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Hi ALL, i collected my keys in Jan 2017, in Boon Keng area, and finally works are starting!! This is my floor plan!

Hello guys, After patiently waiting for 3 years, I've just finally collected keys to my 4 room premium BTO!! Decided to start this t-blog to share my scandinavian renovation works with everyone as I'll like to contribute back to homeowners since I've been a quiet reader for the past one year. T-blog has been really 'educational' to me in terms of tips and tricks as well as contacts thus I'd hope what I will be sharing would contribute to those who are renovating their home or getting keys to their new place! Anyway, here's my floor plan for reference: My scandinavian design which I will be having are inspired during my stay in Denmark. During my stay there, I was influenced by the danish way of life, how their designs were clean and timeless as well as functional. I love everything scandinavian and my place would only be made of four colour scheme - which is white, brown, grey and black.

Introduction We want to share our renovation journey with Renotalk forumers here. After reading so much adventures, we are finally setting off to embark our renovation. We decided that we want to buy our own flat. We were thinking to purchase a resale flat beginning last year. That would mean we need to hurry to have our wedding banquet and solemnization soon after signing with HDB. We don't want to rush through such an important occasion of our lives. We want to be more prepared and ready and involve both our families, relatives and friends. After monitoring the resale market from the cooling measure, it is actually a good opportunity to get a resale flat. Good for buyers, sellers are not so happy with the least COV. There are two key factors that we look out for our flat. 1. Distance proximity, near either one of our parents. This means that anytime we can visit our parents and pop over for meals. If we have children in future, it will be accessible to find help. There is added advantage to live near parents: CPF Housing Grants for Resale Flats. 2. Available amentities like ATM/Banks, supermarket, coffeeshop, clinic, shopping mall, etc. It was our intention of getting a resale flat. However we realised after checking HDB website, there is a Sales of Balance Flats balloting in May 2014. To our favour, we found a location near to my parent's place and want to try balloting for it. The rest is His-tory. Tomorrow will be the start of the renovation. A Typical 4-Rm Floorplan

Dear Readers, Fairly new to RenoTalk as I merely just read and see pictures of other's T-Blogs, therefore decided to also share mine journey with everyone. Had friends and family whom encountered contractors/ID that ran away, ended up their money was cheated. Therefore, we were very careful in selecting our ID by ensuring that they are accredited with CaseTrust/RCMA. This is to prevent our money from dissapearing after hearing all those bad experiences... We wanted a home to display our Lego collection, as well as a cozy home to look forward to coming back everyday after work. As I do some baking as my hobby, i will need an open kitchen concept with lots of space to do my stuffs. Here are some details of my home: Location: Woodlands Type of Unit: HDB 4 Room Floor Size: 93m² Theme: Modern + Contemporary + Scandinavian + 15 Shades of Grey (not 50..) Floor Plan: HDB's Proposed Layout: Our Layout: Original's HDB layout is definitely not the layout i'm looking at as I have quite a number of Lego sets to display. These are some of the pictures/feels that I like when i first sourced for ideas/design/layout Moodboard Like all of you, selection of ID is the great headache of all. We were all hyped out and too excited, therefore started looking for ID as early as 2015-2016 after we booked our flat with HDB. FYI, our home is only going to be ready 2Q 2017. ID Selection 1) 3D I****** D****** - Strike Off Been hearing and seeing aloton them via Radio / Tv (RenoAid) as they are getting popular. Been to their showroom, didn't like the vibes of the company as the ID forgotten my appointment with them. Didn't bother to follow up after that, as they seems "too popular" or busy. 2) W**ken - Strike Off Visited them for fun at Tampines, didn't have much interesting ideas from them. Therefore decided to just drop them, as they are unable to think of anything out of the norm as all the proposed design/layout is what i found online. 3) Ciss**n Interior Design - Strike Off Also another ID that is frequently found at expo shows, quite like the home they did up for local celebrity - Judy, which was displayed at the showroom. Person we spoke to was very aggressive and pushy, therefore got quite turn off as during the point of time we were just looking out and finding out prices only. 4) i-Ch*pter - Strike Off Happen to chance upon them at one Star Living Furniture event, the ID we spoke to was quite knowledgeable and has lots of great, creative ideas. If you are looking for great ideas, you can look for him. We didn't select him because the company only offer 1 year warranty and the package is not enticing enough, furthermore hekeep calling me the wrong name ever since day 1. 5) Sk* Cr****** / Mus*e - Strike Off For those that visited the Musee Interior Design Resource Library would definitely come know them, as they are partners with Musee. It's an eye opener for a newbie like me to know about all about renovation and planning for my home, for those wanting to gain some knowledge can go visit them. We didn't eventually chose them because we felt that they want a share in every bit of every business, which makes them too "messy" and not specializing in what they are supposing to do. 6) U**** ID - Strike Off As the raves of the famous K** and Sa***** goes, we decided to also make an appointment with them to find out how good they are. On the 2nd meetup, you can tell that they are very sincere and serious in getting your business. They even do up a mood board and 3D for you to visualize, idont think i have come across any other ID that does this so far. Pretty amaze by what they can do to make you feel pressured. Their ideas are so-so in my opinion, quotation was super over-priced for the amount of work done. Furthermore, every hinges/drawer track provided were not even Excel or Blum. Didn't proceed with them as they only willing to offer 1 year warranty for that overprice quotation. 7) Rezt and Relax - [Selected] Always noticed their expo exhibition, visited them and quite like the vibes of their showroom/style. Made appointment with senior designer JJ and after a few meetup, we feel that the price is slightly on the high side. However, we were made to believe that it was because of the lifetime warranty. We decided to go with them as they are the only ID that offers lifetime warranty and is also backed by CaseTrust 8) Abs*l**k I******* D***** Saw alot of Facebook ads on this company, made appointment with them to just kaypoh kaypoh. The ideas and quotation were quite reasonable, we even manage to negotiate to a 5 years warranty coverage and free upgrade to blum for everything. The quotation were within our budget and best of all, it includes hacking of the 2nd Bedroom to cater my walk in wardrobe! However, we eventually didn't proceed with them because we have signed with R&R. Appliance/Equipment List: [Fridge, Aircon, Washing Machine, Heater, Basin] - Fridge: LG Door-in-Door Refrigerator 601L GS-J6011SB - AirCon: LG Artcool System 4 Mitsubishi Starmex System 4 5Ticks - Washer/Dryer: 12/8kg Inverter Direct Drive 6 Motion Front Loader WD1628RDS - Joven5035L Green Storage Heater: JH5035HE - Kitchen Basin: Blanco Metra 9 + Mida Sink MIxer [Hob, Hood, Oven, Microwave] - Hob/Hood: Brandt AT1490X + TG308XC1 + TI1000B package - Oven: Brandt 60cm Built-in Pyrolytic Oven FP1067XS - Microwave: Brandt 900w Built-in Microwave ME1030X i'm abit OCD and like things to be consistent, clean and neat. Therefore it has to be of the same brand/series... [Bathroom] - Rain Shower: Grohe Cosmopolitan 200 (Common) + Grohe Euphoria 180 (Master) - Basin Taps: Krisroz 43011C (Common) + Krizros KS35001 High Body (Master) - Toilet Bowl: American Standard AMS 2307 Acacia E Vortex - Bidet Spray: TBA - Accessories: TBA list to be updated, still looking around. Should be getting Grohe Rainshower and other stuffs... any recommendation? [Misc] - Eubiq Powertrack System - Evorich Flooring - Accessories: TBA - Deco Items: TBA Can you believe that we actually place deposit for Evorich Flooring back in early 2016, even way before anything else. We quite like the flexibility of Eubiq in the house (especially the kitchen), therefore we also went ahead to purchase the powertrack system and manage to negotiate a good deal to get additional stuffs. In the next post, will be posting details of the discussion of my 3D and pictures will be attached.

