Serangoon North Renovation By Defong Interior Design

[Akitsuki 0]

After reading the forum on other's renovation blog, finally decided to start one of my own to share my renovation journey. my wife and i are gonna renovate our new home, a 4rm resale in serangoon north.. after searching and reading up the forums, finally decided to sign with DeFONG interior design because the price falls within our budget and meet our expectation.. renovation will start on the 19th Feb and hopefully everything turns out well... have heard some good and bad remarks abt the company.. but as there were more good remarks.. we decided to go ahead let Kevin Tan(our contractor)do the renovation for us.

I will be doing the dismantling of built in wardrobes and shelves myself from 15th feb (动土日） to save some cost...

Even after dismantle, I am still having headache where and how I can throw away the items. Kevin is charging per item and we cannot use the debris bin to throw the items away. Due to our budget constrain, I have to find ways to throw the items away myself...

will upload pictures and my floorplan soon...

one very important thing to note, if any bros ever want to do renovation in future, remember to list down everything which you want down to the simpliest detail to avoid incurring additional charges. Dont sign with the contractor until u have finalized your renovation ideas or be prepared to pay the penalty fees for cancellation of the items which u have agreed and signed for. everything must be black and white. dont assume people will do stuffs for you just because u think it's not a big issue. u might be slapped back with additional charges which is not so pleasant. (learnt it the hard way)

they might be responsible for the stuffs they do, but when it comes to $$.. there is no friendship...

Edited March 13, 2012 by Akitsuki

[Akitsuki 0]

This is our floor plan

We prefer earth tone colors. So we decided to choose colors for the furniture, carpentry, tiles and paint to be nature / earth color.

Edited March 13, 2012 by Akitsuki

[Valerie Low 0]

Congrats! We have similar floor plan. What do you plan to do for your reno?

[Akitsuki 0]

Congrats! We have similar floor plan. What do you plan to do for your reno?

the condition of the flat is not very good so we decided to hack everything for the kitchen, living room, toilets and bedrooms. in short.. almost a complete overhaul..gonna do built in wardrobe for MBR and top and bottom cabinet for the kitchen. 1 of the common room will be our study room and 1 room will be left empty as a baby room in future.. currently might be using it as a room for me and my wife to draw oil paintings. didnt do any built in stuffs in the 2 common room as we decided to buy study table and cupboards from ikea as a temporary solution due to our limited budget as we are still young and do not have much savings to purchase what my wife had actually wanted...

[Valerie Low 0]

Same as me

IKEA as temporary stuff.

I do not plan to do built-in for MBR. Some funds will be spent on dividing the kitchen and the laundry area.

Edited March 13, 2012 by ValerieLow

[Akitsuki 0]

Things bought for our new home

1. King Size Dunlop Mattress with Bedframe

2. Bathroom Accessories from Hoe Kee (Genting Lane Branch)

3. Techno Gas Hob & Hood, Storage Heater also from Hoe Kee

4. Sony 46" LED Internet TV from Suntec IT FAIR 2012

5. Still deciding between Panasonic or Mitsubishi System 3 air con..

will update item list as we add more stuffs.. pocket big big hole liao...

Edited March 13, 2012 by Akitsuki

[Akitsuki 0]

Same as me

IKEA as temporary stuff.

I do not plan to do built-in for MBR. Some funds will be spent on dividing the kitchen and the laundry area.

so you are going to partition out ur kitchen into 2 areas? nice idea.. since we have a large kitchen.. my wife had wanted to reduce the size of our kitchen and to stretch the living room further in so that we could allocate a space for dinning room, but due to our budget.. had to give up the idea..

[Akitsuki 0]

Everyday is SUNDAY Shopping

Items that we bought at Hoe Kee Genting lane branch.

Previously, we went to Hoe Kee Jalan Besar.. but was greeted by the black face uncle (maybe because of the way we dressed.. Shorts, polo tee, school bag and wearing Cros Slippers). We walked round the shop for 5 minutes, a sales guy followed behind us, without saying much, so we left the place after 5 minutes.

Then, we saw in the blogs that some fellow RT forumers mentioned about Genting lane Hoe Kee service was better(indeed much better), so we decided to travel all the way down to Genting Lane on a Sunday to have a look. We were approached by a sales man (uncle), but as we were still looking and picking the items that we like and those that were within our budgets, so we told him that we just wanna look around. A few times different sales men would come over to us and check if we need help. We spent almost 2 hrs choosing the items that we wanted, and taking down the models we wanted, so we could give the paper to any sales person to do our purchase. Around 5:30PM, we approached a sales lady and she gave us some friendly advices on the items that we wanted to buy. The prices were within our budget and knowing that we are a young couple, she tried to give us discount, except items that were already on promotion.

Conclusion: the staffs at the Genting lane branch is definately much more friendly than the ones at jalan besar.

These are the items we bought:

Ariston 30L storage heater

Why we chose Ariston is because Hoe Kee is the authorised dealer for Ariston. If the storage heater requires servicing, you may contact Hoe Kee and they will work on the servicing for you.

