So Far So Good At Foliage [4-Room]

[plainsharon 20]

Hi everyone,

Have been around for quite awhile and reading up other t-blog, decided to start my own t-blog to share my reno journey.

Will be collecting our keys real soon and have been looking around for IDs and Contractors for our renovation.

Here is our floor plan :

4-room BTO 92sqm

We have received various quotation and calls from the form field in icompare, i would say, the minute i submit the form, i received countless of calls, *approx. 10-20. The calls i received to arrange for a meet up to discuss further is really overwhelming.

Initially tried to arrange each of them however, after the 2nd - 3rd day of continuous phonecalls, my meeting schedule with ID have stretch to 2 weeks and almost 3rd week, meeting each one of them every day afterwork. After the 4th Day i asked them to call again to reschedule as it is too overwhelming.

Long Story cut short : Here are some of the countless IDs and 1 Contractor i have met up :

We started looking around on 18 June.

1 ) A&D Group : They were the first ID which we have meet up and were served by Pamela however till now we have yet to receive a reply. We were looking forward to their quote and their proposal as they are the first ID that we approached but we were rather disappointed.

2) The second one we met was an ID which i failed to recall his company's name, anyway he did not revert as well.

3) Voila Design : They were just recently established for a year but according to the director, he have tons of experience in this industry and was sharing his previous experiences and why he left to set up his own ID firm. Jasper was the ID but Jason who was the in-charge for overall design was the mostly engaging our conversation. Jason seems quite an experience and gave us a few constructive advices on our renovation ideas. My hubby was kind of shortlisting and we were anticipating to his proposal which mentioned he will revert after a week, however after a week we hear nothing from him and assume that he will not get back. Surprisingly, Jazper texted us 3 weeks later to inform us of the ready proposal but our hearts were already directed elsewhere.

4) I was greedy at this point of time and wanted to meet 3 ID at this point of time on 1 evening after countless of calls, eventually i arrange to meet up with 1 and cancelled the other 2.

3D Innovations : We did some "basic" research and thus decided to meet up with them as we could not find much information on the other 2 ID. We were supposed to meet Sam however, due to his unavailability we were directed to his colleague, Jimmy *after all the decision we made to meet with him against 2 other ID firm*

Nevertheless, Jimmy, whom we met up was very experience as well, we explained our criteria and what kind of theme and direction we are looking at, he gave good advices, we went in depth into the conversation and found out that he was from a contractor's background and he have been in this industry since really young and from the technical hands-on till becoming an ID. Thus it explains his knowledge in the details of renovation. We also decided to go for concrete kitchen after we met up with him and mentally my hubby was shortlisting him. He was nice to drove us back too, he was initiating to pick us up at paya lebar mrt initially, but i decline as was quite paiseh. Anyway, Jimmy did promised us that he will do our renovation nicely making sure everything goes smoothly as he was hoping we would engage him and share our experiences with others.

Anyway, we went home and did a through research and realised that there were some really bad and nasty feedback about the ID firm but my hubby was still quite insistent on trusting him and will decide after the proposal. At that point of time i already give up having them shortlisted. But overall it was a great experience with Jimmy and he revert back about a week later after we met up.

5) K Contractor : He was the first which i have tried to arranged for a meeting but his schedule was queued all the way till a week later, subsequently we had to arranged 2nd and 3rd meeting 2 weeks in advance. I have saw various renovations done by him and was initially inspired after looking at theitsybits Casa t-blog as her floor plan is very much similar and really love her renovation done by K, *except for the kitchen cabinets, separately done by someone else.

During the first meeting i have forgotten that i have personally get in touch with him to arrange for a meeting, thinking that i have submitted my floor plan to icompare and he will have my floor plan thus it was really embarrassing that i have forgotten my floorplan in hardcopy and we could only use my ipad to show him the floor plan, he was patience and look through the floor plan through my ipad and we were having our initial discussion. Everything went well and he said to revert us with a quotation after a week, however shorty after 3 days we were really amazed by the speed of light he is working.

I was pushing my hubby to lean towards having K to do the renovation for us from the start after all the reviews and feedback I saw. Hubby was initially not convince but after the first meet up he did his own research and was convince that having a responsible contractor is really important. I would say K is prompt, early for meeting, fast hand fast leg too. He is friendly and was really helpful in our subsequent meetings when we discuss on details about tiling and construction works.

6) S2 Design : We met up with Andy and he was nice to meet up at our convenience, we thought the meeting will take about an hour or two after multiple times meeting with IDs, however our meeting with him lasted for 20mins - 30mins, we were striking him off our list. After a short 20 - 30mins meeting we presume he will not have much idea what we are looking for and he do not really question the feasibility to do certain renovations or propose if there could be better ways to go around it and was okay with all the propose that we wanted. Which was quite different from the previous ID which we met, some of those ID we met gave us some verbal proposal as to whether it will be feasible or not but Andy was okay with all of it. End of the meeting, will get in touch with you on the proposal.