My unit is a 4-room flat of 92sqm (including AC ledge). It's considered really small but oh wells, this is what you get for a 4-room flat nowadays, and thankfully me and wife aren't that big size either. The bombshelter is located in the kitchen that in turn, gives us more space in the LR, which is exactly what we wanted. Can host mahjong session in the LR Initial Floor Plan Our Basic Requirements 1. Spacious MBR and LR 2. Walk-in wardrobe 3. Work area 4. Long mirror cabinet in MBR toilet 5. High Resilient Vinyl Flooring for LR and all BRs 6. Overlay of floor and wall tiles in MBR toilet 7. Bottom cabinet only for hob side, top and bottom cabinet on the opposite side 8. Scandinavian style, with maybe a little pinch of Industrial feel Contractors/IDs Selection 1. Chun Xiang Renovation Pte Ltd I shall skip the scouting process as I'm too lazy to recall each and every detail of them. In summary, I've approached a couple of IDs and Main Cons, but none of them fits my budget with the requirements, except for Edmund (in short I'll just call him E here) from CX Reno. Actually he was introduced to me by a close friend, and I've personally went down to their new house to witness their fine carpentry's workmanship. One thing good about them is that they're already a registered reno contractors with HDB and it will make the approval process of the reno smoother and faster. New Floor Plan with my Idea 1. Sealing up BR2 actual door, and hacking a door linking BR2 with MBR. Making BR2 into a walk-in wardrobe and work area. 2. Changing the direction of MBR door to have better accessibility into walk-in wardrobe. Milestones and Progress Updates 19 / 10 / 2016 - Flat Unit Selected 05 / 01 / 2017 - Submitted Appeal Form for Smooth Rendering Floor (SRF) *mine is a SBF unit, therefore no flooring is done prior, and since we're doing vinyl flooring, we need to get cement screed for our flooring, should take around 6-8 weeks to get approved, i.e. latest by 2nd March* decided to withdraw and appoint my main con screed instead 16 / 01 / 2017 - Collected Keys and Signed of Lease Agreement, Performed Door-opening Ritual 19 / 01 / 2017 - 1st Defects Inspection 21 / 01 / 2017 - Submitted Defects Feedback Form to BSC *takes around 9-14 working days to be rectified by BSC, i.e. latest by 13th Feb* 13 / 02 / 2017 - BSC confirmed 1st rectification completed, pending for 2nd defects check or close case with BSC 18 / 02 / 2017 - Rectification completion confirmed and signed. 16 / 03 / 2017 - Renovation and Hacking work commences! 18 / 03 / 2017 - Electrical work commences! 03 / 06 / 2017 - Final Handover from CX Reno (but still got some nitty-gritty touch ups to be rectified, so they will still be back a few times. And my walk-in wardrobe that is handled by another door contractor, still has not been installed, hopefully they can be installed by mid June, furnitures and electrical appliances are slowly coming in.) Will keep this post updated every now and then... All the completed final renovation images. Hope my blog helped you guys along the way! Living Room Kitchen MBR Toilet Walk-in Wardrobe MBR

