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Hello All! Thanks to all fellow T-blogger in renotalk, we have learnt much and finally get to start our very own T-Blog! Here is our floor plan for 4room BTO at Fernvale Rivergrove. We've opt-in for HDB tiles and doors. And heres our self drawn concept on what we plan to do. We spent around 1 month plus meeting 6 different ID and finally found our right one! The next post will share more about our ID meeting process and we'll collecting keys next week! So excited ~

Hi, I am looking to unload 2 x BTO toilet door. one for 120. (seek own delivery) PM me if interested.

Hi everyone, Have been around for quite awhile and reading up other t-blog, decided to start my own t-blog to share my reno journey. Will be collecting our keys real soon and have been looking around for IDs and Contractors for our renovation. Here is our floor plan : 4-room BTO 92sqm We have received various quotation and calls from the form field in icompare, i would say, the minute i submit the form, i received countless of calls, *approx. 10-20. The calls i received to arrange for a meet up to discuss further is really overwhelming. Initially tried to arrange each of them however, after the 2nd - 3rd day of continuous phonecalls, my meeting schedule with ID have stretch to 2 weeks and almost 3rd week, meeting each one of them every day afterwork. After the 4th Day i asked them to call again to reschedule as it is too overwhelming. Long Story cut short : Here are some of the countless IDs and 1 Contractor i have met up : We started looking around on 18 June. 1 ) A&D Group : They were the first ID which we have meet up and were served by Pamela however till now we have yet to receive a reply. We were looking forward to their quote and their proposal as they are the first ID that we approached but we were rather disappointed. 2) The second one we met was an ID which i failed to recall his company's name, anyway he did not revert as well. 3) Voila Design : They were just recently established for a year but according to the director, he have tons of experience in this industry and was sharing his previous experiences and why he left to set up his own ID firm. Jasper was the ID but Jason who was the in-charge for overall design was the mostly engaging our conversation. Jason seems quite an experience and gave us a few constructive advices on our renovation ideas. My hubby was kind of shortlisting and we were anticipating to his proposal which mentioned he will revert after a week, however after a week we hear nothing from him and assume that he will not get back. Surprisingly, Jazper texted us 3 weeks later to inform us of the ready proposal but our hearts were already directed elsewhere. 4) I was greedy at this point of time and wanted to meet 3 ID at this point of time on 1 evening after countless of calls, eventually i arrange to meet up with 1 and cancelled the other 2. 3D Innovations : We did some "basic" research and thus decided to meet up with them as we could not find much information on the other 2 ID. We were supposed to meet Sam however, due to his unavailability we were directed to his colleague, Jimmy *after all the decision we made to meet with him against 2 other ID firm* Nevertheless, Jimmy, whom we met up was very experience as well, we explained our criteria and what kind of theme and direction we are looking at, he gave good advices, we went in depth into the conversation and found out that he was from a contractor's background and he have been in this industry since really young and from the technical hands-on till becoming an ID. Thus it explains his knowledge in the details of renovation. We also decided to go for concrete kitchen after we met up with him and mentally my hubby was shortlisting him. He was nice to drove us back too, he was initiating to pick us up at paya lebar mrt initially, but i decline as was quite paiseh. Anyway, Jimmy did promised us that he will do our renovation nicely making sure everything goes smoothly as he was hoping we would engage him and share our experiences with others. Anyway, we went home and did a through research and realised that there were some really bad and nasty feedback about the ID firm but my hubby was still quite insistent on trusting him and will decide after the proposal. At that point of time i already give up having them shortlisted. But overall it was a great experience with Jimmy and he revert back about a week later after we met up. 5) K Contractor : He was the first which i have tried to arranged for a meeting but his schedule was queued all the way till a week later, subsequently we had to arranged 2nd and 3rd meeting 2 weeks in advance. I have saw various renovations done by him and was initially inspired after looking at theitsybits Casa t-blog as her floor plan is very much similar and really love her renovation done by