Hm In Tampines

[harrymonster 1]

Hi everyone,

Been staying at my place in Tampines for the past few years. Initially when we moved in, only spent a bit here and there to touch up on the curtains, paint, windows etc but recently we felt that its time to do it up properly, especially since we have a 1month old baby, time to revamp the house to make it more bright and practical with lots of lights, storage and to emphasize more on the safety aspect. There's too many chandeliers in the house and I worry about them dropping down and smashing into bits as happened to one of the lights in my parent's place.

Right now, still in the midst of the ID/Contractor sourcing phase, some have given good ideas but not so detailed, some were very meticulous but did not make us feel that much value add will be in the process.

This is my original layout. Am planning to get approval to buy over the recess area in the corridor. HDB already gave the go-ahead but it's considerably more exp than expected. Luckily they said that we could pay from it via CPF.

Its been changed a lot by the previous owner, more or less as per below 'current' floor plan. Sorry for the tilt!

There's 1 thing i am wondering though, we are considering to extend the MBR wall on the 2nd floor so that it is flush against the staircase. HDB rules says that no extension into any VOID spaces but i am looking at the original floorplan and that space isnt listed as a VOID. So basically the extension as below in red? However of all the contractors and IDs we have spoken to, only 1 of the ID immediately said - not a problem and the quote that he gave was very reasonable. The other guys hemmed and hawed and one of them said - could be done but it would be around 10k or more. Looking through all the other threads and pictures and floorplans, currently my understanding is that it shouldnt be an issue with HDB provided that they give the go ahead in advance + PE endorsement on the floorplan?

Anyone has any ideas please?

Much thanks

HM

Edited September 15, 2013 by harrymonster

[El LoCo 3]

Nice layout tat the previous owner left for u...u got more photos of yr hse to share?

[harrymonster 1]

Below is what I moved into. Pictures were taken by the agent (all credits and rights to him) when i bought the house. The house has changed a bit since then! Its really not easy to take care of all the plants (we kinda murdered quite a few plants, despite our best intentions) and of course, the furniture has mostly changed.

Now going for the white / brown / green look with emphasis on bright, practicality and storage.

Been influenced by quite a few of the owners who transformed their place into something wonderful. So...looking forward to juggling the young kiddo and the whole reno process.

[Makanology 29]

Your current place looks really nice! Are you going to change much of the look?

[harrymonster 1]

Thanks MK. I just finished reading through your thread today.

Wifey was very set on getting this place 3 years ago - due to the look and feel. We saw this flat, liked it, decided within 2 weeks and all settled.

However by now, there are bits and pieces thats' not done up that well, things that you only notice after time. As such, we are keen to just redo up the whole place to make it easier to take care of. Probably will change the whole look and feel to it and make it more practical and storage friendly.

[Makanology 29]

Yes you are right. Your current place looks nice but seems hard to maintain and not child-friendly. Guess you really have to renovate it. Hope you will be staying elsewhere during the renovation

Edited September 15, 2013 by Makanology

[harrymonster 1]

It's been awhile since the hubby has updated, and will update on his behalf instead.

Just to share on what’s on our to-do list for our renovation, before I go into details on the different interior designers and contractors we have met over the last 3 months in the next post.

1st floor

- remove wallpaper, cornices and chandeliers

- change kitchen layout, installation of new cabinets, stoves, oven etc

- convert current store room to helper’s room

- installation of proper toilet facilities in wash area

- removal of sliding doors/walls between living room and balcony for area to look bigger

- removal of tv consoles and current cabinets / islands to have entire look changed

- extension of recess area

- installation of ceiling fans

- installation of storage area under the staircase

- installation of lightings, i.e. cove lightings, l-box lightings or track lightings

2nd floor

- redo all toilets, revert layout to original hdb layout

- remove wallpaper, cornices and chandeliers

- change air conditioning in 3 bedrooms

- build in wardrobe in master bedroom

- change of all floorings

- installation of lightings, i.e. cove lightings, l-box lightings or track lightings (master bedroom)

- installation of ceiling fans

- installation of lightings between walkway and rooms

Staircase

- to change flooring to wood

- to change railings

[harrymonster 1]

About a month before my EDD, the hubby and I started looking around for interior designers and contractors for our house renovation.