Been thinking long and hard if I should start a t-blog, because I’m not sure if I can commit to writing one between life, work, and the hectic reno process. But in the end I thought I should try to document the process of shaping my house into a home. Background This is a 3 room unit at Punggol, along the waterway. Key collection started on 14 March 2017 for the first 2 blocks, my block is next and I think we'll most likely get our keys in April. Different from most other t-blogs by couples, the house will be for myself, my mom and my younger brother. Since I’ll be paying for the place (+ reno and furniture/appliances) alone, I chose not to burden myself with a higher loan for my first home by getting a 4R. Hence my budget for reno isn't big at all; my challenge is to make it a nice place with everyone having their own space in a small house. Floor Plan I’m quite happy with the layout of the unit, even though it’s small. Kitchen is tiny but squarish, bedrooms are decent size and bomb shelter is not in front of the kitchen. Overall, I have no real issues with the positioning and shape of the rooms. It also has an open concept kitchen. Next few posts will cover my mood board, the space planning for the house and ID selection process. Can’t wait for my key collection! I was never too excited until the recent 2 months

Love the clean, minimalistic, natural look? Benz Design Interior has been at this for many years. Absolute consistency in their workmanship and dealings with people, it is no wonder Benz Design has been receiving a constant flow of good reviews. See one of their latest Scandinavian Home Themes (pictures attached) For more info: https://www.renotalk.com/directory-listing/company/11999/2/benz-design-interior Have a pleasant time browsing! Look up, amazing detail! Lights & branches. Clean & Natural look Plants need good light & that's what you have here Keeping true the theme from start More videos:

Decided to start a T-Blog to detail our renovation process! Hopefully it would be able to help other new homeowners like how the previous T-Blogs helped me I would try to update the T-Blog within the first few posts so that its easier for new readers to browse through. Floor Plan for a 4-Room BTO @ Canberra East We had two main options 1) Bomb Shelter in Living room 2) Bomb Shelter in Kitchen. We decided to go with the bomb shelter in Kitchen as the layout was easier to work with. Moodboard: Generally we would be using light colours along with empty/hacked spaces to make the place look bigger. The furniture required would also be kept to a minimum. For Living Room - Going with something simple For Bedroom 3 - Planning for a half-hack alumimum lattice to make the place look spacious For Kitchen Entrance - Planning for half-hack as well for an open kitchen concept For Kitchen Area - Classic Brown/White combination for Kitchen Cabinets For Master Bedroom - L-Shape Walk-in For both Toilets - Standard Vanity Setup Budget Allocated: 1) Renovation: 30K 2) Electronics: 10K 3) Non- Electronics: 10K Total: 50K

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

Hello everyone! My fiance and I are going to get the keys to our 4-room in 2Q 2016. So excited and we can't wait to start our new home after 4 years of long wait! We have been reading the forum to do our research diligently. Thank you everyone for sharing your experience with us! Now is our turn to journal down our renovation journey in this t-blog. Here goes our floor plan: This is our first time owning a house. We are very excited about our renovation for the new home. However, we can’t help but feel the pinch, especially we going to spend a hefty sum when our renovation and wedding falls in the same year. We just started working for 2-3 years and I don’t want to spend all our savings to splurge on the renovation. Hence, I will try my best to stick within our budget and spend wisely. We also set our budget below: Budget for Renovation: 30-35K Budget for Furnishing and Electrical appliances: 20k Renovation Requirement We will keep our carpentry work minimal and simple. Save money on carpentry by going for off shelf furnishings and online shopping of home decorations to achieve the look we want. Also, we chose Scandinavian style as this theme is easily executed and it will never fall our of style. As some of the requirement are optional, we will finalize our decision only after considering the cost and visiting the actual site. I also try to think of other alternatives to save the cost. Living Room 1.To supply materials & labour to lay Vinyl @ Living. Dining Room/ Bedroom 3/Bedroom 2/Master bedroom 2.Painting for the whole house 3.Chemical wash for whole house after renovation 4.Sliding window at the yard (optional) 5.To supply and install 3 bedroom doors / 2 bathroom doors LIVING ROOM 1.To construct false ceiling work @ Living/Dining Hall (optional) 2.To construct 16ft Craftstone wall / Brickwall stucco wall, whichever is more affordable (optional) 3.To box up 8ft gypsum partition wall 4.To construct half ht and 5ft shoe cabinet KITCHEN 1.To hack half partition wall between dining and kitchen 2.To install coated aluminum frame fixed window at partial wall and swing door 3.To construct 9ft Top cabinet 4.To construct 15ft Bottom cabinet 5.To construct 2ft Tall cabinet 6.To overlay Subway tiles on exposed wall on kitchen wall 7.To install 16ft Kompac plus/ iQuartz for kitchen cabinet surface top BATHROOM 1.To construct shower kerbs at Common /Master Bathroom 2.To supply and install 10mm Clear tempered glass shower screen @ Common Bathroom 3.To supply and install 10mm Clear tempered glass (1 fixed and 1 swing) shower screen @Master bathroom 4.To construct 3ft Vanity bottom finished @Master bathroom 5.Overlaying floor tiles for Common /Master Bathroom (optional) BEDROOMS 1.Full ht and 7ft casement wardrobe @Masterbedroom 2.Full ht and 5.5ft casement wardrobe @Bedroom 2 Table of Contents 1. Moodboard