K, *except for the kitchen cabinets, separately done by someone else. During the first meeting i have forgotten that i have personally get in touch with him to arrange for a meeting, thinking that i have submitted my floor plan to icompare and he will have my floor plan thus it was really embarrassing that i have forgotten my floorplan in hardcopy and we could only use my ipad to show him the floor plan, he was patience and look through the floor plan through my ipad and we were having our initial discussion. Everything went well and he said to revert us with a quotation after a week, however shorty after 3 days we were really amazed by the speed of light he is working. I was pushing my hubby to lean towards having K to do the renovation for us from the start after all the reviews and feedback I saw. Hubby was initially not convince but after the first meet up he did his own research and was convince that having a responsible contractor is really important. I would say K is prompt, early for meeting, fast hand fast leg too. He is friendly and was really helpful in our subsequent meetings when we discuss on details about tiling and construction works. 6) S2 Design : We met up with Andy and he was nice to meet up at our convenience, we thought the meeting will take about an hour or two after multiple times meeting with IDs, however our meeting with him lasted for 20mins - 30mins, we were striking him off our list. After a short 20 - 30mins meeting we presume he will not have much idea what we are looking for and he do not really question the feasibility to do certain renovations or propose if there could be better ways to go around it and was okay with all the propose that we wanted. Which was quite different from the previous ID which we met, some of those ID we met gave us some verbal proposal as to whether it will be feasible or not but Andy was okay with all of it. End of the meeting, will get in touch with you on the proposal. However, after 2 weeks we were surprise that he have got in touch with us as he has come out with the proposal, drawings and 3D drawings!! My hubby din't really want to meet up anymore ID after so many rounds and was explaining to him that we have been looking at other ID but he was really sincere and asked to meet up to at least explain the drawings and 3D drawings that he has done. He provided us with 1 3D drawings and 2 other layout plans. Andy was really nice that we decided that we could have him to provide us a quotation for the round of shortlisting. I would say that Andy is pretty new and fresh in the ID industry but he is really nice and sincere, he is really good with his 3D drawings and ideas though we are not too sure with his co-ordinating skills during the renovation, he was sincere to even bring us to their current project to view but we were in a rush and could not arrange it on the same date. We are still awaiting for his quotation though. 7) ZQ Studio : We met up with Spencer who was the ID and we go through the same process on explaining the direction we are looking at and the meeting ended quite quickly, about a week later he got back with us but by then we were really tire out by meeting up with so many IDs. Lastly, we met up with 8) Evorich : They deals with Laminated Flooring, Vinyl Flooring and High Resistant Flooring (HERF or layman terms PVC) Previously have heard about their 100% waterproof Vinyl Flooring and High Resistant Flooring(HERF), apparently to them, both are different. To us we find that both are the same or similiar. High Resistant Flooring (HERF) are of same or similiar as Vinyl as the findings i have found. 100% waterproof are important for us as we have 2 dogs and will really do not want to spoil our flooring with our furkid's accidental pee, both of us like the looks of the wood-like flooring. Initially we were looking towards wood tiles which are tiles with wood grains looks. The difference is tiles are cooler to walk onto. On our first meeting we met up with Johnson from Evorich and he explain on the differences with Laminated Flooring, Vinyl Flooring, High Resistant Flooring (HERF) and Engineered Wood Floorings. He went though with us on the waterproofing of High Resistant Flooring(HERF) and that he himself have done huge amount of experiment on his own High Resistant Flooring(HERF) and even having tissue beneath the High Resistant Flooring(HERF) and water on top of it overnight and water is unable to sip through, I would say they are the few which would promised that their High Resistant Flooring(HERF) 100% waterproof as it is a huge statement to make if it is unable to do so. Initially hubby did alot of research on Evorich and was keen on having their High Resistant Flooring(HERF) but i was hesitant as i have yet to do my own research. The feel of High Resistant Flooring(HERF) does feels good and different and it is slightly cheaper (ranging about $6-$.650) or about the same price to having wood tiles, it can comes without skirting and Johnson mentioned that the High Resistant Flooring(HERF) could follow us when we move as it on clip system(**this point not too convincing though, once we move out we presume to be moving bigger house and would need to purchase more but provided the colour will still be available) I have read up that there will be some side effects on High Resistant Flooring(HERF), *want to make sure we will be okay with the side effects and deduce if its a huge or minor issue for us. e.g : high possibility of uneven laying as free cement screed by HDB will not be as perfect to having 100% or 80% levelling, thus affecting the outlook to form a wave on the laying of High Resistant Flooring(HERF). So far he mentioned that the possibility of having a huge wave of uneven tiles will be really rare, he show us in his showroom on the worst we could expect from the wave but it seems not a huge issue for us. His advice was to possibility try own best to advice the person laying the cement screed to have it as level as possible by nicely advice them to spend more effort and time. One more issue which we were concern was that mold will gather under the flooring which he promised if such issues occurs it will be a issue of product defect and will be covered by warranty which he mentioned a life-time warranty. Thus further explaining that if mold were to gather underneath, it means that the clip could not do a proper job on preventing it to be waterproof or it could be possible that the High Resistant Flooring(HERF) were laid before the cement screed were fully dry as High Resistant Flooring(HERF) would require fully dry cement screed to lay on. We were convince that most of our concerns are covered but was quite hesitant when we had to make decision on the spot to lock in the price we wanted. But eventually did when Johnson was nice enough to provide us with an additional clause to have a 14 days money back guarantee thus providing me more time to find out more on High Resistant Flooring(HERF). After doing a throughly research and have some reviews from U.S which they lay their own High Resistant Flooring(HERF) that it does occur before that odour coming out from the High Resistant Flooring(HERF) but we were promised that High Resistant Flooring(HERF) will be odourless and if such issues occurs it will be covered. Cracks will also be covered by evorich but we are also quite concern with the levelling of the cement screed. Eventually, we decided on rooms with High Resistant Flooring(HERF) and living room with Wood Tiles. **Engaging Mr. K for our rennovation

Hi all, I have been wanting to write about my renovation experience for a while now but have been putting it off until now . We took our keys back in July 2013 and officially moved in in Nov 2013. This forum has been a great source of information for me and I would like to give something back to the community. Hopefully, it will be of some benefit to anyone who is reading this . First of all, the floor plan: We started researching for our renovation since 2012. We read forums and flipped through home decor magazines at the library or bookstores etc. Take pictures - they might come in handy in future when you meet with contractors. A good idea is to write your notes in Google Drive so you can access them anywhere. We also kept a spreadsheet with all the quotation breakdowns from the contractors/IDs we contacted. This keeps things neat and easy to compare. Do include the prices of everything else you will need to budget for e.g. furnishings, electrical works etc. In this way, we knew for sure how much we spent in total for renovation (including all hidden costs!). Try to know what you want before going around asking for quotations. For example, we knew (after looking through countless magazines ) that we want a Scandinavian look for our house. That means: - furniture with simple and clean lines - bright, open spaces - light-color themes - wood-looking flooring - minimalism In short, there are lots of planning and research to do even before getting your keys. Do walk around home exhibitions (regularly at Expo) and furniture stores (IKEA). Shortlist the stuff that you like. Take note of prices and put them down in your budget spreadsheet. We had planned for a renovation budget of 40K (including furnishings) and I was quite proud that we spent within our budget AND did not compromise on the Scandinavian vision . Preview: I will try to narrate and dissect our renovation process in future posts in this topic so stay tuned! (I am rather slow in writing, so bear with me, hopefully just need a few weeks! ). P.S. In the meantime, you can head over to my wife's blog (http://yunzhijian.blogspot.sg/) for pictures and her views on our renovation (YES she has already finished her blog!! And I am still on my first post!!)