However, after 2 weeks we were surprise that he have got in touch with us as he has come out with the proposal, drawings and 3D drawings!! My hubby din't really want to meet up anymore ID after so many rounds and was explaining to him that we have been looking at other ID but he was really sincere and asked to meet up to at least explain the drawings and 3D drawings that he has done. He provided us with 1 3D drawings and 2 other layout plans. Andy was really nice that we decided that we could have him to provide us a quotation for the round of shortlisting.

I would say that Andy is pretty new and fresh in the ID industry but he is really nice and sincere, he is really good with his 3D drawings and ideas though we are not too sure with his co-ordinating skills during the renovation, he was sincere to even bring us to their current project to view but we were in a rush and could not arrange it on the same date. We are still awaiting for his quotation though.

7) ZQ Studio : We met up with Spencer who was the ID and we go through the same process on explaining the direction we are looking at and the meeting ended quite quickly, about a week later he got back with us but by then we were really tire out by meeting up with so many IDs.

Lastly, we met up with

8) Evorich : They deals with Laminated Flooring, Vinyl Flooring and High Resistant Flooring (HERF or layman terms PVC)

Previously have heard about their 100% waterproof Vinyl Flooring and High Resistant Flooring(HERF), apparently to them, both are different. To us we find that both are the same or similiar. High Resistant Flooring (HERF) are of same or similiar as Vinyl as the findings i have found.

100% waterproof are important for us as we have 2 dogs and will really do not want to spoil our flooring with our furkid's accidental pee, both of us like the looks of the wood-like flooring. Initially we were looking towards wood tiles which are tiles with wood grains looks. The difference is tiles are cooler to walk onto.

On our first meeting we met up with Johnson from Evorich and he explain on the differences with Laminated Flooring, Vinyl Flooring, High Resistant Flooring (HERF) and Engineered Wood Floorings. He went though with us on the waterproofing of High Resistant Flooring(HERF) and that he himself have done huge amount of experiment on his own High Resistant Flooring(HERF) and even having tissue beneath the High Resistant Flooring(HERF) and water on top of it overnight and water is unable to sip through, I would say they are the few which would promised that their High Resistant Flooring(HERF) 100% waterproof as it is a huge statement to make if it is unable to do so.

Initially hubby did alot of research on Evorich and was keen on having their High Resistant Flooring(HERF) but i was hesitant as i have yet to do my own research. The feel of High Resistant Flooring(HERF) does feels good and different and it is slightly cheaper (ranging about $6-$.650) or about the same price to having wood tiles, it can comes without skirting and Johnson mentioned that the High Resistant Flooring(HERF) could follow us when we move as it on clip system(**this point not too convincing though, once we move out we presume to be moving bigger house and would need to purchase more but provided the colour will still be available)

I have read up that there will be some side effects on High Resistant Flooring(HERF), *want to make sure we will be okay with the side effects and deduce if its a huge or minor issue for us.

e.g :

high possibility of uneven laying as free cement screed by HDB will not be as perfect to having 100% or 80% levelling, thus affecting the outlook to form a wave on the laying of High Resistant Flooring(HERF). So far he mentioned that the possibility of having a huge wave of uneven tiles will be really rare, he show us in his showroom on the worst we could expect from the wave but it seems not a huge issue for us. His advice was to possibility try own best to advice the person laying the cement screed to have it as level as possible by nicely advice them to spend more effort and time.

One more issue which we were concern was that mold will gather under the flooring which he promised if such issues occurs it will be a issue of product defect and will be covered by warranty which he mentioned a life-time warranty. Thus further explaining that if mold were to gather underneath, it means that the clip could not do a proper job on preventing it to be waterproof or it could be possible that the High Resistant Flooring(HERF) were laid before the cement screed were fully dry as High Resistant Flooring(HERF) would require fully dry cement screed to lay on.

We were convince that most of our concerns are covered but was quite hesitant when we had to make decision on the spot to lock in the price we wanted. But eventually did when Johnson was nice enough to provide us with an additional clause to have a 14 days money back guarantee thus providing me more time to find out more on High Resistant Flooring(HERF).

After doing a throughly research and have some reviews from U.S which they lay their own High Resistant Flooring(HERF) that it does occur before that odour coming out from the High Resistant Flooring(HERF) but we were promised that High Resistant Flooring(HERF) will be odourless and if such issues occurs it will be covered.

Cracks will also be covered by evorich but we are also quite concern with the levelling of the cement screed.

Eventually, we decided on rooms with High Resistant Flooring(HERF) and living room with Wood Tiles.

**Engaging Mr. K for our rennovation

Edited November 8, 2013 by plainsharon

[redder 2]

Hey plainsharon, did u check with Evorich abt staining issues on HERF?

