the journey begin!! the floorplan of our house and the 3d drawing of both toilet and kitchen! We use Outlook interior for our ID after many considerations and comparisons we decided they gave us the best quote (we don't have a big budget here but it's alright don't despise small beginning) today we started hacking sooo... I will be back with more pictures!!

Hey guys! Like everyone else, I'd like to pen and record down my first personal renovation for a 5-room resale! This house is purchased for our family of 5 grown adults. We have already started our renovation for about 2 weeks and I regret not trying to start my blog earlier; I blame my busy work schedule and part laziness/procrastination. Anyway, here's the original floor plan vs the intended works. Because we have 5 adults (namely my parents, my sis, my bro and myself), we needed at least 4 bedrooms and having enough space to erect the 4th bedroom was one of our main deciding factor to purchase the place. Hence we will be sealing up the dining area into a bedroom, the wall from the living room to the kitchen will also be knocked down. This does make our living/dining space a lot less roomy which we're pretty bummed, but have no choice. We have started brainstorming about the design from the day we paid our deposit. Long story short, I have some training in interior design and does freelance 3D drawings so we did our own drawings and engaged a contractor to carry out the works. The selection process was a long and tedious one but finally decided on a contractor that so far we have no complaints of. Will share the 3D drawings in the next post!