Hello everyone! We have been silent readers of this community for quite awhile and started stalking t-blogs since more than a year ago - even before applying for our current flat! Bin of the #kingandbin duo has been interested in home decor for the longest time and has been browsing online forums/communities ever since Livejournal days. So you can say that she has been preparing for this even before knowing/meeting King . And yay! Our place is going to start renovations verrryyy soon. Thus we're here to share our experience! Home will be a 4-Room flat in Sengkang, in between the MRT station and our parents' place. It's approximately 6min by foot (or 1 bus stop) to the MRT and also about 6min by foot (or 1 bus stop too) where King currently stays with his parents. Here's the floor plan: It's a SOBF unit and we received the keys in mid February this year. We took our time to meet up with contractors and to think through (mainly Bin, King helps to make final decisions after she narrows options down ) about the works we would like to do for our home. We finally decided on & confirmed our contractor 2 weeks back. Work will commence just before the Lunar 7th Month begins. It's been a rather slow process so far but we are glad to get things started! Hope you join us on this t-blog as #kingandbin embarks on our exciting renovation journey for our first home! // HOME IN PHOTOS [BEFORE & AFTER] LIVING ROOM STUDY ROOM DRESSING ROOM MASTER BEDROOM KITCHEN COMMON BATHROOM MASTER BATHROOM CORRIDOR

Like many others, I have been getting ideas from fellow renotalkers for our home. After 4.5 years of wait, we finally got our keys to our 4-rm BTO! As you can see from the floor plan, our bomb shelter is in the kitchen And these are some pictures of the rest of our "kosong" house as we did not opt for any flooring, doors or sanitary fittings. We did not have any wash basins in the toilets as well. So basically, we only had kitchen floor and wall tiles and a toilet bowl in each toilet! And so because we waited for 4.5 years, upon our collection of keys, we went straight in to roll all the pineapple, sprinkle rice at 4 corners, etc. I am not that superstitious, but the hubby wanted to follow the rules and whatnot so I complied. We did our defect checking on the very same day and I must say that we were lucky to not have that many defects. These were the few things which we spotted: - cracked wall along the entrance to the master toilet - stained / cracked tile (only 1 in the entire house) - hollow "openings" below the windows - scratches on main door and metal parts of windows We submitted the defect list the following day and we were told it would take 14-16 days for rectification to complete. To our surprise, it was all done after 1 week! ID and contractor selection As I was constantly excited about our house, our search for an ID began about 1 year before our key collection as I always heard that the TOP will be a year earlier (in fact, it wasn't). We were rather naive and gullible then and went to meet almost 10 IDs who gave us quotations just with the floor plan. By the way, we relied on q a n v a s t heavily during our search for an ID as we wanted to have a look at their past projects before meeting them. Sky Creation I forgot his name but we went to his office twice to discuss about the things that we wanted. He wasn't very pushy, but he still wanted to talk us into placing a deposit on the 2nd meeting. We wanted to look around so we turned him down politely. Fortunately, we didn't place any deposit as we have heard quite horrendous reviews about them over the 1 year. M3 Studio This lady was very frank (too frank actually). She did suggest some ideas and drew what we articulated quite well on a piece of blank paper. She also suggested quite a few ideas which other IDs did not managed to. It got quite uncomfortable when we told her that we haven't gotten our keys and she went like "I know you definitely won't come back if you leave now. It's ok, it's your choice ultimately." Starry Homestead Again I forgot his name, but he looked very decent (and totally like a salesman more than an ID) and discussed some ideas with us. We were at their office which had a showroom so the discussion went on and it was time to leave. He did not press us to place any deposit and told us to think it over before getting in touch again. However, after turning him down, he contacted the hubby several times and asked "so how?" many times until he finally gave up after 1-2 months? Lux Design We got to know them through q a n v a s t. We liked some of their works shown. I think they are contractors turned IDs because they have their own carpentry factory. Our meet up was always with the two of them because one was an apprentice. We did not take them up as we did not feel comfortable letting an inexperienced apprentice take over the design of our house. Also, most ideas were from us and they just said "ok". Chapter One Design After reading positive reviews about them on renotalk. We had a pleasant meet up with Fadhil. However, somehow Jonathan was roped in and the project became quite "grey" as we did not know exactly who was in charge of designing our home. Fadhil is a very nice guy and his ideas were also in line with ours. He also wasn't pushy and checked back with us even after 6 months! The hubby really wanted to sign with them, but I stopped him because I was so engrossed in reading all the renotalk tblogs and came to know of a few popular contractors. Contractors J & E I texted Edmund on the very day we collected our keys. Perhaps it was my fault to text him at 10.15pm so I did not receive a reply. The next morning, I texted him again with a "hello?" and he finally replied and we met the following week at our "kosong" house. As we communicated our ideas to him, he was constantly busy answering calls. I sort of expected this but still, I appreciate the fact that he was still trying his best to listen to our needs and wants. He jotted down briefly in his notebook and drew some rough drawings in it. The quotation came 3 days later as promised and we were quite disappointed to see that it was on par with an ID quotation. However, the hubby reminded me that at least this was an accurate quotation as compared to IDs who relied on floor plans to quote us. I told him to let me have some time to look through the quote and I'll get back to him next week. It has been 2 weeks and I never got back - and he never did as well. Although we have heard great reviews on their workmanship, the hubby and I were just not comfortable to engage someone who was constantly busy and unable to attend to us. Contractor K from h2o Interior Another renowned contractor is Mr K from renotalk. I texted him on the same morning I texted Edmund "hello?" and he replied almost immediately! I thought that his reply was fast because he was excited that he would be getting another project to work on. However, throughout our 2 weeks of communication, his replies have been quite fast. Even when I was upset about an increase in price in the quotation (also because hubby and I kept changing our ideas), he called me immediately to explain the reasons and that he doesn't mark up prices for no reason. I calmed down and listened (the hubby also talked some sense into me) and everything was back to normal. We changed our quotation a total of 5 times within 2 weeks! Even with so much going on, Mr K never once mentioned about taking any payment from us. Oh yes, he came down to our house twice because we needed to clarify some stuff. It was hard to fix a date to sign the contract as he is also very very busy! Weekends were out so we are going to sign the contract with him the week after next and choose our tiles and laminates for the cabinets and wardrobe on the same day. With no payment collected from us yet, Mr K has passed us 3 forms to fill up (installation of service yard windows, hacking of walls, commencement of reno) which we have since passed it back to him. He has submitted those forms to HDB which means that reno may commence very soon once we select our tiles at Hafary! In my next post, I shall share the things that we have bought thus far from Amazon and local stores as well as Taobao. Oh yes, and my mood board

