A "scandustrial" Concept ~ Sengkang Ea

[vicx1234 38]

3D Drawings - we're getting closer to the final picture

First off, it should be mentioned that Jimmy does not do his own 3D renderings, but passes it off to another girl to generate it after briefing her on our requirements. We're not terribly impressed with the 3d renderings as we have seen better (presumably using better software) but it will have to do for now. Also, I think some of our input did not reach the girl doing the 3D drawings and the colour scheme for the MBR ended up plain wrong. Whatever the case, the 3D drawings were complimentary and not something that we had to pay for, so beggars can't be choosers.

Living room - we will no longer be going for the brick wall effect since E thinks it's overused. Instead, we will be doing a laminate white plank wall

Dining & study

Guest bathroom

MBR bathroom

Our previous WIW concept. Originally we wanted to place the WIW in the main bedroom, but we opted out of that because that would mean our MBR would be very small if we wanted a TV in the room as well.

Edited December 24, 2013 by vicx1234

[vicx1234 38]

Some drawings/renderings done up on floorplanner using my limited computer skills.

Space planning wise, I think the part we are most concerned about is the yard area. Might turn out to be very cramped with no space to hang clothes. Last resort - use a dryer or hand clothes out in the living room, which is going to be very ugly! What are your experiences with a condenser dryer anyone?

There seems to be an orphan wall lamp hovering about in the 3d renderings, I do apologise.

Am really not liking the small bathrooms, and it is becoming apparent that the walking corridor is not completely straight. So much for maximum impact visualized by having double doors as the MBR entrance.

The study room is really small! I'm a bit concerned about the practicality of the space and whether it can fit 2 persons working simultaneously and comfortably. Let's hope it turns out alright.

[g0mug0mu 8]

Dropping by to say Hi! We do share the 'some' of the same concepts and good luck for your reno!

True that stucco and bricks are a bit overused but that kind of fits my theme! Looking forward to how your laminated white plank wall will turn out

[vicx1234 38]

Dropping by to say Hi! We do share the 'some' of the same concepts and good luck for your reno!

True that stucco and bricks are a bit overused but that kind of fits my theme! Looking forward to how your laminated white plank wall will turn out

Hey g0mug0mu, doesn't your handle mean rubber in Japanese? Anyway, thanks for dropping by and I'm excited to see how your reno turns out as well.

I really love the white brick wall (which ironically has now become the safe option to have for a home), but we all got to get out of our comfort zone sometime! Figure having a white plank wall might stand out, hopefully in a good way. Will post more pics when it's up.

Good luck for your reno too!

[vicx1234 38]

Hi guys, we have since gotten our keys and have officially started work on the renovations. It's going to be a long and arduous journey so wish us the very best!

Let's start off with some of the tiles that we chose.

Living Room tiles

We were originally going to go for an industrial cement screed living room and had long discussions back and forth about the pros and cons as well as ease of maintenance of having cement screed floors. After much deliberation, we opted to go for the best of both worlds, homogeneous tiles which look like cement screed. Having visited a few tile shops along Balestier, we weren't quite convinced about the cement screed looking tiles that we saw. Luckily, our ID brought us to another tile shop where we managed to find one which had just the right look. I believe this is the lighter shade of tile that fellow blogger YTMO is using.

Kitchen tiles

We wanted to capture that scandinavian look and have wood planked tiles in the kitchen. Whereas some would have chosen to go with HERF, we managed to find a ceramic tile which had pretty wood grains, and in white too!

Bathroom tiles

By now I think everybody should be pretty familiar with subway tiles. We will be using it for both our bathrooms, with the grouting to be in black for contrast.

Room tiles

Don't have a good picture of the colour of HERF that we chose, so I'm posting somebody else's. After much consideration we decided to get HERF from Evorich in 'durban oak' colour which was considered safe, although we initially selected 'aspen oak' which is darker and actually much sexier (IMO). We were definitely not going to entertain having laminates in the room cos it may warp after time especially after coming into contact with water. The HERF will be deployed in the study, guest bedroom and master bedroom.

