First House, Lesson 1

[luvalist 0]

Hello! Finally set up my T-blog.

Love this forum which helps us a lot in our first house. Nevertheless there are lessons that we must go through to grow up!

We gotten our BTO in 2008. After three years, we finally gotten the keys!

Here's our floorplan.

Floorplan by Sonic04, on Flickr

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We first went to **** and paid $1,500 for designing (free digital lock though). We met them at Expo. Met other ID firms who either sell us package or ignore us. I am looking for something different for our house, so **** left us with a good impression. So we paid. And here's their first design (without a consultation):

First Round by Sonic04, on Flickr

Somehow, it's lacking in something. So we gotten them to re-design something for us. This time, armed ourselves with more research. Here's 2nd design:

2nd Round by Sonic04, on Flickr

The green wall came from us btw. I watched TLC World's greenest home and was really impressed with beautiful houses with awesome design and yet retain the green features. So green it shall be! Too bad we are not in Treelodge.

And it was still not good enough. We decided to look for other IDs instead. Went to

1) Contractors x 2: Contractors said we can do our house within $20K. But we are not impressed with the designing aspect. Although we are financially tight, we still want to do something good.

2) Kenneth from Ideal House: Was really impressed with Kenneth! I feel that he can do it and he will do it with the intention to help u. Plus all the good reviews. We were almost going to sign with him until we met our final ID.

3) Fuse Concept: Met up with our ID after meeting Kenneth. In the end, we signed on the dotted line because he did prepare for us and gave us a brick wall to complement our green wall. Forum had lousy reviews and they are pricier than IdealHouse. But we decided to trust him and we are running out of time anyway and signed. Afterall this is our first lesson, should be prepared to be chopped learn something from this journey.

Our final design:

Final design by Sonic04, on Flickr

[luvalist 0]

What we are doing:

Our reno work covers:

- Dining, kitchen and living room area

- Master bedroom wardrobe.

- Flooring tiles are up, not doing window grilles

- Not doing toilets, will only be adding accessories.

Reno costs: $27K, another $3K for electrical work.

Saga

Just a lil incident that I have posted my review in the forum.

ID quoted us $450 per bathroom to install anything. We already told him we don't have alot of things to install. We have to install water pipes for the common bathroom and our accessories and rainshower will go into MBR toilet. We definitely need to do up 2 bathroom which will cost us $900 It's not like we are removing all the basin, toilet bowels and reinstalling them.

And most of my friends gotten the installation FOC because the plumber will be there to install our kitchen sink anyway. He went back to ask his mgmt and gotten back to us saying we will spilt half. $230 per bathroom (not really half hor?). I don't like him at all. Just because we are not doing up our toilets and they wanna charge us for this and that. We know they are pricier but they just charge ala-carte prices for each job. Small things they charge. They did give us two things FOC:

- air-con box up

- Re-tile one bathroom tile because we want to install rainshower (which he said it cost him $150 and he bear it)

But it just sounds very chopping carrots. So we decided not to take up with him.

In the end we asked our friend's ID for help. They installed for us at $250 but I saw cracks and big holes on my tiles for those holes they drilled. Sighed. Won't recommend him to others even though he is cheap. My ID is going to laugh his head off tmr when he sees those installation.

Current status:

The set handover date is just 6 days from today! Really excited to start cleaning our house.

The brick wall is up. Carpentry work up too. Left the solid top, glass for dining top and kitchen backsplash, final painting and final touchup.

We are also lacking in the following:

- a pendant light for dining area (ID designed for us but we can't find it at all)

- a vase for the living room

- Have to change the city gas heater (water leaking from inside after water pipes are installed:furious: )

The deliveries for fridge, mattress, washing machine and sofa will be here on 20th Aug. So it's a mixed feelings.

[luvalist 0]

The green wall story....

There is lot of green wall vendor out there....have contract quite a number of them like

1) www.pricelandscape.com.sg

2) www.verticalgarden.com.sg

3) www.greennology.sg

4) www.elmich.com

and some more forget their name liao...

vendor 1 - 3 care to reply to my enquiry altought my green wall is only a small one < 5m2....but in the end decide to choose greennology due to their friendly staff and boss and ok price.

only Vendor 4 , i have a bad experience with them. I even went down to their office to meet their saleperson. I stand at the company reception area for a good 5 mins...no one care to greet me. think back , why i have such good patient to wait

Knowing i am a small client, the saleperson give me a hackcare attitude. " this is our green wall, blah blah, any question".Give me a feeling of trying to get me off and not interested in me .

Feel so insult.

[strikingreality 0]

The green wall story....

There is lot of green wall vendor out there....have contract quite a number of them like

1) www.pricelandscape.com.sg

2) www.verticalgarden.com.sg

3) www.greennology.sg

4) www.elmich.com

and some more forget their name liao...

vendor 1 - 3 care to reply to my enquiry altought my green wall is only a small one < 5m2....but in the end decide to choose greennology due to their friendly staff and boss and ok price.

only Vendor 4 , i have a bad experience with them. I even went down to their office to meet their saleperson. I stand at the company reception area for a good 5 mins...no one care to greet me. think back , why i have such good patient to wait

Knowing i am a small client, the saleperson give me a hackcare attitude. " this is our green wall, blah blah, any question".Give me a feeling of trying to get me off and not interested in me .

Feel so insult.

Don't get so worked up lah. Those who are so **** on their services don't deserve our business anyway.

But I am also looking for a vertical wall for my balcony. Care to share what is the quote for yours? Do you get to choose the plants? How is the maintenance like??

[luvalist 0]

Don't get so worked up lah. Those who are so **** on their services don't deserve our business anyway.

