stryke 0 Report post Posted April 8, 2010 After waiting, planning, reading, sourcing and anticipating for 9 months, our resale flat renovation has finally started. It has been a long 9 months, from exercising OTP in July 2009 to completion in Dec 2009, to planning and meeting up IDs... It's finally started! I'd been so choleric about the whole process that now that things have started, I've feeling a little numb, not as excited as how so many of you sounded. Nonetheless, I've decided to share my experience here and keep a record of the whole process for the benefit of all. Firsts things first, the floor plan: When we viewed this flat for sale 1 week before our wedding day, both wife and I were quite pleased with what we saw, and the fact that the owner was asking for below valuation, we discussed for only a little bit and decided to grab this God-given blessing immediately without thinking too much about the details. So we put down the $1k for option to purchase and exercised OTP the day after our wedding, before our honeymoon. So here's the skinny on flat details: Location: Toa Payoh Lorong 8 2nd floor Age : 11 years Area: 103 sqm Valuation: 430,000 Purchase price: 408,000 Gahmen grant: 45,000 Time to pick up the wife from work. Tune in later for more. Shalom Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest bendemos Report post Posted April 8, 2010 Will be following your blog....interesting...btw, ur grant is $45K? How do you arrive at this number? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sff 0 Report post Posted April 8, 2010 So here's the skinny on flat details: Location: Toa Payoh Lorong 8 2nd floor Age : 11 years Area: 103 sqm Valuation: 430,000 Purchase price: 408,000 Gahmen grant: 45,000 Time to pick up the wife from work. Tune in later for more. Shalom Hi, maybe we might be neighbours. :-) I also bought a flat in this area and it's also 11 years old. Hope see to your reno works soon. Cheers. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
samgalz 2 Report post Posted April 9, 2010 welcome to RT! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pinktini 0 Report post Posted April 9, 2010 (edited) After waiting, planning, reading, sourcing and anticipating for 9 months, our resale flat renovation has finally started. It has been a long 9 months, from exercising OTP in July 2009 to completion in Dec 2009, to planning and meeting up IDs... It's finally started! Shalom hehe, we got abt the same timeline, OTP in Jul'09, completion in Dec'09. then i drag until now then start reno. Edited April 9, 2010 by pinktini Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Supersimon27 2 Report post Posted April 9, 2010 Will be following your blog....interesting...btw, ur grant is $45K? How do you arrive at this number? 30K for 1st timer additional 10K for near parent 5k for housewhole income less then 5k but above 4.5k All sum up to be 45k correct me if i am wrong Btw stryke , welcome to RT-blog Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Pinklady 0 Report post Posted April 9, 2010 wah your flat at TPY is sure ex leh. at only 2nd floor, the Purchase price is $408,000.00. then what happens if u opt to buy a high floor located at 25th floor? but location wise, its very good. yeah, how come there's 45k grant? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
stryke 0 Report post Posted April 9, 2010 (edited) 30K for 1st timer additional 10K for near parent 5k for housewhole income less then 5k but above 4.5k All sum up to be 45k correct me if i am wrong Btw stryke , welcome to RT-blog supersimon is right. That's how we got the 45k grant from gahmen. Our block is jusy a spit away from my mum's. i know that 408k is still a lot to pay for a flat, but compared to the new ones that the HDB is churning out in central area, this resale is much more worth it than the pigeon holes that cost almost the same. My fren bought a unit in Pinnacle during the second phase and paid 500k for a 85 sqm flat! also considering that my office is 10 mins drive from home... or $6 cab ride.... i can even give up my car for the long run and save 1k a month from car ownership. I also recently discovered that the new Bartley Road viaduct takes me from Toa Payoh to Tampines in less than 10 minutes! excellent! not that I go to Tampines a lot lah... anyways.... I started looking at ideas and planning and speaking to IDs, researching way before completion of sale. We finally decided to engage Steven Tay from Ideal House ID. He comes recommended by many forummers and I must admit although he's not our first choice in terms of design, his price is definitely the best. In addition we like his attitude and pro-activeness and fast response time. Truth is, I've done so much research looking for ideas and planning the whole layout and design of the flat even before we met Steven, that when I first met up with him, I more or less told him what I want, and showed him a lot of references. At the end of the day, although I did not give him much chance in the essential design, he still came up with a lot of very practical and useful suggestions and was quite helpful in advising me to save costs (I tend to go overboard). I was very very shocked when he quoted me as his quote was almost 10k less than all the rest, and with more items included! In fact I recommended Steven to one of my close friends who is also gonna renovate his new flat, even before I signed on the dotted line! He was very patient throughout the whole process of discussing and quotation stage, and answering my questions. Believe me, I am a very demanding and meticulous person. Every little detail in the quote was scrutinised by me and every other minute I will be emailing him or texting him to double check. I will reveal a breakdown of the reno costs in future entries when I have more time. For now I'll just attach the final layout plan, which was more or less a combination of proposals from several IDs, friends and a lot of time in front of the computer playing with the layout. Plan was drawn by me in Adobe Illustrator. We went through many rounds of amendments for the layout and quote before signing on the dotted line. Later I will upload images of the flat. Shalom Edited April 9, 2010 by stryke Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gimz63251073 0 Report post Posted April 9, 2010 hihi, almost minimalist? going for minimalist style? Looking forward to your plans.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
stryke 0 Report post Posted April 9, 2010 hihi, almost minimalist? going for minimalist style? Looking forward to your plans.. Yah, almost minimalist cos we got no budget to do much...hahah. Seriously, I want a minimalist lofty look with an island kitchen but alas there's too little space and too many restrictions from HDB to do much, so we decided to keep it simple. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
stryke 0 Report post Posted April 9, 2010 Here are the pictures of the flat before renovation started: Living Room: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
stryke 0 Report post Posted April 9, 2010 Bathrooms: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
stryke 0 Report post Posted April 9, 2010 (edited) MBR and other rooms: Edited April 9, 2010 by stryke Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
stryke 0 Report post Posted April 9, 2010 As you all can see, this place needs a lot of work. As we are planning to stay here for the long term (die also won't leave Toa Payoh!), we decided to do a complete overhaul including the re-wiring and plastering, and I really wanted a proper functional kitchen as I'm an avid foodie and like to cook, well, plan to do more in the future anyway. Reno has already started but its only the first week so I will post the progress images in time to come. Shalom Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
