Finally Owning Our Dream Home - Yishun Ring

[brian311 0]

Hi all,

My wife and I are Singapore PRs and we had just completed our renovation last month. Having been silent followers in renotalk for the past few months, we decided to start this T-blog and jot down our renovation process and to contribute a little bit to renotalk for some of our experiences and lessons learnt along the way. Not too sure if is too late to start this T-blog only after renovation is completed. Hoped you guys and gals don't mind .

After 5 long years of waiting, my wife and I finally bought our very own HDB 4room resale flat at Yishun Ring Road! We had been renting flats and moving around Singapore for the past few years. As PRs, we can only rent flats as a start due to the expensive housing prices. But renting rooms doesn't come cheap too and there is no sense of belongings. Finally last year, we decided to purchase our own flat.

Our searching journey for our dream home doesn't come easy, as this is our very first flat in Singapore and we are about to spend most of our savings for this dream house, we are very particular for the unit. Our agent brought us to almost 10 flats for viewing but none of which really suit us. We wanted to get a 4room corner flat but some of prices are horribly expensive.

After 1 whole month of searching of viewing, we finally found our dream home at Yishun Ring Road. The condition of the flat was quite acceptable given the age of the house (20++ years old). The unit is very spacious with a huge living hall and big kitchen. Although the price of the flat doesn't come cheap and the owner doesn't look that friendly, we decided to buy it anyway, we are not going to stay with him anyway .

So the home is set and there comes any headache, our journey to our renovation .

[brian311 0]

In case some of you wonder how come I just join today as a member, I wanted to change my username to something meaningful but unable to update it, so I just create another user instead .

[brian311 0]

gd to know you've found home here in singapore... so are you going to renovate it?

Thanks man, yap, already completed my renovation. Going to share my experience and to show off my home .

[May_dream1 14]

Congrats!! Faster show some pic!!

[brian311 0]

Our journey to selection of contractors/IDs:

Like many new house owners, renotalk is the must-come site to source for ideas, contacts, guides etc. So we decided to learn from here. Indeed, we learn quite a fair bit of stuff here and also gathered a lot of good lobangs and contacts too .

We had made use of request for quotation link in renotalk for contactors to call us directly (save us alot of time and effort). The contractors are very fast and responsive, within a few days, I had received almost 10 emails for their quotations. However, most of the quotations received are package based and vague in the sense that there are alot missing items. Nevertheless, we did our homework by reading up each of the individual quotations and feedbacks about the various companies. So our weekends were subsequently burnt and we went to visit around 5 IDs/Contractors and was like a recorded video repeating over and over again about our requirements. We eventually locked on to 2 potential IDs and still deciding to choose 1 of them.

Taking a risk -

Just as we were about to decide 1 of them, 1 of my friends recommended me his friend who have just started off his own interior design business. We asked my friend about this guy's resume and experiences in this line. To our horror, he told us that this guy has only 1/2 year experience in this line. He was previously an IT guy and changed his career path only recently. He started his first ID job in a quite famous firm in renotalk. (1/2 year experience + no ID background) simply turned us off, but given a second thought and persuasions by my friend, we decided to meet him anyway.

Initially, we just wanted to meet him and to give my friend some faces, we had our very first meeting at Toa Payoh Mac on a weekday evening. To our surprise, the first meeting was a fruitful one as he doesn't seem like he was a newbie to me. He is quite humble as he did not hide about his experience and shared with us why he chose to change his career.

He showed us quite a lot of pics and his portfolio of projects which he did in his previous company. There are around 10 projects which he shared given that he only stayed in his previous company of slightly less than half a year. We told him frankly that we actually about to decide on our ID already. He just told me is alright and if I am okay, just let him gave me his quotation and let me decide since I had not gotten my keys anyway.

On the same night, I received his quotes and the prices are very competitive. Somehow we are still not very comfortable as thought of there might be hidden costs here and there. We started to compare his quotes with others and seems like the items are more clearer and concise and even found out some of the items are missing from the other IDs instead .

We decided to give him a second chance by visiting his projects and check our the workmanships. He brought us to bedok and showed us a very similar floorplan as our new home. He explained and introduced us the work which he did and advised us some of the things to look out for when doing renovation. We like the flooring workmanship as well as the kitchen cabinet that was done. We shortlisted him as one of our choices on that day .