There are two types for this model. One is made in Vietnam (cheaper by $50), the one that we bought is made in Italy. This is one of the latest model, compared with the round Ariston storage heaters you may have seen outside.

Why we chose this model is because we were advised that new models of other brands' storage heaters inlet hot/cold water pipes are at the bottom of the tank. The older version of storage heaters' pipes are at the side. If one day the storage heater spoil, and the current model that you are using - the pipes at the side, you need to buy the same model, and cannot change to other brands. If let say our storage heater spoil, we need not buy Ariston. We can buy other brands in market as other brands are using bottom pipes, not side pipes. So do take note of the pipes of your storage heater.

Rainshower for MBR toilet (brass material)

showerhead for common toilet

Hot/Cold Water Mixer

Sinks for Common and MBR

Accessories parts such as the water stopper and the bottom container are separate cost from the basins. Basins will be wall-mounted, so it does not come with the stand. The stand is also additional cost, which is more expensive than the basins!

Edited April 24, 2012 by Akitsuki

[Akitsuki 0]

Everyday is SUNDAY Shopping

Basin taps that we have chosen

Tap for Sink

Kitchen stainless steel sink (580mm long)

I didn't know that you need to buy the plastic or metal container/part for holding the waste. This is additional cost incurred. Plastic container costs $8, and metal container costs $15. If you are using hot water, it is advisable to get the metal container, so that hot water will not melt the container.

ROX One-piece WC with soft closing

Edited April 24, 2012 by Akitsuki

[Akitsuki 0]

Everyday is SUNDAY Shopping

more pics

techno gas hob (color not decided yet, may change to stainless steel or black glass hob) & slim hood

Techno glass hob has lifetime warranty, should the glass break, you get a new replacement

We don't cook often, so this kind of hood is good enough for us. It is mainly for display. The sales lady in Hoe Kee taught us how to clean the hood. All you need is take out the trays, put Mama lemon detergent in the water, and dip the tray in the water. The oil will come out from the tray, and the tray is clean again..

Edited April 24, 2012 by Akitsuki

[Akitsuki 0]

Everyday is SUNDAY Shopping

more pics of items we bought.

toilet paper holder

towel holder

Glass trays for MBR (2nd shelf). Bought 3, and my wife wants to use all the 3 shelves for the MBR. She wants to go back Hoe Kee to buy additional glass shelves for the Common

The metal rims for glass tray also comes in stainless steel, or cheap metal that will rust after some time. Stainless steel costs $10-20 more than the normal glass trays. So are the other accessories like toilet paper holder, towel holder, etc.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Akitsuki

[Akitsuki 0]

Everyday is SUNDAY Shopping

Last Sunday, we visited Furniture Mall. Actually I have no intention to buy anything that day. Just wanted to go there and choose my bed frame fabric colour, and go home. In the end we bought a sofa and a tv console.

This is not the color that we have chosen for the sofa. We have chosen something brown, but not sure why my S2 phone didn't manage to capture the correct color, so I decided not to post the fabric colors. The sales lady was friendly, and gave us good discount for the sofa. She understands we are young married couple, don't have that much savings to spend, and there are so many things need to buy for our new home, so she asked us how much is our budget, and gave us a good discount for the sofa.

The TV console was bought from another shop in Furniture Mall. No discount given, and we overlooked that there is a delivery charge of $80. Glass top is not included too, addition of $120 for glass top.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Akitsuki

[Akitsuki 0]

Everyday is SUNDAY Shopping

The first item that we bought in January (before we sign the reno contract with DeFong):

Dunlopillo King Bed + Frame (My biggest investment )

We have chosen the 4th color for the bed frame.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Akitsuki

[Akitsuki 0]

Something for the readers to consider.

The trend now for mattress comes in latex, micro-gel, etc. The thickness can be a lot, sometimes more than 16" height for the mattress. My king mattress is 15" height, if I put mattress protector, the height may increase to 16". It is very difficult to find 16" bed fittings, except expensive brands such as Jean Perry, King Koil, etc, which they come in 16" bedsheets. This can easily cost over $100 for a set of bedsheet (w/o quilt cover). With quilt cover, it costs $200+. My wife tried to find something decent in Aussino sales, but the maximum height that they sell is 15", and it is not included in the discount sales. It costs $100+ too.

So do reconsider when you want to buy high mattress. The accessories (bedsheets) do not come cheap.

[NeoBY 1]

Something for the readers to consider.

The trend now for mattress comes in latex, micro-gel, etc. The thickness can be a lot, sometimes more than 16" height for the mattress. My king mattress is 15" height, if I put mattress protector, the height may increase to 16". It is very difficult to find 16" bed fittings, except expensive brands such as Jean Perry, King Koil, etc, which they come in 16" bedsheets. This can easily cost over $100 for a set of bedsheet (w/o quilt cover). With quilt cover, it costs $200+. My wife tried to find something decent in Aussino sales, but the maximum height that they sell is 15", and it is not included in the discount sales. It costs $100+ too.

So do reconsider when you want to buy high mattress. The accessories (bedsheets) do not come cheap.

oops..i didnt check mine and already bought bed sheets for it.