[plainsharon 20]

hi redder,

about the staining issue, he mentioned that his customer were using tiles and it had stain issues but after changing to HERF, the staining did not occur.

It's very difficult for us to decide on tiles or Herf, as Herf is pretty new here and there was some concern with Herf too thus eventually we decided on both, HERF for rooms and tiles for living room, will update again on pros and cons when we gotten the tiles and Herf.

[plainsharon 20]

Quotations

Here are some of the items which we will be doing :

Hacking works

hack existing wall at Kitchen, Service Yard and Master Bedroom

Cement works

- cement skirting for cabinets , washing machine base and shower screen kerbs

- hollow block for wash basin at Service Yard (Separate sink to wash some handwash clothings or bath my dogs apart from the kitchen sink for cooking etc. bottom will act as a area for my dogs to discharge themselves)

- homogenous flooring 15X90 **** room

- sit down concrete tiles at Master Bedroom's Toilet (for us to sit and bath or bath our dogs in the toilet at a higher level

- glass mosiac tiles at Kitchen except cabinet area (backsplash for kitchen)

- hollow block at Kitchen (Concrete for Kitchen Cabinets)

- island hollow block countertop & 3ft top stainless rack for wine at Kitchen's walkway (hubby's island bar counter)

- white brick wall **** room's 2 side (feature wall)

Carpentry works

- install low (17ft) ,upper (17ft) kitchen cabinets granite countertop (kitchen cabinets on both side)

- install a unit tv cabinet **** room (floating tv console)

- install a unit solid plywood frame at Kitchen (decorative frame for the entrace of the kitchen)

- install a unit shoe cabinet **** room (full height shoe cabinet)

- install a unit of laminate casement door for island area **** room (storage for hubby's island bar counter)

- install a unit of without door wardrode at Master Bedroom

- a unit of low cabinet at Master Bedroom's bay window

Miscelleous

- 10mm tempered glass showerscreen at Master Bedroom's toilet

- 10mm tempered glass showerscreen at Common toilet

- 2 pieces of door and door frame at Master Bedroom ( for the mini walk in wardrobe)

- a unit of solid plywood door at 2 Toilets (changing hdb's toilet door)

- a unit of light box and false ceiling **** room and Master Bedroom

- install silding window at Kitchen (window at service yard)

The damage will be about 40k.

Edited October 30, 2013 by plainsharon

[zihui 7]

Hi plainsharon!

Looking forward to following the transformation of your place!

My budget for the major overhaul of my place will be around 40K too, so that's going to be a huge headache for me

[ucypmas 0]

Hi who did you pick for the reno in the end? Did you get K to do the job or someone else?

If you have time you could ask the ones in your final shortlist to show you one or two houses they did / in progress so you could see what its like. The older resale works they do would be more indicative of their ability as those jobs are generally bigger and have more tiling work and other "repair" that you could see.

Edited August 12, 2013 by ucypmas

[plainsharon 20]

Hi plainsharon!

Looking forward to following the transformation of your place!

My budget for the major overhaul of my place will be around 40K too, so that's going to be a huge headache for me

Thanks Zihui~

40K is alot, though nowadays 40k does not do much for renovation.

your budget is 40k? or you were quoted 40k?

[plainsharon 20]

Hi who did you pick for the reno in the end? Did you get K to do the job or someone else?

If you have time you could ask the ones in your final shortlist to show you one or two houses they did / in progress so you could see what its like. The older resale works they do would be more indicative of their ability as those jobs are generally bigger and have more tiling work and other "repair" that you could see.

Hi ucypmas,

Will be having K to do the job, firming out the details with him already.

We seen and heard alot about K's job on the forum, seems pretty safe to have him for our renovation.

[honeykitty 0]

welcome to the club....finally foliage is going to collect key~ smooth reno ya

[ProjectH 0]

U r doing quite alot and with Mr K. 40k is very reasonable!

[drunkenchivas 0]

another 4roomer..... good to see more blogssss please update diligently....

[zihui 7]

Thanks Zihui~

40K is alot, though nowadays 40k does not do much for renovation.

your budget is 40k? or you were quoted 40k?

I agree 100% with you.

this renovation is wiping out our entire savings

but just to clarify, 40K is our budget, not the quotation we received

[littlemissyfen 0]

I agree 100% with you.

this renovation is wiping out our entire savings

but just to clarify, 40K is our budget, not the quotation we received

Possible to PM me the quote mr K quoted u once confirmed?

[art00609 1]

another Mr K's club...

dun worry u r in safe hands...i truly enjoyed my reno process with him

[zihui 7]

Possible to PM me the quote mr K quoted u once confirmed?

Hi littlemissyfen,

my contractor isn't the very famous and popular Mr K. plainsharon is using him so maybe you can check with her instead.

Good luck!