Again we struggled to decide who to choose, we made our decision 1 week before we gotten our keys. Eventually we choose Mr Wee Kuang from WaWe Design due to the following factors:

1. Price (we do have budget constraints and his price is very competitive)

2. Initiative (we do not have our own transportation and he is willing to drive us to his customer's place for viewing willingly)

3. Not pushy (my shortlisted IDs kept calling me to persuade me to sign even before I received my keys, he was the only one who asked me not to sign until I officially gotten the keys to prevent any hiccups)

4. Main contractor (this is 1 of the main reason why I choose him because he work closely with IS Deco who is the main contractor, main bulk of the renovation work was done by the main contractor and IS Deco also owns it's own carpentry factory. Compare to my other shortlisted firms whereby the sub-conned for their works)

5. 3D drawing (he provided free 3D drawings for my renovation and unlike most ID firms, he drew the drawings. I asked him to make almost various changes to my kitchen cabinets and even gotten him to give me 5 different laminates designs to choose from)

6. Chemistry (he is approachable and friendly. We felt very comfortable discussing works with him)

7. Newbie ID (we are paying a contractor price for an ID service, his age is similar with mine and we are of the same frequency)

Okay, that's how we eventually chose our ID and I will continue to update more details and photos subsequently, that's all for now. Will post my floorplan as a start first. Do look out for more stuff in my blog. Do PM me if you want to find out more about my ID (He asked me to put in more good words for him when he knew I am going to start my own T-blog Haha.)

[brian311 0]

Here is my floor plan for my dream home.

Most pics and updates to come.

[brian311 0]

As promised, photos for my renovation

My renovation started on Valentines' Day. As we wanted our ID to complete our house before Qing Ming, we started our work 6 weeks before it.

Here are some of the damages done to our dream home after 2 days of hacking.

Hacking of floor tiles, note, we did not hacked the wall tiles for the living hall, we just plaster the wall to save cost.

Hacking of toilet tiles

Hacking of bedroom skirtings

Hacking of storeroom tiles

Hacking of kitchen tiles

My house was torn down to pieces

[brian311 0]

Hi all, more pics...

After 3 weeks of tiling and painting.

House slowly forming up. Spent our weekends with ID to select tiles, buying of toilet accessories, tiring process as we went to a few shops to find suitable tiles and designs. Ended up purchased toilet accessories at Genova and tiles from Hafary.

Kitchen floor and wall tiles done, with bottom cabinet installed also fast.

Kitchen wall tiles, Franke kitchen sink

Part of kitchen cabinet done

Bottom cabinet

Master toilet tiles

More to come...

[brian311 0]

Pics continue...

Thanks to the ugly pipe right at the middle of the toilet, we got to get a nice bowl sink.

Kitchen before cabinet

Living hall false ceiling

Living hall floorings and highlight wall. Simply like the workmanship for the floor. The tilers are couple also from Malaysia. Very friendly and good workmanship. We specifically asked Wee Kuang to engage same tiler doing his Bedok flat as we really like the workmanship.

Master bedroom with our nice purple wall and Supreme laminate floorings

[brian311 0]

Common bedroom with our cool blue color All paints are from ICI Original

Study room with the ugly air con trunking, gotten my air con supplier to touch up the trunking...

Study room flooring

That's all for the initial reno, will post more pics for the end product as well as 3D designs for our kitchen cabinets

[ShirleyJong 0]

Wow... welcome to Yishun... which area of ring road are u at?

your house layout is very similar to mine which is also 4A.

[potatoes 0]

Congrats Brian, wish your renovation to your 4rm resale flat is doing well.... looks like your new home is now taking shape.

[Kobelala 8]

Yeah Welcome to Yishun and congrats on getting your new home....

[brian311 0]

Wow... welcome to Yishun... which area of ring road are u at?

your house layout is very similar to mine which is also 4A.

Hi see my username and u should roughly know where is my area

[brian311 0]

Congrats Brian, wish your renovation to your 4rm resale flat is doing well.... looks like your new home is now taking shape.

Hi, thank you very much. Had already completed my reno and indeed very satisfied with the reno . Still sorting out my completed house reno pics and to post it. Please do check back for photo updates . Been staying comfortably in my new house...