Mr And Mrs Lee's Happy Home In The Making...

[mrslee07 21]

Hi guys,

Decided to start a tblog!

My hubby and I are awaiting to collect our keys (5 room BTO) in April 2014, and currently have gone out and about looking for suitable furniture, appliances, home fittings etc.

We've confirmed our ID and paid the deposit... looking forward to seeing the 3D drawings materialise bit by bit in the next week.

A bit of a background:-

Hubby and I started looking out for a suitable ID in Nov 2013... and we took about 5 months (and many meetings with different IDs) before we had a clear idea of what we want and who we feel comfortable engaging to work on our house.

We understand that perhaps hiring a contractor and doing things the 'ala-carte' way for our house may be more cost-efficient... but since this is our first home and we had no clue as to what we wanted, we were happy to splurge a little more to have someone (the ID) do more thinking and planning for us. Hope the ID we chose will be able to fulfil what we envision... anyway, we will be sure to give the praises and reference should the firm deserve it, but will also not hesitate to name and shame if the end result is not what we want.

Of course, hopefully all goes well *crosses fingers* It's still early days....

At the end of the day, we chose this ID because we felt comfortable with his pricing and also because the communication has been pretty open with this ID - doesn't seem like he has anything to hide. One more personal preference was that this ID we engaged is the managing director of the firm, who can exercise a lot more influence and decision should anything comes up out of the ordinary. We both felt that's pretty important... rather than choosing someone who always tells us 'sorry but i need to check with my boss etc'

Perhaps i will dedicate another post next to talk about the whole process of ID-hunting... heh.

So far, hubby and I have bought:-

- aircon (Mitsubishi Starmex Inverter sys 4)

- storage bedframe (Englander)

- mattress (King-sized Simmons)

More furniture and furnishings to come soon... but i suppose these will take place when we finally collect our keys next month.

That's all for now! till the next update...

Cheers,

Mrs Lee

[myzticalz 14]

Looking forward!

[bert7332 10]

Hey Mrs Lee, looking forward your posts! We are in the same situation, waiting for keys (hopefully in April)

[mrslee07 21]

Hi myzticalz and bert7332,

Thanks! Nice to find new home owners in the same season of life.

What have you guys done so far in preparation?

[bert7332 10]

I am actually at the same stage as u, confirmed ID, going through 3-Ds and looking for furniture and appliances.

Bought sofa, tv, washer, fridge and bed so far...plenty more to go

[VincentWangZx 11]

Welcome to T-Blog chat! In hindsight, it is pretty fun to do things ala carte, but certainly has more headache. As I was on a tight budget, I still had to ala carte certain things even though I engaged an ID (who actually turned out to be more like a renovation contractor). Anyway, all the best in your upcoming reno! Be sure to be 100% clear about the contract items before signing!

[mrslee07 21]

Thanks VincentWangZx! Saw on your tblog, Your place is starting to come together nicely... cool!

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Ok, here's the post on our ID-hunting experience.

So we spent 5 months in total to look around and meet with different IDs.... the whole experience was really tiring - but fun to a certain extent. Somehow it was quite interesting to be sitting as a customer and have all these ID try to pitch for business to me and hubby. Lol...

1. The first ID we met. Can't remember his name... I think he contacted hubby via a forum (or was it renotalk here itself?) when hubby posted to get quotes from ID. Talked all about how interior design is about 'feel'.... and yadah yadah...

2. Second ID... is currently a ID from a pretty well-known ID firm in renotalk. SXXXXX Design Due to his sensitive situation right now I shall not name him publicly (but feel free to PM me if you would like to know) I quite like him from the start because also of the positive reviews about him here. He was in the midst of branching out on his own and wanted to sign us up with his own newly set up firm instead of under the current ID firm which he is working at. Sigh, big mistake. We found out that his new ID firm is not HDB approved... and felt this whole working on the side while still an actively employed ID at another interior firm too dodgy and complicating for us. Despite meeting him several times, and liking his humble disposition (and reasonable price quotes)... we decided not to take the risk and dropped him recently. He was the first few ID we met, and the last 2 in the running. I felt bad towards him in a way... but it just doesn't feel right so no choice, went with our gut.

