Top Floor Unit @ Compassvale

[Schutzstaffel 0]

Hi all,

Been surfing renotalk forum for the past 1 mth for ID and contractor contacts and renovation ideas. So, I guess it is high time I start one T-Blog myself now.

This is our house hunting journey :

House Hunting : mid June till end July

OTP Signing: 31st July

OTP Exercise date: 1st Aug

1st Appt: 13th Oct

2nd Appt: 1st Dec

We viewed about 10-15 units at Sengkang. Finally bought this top floor unit at Compassvale cause no disturbance from neighbours above.

We talked to 6 IDs and 3 contractors past 1-2 mths. Must say quite a tiring thing to keep repeating the same thing again and again to the new ID/contractor. So we are stopping at 9. These are some of the designer/contractor we spoke to:

1) Melvin - Ideal House

2) James - Summit Design

3) Kennedy - Earnest Interiors

4) Angeline - Intra Design

5) Vincent - Hwa Li

6) Derrick - Home Success

7) Edmund - DX Interior

8) Yeak - Basic Image & Design

9) Patrick - Ho Bee Renovation

This is our floor plan:

Edited January 5, 2011 by Schutzstaffel

[Schutzstaffel 0]

Basically, we will be using bedroom 2 as our master room. The original master room will be converted to a study room with study tables near the windows and a WIW outside the master toilet. We will be hacking the wall away the wall to create a door from our master room to the study room.

These are the additional things we will be doing:

- a laminate platform for living room

- 2 shower screens for both toilets

- a L-shaped kitchen layout with washing machine right at the end corner

- a full height shoe cabinet in living room

The reviews for the IDs/contractors:

Melvin - Experienced guy, able to give ideas on the spot, receive sms from him once ahwhile to ask us for layout changes

James - Abit greenhorn. But easy to get along with. Receive emails from him on updates.

Kennedy - Didn't give us the quotation as promise on the date. Sms to remind him and he emailed us 1-2 days later. Layout was totally different from what we discussed during our 1st meeting. Overall disappointing.

Angeline - Only talked to her for 15 mins during out 1st meeting. Gave us the quotation 3 weeks later with only a lump sum at the bottom. Overall disappointing.

Vincent - Recommended by agent to see him. Recommend us to do overlay of tiles.

Derrick - Best ID in our opinion. Able to give plenty of ideas on the spot. But strangely he didn't come back to us with the quotation.

Edmund - Pretty funny and honest contractor. When we brought him to do site measurement, when we told him we will be taking pics of the hse, he jokingly asked "Got bring tripod?" We laughed till we drop.

Yeak - Met him at this Yishun office. Experienced contractor but he quote us mosaic glass when we ask for glass backing for our kitchen cabinet.

Patrick - Another honest contractor. Highly recommended but his quotation is abit on the high side.

Any inputs will be appreciated.

Edited December 5, 2010 by Schutzstaffel

[Schutzstaffel 0]

Any idea where can I get nice string curtains for my WIW ?

[Schutzstaffel 0]

We noticed that by buying WIW from furniture mall is cheaper by abt $1k compare to using carpentry. Are there any pros and cons of doing that ?

[Schutzstaffel 0]

Hmmm.....Seems like my T-Bog is extremely quiet ....

[neubie 2]

Hmmm.....Seems like my T-Bog is extremely quiet ....

lolx, a belated welcome......post more pictures on ur thread and definitely there'll be more curious eyes... so have u finalized on which ID/contractor to work with?

[yeo99 0]

lolx, a belated welcome......post more pictures on ur thread and definitely there'll be more curious eyes... so have u finalized on which ID/contractor to work with?

Welcome!, Yes, do post more photo, recently the forum is a bit quiet..... Maybe holiday sesson.....

[Schutzstaffel 0]

lolx, a belated welcome......post more pictures on ur thread and definitely there'll be more curious eyes... so have u finalized on which ID/contractor to work with?

Hi neubie, thanks for the well wishes.