But I am also looking for a vertical wall for my balcony. Care to share what is the quote for yours? Do you get to choose the plants? How is the maintenance like??

Hello! Slightly over $3K for a 2m x 2.5m wall. I leave the plants to Greenology as we don't understand the plants' characteristics. They showed us around their premise when we popped down (even before signing with them, they are nice!).

A water trap will be installed and with a timer to control the water irrigation. So just to trim the plants as and when required I guess.

Good luck to your Green journey!

[luvalist 0]

The kitchen top is installed!

Not sure if I am overly critical but it's definitely sad to see scratches here and there in a new house because using those things.

Any kind soul can advise?

Kitchen table top - 15 Aug 2011 by Sonic04, on Flickr

[littlegreenpea 0]

Hi, may I know who is your ID at Fuse Concept? We also engage them for our house which is currently under renovation.

[luvalist 0]

Hi, may I know who is your ID at Fuse Concept? We also engage them for our house which is currently under renovation.

Hello, my ID is Landren. We just went through with him on the defects. Erm, he said the quality of our carpentry is better than his previous 2 project.

Can't comment now, maybe after rectifying all the defects it will be okay. do check properly. We are pretty upset with the quality of the carpentry but he said cannot expect flawless because it's handmade. Well, I haven't been to alot of housewarming to verify this.

Will update again! Sat is our handover~~~

[luvalist 0]

Tomorrow is supposed to be General house cleaning according to initial plan. BUT ID has changed it long ago and didn't inform us.

Today we popped down to take a look. They rectified some defects BUT told us that the TV wall mount cannot be up because the package don't have wall plug and they don't have it. They will install it when they come in to rectify the defects which is NEXT MONDAY.

It did sound alright when he told us this. BUT our sofa, rug and blinds are coming in on Sat. The drilling on the wall is gonna be dirty and who is going to clean up for us??

It's quite annoying. He told us last week that his guy will install the wall mount on MOnday and asked us to give him the mount. So we rushed to buy and left it in the house on Monday. Monday, Tues, Wed - he didn't inspect the wall mount. Come Thurs, he said cannot install. And his guys cannot do it on Fri or Sat. It really sounds like very bad planning to me.

We still have defects here and there. The most obvious and very vomit blood is the MBR colored wall which the painter just cannot get it right. Is it so hard to paint on flat wall?

I am so angry with myself. I SHOULD HAVE SIT THERE AND INSPECT THEIR WORK!

[akkywendy 0]

you have a really lovely design for your home! sorry to hear about the unpleasant incidents that you have to encounter... how's the rest of the reno work coming along? can't wait to see your completed home!

Edited August 21, 2011 by akkywendy

[luvalist 0]

you have a really lovely design for your home! sorry to hear about the unpleasant incidents that you have to encounter... how's the rest of the reno work coming along? can't wait to see your completed home!

hihi! Thanks! Great to know someone is watching this space.

Sat was the handover date but there were minor defects here and there. To make things worse:

- the grass trap cannot be installed due to miscomm. We talked to the grass people and he said our ID only called him on Wed to confirm that Thurs is the installation date. which got us really angry. the handover date was fixed long ago, why can't he fixed up the date there and then. In the evening, we talked to the ID and he explained that the grass people told him to call just one day before. It was really a miscomm.

- The dining area bench cannot be up because of the misalignment with the fabric backing. BUT both items were there for one week plus. If one of them can open it up to verify this, this shouldn't be an issue at all right! But they claim that they don't wanna dirty the itms because it's fabric item. That's why.

- the glass backsplash cannot be installed(after that the ID told us it was accidentally broken in the factory);

- curtains for two bedrooms did not come. Half an hour later, the boss called us and said his girl had missed out and did not order our curtain. How can he know about this AFTER the installation? And the boss's attitude is no good (sound like ya, I didn't order, I called you up immediately, what else do you want from me) so we demanded $500 compensation and curtains must be up ASAP. It sounded so unreasonable we know but we were sooooo frustrated with the series of events. The boss immediately said "it's too much, like that I cannot earned from you in this deal. Not so good money la, mdm". That sound super sucky isn't it.

- one piece of the blind had a small hole. The installation guy brought it back for exchange.

It does sound okay if individual item happens but when all came, we exploded. We asked the boss to call us to explain!

And we told him all our problem and asked him how will he feel if it's us? We are sooo nice that we explain nicely to him why we were so upset!

And so he promised us two things on Sat:

- rectify all defects and install the items on Monday (which they did and I am there to monitor these things)

- give us a good explanation on the curtain through written reply on Monday because this is their contact.

And guess what, we reminded the director at 7plus today that his boss promised us a written reply by today. He replied and said there is some miscomm and he will get back to us tomorrow. x 1 million Now you know where all the miscomm came from.

[flamey 1]

Would love to see how the green wall turns out.. I thought of doin one as well..

[luvalist 0]

Nevertheless, glad to have some fabulous picture of our house in progress:

Our lovely sofa! by Sonic04, on Flickr

The brick wall, the tv and the useless soundbar by Sonic04, on Flickr

IMG_2374 by Sonic04, on Flickr

The fabric backing with the bench... by Sonic04, on Flickr

Edited August 22, 2011 by luvalist

[luvalist 0]

Would love to see how the green wall turns out.. I thought of doin one as well..

Thanks! We are looking forward too! Sept! We give them an ultimatum to up it on 10 Sept. Can't wait!

Lemme show you how our plants are doing. the Greenology people are so nice, they actually give us pictures!

P8202371 by Sonic04, on Flickr

P8202370 by Sonic04, on Flickr