We were planning for the renovation to be done and completed before the end of my maternity leave. However, as simple as it sounded initially, i.e. to find someone whom we are comfortable with to do our house renovation, it took us a much longer than expected time frame of 3 months before signing the contract with our ID, Dorothy from Inlookz Design.

Am glad that the hubby took charge of the many details and research with regards to our renovation; as I was very much “handicapped” with our little one to take care of.

After meeting a handful of IDs and contractors, we finally made our decision based on how reasonable the overall quote was, how comfortable we were with the person and the reviews we read online of them.

Will share our views on the different quotations and IDs below:

1. X from H:
My friend’s husband who is an ID. Have seen his work before and it’s good. However the above quote is based on a basic renovation; which is not as extensive as what we have finally decided upon to do. Moreover, we figured it will be pretty tough to ask for a discount from a friend.

2. J from J.C:
A contact from the hubby’s colleague. ID has plentiful of ideas and solutions when we shared the concept of our renovation. However, there were a couple of incidents whereby he MIA-ed, and his quote seems pretty brief. In the end, we decided to move on to look elsewhere despite him being resourceful for solutions.

3. A from B.I.D:
A contact from the hubby’s client. Someone who was able to give suggestions, however the quote didn’t come in as promised. And there wasn’t so much of chemistry with him either.

4. M from I.L:
We wanted to look for another ID from I.L as it was well recommended on renotalk. However, as the ID has alot of projects on hand, we contacted M instead, the first female ID thus far. She was very detailed when she came over, took many measurements of our place. However, she took a very long time to send us the quotation and her quotation is on the high side too. Thus, it’s a no-go.

5. G from E:
Sis-in-law’s ID who was very highly recommended by her. He is a very detailed person who took photos and notes of the points that we’ve mentioned. In fact, other than the ID that we have selected, he is the other ID which we’ve met up more than once. However, somehow between the discussion, there wasn’t any follow ups from him due to some issues between him and his company. It was only towards the end when we were close to finalising our decision, he contacted us again as he was very keen in getting our business. However, his “apple to apple” quote to our final shortlisted ID was still a chunk higher. G is meticulous, sincere and patient, however due to cost considerations we werent able to utilise him.

6. Mr T from H.I:
A very highly recommended contractor on renotalk. Contacted him and managed to meet up with him despite his busy schedule. We went through with him what we are looking to be done, however, the funny thing was that he did not walked around our house at all to take a look. All notes were just written on the floorplan. Felt a bit strange to us. In the end, we skipped using Mr T, despite his reviews as his quotation was on the high side.

7. Dorothy from Inlookz Design:
The hubby found her contact on renotalk. There was not much reviews on D, except for maybe 1-2 which were good but none bad. And since we were looking around for IDs, no harm done to just meet up with her. And it turns out that she is a pretty easy person to speak to, someone who has solutions, frank and willing to share on how to save cost. After going through the many quotations, the hubby and I decided to sign the contract with her.

We are definitely looking forward to our renovations which commenced on 4th November and moving back in during mid January before CNY.

Meanwhile, we will be moving over to my mum’s place.

Edited December 3, 2013 by harrymonster

[harrymonster 1]

We short listed a couple of movers and storage places. However, in the end we went with Yong Shen for both moving and storage.

Quotations for movers & storage:
1. Yong Shen movers: $330 per truck for moving and $250 for storage per month per truck

Total spent so far: $800 for transport (1 way) and $1300 for storage

2. Song Seng Transport Service: $1350 for moving and $900 for storage per month

3. Big orange: $397 per month for storage area of 3m (L) x 3m (B) x 3m (H)

4. Storehub: $633 per month for storage area of 50sq ft (Promotion of 1st month free upon signing up for 2 months)

Edited December 4, 2013 by harrymonster

[harrymonster 1]

After 3 months of research and discussions with the different IDs, we have finally decided on the layout of our place.

The 1st story will have major changes to our kitchen, helper’s room, living room and recess area.
As for the 2nd story, the major changes will only be for our toilets. Our master bedroom toilet and the common toilet will revert back to the original HDB’s layout.

I will share the progress of our renovation in the weeks to come. Let’s hope that everything goes smoothly.

[harrymonster 1]

Here’s a preview of our house before the handover; so much memories with this layout, which is also the reason why we bought our house in the first place.