So far we are very comfortable with Edmund from Dx. Right now we are still doing some amendments to our quotation, so can't post much house or 3D pics. Hope to get everything in the quotation sorted out soon and get a good price from Edmund coz from what I read in this forum, he doesn't give much discounts leh.

Edited December 12, 2010 by Schutzstaffel

[neubie 2]

Hi neubie, thanks for the well wishes.

So far we are very comfortable with Edmund from Dx. Right now we are still doing some amendments to our quotation, so can't post much house or 3D pics. Hope to get everything in the quotation sorted out soon and get a good price from Edmund coz from what I read in this forum, he doesn't give much discounts leh.

not sure about that, but usually IDs/contractors dun give much discount during the negotiation phase, as they fear this discount that discount and the grand total yet another discount will cut into their bones.... :D, also some popular ones here dun wish to spoil market by giving A more discounts than B & C then there will be unhappiness over that (pple tend to make comparisons, if u know what i mean).

[Schutzstaffel 0]

Welcome!, Yes, do post more photo, recently the forum is a bit quiet..... Maybe holiday sesson.....

Hi yeo99, thanks also for the well wishes. Yeah, X'mas is coming. Guess most forumers are on holiday. Envious ...

Our renovation is slated at start in 3rd week of Feb next yr, so right now we are still finalising the quotation with Edmund and at the same time trying to view one of his completed project. Heard he wanna bring us to one of his recently completed Sengkang unit as they have identical floorplan as ours.

Think we too kiasu lah, so early start to look for contractor liao. We even went to Furniture Mall yesterday to look at sofa and dining table. In the end, took a liking for the sofa from Univonna & dining table from Star Furnishing. Sofa costs $2.3K though.

This is the sofa:

http://i1193.photobucket.com/albums/aa345/...nivonnasofa.jpg

It is basically a 3 seater L-shaped sofa, half leather. 10+ colors to choose from. The single seater end can be recline in 2 positions for manual sofa. But it only comes with 2 yrs warranty, so dunno how long can the manual mechanism last.

Edited December 12, 2010 by Schutzstaffel

[Schutzstaffel 0]

not sure about that, but usually IDs/contractors dun give much discount during the negotiation phase, as they fear this discount that discount and the grand total yet another discount will cut into their bones.... :D, also some popular ones here dun wish to spoil market by giving A more discounts than B & C then there will be unhappiness over that (pple tend to make comparisons, if u know what i mean).

Oh, makes sense....

[froggy 0]

Any idea where can I get nice string curtains for my WIW ?

hi Schutz

welcome welcome. Not sure if anyone has answered, but u can get the string curtain from spotlight, or more cheaply from arab street. If you are engaging a curtain specialist to do yr house curtains, they can certainly do that too. I had a small set of string curtains which the curtain man gave me FOC

[Schutzstaffel 0]

It is been a long time since I updated my T-blog....Here are some updates:

We finally signed up with Edmund (Dx Interior) on 26th Dec. Will be starting our reno on 17th Feb after CNY. So happy to have him as our contractor. He had given us the 3D drawings for our kitchen cabinet. I must say they look very realistic. Even the ceiling lights was reflected onto the top cabinet. Kudos to Edmund!!!

Damage done so far on furnitures:

1) L-shaped Sofa

2) Coffee Table

Both bot from Forms by City Furniture @ IFC. Total damage : $3K.

We just walked around IFC and really like the feel of the sofa and futuristic feel of the coffee table, hence paid a deposit for both items. I will try to post all the pics online by tonight as I am now using my office's pc.

[Schutzstaffel 0]

Ok, as promised, here are my 3D drawings done by Edmund:

We have actually selected design no 3 but thinking of doing some modifications to it such as orange color for top 2 drawers.

Feel free to comment.

Edited January 5, 2011 by Schutzstaffel

[Schutzstaffel 0]

And this is the coffee table & sofa I bot yesterday at IFC....

Feel free to comment.

Edited January 5, 2011 by Schutzstaffel