Our 5 Room Reno Journey - Scandinavian With A Light Touch Of Industrial

[dandelion1976 5]

After being a silent reader of many reno t-blogs and many PMs exchanges for ID contacts, I have finaly (and reluctantly) decided to start a t-blog to document our reno journey, learning process, and sourcing tips etc with fellow forumers and future readers. Have taken too much good info from this forum and this is our small way of giving back to this lovely and helpful community in Renotalk.

First and foremost, like any other reno t-blog, our floor plan. Right from the start, I knew there's some design flaw (oh well, it's HDB BTO, either take it or leave it)

1. There's no way to hack the kitchen to create open concept, and my wife have to forget about any kitchen island.

2. Placement of dining table gonna be a challenge (I actually use this as one of my key selection criteria to determine if an ID is giving much thoughts about space planning, or they are quoting for the sake of quoting only).

Some ideas/themes that my wife and I like, and inspired after reading many pages of t-blogs and other online sources ....

Edited May 2, 2014 by dandelion1976

[lemoncandy 39]

wow agree that the dining area placement is a good test. looking forward to seeing the layouts! all the best for reno

[dandelion1976 5]

Okay here're the most tedious part in our reno process.... ID selection

We started approaching IDs, just to have a feel of it, some time in the middle of last year. Spoken to one ID from weiken.com and another from Chew Interior. None of them responded with a quote, probably knowing that our key collection was still more than half a year to go.

Right from the beginning we knew we shouldn't be spending too much on reno. I have heard about home owners spending 6 figures to reno their flat.

There's no right or wrong here, but being in the finance and investment industries, the rational part of me play a big part here in arriving on how much we should spend on reno. Further, from the return on investment point of view, reno play a very small part in HDB valuation. What we aim to achieve is a functional home that doesn't looks like just another house done by an ID under yet another package deal. So our initial budget was $30k and this amount has been communicated to all IDs whom we approached.

We only got serious about ID selection towards early part of this year, and here are some of the IDs that we approach for serious discussion and quotes.

1. Mr K of H*O: I think he needs no introduction. Met him in the morning and had some pretty interesting discussion. He was quick and we spent less than 30 minutes and he left. That's probably understandable since he was very busy with his projects and trying to finished them before CNY. His quote came back and it's definitely not contractor price, and > 50% above my budget... I don't like the proposed dining layout too. Dropped.

2. Steven of Ideal H**se: Wife actually like them due to good reviews here. Met up with Steven and had our first round of discussion on space planning. At that time we were not very clear about our theme, and what we wanted. Steven shared with us some good ideas, and how to save on reno cost but doing things slightly differently. His first quote came and the pricing was okay. Some good ideas in space planning but again, I don't like the proposed dining layout. What we like about him is his friendliness and down to earth approach. We KIVed him for almost 2 months, and had another round of discussion with him and shared our themes (Scandi + Industrial) and ideas. He is quick to response and a new 2D with quotes was done up shortly, with revision of pricing to bring his quote closer to our limited budget.

- Shortlisted -

3. ZY of 9 Cr**tion: This contact was shared by one renotalk forumer, I was impressed by their office and he is very patient in listening to our needs and ideas. In my opinion he has a good design sense. Give us some pretty good suggestion on what to do and what not to do. Shared with him about the dining area layout challenge and he promised to look into it. His quote is slightly higher, and again the placement of dining area (behind sofa) did not impressed me. But all in all he is a very nice guy to talk to. Did follow up with me a few rounds but we decided to dropped him due to pricing.

4. Joy of Thom De*ign: Very friendly and motivated ID. Met up with her at her office and shared with her our requirements and idea, and our budget. Quote came and no 2D drawing attached, price is also out of our budget, dropped.

After few more rounds of fruitless search, we finally decided to take the plunge.... We created a list of what needs to be done, together with themes that we like and our budget, in pdf format, and sent out quotes request thru Renotalk and renotalk.

Quite a number of IDs contacted us, many didn't or forget to look at our attachment and straight away asked for a meet up session. All of them were nicely turned down and some of them were nice enough to re-look at our attachment and email us their quotes later. None stick to our budget nor impressed us with their proposed Living/Dining layout.

Some IDs simply sent me their standard, templated emails and attached with their reno packages. All these were ignored.

One of the ID only willing to quote but not to send any 2D drawing to us, ignored.

After about 2 weeks we realised this could be another fruitless attempt.. so back to the drawing board again and we started to search for good IDs recommendation from t-Bloggers.

5. R of Des**ner H**se: Found his contact don't know from which part of this forum. Email him our requirement and he is very kind to quotes us accordingly, with a 2D CAD drawing attached. Pricing was competitive, some quoted prices were almost like contractor price, and thus decided to meet up with him for further discussion. Revised quote and revised 2D CAD drawing sent to us shortly.

- Shortlisted -

6. C*rol of Summit Design: Emailed her our pdf file and she came back with a quotes about a week later. Price is way off our budget thus didn't proceed to have face-to-face meet up.