Hello all! I have been a silent reader and follower of this forum since my fiance and I received our keys in May 2015 - we have been kinda chill about this so the process only started proper last month haha. Before I begin, I would really like to give my biggest heartfelt thank you to all the bloggers here who have shared their experiences because it has helped me so much, if not entirely in my own process. We are halfway through the renovation process now and I thought I would start writing about our renovation journey and hopefully, our experience would help all of you in your own exciting experience. The initials of our names form WHAT - hence the title ahha. We are both easties at heart so imagine our joy when we successfully applied for a sales of balance BTO in the Bedok area. It is about 10 mins walk to Bedok MRT, and we ain't got a good view (unless you count having a free show of watching your neighbours go about their business as one) but I gladly sacrificed that so that we could still be in an environment we grew up in. So here is our very humble home layout - a 4 room unit. I guess you could call our theme scandustrial (are you bored of this already?) but I love the woody warm feel, mixed with a little bit of industrial (black framed glass and wirings), and marble-tops - I will just let the photos do the talking for the inspirations. I guess you can say I am into a lot of white, grey and brown shades heh.

The Introduction Time for me to share my renovation journey after much persuasion from my ID. Pardon me as this is going to be an abridged version, but feel free to post / PM if you need more details on any aspect. The Site Our family gotten a flat at Costa Ris in 2011 and finally received our keys earlier this year. We are kind of late due to administrative hiccups and by the time we received our keys, a good portion of our neighbours have already moved in. We thought this site is really quite good despite it being on the eastern edge of Singapore. It is rare to find a site that is walking distance from a main MRT line these days. The Floor Plan We opt for a 5-room flat as we intend to stay for the long haul, thus more space the better! We are happy with this layout as it gives us a long rectangular kitchen. The down side is the master bedroom is relatively small. From the onset we already have an idea to have an open kitchen concept by knocking down the wall highlighted in red. The Design Love wood, love simplicity and sleekness. These principles seem to be embedded into mainstream Scandinavian design and we'll go with that. Some pictures that we collected on our Pin board that make us say "Yea we want to live in a house like that!" The Interior Designers We met up with a few IDs in an attempt find the right one. I hate shopping for IDs as it gives me the same sick feeling when we are shopping for wedding studios, pre-sales promise you everything, post-sales give you everything else. As we do not have a clear cut idea of what we want to be done, we find ourselves comparing apple to oranges as different IDs have different ideas, which translates to different Bill of Materials and different cost. Meaningless. In the end we chose Nick that used to be from Renoguyz. He is different, he talks to you about fishes, flowers and bikinis. Deciding factor is that he is frank and not afraid to tell you what is nice and what is not. And now he have an assistant (Benny) so they remind me of Batman and Robin, which is always nice but I digress. The Plan As we did not opt for any of HDB add-ons, we pretty can choose anything we want which is nice. The bad part is that we have to choose from anything under the sun. Long story short, we settled on a plan to have the following key features: Kitchen Two row of cabinets and a breakfast bar topSubway tile backsplashGranite countertopCement Screed wallsHacking of HDB tilesLay with tiles of our choiceHacking of wall between kitchen and living roomBedroom Custom Wardrobes for all bedroomsStudy table and overhang shelves (aka the head cracker because I knock my head so many times on it) for bedroom 2Cement Screed floorClassic doors for all roomsToilets Full overlay of tiles for both toiletsVanity top for MBR toiletAluminum full louvre doors for both toiletsLiving Room Extension of Breakfast top to a dining table in the living room (Nick's proud invention)Feature wall: Brick overlay at TV areaFeature wall: Wooden Plank wallShoe Cabinet Others Electrical worksFlooring tiles + labourPainting, chemical wash and yada yadaThe indicative cost was about $47k but the final figure is being recalculated as there were adjustments along the way.