Loving the contrast between the cement screed tiles and kitchen wood effect tiles

[vicx1234 38]

Hacking has been done and tiling has commenced! I actually think that we are a bit behind on the tiling, but given that our ID has only allocated 1 person to carry out the tiling (is this normal??) and that person's workmanship has been pretty good so far, we will have to a little bit more patient at this time.

Former laminate floors gone

Walls and floors hacked and awaiting re-tiling

Sneak preview of cement screed lookalike floor and kitchen wood effect tiles

[claypot 46]

Best wishes on your renovation! Looks like a very good start by the looks of the photos.

[vicx1234 38]

Thanks claypot, hoping the process will be a smooth one!

[inthechouse 8]

Looks good! We decided not to go with a brick wall too. Similarly, we're using wooden tiles (but different ones) and 3d white subway tiles with black grout (for kitchen backsplash). We had two guys do the tiling for us (entire 4-room flat) and they seem to have finished in slightly under two weeks. They work on Saturdays too, but not sure if it's a full-day or half-day for them.

[EMinlove 2]

Hacking has been done and tiling has commenced! I actually think that we are a bit behind on the tiling, but given that our ID has only allocated 1 person to carry out the tiling (is this normal??) and that person's workmanship has been pretty good so far, we will have to a little bit more patient at this time.

Former laminate floors gone

Walls and floors hacked and awaiting re-tiling

Sneak preview of cement screed lookalike floor and kitchen wood effect tiles

Initially it was my plan to use cement screed and brick walls too! hahaha

ID also suggested me the cement screed look alike tiles but no stock when we choose the material so I changed to use dark grey tiles and yes brick wall overused...everyone has a brick wall now lolx

AND...we were also contemplating to buy an EA because we love the space....but when we put in offer for the EM and EA, the very dao owner of the EA refuse to budge a single cent

So forget it la...we go with the EM haha Maybe is mean to be for us.

I also saw some of your concept photos you posted earlier, I have some of those too..you may wanna check on this link:

http://www.jacquelynclark.com/2013/01/09/an-organized-kitchen/

I love kitchen concept, making mine kitchen to somewhat like this

[vicx1234 38]

Looks good! We decided not to go with a brick wall too. Similarly, we're using wooden tiles (but different ones) and 3d white subway tiles with black grout (for kitchen backsplash). We had two guys do the tiling for us (entire 4-room flat) and they seem to have finished in slightly under two weeks. They work on Saturdays too, but not sure if it's a full-day or half-day for them.

Thanks inthechouse! Do take pictures of yours when it's ready ya, looking forward to checking it out. We will be using laminates for the feature wall, which will be cut to resemble planks of wood and then pasted randomly for the natural effect. I'm sure tiles will have the desired effect, but it's probably going to make it more expensive?

You're lucky to have 2 tilers do the work for you. We have 1 guys and not only does he work full days on Saturdays, we saw him working over Christmas when we went down to check out our place!

[vicx1234 38]

Initially it was my plan to use cement screed and brick walls too! hahaha

ID also suggested me the cement screed look alike tiles but no stock when we choose the material so I changed to use dark grey tiles and yes brick wall overused...everyone has a brick wall now lolx

AND...we were also contemplating to buy an EA because we love the space....but when we put in offer for the EM and EA, the very dao owner of the EA refuse to budge a single cent

So forget it la...we go with the EM haha Maybe is mean to be for us.

I also saw some of your concept photos you posted earlier, I have some of those too..you may wanna check on this link:

http://www.jacquelynclark.com/2013/01/09/an-organized-kitchen/

I love kitchen concept, making mine kitchen to somewhat like this

Thanks for the link! I see where you got your inspiration from now - really nice

Conversely, I've always wanted an EM because it's like living in a terrace house though it's a HDB, but my better half prefers an EA so there was no arguing there! You're lucky to be living in an EM and judging by the impressive renos carried out to EMs on renotalk, I'm sure yours will be the same.

