Our Home At Tampines

[SGK 0]

Master Bedroom Bedhead:

View of Master Bedroom from the Entrance:

Bedroom 2:

[akkywendy 0]

it looks really awesome! great design!

[SGK 0]

it looks really awesome! great design!

Thanks for the compliments . We are taking over the house in 3 day's time and shifting in on 17 April. Will post more pics when the furniture is in.

[akkywendy 0]

thanks for sharing! can't wait!

[silhouette 0]

Today, we went to furniture mall to look for our last few pieces of furniture - dressing table, balcony table and chairs and study room chairs. We went to many shops, and the balcony chairs that we saw are all quite expensive - > $250 per piece, even though the materials look very cheap. We were quite disappointed and decided to go back to Living Vision where we bought our big item furniture to look for a better bargain. But just when we were walking back to hotel Park Royal, we saw this unglam shop (I think the name is Comfort Interior or something like that) with many chairs stacked up and displayed in an untidy manner. When we take a closer look, we saw one of the chairs displayed was one of those that we were thinking of buying earlier in other shops. We decided to check their price. To our pleasant surprise, they are selling at about 30% to 40% of the what the other shop is selling. As we scan through other chairs in the shop, we saw more and more chairs that we have seen in other shops, and the price in this shop is very much cheaper. For example, an acrlic chair was sold in one shop in furniture mall for $299. But in this shop it is $119. I cannot understand why the price can be so different, and I am so happy that I haven't bought the chairs earlier .

We also went to look at dining tables and sofa that are of similar quality to those that we bought **** Vision. It seems that we have indeed had a good buy. The only problem is we are not sure of the durability of the sofa and bed that we bought.

Hi,

What is the address and name of this chair shop?

Thanks!

[koxxic 2]

did u do a platform with in build pond at your balcony?

[SGK 0]

Hi,

What is the address and name of this chair shop?

Thanks!

Sorry about this but when we visited the shop again in February, the pricing was very different - not cheap after all. We were served by a different lady and she insisted that the low price that we were quoted earlier cannot be true. So in the end we did not buy anything from them. But if you are still keen, the shop is Comfort Design. They have a website and you can see their products online.

[SGK 0]

did u do a platform with in build pond at your balcony?

No, but as you can see from some of the pictures, we created a square depression, about 100cm by 100cm, on the right side of the balcony platform. We will put our water feature (see below) there and cover the remaining area with pebbles. We will need to water-proof the area to prevent water from damaging the laminate of the balcony.

[tulip23 0]

We have finally confirmed our ID . He is Kennedy Cheng of Earnest Interiors. Our search for ID was like many of yours - long and tiring. Earnest Interiors is the last ID firm we approached, and the reason why we even approached them was due to our colleague's strong recommendation. His house was done by James, one of the bosses of Earnest Interiors, and he found their quotation very reasonable and was very satisfied with Jame's service like many bloggers here. Back then, we haven't found the useful info in this blog yet, and we were thinking "no harm giving it a try". So we called James, and he referred us to his designer Kennedy Cheng. We had a good impression of Kennedy after our first meeting because he was able to come up with alternatives to our initial design on the spot. Two weeks later, we met him again and he presented to us a layout that included a large open kitchen. We like the idea, but thought that it may not be practical if eventually we want to do more cooking. So after some email discussions and visits, we agreed on the design posted above, with slight modifications. The reason why we choose Earnest Interiors and Kennedy over the rest of the IDs are:

1. They give us the best quotation.
2. Kennedy came up with the most creative layout.
3. Kennedy is very fast in his response to all my emails. That gives us the confidence that he will monitor our reno closely.
4. Earnest Interiors has very good reputation in this forum.

The other IDs we have approached are One Design Concept, ****, Ciseern and Orange Square^(3/2). There are 3 others that are not worth mentioning. For One Design Concept, we were served by a nice lady Ayu whom my WTB and myself both feel very comfortable talking to. She was our first choice initially, but her quotation is way beyond the rest and we have no choice but to drop her. Nevertheless, we really appreciate the time and effort she spent with us. We also talked to **** as we chanced upon some positive comments about them on this blog (some how we missed all those on Earnest ). We were served by Jimmy, a young, nice chap. The **** boss Zaidy proposed a layout which combined MBR with one bedroom so that we can build a WIW. We were quite keen in this layout and that's why it was included in my earliest posts. However, their quotation is a few thousands higher than that of Earnest's, and I still prefer the open kitchen concept. Again, we are thankful to Jimmy for his time and enthusiasm. As for Ciseern and Orange Square^(3/2), their quotations are also on the high side,and the IDs came up with layouts that are worse than our initial proposal, neglecting some of the requirements we have told them.