Hello! Decided to start a T Blog here after reading so many interesting blogs from you guys! Have been a silent reader since late last year and now my reno is almost ready hence would like to share my buys and progress. My crib is located in the north-east area, we got our keys in mid jan. Renovation did not start until mid march as i want to avoid the CNY period. First up, my tiny 4 room floor plan : Floor Plan Theme As per the title, i am going for the super overuse wood,white & black color board in my new crib because i love the ambiance of those cafes which are sprouting over in Singapore over the past 1 year or so. Hence i decide to create the same ambiance which consist of a little of scandi, loft style so that i will not spend so much money on cafe-hopping. A few must haves : Woodgrain laminates White laminate Brick wall Black electrical conduits Contractor/ID We have decided from start to engage a contractor instead of ID mainly because i have the design more or less in my mind. I have read through so many blogs here and the first one i approach was Nicholas from Renoguyz. He is the first and the only contractor we met up. We decided to engage him as our contractor after 2 meetups. He has a reputation of being sloppy,straight forward but that is what my husband like about him. Both of us are comfortable with him throughout the 2 meetups with him and we get along quite well with him hence we decided to take the plunge and go with him. His ideas are more to the practical side and if he thinks it is not nice or will not fit, he will voice it out instead of accepting whatever i have suggested. Budget We did not take up any renovation loan hence our budget is quite limited and we allocated under 20K for renovation. Nick gave me a very satisfied quotation 1 day after our meetup and its well below our 20K! p.s : we opt in for tiles and doors from HDB. Things we did : Taobao I have been an avid fan of TB since 5 years ago and It is in my natural instinct to get stuffs from TB since i am quite well verse with it. . I have engaged AMCON for all my sea shipments till date. Their prices are slightly cheaper than other forwarders and they are fast! My 3rd shipment only took 5days! It is true that they say cheap will not be good, good will not be cheap because their customer service is like non-existence. Shall not rant on that part however i will still use them because of their speed! Did not receive any damage on any of my items so far and i have to give credit to the AMCON warehouse staff and delivery uncle and of cos to TB sellers who wrapped it so well and sturdy! I will write a separate post on my purchases on TB. Progress I do not have the before and after photos because i am not always around when they are doing the works. I only do checks on weekends and most of the time it is nicely done! So i only have the almost-done photos. Every weekend checks are like opening presents during Christmas because our crib is changing every single week i went up and check! Next post will be the almost-done pictures! ************************************************************************************************************************************* Decided to do up table of contents for easy viewing: 1. Taobao purchase 2. Taobao Unboxing 3. Taobao Unboxing part 2 3. My completed Taobao brickwall 4. Progress #1 5. Progress #2 6. Progress #3 7. Taobao Unboxing part #3 8. Installation of Matt black bombshelter 9. Taobao unboxing part #4 10. Amazon purchase 11. Progress #4 12. Amazon unboxing 13. Taobao purchase #2 14, Progress #5 15. Amazon purchase #2 16. Electronic appliances purchases 17. Misc online purchases 18. Progress #6 19. Progress #7 20. Taobao unboxing #5 21. Post renovation cleaning 22. Blinds and curtains 23. Appliances delivery 24. Decoration #1 25. Decoration #2 26. Decoration #3 27. Decoration #4 28. Decoration #5 29. Decoration #6 30. Taobao purchases #3 31. Taobao unboxing #6 + reviews

Hello everyone ~ After years of waiting, finally I got my keys to our new home. We have chosen a 3 room BTO, it's small I know... but with 2 years of info gathering in this forums and other platforms, we believe we can make it into a comfy abode! Contents (To be updated soon) Shopping list a) TV b) Oven c) Cooker and Hoods d) Fridge e) Air-Con f) Bathroom accessories g) Laundry system h) Wifi remote controller i) Ergonomic furniture j) Other interesting stuff Completed Looks a) Living room b) Kitchen c) Bedroom 1 d) Master Bedroom e) Common bathroom f) Master bathroom As part of my job needs, I travelled quite abit and get in contact to many interesting home living concept that really helps make full use of space. I believe it is possible to enjoy comfortable living even with small area. Let's begin with the floor plan.

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..

Hi All, Just like to share with you all one my completed project at Casa Clementi. Here is the proposed layout. Due to some fengshui concern from my client, we actually change the location of the entrance for the kitchen and added in a sliding door. For the rest we keep quite simple as the items that stand out will be the furnitures itself. In the MBR we also hacked away the dividing wall to built in a wardrobe and maintaining a comfortable walkway. Concept Images Like I mentioned most of the design elements will come from the furnitures itself and the space will emphasis more on the materials and textures used. Stay tuned for more of the completed photos. Thanks for viewing.