Good luck to us both on the actual successful execution of our ideas and the renovation in general.

[gryffindor 2]

ID/Contractor Selection:

Choosing the right ID/Contractor is really largely subjective. I can say it all boils down to fit in terms of whether you like a particular ID or contractor's design, and more importantly, whether you have 'mo qi' with the ID/Contractor.

Shortlisted IDs/Contractors

Mr. K (Contractor) - without a doubt, the most popular contractor on Renotalk. His portfolio has been pretty impressive thus far as seen from others' t-blogs, although he is also know to have a particular style or "template" to use an uglier term. We always thought we would go with him, but decided not to since he is known to be a bit more expensive and we figured he must be pretty **** busy during this time of the year. May have some regrets here.

Alan (Contractor) - also pretty popular on Renotalk. his earlier reviews seem to be better, and judging by the number of projects he seems to be running, we didn't want to be chasing him all the time. Decision to drop.

Artist Room - no reply

Carpenter's Workshop - no reply

Project File - had 1st meeting with them. We weren't blown away with their ideas, which weren't too practical to begin with.

** - good portfolio of work, decent suggestions. Promised to quote within 2-3 weeks but didn't hear back from them.

Voila Design - seemed more intent on pushing their ideas than really listening to what we wanted. Promised to quote but didn't hear back.

Three D Conceptwerke (Vanessa) - in terms of design, we felt that they were the most willing to push the envelope. Vanessa, the ID assigned to us was very eager to take on this project. Judging by age alone, I doubt she's the most experienced ID out there, but she certainly made up for it with a lot of enthusiasm and creative suggestions. Concept wise, we liked her the most. If not for the high cost quoted, we would probably have gone with them.

3D Innovative (Jimmy) - I had heard of Jimmy's name being thrown around in the forum, but never really thought we would engage him because he's not known for his design prowess. If you look at 3D's portfolio online, their style is actually very different from ours. Also, reviews about him and 3D in general have been mixed, some good some terrible. Nevertheless, we initially shortlisted him because he was one of the first to respond to my call for a quotation. He was also willing to head down to our unit to check it out before quoting (though we didn't require this in the end).

After meeting Jimmy for the first time, we were quite comfortable with him. He had some relevant input regarding the practicality of certain ideas we had, and was willing to sit down with us to discuss some ideas we had at length. Since we engaged him, we have met up a couple of times with him to discuss our renovation, which meetings sometimes stretch for hours. So far he has been pretty accommodating. Also, he didn't have a problem if we wanted to subcontract stuff like carpentry and electrical work to other people. He isn't the cheapest contractor around, but his prices are reasonable. Do remember to bargain though, and know the market rate before meeting with him.

Having told Jimmy about the negative comments we read about him online, he did his best to assure us that he previously made a mistake by taking on too many projects at once, something which he would try to avoid this time around. After all our discussions, we felt sufficiently assured to give him the project.

Let's hope the whole reno process goes smoothly for both his sake and ours.

I have the same experience with Artist Room. Despite various attempts, they did not get back at all.

[EMinlove 2]

Jia You! Jia You!

I share your excitement to see the final outcome! Smooth reno ya..keep posting

[inthechouse 8]

Thanks inthechouse! Do take pictures of yours when it's ready ya, looking forward to checking it out. We will be using laminates for the feature wall, which will be cut to resemble planks of wood and then pasted randomly for the natural effect. I'm sure tiles will have the desired effect, but it's probably going to make it more expensive?

You're lucky to have 2 tilers do the work for you. We have 1 guys and not only does he work full days on Saturdays, we saw him working over Christmas when we went down to check out our place!

Cool! Where did you order your laminates from? We're sorta deciding between wall laminates and wallpaper.