We haven't signed on the dotted line yet, because we are waiting for Kennedy to make some minor changes to the quotation. We will sign the agreement tomorrow. Finally, we can focus on our work for a short while . But we will be eagerly waiting for the 3D pics I guess.

Hi SGK / lihsin,

is it the same person?? sorry...i'm still figuring out the forum...alittle confused...

actually wanna ask if the pricing from Earnest Interior is reasonable & affordable...my husband & i are working on tight budget... :S would appreciate your comments

thank you so much!

may you enjoy the whole reno process

regards,

BC

[SGK 0]

Hi SGK / lihsin,

is it the same person?? sorry...i'm still figuring out the forum...alittle confused...

actually wanna ask if the pricing from Earnest Interior is reasonable & affordable...my husband & i are working on tight budget... :S would appreciate your comments

thank you so much!

may you enjoy the whole reno process

regards,

BC

One other forumer just PM me to ask about my ID. So I copy and paste my reply to him below for your reference:

My ID Kennedy is good in design and very humble and polite, hence very easy to talk to. But he is only about 1 year plus in this line and may lack the experience as compared to the more seasoned ID. For my reno, his senior Peter joined in a few weeks before the start of the reno and the whole renovation was coordinated by the two of them together. I would say the quality of the work is certainly very satisfactory, but then I am not someone who is very 'niao'. Hence, I can only give a more objective comment after my house-warming when I can gather the feedback from all my friends.

In terms of pricing, Earnest Interiors is the cheapest among all the 7 or 8 designers (***, Ciseern, *****, ***, One Design Concept etc) I have spoken to. However, the other IDs were all found from the expo exhibitions (there are two such exhibitions every month) and they tend to be more ex and do not have much good (nor bad) feedback from this forum. I think people don't engage them because they are more expensive. So I can't quite comment on this. But certainly for windows, Earnest Interiors is not cheap. They quoted me $4000+ for changing about 75% of my windows and grilles. So I searched thru this forum and found Alex of Yick Hong and he quote me only $3145. Still, credit must go to Kennedy who gladly agreed to remove the windows component from my quote and worked with Alex to install the windows and grilles for my house.

As for honesty, I think he is quite an honest chap. He never encourages us to buy lights or furniture from any particular shop so as to earn commission. He just advised on the design and let us do the shopping ourselves.

My conclusion: Give Kennedy a call and let him give you a quote. You should also try some other popular IDs in this forum and you can compare their quotations, attitude etc so that you can get the best ID for your reno.

One important thing: my renovation progressed very smoothly without any major delays and I felt very relaxed and enjoyable throughout. The only small delay is that they have yet to fixed the glass shelves of my common toilet even though we should have taken over the house by today. They will do it next Tuesday.

All the best for your renovation .

[SGK 0]

Hi SGK / lihsin,

is it the same person?? sorry...i'm still figuring out the forum...alittle confused...

lihsin is my wife's account. I used her account to start this blog before getting my own account .

[SGK 0]

We have unofficially taken over the house (yet to make the final payment and still some minor rectifications to be done in the coming week)! On last Friday night, we went to clean up the house and took some pictures before starting work. Here are some pics:

The 'tree area':

The dining area with the bronze mirror of the storage cabinet installed:

The dry kitchen and the display cabinet:

[SGK 0]

The Balcony:

We have bought a table and two chairs for the balcony. But now I am thinking that the balcony will look better if I furnish it with some japanese style furnitures, like the ones below:

Any comments?

[SGK 0]

Our curtains were fixed today and the presence of curtains really make the house look a lot more cosy. Lightings.com.sg has also re-installed my dining room lights because the original one has a faulty frame and the light looks slanted not matter how hard the contractors tried to straighten it. Now the dining room looks really good I think:

The water feature has also arrived and it really enhances the balcony:

We will need more pebbles to fill the entire square hole of the balcony. We are also thinking of adding some small plants around it to prevent people, especially kids, from touching it because it can topple quite easily .

We will be shifting in on coming Saturday. Can't wait to see how the house will look like finally when all the furnitures are delivered: .

Edited April 15, 2010 by SGK

[fungyong 0]

Hi SGK,

Found out from your t-Blog that you have brought some of your furniture from Living Vision.

I have also just sign up with them for a piece of furniture.

Not sure if they are good but anyway me and my wife just go ahead to get it.

Did your furniture arrive on time? And how is the finishing?

BTW you house looks great

Good luck.