Now that our reno seems to have started, i guess it might be nice to do up a little thread on our ground flr 2 bedroom resale apt. Our first ever home. Why Renozilla? Cos my gf think's i'm the reno equivalent of a picky bride-zilla. Am doing the space planning and design myself so we did not engage an ID or ID firm and went straight to the contrators, shortlisted 3 of em and got 3 quotes. Also cos reviewed a few ID firms that cold called me and found that stylistically, most of them were not that great. The difference between all three were quite significant but in the end, we went with the one that that came in the middle in terms of quotation $$$. (but was still overall slightly on the expensive side imo) We have heard really good things about him and his reliability so i guess sometimes you just can't put a $$$ value on everything. Let's just hope we made the right decision. Here's some pictures of our soon to be gutted abode (pictures taken on viewing) Kitchen

Its been more than 5 years since my first t-blog (you can find it here) and it was time to move to a bigger place. Settled on Bukit Panjang as fiance's family was staying nearby and got this unit after just viewing it once! It was going at a great price considering the size and proximity to the MRT (about 10 minutes walk). It's almost double the size of my previous flat (65sqm) with double the number of rooms and a balcony! Love the floor plan. Previous owners hacked away the storeroom though which was okay as the position was rather odd - just beside the kitchen. Currently waiting for the appointment date (scheduled in late July or early Aug) . I would have to move out from my current place by end Sept so its quite rushed! Hoping to document the journey here and hopefully help others in their renovation journey as well! We are looking at a minimalist scandi theme as we want to keep the house open, bright and airy and with less clutter as possible. We both like white with woods to accent the house and some black here and there. The plan is to have some plants in the balcony or maybe even a green wall if the budget permits.

Finally! It is our turn to contribute and start a T-Blog in Renotalk. Been reading quite a few T-Blogs since mid of last year to understand the renovation journey, tips etc. Not a wordy person, so I will not type a long essay and just go straight to the point but sometimes I may edit the contents of this T-Blog periodically so do check back if you are interested! This is our floor plan, a humble 4room BTO in Jurong West : Although our living room (TV/Sofa area a little small) seems to split into two because of the bomb shelter, we are blessed to have a long kitchen and we are going to do open kitchen concept which will effectively turn the whole area to look spacious! The bedrooms size is decent enough, except for the second room which seems to be quite small. Initially we wanted the third room to be our piano room but in the end we decided to use the second room instead. So the third room shall be our guest room for now. Our milestones: May 2013 - Apply for our BTO flat, we are lucky to get a very lucky queue no 71 to select our flat! Oct 2013 - Selected our unit and paid for the 5% down payment to HDB and the long wait for key collection begins... -_-" Mar 2016 - We done our customary wedding. May 2016 - We had our first honeymoon in Melbourne and truly enjoyed it as it was my wife's first time to visit Australia! Jun/Jul 2016 - Can't remember the exact month but we decided to kickstart our ID selection earlier. Visited quite a number of IDs before shortlisted our preferred ID last year Nov 2016. Oct 2016 - I know we are kiasu as we started purchases stuffs for our new home as early as last year October since there is quite a number of sales! LOL Feb 2017 - Our HLE auto approved! Mar 21st 2017 - Our key collection day! ID, window grille contractor, bedroom door and toilet door contractor came down to do on site measurement. Tim Wong also came down to do planning for aircon trunking installation. Mar 24th 2017 - Took 1 day leave to do through defects check with my wife. Submitted defect list to BSC for rectification. Mar 25th 2017 - BSC came down to our place to perform rectification. Window blind contractor came down to do onsite measurement. Also selected our window blind materials and given quotation. Installed shelving for bomb shelter. Apr 1st 2017 - Installed Varm on main door to allow 90 degrees opening without door stopper. Choose our wood material for our carpentry works with our ID and also finalise our laminates design for our carpentry works and wall colors. Apr 4th 2017 - Hack permit approved for hacking of kitchen wall. Apr 6th 2017 - Aircon trunking installation (1st installation). Apr 10th 2017 - ID sent us finalised carpentry works measurement and design. Apr 12th 2017 - Kitchen wall hacked. Apr 15th 2017 - Electrical works for power sockets. We didn't engage our ID's electrician as we found that his quote is quite expensive so found Mr Sim to do the electrical works for us. Apr 18th 2017 - Cement screeding for our flooring. Apr 20th - 22nd 2017 - Kitchen cabinet base / Shower kerb. Apr 22nd - 23rd 2017 - DIY painting (door frame + bomb shelter) Apr 22nd 2017 - Carpentry work fabrication Apr 24th - 26th 2017 - Painting for whole house. Apr 29th 2017 - Lightings & ceiling fan installation / Gas pipe installation / Aircon second installation. May 2nd - 4th 2017 - Vinyl flooring installation May 9th 2017 - Carpentry installation May 15th 2017 - Window grilles installation (Living room + Bedrooms + Service yard). Bedroom doors installation. May 20th 2017 - Blinds installation. Toilet doors installation May 27th 2017 - Taobao 2nd batch orders delivery. Jun 1st 2017 - Piano delivery. M1 Fiber broadband activation. Guestroom mattress delivery. Jun 3rd 2017 - Storage heater installation. Master bedroom mattress and bed frame delivery. Dining bench & chair (table left out!)+sofa+coffee table delivery. Washing Machine+dryer+refrigerator delivery. Jun 8th 2017 - Main gate installation Jun 10th 2017 - Gas activation. Dining table delivery. Tempered glass installation. Jun 12th 2017 - General cleaning. Kitchen mixer installation. Remaining switches & sockets installation on kitchen cabinet. ID handover! Jun 15th 2017 - Moving our stuffs to our new place. Jun 16th 2017 - Moving in to our new place! ---- Moodboard: We like Scandinavian themed homes very much as it is simple and not too old fashion (sorry to those Classic theme lovers!)... at the same time we want to throw in a bit of Industrial look to make it look more interesting... but instead of the usual black,white and woody feel, we want to throw in quite a large portion of grey (industrial feel) for our flooring and pastel colors to liven up our new home. Initially for the living room, I wanted some yellow as this color seems to be often overlook by other home owners ... but then I realised the exterior colors of our BTO is made up of grey and yellow... so... no go in case our home looks like representing our BTO lol For master bedroom, we wanted blue as it looks more calming. For piano room, my wife like sea green color. Some colors we like for our new home. We will let our ID to help our select the appropriate colors as we are not too good at matching colors. Table of Contents: 1. ID selection process 2. Our offline purchases 3. Our online purchases via Taobao/Qoo10/Amazon 4. How to buy from Taobao? 5. 3D drawings from our ID 6. Defects check We use this link as a guide - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7KsvqdzcsrpaW5kVEUwVEZqX2M/edit | Mainly defects found includes: - choked pipes (TIP: once you found one, just declare all and don't be surprise BSC can clear one bagful of debris!) - loose window handles/hinges - rusty hinges - masking stains on walls - uneven paint marks (those teardrop paint marks) - Spotted a "potential" leak issue... but seems to be ok after BSC checked. Our neighbours (3-4 of them) found this pest issue with the floor skirting. 7. Renovation progress Carpentry material selection / Wall color selection Aircon 1st installation Carpentry measurements Wall hacked! Electrical works (sockets and switches) Cement screeding by HDB contractor and a bit of hiccups... Tiling works DIY painting (door frames + bomb shelter) Painting by ID and some hiccups... | Painting completion! Carpentry fabrication Gas pipe installation Aircon 2nd installation Electrical works (partial lights installation) Vinyl flooring installation Carpentry installation part I Carpentry installation part 2 Carpentry installation part 3 Carpentry installation part 4 Bedroom barn door installation part I Window grilles installation Bedroom barn door installation part II Toilet lourve door installation Blinds installation Kompacplus top installation Plumber works AO Smith digital storage heater installation Main gate installation Tempered glass kitchen backsplash installation Gas activation It's a wrap! 8. Renovation completion Sneak peek of our love nest