Before renovation – Week 0

Week 1

Kitchen and living room walls have been hacked. All our chandeliers have been removed too, so have the flooring on the second floor. Wallpapers are on the way down too.

Week 2

We can see some progress here – tiling of kitchen and common toilet in 1st floor. The wallpaper, cornices and staircase railings are all gone too. In addition, walls of our toilets on the second floor and our entrance of our house is on the way up. Definitely looking to see the progress for week 3.

Edited December 3, 2013 by harrymonster

[harrymonster 1]

About 2 weeks back, it was time for our selection of tiles. Dorothy and ourselves met up at Hafary to take a look at the selection of tiles for our kitchen and toilets.

The budget for our wall and floor tiles were $2.60 and $3.00 and below respectively.

The selection over at Hafary was very huge. It’s quite a challenge to really pick out something we like immediately. However, Dorothy and the sales person made it easier by pointing out what their clients has chosen before, based on their preferences.

Below are the selection of toilet tiles made during the 2 times I went down. However, we sticked to our initial choice of toilet tiles, as it matched our overall house better.

Choice 1:

Choice 2:

Here’s the kitchen tiles that we have selected. Initially we chose choice 1, however Dorothy mentioned that it looks quite messy vs our simple look we intended, we changed it to choice 2 instead.

Choice 1:

Choice 2:

I’m hoping the choices of our tiles are right, as I’m pretty bad with color coordination.

[harrymonster 1]

To tile the whole house, or not to tile the whole house? To use high end resilient flooring (HERF), laminates or parquet? We were left pondering about these two questions for awhile.

In the end, we decided not to tile the whole house as it will save us a fair bit of money. Moreover, our tiles were in pretty good condition and it’s a waste to redo the tiling for the sake of a “want” and not a “must”.

As for HERF, laminates or parquet, we compared the pros and cons:

1. HERF – waterproof but rumored to contain poisonous emission from it

2. laminates – not waterproof but reasonably priced and not much problems with termites

3. parquet – not waterproof, might have problems with termites but reasonably priced

In the end, we decided on using laminates for our second floor, as we didn’t want to risk our little one's and our health in the long run if we installed HREF. At the same time, we were afraid we might have termites if we installed parquet, as there will be bound to be times whereby there’s spillage of water etc.

We went to a couple of places to take a look at the tiles.

1. Evorich (HERF)
There was a pretty good range of the variety of tiles we were looking at. In fact, we pretty like the colors & grainy effect of the tiles. However, the price tag to the tiles was that it’s pretty high.

2. Floor expert
The tiles we were looking at did not have a very wide range, if I’m not wrong maybe 12 different ones. And out of the 12, we shortlisted 1, however it’s still not the best color we would like to go for.

3. Kronotex
The range of tiles was very wide and it had many colors which we could choose from. They had the color tones which we were looking at. The biggest selling point was that the salesperson was not pushy at all and it made us very comfortable. After walking around and shopping around for 2 weeks, we decided to get our tiles from them.
The range of tiles we have selected from was Exquisit. And below is the 2 colors which we have short listed.

Choice 1:

Choice 2:

In the end, we went for choice 2, as it had more contrast against a white wall.

Edited December 4, 2013 by harrymonster

[harrymonster 1]

We have finally received the 3d drawings of our place.

Hopefully once the renovation is done, our place wouldn’t differ so much from the 3d drawings.

Our kitchen. We are still deciding on what material to use for our counter top though, i.e. granite or solid surface. We would like something that is long-lasting and doesn't stain easily.
Problem with granite material is that it is porous, whereas the solid surface material stains very easily.
So now we are currently contacting Kompacplus and Neoparies to see if it's worth considering using their materials instead.

Our built-in bookshelf with a “hidden” storage area beside it for our vacuum clear, ladder, pails and other bulky items.

Our recess area, with the shoe cabinet and bench. The designer missed out the windows behind the cabinet though.

Our storage space below the staircase. (Yes, more storage space again!)

Our master bedroom. The wall behind our bed will be of a different color though.

Our living room. This design is not fixed, as we are still deciding on the configuration of our TV console area.

Edited December 3, 2013 by harrymonster

[Makanology 29]

Oh you are using Dorothy, that's nice! We considered her but haiz, I thought we shared better chemistry with our contractor, Mr A so we went with him. On hind sight, we regretted this big time! Should have gone with Dorothy...