Finally A 5A After 5 Years!

[xvirusga76 0]

Hi fellow reno-talk bloggers

It has been a long while since I last posted in 2009 with our current 3rm tiny flat. Life back then was simpler with only ourselves and my 9 year old then and our 3 yr old who stays over during weekends. Our contractor back then was the legendary Ah Soon who pretty much dominated the reno-talk scene then, but I guess fame took over then and the last I heard he fled with quite a lot of the deposits and M.I.A !

Fast forwarding 5 years later, we have fully utilized every bit of space and room in this tiny flat of 76sqm with 8 people, comprising of my folks (stay-in during weekdays), ourselves, our now 14 year old, 8 year old and 4 year old and a live-in domestic helper! Yap..we definitely need to move out and ship out by this year end to give everyone their space.

The search for our next upgrade hasn't been easy going, basically as we have to fulfill the requirements by HDB for the minimum occupational period which ended on 1st May 2014! hooray! we were alittle kiasu and started searching for a better place back in Dec 2013 and many housing agents did not wanna entertain us back then all except this agent who kept both our contacts till to date ...and he did eventually help us find a bigger place and also help to sell our flat! With the HDB cooling measures kicking in early this year, prices of HDB flat started falling and so did our unit. We were worried to sell under valuation and buyers tried to squeeze every bit of us. On the other hand, we were also trying to squeeze our sellers as much as we could. We were targeting only EM/EA/ Jumbo months earlier that can house all of us but their prices were still pretty unfriendly for our pockets with such large family. We almost settled for a jumbo unit (1778 sq ft with 4 big bedrooms) in Yishun but thankfully, the negotiation did not follow thorough.

Our current housing agent finally managed to find us a comparatively unit to the jumbo but at much more pocket-friendly price! so we are currently waiting for our first appointment next week!! hooray!

Here's a preview of our 5A Yishun (1446sq ft) :-

Compared to the jumbo we eyed on earlier, this house is about a room smaller and definitely better priced!

With our lessons learnt from Ah Soon's episode with the so-so renovations, we had serious terminates issue with the laminates & skirtings under his renovation. Also, an entire panel of full height mirror of my MBR wardrobe came off 1 year after, the toilets in both MBR and kitchen had waterproofing issues and the kitchen cabinets gave way!!! Sadly, we cannot look for him to rectify the problems as he is NO where to be found. Haiz, enuf said, whats done is done, lesson learnt well.

With this much bigger house and higher headcout, we cannot afford to make any more mistakes. We searched through about 5 IDs and contractors and finally decided on one contractor/designer firm. Lets cross our fingers and toes:-

We will be starting our renovation next week after our first appointment. Owner of the vacant flat has agreed so! (actually, the real owner passed early this year, this house is under his relative who is handling the sale). Hopefully all smooth sailing. With a much tighter budget and bigger family to feed, we cannot afford to do much on the aesthetics. I LOVE the Scandinavian themes with the brick walls and all, but hubby prefers to go practical and not waste $3.8 k for the brick wall (our living room wall is ~ 5m in length). Sob... gotta kiss my brick wall bye bye .... and give in to the more practical side ... to have a 2.4m full height TV cabinet instead. Waiting patiently for my 3Ds after our selection of tiles and laminates last week. My old folks may not like the idea of track lights neither.. am wondering if its even bright enough...love the black aluminum door kitchen door frames which some of you guys have, but hubby doesn't approve neither.... more sobs... .

Also, no laminate flooring for us this time round. Hubby doesn't want to go through the scary and tedious process of eradicating the terminates. Also to keep cost of renovation lower, we are going to keep the current broken marble flooring . I am beginning to wonder how to fulfill my Scandinavian theme. This house has to see us through for another 10 years, at least until our youngest dd graduates from primary school in 2022.

I will update again once I get the 3D this week. Cant wait for the 1st appointment next week and start the renovation going. We have effectively 8 weeks to finish this project and am targeting to move in last week of Nov. (just in time after the school hols start).

Ciaoz

Edited September 24, 2014 by xvirusga76

[blackie 4]

Welcome back! I m with Ah Soon too. Didnt know that he run road with customer deposits. Till date i yet to see anyone can beat his quote, i might be wrong though.