3. Third ID - CXXX Interior

This ID actually recently jump ship from Weiken.XXX to CXXX Interior, and was recommended to hubby by his friend. He does have an eye for design and came across more like a designer as compared to the rest of the IDs i meet (that is good)... but his pricing was really expensive. Easily $10k more than the ID i chose. I guess choosing an ID from a big company has its price tag.... and we were not keen to pay that price tag, unfortunately. So we had to drop him recently too.

4. Fourth ID - Inspire by Dtrenzo

Had a good impression of this ID right from the start, maybe because he was extremely confident and open when talking to us. No hard-selling and able to give advise from a design and practical point of view. Talked alot about having a 2-way relationship with his clients on give and take, and trusting each other. Went to their showflat and were quite happy to see their works, although hubby did point out some areas of improvements on the painting works.

5. RenoXXX Nick - met him upon recommendation by Forummers here... unfortunately felt that we were not on the same wavelength as him and were not comfortable to proceed further, despite his relatively reasonable quote.

6. AbsolXXX Interior - again another up and coming ID firm, with a lot of buzz on facebook and forums. Felt that the ID assigned to us was too junior with little experience... and a little too presumptuous in some of his thoughts and ideas. Hubby dropped them when they made us wait 2 hours for our appointment without being more sensitive or apologetic about having made us waste our precious weekend waiting around 2 hours for them.

7. mX design - again a recommendation by hubby's friend. A female ID this time. She was very detailed and we could tell that she would have been a very meticulous ID whom we can trust. However, her pricing was also on the high side and she didn't follow up as closely despite us mentioning that we were collecting keys soon, which was quite strange.

8. UniXXX Creative - recommended by my sis (although she didn't choose them in the end) for cheap pricing.

Hubby contacted the lady ID and was put off by the way she communicated with him, made him felt like he was having a major communication breakdown with her even on simple things like when to meet etc. She gave us an estimated price quote (which was super cheap) but hubby detected that she left out on kitchen carpentry works totally. Felt that it was too much of a hassle to meet her to describe what we wanted... and also by then we had more or less decided to take the plunge and sign up with ID number 4...

And apparently, by 1st Apr 2014 this year, all home owners need to sign a declaration before reno works begin that your contractor/ID is HDB registered, otherwise the home owners and the non-HDB registered company will face penalty charges! And on HDB website there is now a link to check if your contractor or ID is indeed HDB registered as well. So... probably best to play safe and sign up with HDB approved IDs and contractors from now on guys!

[guojiawen 101]

Hey there, welcome to RT and look forward to the sharing

I'm also 5 room BTO and waiting for keys too. Should be getting them in April... hopefully!

[mrlee08 3]

nicely written mrslee07

[Songz 132]

Welcome to RT.

Nice write up on the ID hunting.

Wish you a smooth Reno ahead.

[mrslee07 21]

Hey there, welcome to RT and look forward to the sharing

I'm also 5 room BTO and waiting for keys too. Should be getting them in April... hopefully!

Hi guojiawen,

Thanks! Read your tblog and saw that you and your hubby have done/bought a lot of things in preparation for key collection... very cool! we still have some way to go... haha

[shockwave 5]

Hi mrslee

Hope you the best and smooth reno in the future.

[guojiawen 101]

Hi guojiawen,

Thanks! Read your tblog and saw that you and your hubby have done/bought a lot of things in preparation for key collection... very cool! we still have some way to go... haha

Haha, it just shows that hubby and I are kiasu

After buying then realised that actually all the sales / fairs etc seems to be really frequent. Maybe shouldn't have rushed into it. But again, buy already... not gonna think about it.

Jiayou with all the preparations!

P.s both you and your hubby very cute to synchronise the renotalk usernames!

[Vct 30]

April is coming soon! Congrats to both Mr and Mrs Lee on your new home! Smooth smooth reno journey everyone!

[Songz 132]

April is coming soon! Congrats to both Mr and Mrs Lee on your new home! Smooth smooth reno journey everyone!

Same to you too.

Hope to see your end product of the reno. Think in another 1month+ to 2, yours will be complete.