The M Family's New Home In Seng Kang (the Rivervale)

[Guest melancholic]

After trawling through the forum, learning and sharing what I've learnt, I've finally started my renovation journey at my resale Condo, The Rivervale.

For those who've read my postings in some of the threads, you would have had an inkling of the ups and downs I've had in trying to find an ID as well as deal with horrible vendors like Inch Design.

In the end, it all boiled down to Patrick of Ho Bee and Kelvin Li from Unimax Creative. In the end, my wife and I chose Kelvin for the following reasons:

1) He has been very responsive and responsible (so far) and has gone out of his way to service our account. (i.e. picking me up from my work place during lunch for our discussion and sending me back in the heavy rain, entertaining our numerous smses, emails and haggling during the negotiation stage, and our constant changing of ideas after the confirmation of the contract.

2) He was willing to work within our measly budget. In fact, his price is only marginally higher than Ho Bee's.

3) He was able to produce 3D drawings during the proposal stage to help us envision what the end product could end up. I know some would say it's probably just a cut and paste. Granted that is likely. But then I'd say he did a good job of cutting and pasting existing ideas into the configuration of my house, which frankly speaking, is a nightmare. btw, I also gave him pictures of my place to go along with the floor plan.

4) He had some interesting ideas, especially for our MBR wardrobe, which I hope it turns out according to what we saw in the latest 3D

5) While Patrick's reputation is almost like cast iron in the forum, my wife and I felt the difference in price was worth the 'safety' of knowing what the end product should be like (i.e. 3D drawings), getting ID advice etc. If the price was a lot greater, then we would have gone with Patrick

6) Lastly, I guess you could say we clicked with Kelvin. I know most of the people in the forum say that we shouldn't be 'friends' with the ID until the reno is over but I guess when you click, you click. It prob helps that we are young parents so he does what he can to help us out and from my part, I don't squeeze him completely dry, although I must say that my reno job is prob very 'pai tan' for him.

What I can say is that if his follow through is just as good as his start, then I'll definitely be recommending a lot of my peers to him. As it is, my wife's uncle will very likely let him do his minor reno. I've also 3 ex colleagues who's just gotten married and are waiting for their brand new HDB so they definitely need to at least do their kitchen and wardrobes.

Anyway, I'll be posting pictures of my house's floor plan, how it looked when the previous owner stayed, how it looked when empty, and pictures of the progress of the renovation, though it really isn't much cos I didn't redo the toilets and the other 2 bedrooms.

Cheers!

[skyblue 0]

Congratulations on your purchase of the resale condo!!

Welcome you to start this blog too, and awaiting to see your floorplan!!

Cheers!!

[Angel81 1]

Congrates on ur new home and here wishing u a smooth reno journey!

[Guest melancholic]

Thanks all.

Just had a hectic day buying stuff again. Yea.. I'm almost done. Just left with the washing machine which a friend is going to buy for us. And also some miscellanous items like the microwave, toaster etc.

Just realised my floor plan is in pdf format.. so need to scan again.

And I've got to set up image shack or something to hold my pictures of the house so far.

[Metalsubzero 0]

Congrats! My neighbour in Sengkang! Hope to see more pics.. Anyways, you don't have to rescan the floor plan, you can do a print screen, paste it onto paint and save it into jpeg mode lor.. Den use microsoft office picture manager or photoshop to crop it.. Hahaha.. Dat's what I did.. Hope to see more pictures soon.. And good luck on ur reno! Hahaha, maybe next time I can go visit you.. Since Rivervale and Compassvale are so close.. I happen to stay near the church somewhere between compassvale and rivervale along punggol road..

[Guest melancholic]

Hi Metalsubzero,

Sure! Feel free to drop by. I was staying at Rivervale Walk before selling it off and moving in with my in-laws at Compassvale Walk.

Ok.. let me try and see if I can put the image of my floor plan here.

[rdnest 0]

nice layout. eager to see how ur ID design for u.

awaiting ur update soon

[Burgoos 0]

Hi Melancholic,

Congrats on your new reno journey. Nice to see a new reno project undertaken by other IDs here, other than the very famous Uncle Soon. Awaiting more picts and quotation updates/ sharing from you.

Enjoy the journey...and you'll appreciate the destination.

[Guest melancholic]

nice layout. eager to see how ur ID design for u.

awaiting ur update soon

Hi rdnest,

The layout looks ok from the floor plan, but in reality it caused us a lot of headache in terms of space planning.

For example, the distance between the kitchen wall and dining wall is only 3m, so we can't get a sofa that's too big. Otherwise, we'd have to place it much closer to the TV, which is not ideal as there is an optimal distance from which to enjoy a 40 inch tv.

Also, the MBR layout... we didn't want our new wardrobe to be in the existing spot as we don't want to wake up facing the wardrobe. But there's really no where else to put it as all other combinations will make the room look smaller or make the space planning weird. So our designer is going to make the wardrobe look more like a feature wall, and yet contain all the functionalities of a wardrobe.

Pictures and all will come soon!

[Guest melancholic]

This is how the living and dining room looked like when the previous owners were living there.

[Guest melancholic]

This is the ugly kitchen...

And you can see from these 2 pictures how the previous owner never maintained the house/kitchen

[blue_diamond 0]

Welcome!!!The living room look like in good condition!!!

[Guest melancholic]

Welcome!!!The living room look like in good condition!!!

Haha! That's how misleading photos can be.

This is a close up view of the floor.. which is quite poorly maintained.. as in it has completely lost its shine. Just walking around, even when the previous owners were still living there, and the soles of our feet were black!

And not to forget how ugly the floor looks. sigh! But no choice.. no money to get nice flooring and too wasteful to hack anyway.

[blue_diamond 0]

Haha! That's how misleading photos can be.

This is a close up view of the floor.. which is quite poorly maintained.. as in it has completely lost its shine. Just walking around, even when the previous owners were still living there, and the soles of our feet were black!

And not to forget how ugly the floor looks. sigh! But no choice.. no money to get nice flooring and too wasteful to hack anyway.

Possible to wax or shine it?Just a suggestion

[Guest melancholic]

Our reno started on 4 June 09, with the dismantling of the kitchen cabinets and the MBR wardrobe, as well as the dismantling of the w.c.

A portion of the kitchen wall was also hacked. This gap would be replaced with clear tempered glass, so as to make the kitchen look brighter. (we can't have the open kitchen concept due to daily cookings by my mother-in-law who will move in with us.

Kelvin called me on 5 June to let me know the bad news that the air con trunking was exposed due to the hacking.

It's strange that they didn't stop immediately but continued to hack first. I guess it must have been the worker just following instructions and no other supervisor was around.

Credit to Kelvin for not asking me to pay extra to remedy the situation which was to either reroute the trunking or to patch back the wall to cover the trunking. (They would have to replace the pipe anyway cos it was damaged in the process.) He did try and ask me to get my air con supplier to look into it, but I said its extra cost that I'm not willing to pay. Other than that, he said he'd cover the cost himself.

I know most consumers would say that it's the contractor's/ID's fault anyway and we should pay for it. But I know that some have encountered contractors/IDs who ask the owners to at least pay half. So for me, I'm just thankful that Kelvin has not done that.

Edited June 8, 2009 by melancholic