7. Calvin of P*sh Home: Very good design sense, especially for Scandi theme. Their office is impressive too. During our discussion he shared some practical tips, I personally think that their design would be one the closest to my vision. Quote came back and it's a little bit off budget. And again we were not impressed with the proposed dining layout in the hand drawn 2D. Dropped.

8. Gilbert of R*nz: Very friendly guy and got his contact from another reno t-Blogger (thanks Supermama). His price is very competitive although some of the items were expensive. This is the 2nd ID who did his 2D in CAD and don't mind sending me his 2D with quotation. - Shortlisted -

Of the three shortlisted IDs, two were invited to do site visit, and to have further discussion. (5) was dropped due to one minor thing in his quote which I am not comfortable - charges for Hod and Sink opening on Kompacplus Kitchen Top (which is actually provided FOC by the supplier as I had personally spoken to the supplier). I fear many hidden cost later on but then again my worried could be unwarranted.

None of them come out with the dining layout that we like (or perhaps, I like), so I told them what I have in mind and let them decide if it's feasible. Both of them were willing to take my idea and aligned their design accordingly.

And, finally we signed on the dotted line just last week, with Steven from Ideal House, largely due to our chemistry with him, his promptness in follow up with us, and his ability to listen to our requirements and accommodate accordingly. At the same time, I knew he actually cut down his pricing by giving us very very competitive pricing (I have a very good idea about pricing now, after going thru so many quotations over the last 2-3 months) and some items are even made FOC. And I knew he has a few other projects on hand, including Interlace Condo that is of much higher value but he is still very attentive to our many rounds of request and re-quote accordingly.

Our final quote was $37k for an almost full reno project (almost full reno coz I am not overlaying toilets wall)

Now, lets hope that he can delivered his promises and be able to complete my reno on schedule

Important Note:

Please do not PM/Post your request here for breakdown of Steven's final quote, I am so sorry that I won't be able to share it here openly so as to protect him.

Here're example of proposed dining layouts that we don't like:

Edited May 2, 2014 by dandelion1976

[SuperMama 27]

Hello! I am following! Looking forward to the progress! Nice pics loveeee brick wall!

[tessina 9]

That section of wall (725) between kitchen and main entrance, can hack away?

[bert7332 10]

hi dandelion, welcome to RT, i have a similar layout as yours, in anchorvale. We started with scandi+industrial as well, but have since deviated quite abit. Will be following your progress on your reno..cheers!

[dandelion1976 5]

hi dandelion, welcome to RT, i have a similar layout as yours, in anchorvale. We started with scandi+industrial as well, but have since deviated quite abit. Will be following your progress on your reno..cheers!

Hi bert7332, we could be neighbour then... Anchorvale Isle here

[bert7332 10]

Hi bert7332, we could be neighbour then... Anchorvale Isle here

Confirm neighbours then.. i m in 333B..PCD pushed back to end of this month..bummer...which block u in?

[dandelion1976 5]

Confirm neighbours then.. i m in 333B..PCD pushed back to end of this month..bummer...which block u in?

332C, collected key 3 weeks ago.

[dandelion1976 5]

That section of wall (725) between kitchen and main entrance, can hack away?

Unfortunately, cannot. It's for gas and utility and located outside of my unit, doesn't belong to me

[dandelion1976 5]

And our finalised layout ("Wall" extended using a false beam with a few wooden planks form the dining area)

Done using Sweet Home 3D.

Edited May 2, 2014 by dandelion1976

[lemoncandy 39]

very nice!

[Songz 132]

Welcome to RT.

Nice layout plan of the house

[dandelion1976 5]

So happy, tomorrow discuss 3D plan with ID. Reserving this post for 3D upload later

Alright, after a few ding-dong, here're the near confirmed 3D....

Living

Kitchen (Option 1 & Option 2 - Which one better??)

Edited May 2, 2014 by dandelion1976

[hellonub 5]

After being a silent reader of many reno t-blogs and many PMs exchanges for ID contacts, I have finaly (and reluctantly) decided to start a t-blog to document our reno journey, learning process, and sourcing tips etc with fellow forumers and future readers. Have taken too much good info from this forum and this is our small way of giving back to this lovely and helpful community in Renotalk.

First and foremost, like any other reno t-blog, our floor plan. Right from the start, I knew there's some design flaw (oh well, it's HDB BTO, either take it or leave it)

1. There's no way to hack the kitchen to create open concept, and my wife have to forget about any kitchen island.

2. Placement of dining table gonna be a challenge (I actually use this as one of my key selection criteria to determine if an ID is giving much thoughts about space planning, or they are quoting for the sake of quoting only).

Some ideas/themes that my wife and I like, and inspired after reading many pages of t-blogs and other online sources ....

Hi Dandelion, omg I've the first pic ("play" brickwall) in my moodboard too haha

By any chance that you're from AI too? The toilet washbasin and toiletbowl floorplan looks familiar Heh:) *oops realised you're from AI after reading Bert's post

Edited April 10, 2014 by hellonub