Hi everyone! After a 4.5 years long wait, I have finally gotten my keys to my new home. My BTO is located in the west but due to privacy reasons, I will not be disclosing the exact location of my home. I have been following the forum since a couple of years back and today I have decided to start my own thread. I will be sharing my renovation journey, my thoughts and reviews. At the same time, I hope to gain valuable learning points from fellow forummers. This is my floor plan, 3 room 65sqm BTO. I will be sharing the unit with my sibling. View of my living room when you enter through the door. Another view of my living room. Will be doing a full height cabinet for this side of my kitchen. View of my living room from the kitchen. Will be doing a tempered glass swing door at the entrance, did considered a bifold door but my ID advised not to use a bifold door as it will make the whole area smaller with the kitchen completely segregated from the living room. Entrance to service yard, love that there is ample amount of sunlight streaming in throughout the day as this area is relatively unblocked as seen by the vast area of trees opposite. However, I heard that the area is slated for further developments so I will enjoy this scenery while it lasts. Only downside is my white cabinet might turn yellow easily due to the sunlight. Service yard, planning to do the auto pole system as this pulley thingy is so annoying.. I will also do a basin here for washing of dirty laundry and shoes, may also do a kerb at the bottom. The problem is, the contractor will have to run a pipe across from the other end.. The pipings will be quite unsightly.. Washing machine will be on this side. Common washroom. Will be doing a vanity cabinet and sliding door shower screen. Tiles and toilet bowl will remain as it is. I'm quite relieved that the tiles design look quite ok. Master bedroom washroom. Similarly for this washroom, tiles and toilet bowl will remain as it is. Will be doing a vanity cabinet and mirror cupboard, as well as a swingdoor shower screen. Master bedroom (it's so small!) Another view of the master bed room. Guestroom/ sibling room. Another view of the small bedroom Walkway to the bedrooms.

Hello. I am new here in the forum and I am planning to renovate my place in Novena. I am needing some inspiration on the design, specifically with a Scandinavian theme so I can get my stuff from Ikea. Any helpful tips from you guys? Thanks.

Hello Everyone! Our renovations are coming to an end soon and I guess we are ready to share our experiences! I had been a silent reader of Renotalk T-blog for the longest time since we started balloting for BTO. We had been pretty unlucky that all the queue numbers we have are mostly out of the available units which means that by the time we can choose the units it's always left with low floors! Finally in year 2010, we got a queue number which is within the available units and finally get to choose a mid-floor unit! No fish prawn also good right? If we keep on balloting we will be donating endless $10 to HDB! I hope my humble blog can help someone during their renovation journey. Here's our floor plan to kick start my T-blog! Mood Board As the title of my blog suggests, I am looking at neutral colors for my crib so that I can add on colors on the decoration later on. These are the ideas I have in mind before the hunting of IDs/contractors

Hi guys, Just want to share my humble 4RM BTO flat. My wife and I wanted something really simple so we opted for loose pieces of furnitures centred around a colour scheme of white, brown and maroon. Hope you like it! Also, any ideas on where I can find affordable art pieces?