1St Em | 2Nd Home | 3Rd Milestone

[tiyiz81 0]

18 March 2015

Our entry starts midway through everything, our renovation is just beginning and its slated to complete in about 2.5 months. We completed the purchase of our Serangoon Maisonette mid December 2014 and decided to wait till after CNY 2015 to begin the renovation.

Will take this space to document the reno journey and share our thoughts and purchases as well.

The next post will provide the catch up for the initial few months before present day.

[tiyiz81 0]

Double Post... May save for table of contents later...

Edited June 3, 2015 by tiyiz81

[tiyiz81 0]

This journey began in Feb 2013, when we reached MOP for our old place. We felt that the unit was too small and we had 2 young children growing up and they need the space to grow as well as making some changes to our living arrangements. We advertised to sell our unit. Fast forward to Mid 2014, we finally had an offer and we accepted, looking at the market, it was going down and for our location, Sengkang, prices were depreciating and so we sold at an amount that we thought was a reasonable amount.

Once the OTP has been signed, we began looking for our new unit. We decided that we wanted a maisonette, as we are now a family of 5. With us also moving in my parents-in-law’s family, we will be having 9 + 1 cat so, i think we need as much space as we can get.

The search brought us to Yishun, Hougang, Bishan, Toa Payoh and finally to Serangoon. After going through so many maisonettes, the Serangoon unit was kind of a worthy buy although it was not the design that we were looking for but we thought, with good designers, we can work things out.

So we made the choice, and the negotiations were quick. After the second viewing, we made our offer, thinking that it would take a few days before they reverted but it was barely 10 minutes later, while we were driving back when the agent called back and said our offer was accepted.

Now with house done, the next journey of selecting ID begins.

—————————————

We already had a selection of IDs to choose from. We had been stalking some of them ever since we started to market our old unit and so our ID selection journey began. For me, our shortlisted IDs would have impressed us with their past projects. Once we engage them, we would then like to be able to see innovative designs. Its not to say that i am a very adventurous person but with 9 people in the house, i am not sure if a typical design would be able to work for me.

We had 1-2 designers that we wanted to engage and so we went to 1 more to even out the playing field. 2 of them i believe have featured here in Renotalk forum while 1 more, most likely not.

Our needs were:

• to house 9 people and a cat
• three growing kids
• enough personal space for all
• preferably to not have dark areas in the house
• i believe there were more that we gave the designers.. hope it wasn’t too demanding.

In the end, because of budget, we had to choose the one that is the most cost effective and i am very thankful that they were the most innovative with their design as well. As they were just designers, we now had to search for contractors to realise the design.

The search for contractors were also tedious as we do not have any contacts, so we began looking around and got a few quotes. Our requests for contractors were that they were accurate in their quotes. We had hoped for them to come down to carry out measurements on site so that it would give them an idea as well on how the house would be.

We finally decided on one of the contractors that we reached out to quite late but they were very willing to meet up and carry out measurements.

Well, that was a summary of what happened in our journey of our new place.

[tiyiz81 0]

Here is the floorplan of the unit that we bought. A corner, top floor EM.

This would be the suggested floorplan that we have agreed on.

[potatoes 0]

This journey began in Feb 2013, when we reached MOP for our old place. We felt that the unit was too small and we had 2 young children growing up and they need the space to grow as well as making some changes to our living arrangements. We advertised to sell our unit. Fast forward to Mid 2014, we finally had an offer and we accepted, looking at the market, it was going down and for our location, Sengkang, prices were depreciating and so we sold at an amount that we thought was a reasonable amount.

Once the OTP has been signed, we began looking for our new unit. We decided that we wanted a maisonette, as we are now a family of 5. With us also moving in my parents-in-law’s family, we will be having 9 + 1 cat so, i think we need as much space as we can get.

The search brought us to Yishun, Hougang, Bishan, Toa Payoh and finally to Serangoon. After going through so many maisonettes, the Serangoon unit was kind of a worthy buy although it was not the design that we were looking for but we thought, with good designers, we can work things out.

So we made the choice, and the negotiations were quick. After the second viewing, we made our offer, thinking that it would take a few days before they reverted but it was barely 10 minutes later, while we were driving back when the agent called back and said our offer was accepted.

Now with house done, the next journey of selecting ID begins.

—————————————

We already had a selection of IDs to choose from. We had been stalking some of them ever since we started to market our old unit and so our ID selection journey began. For me, our shortlisted IDs would have impressed us with their past projects. Once we engage them, we would then like to be able to see innovative designs. Its not to say that i am a very adventurous person but with 9 people in the house, i am not sure if a typical design would be able to work for me.

We had 1-2 designers that we wanted to engage and so we went to 1 more to even out the playing field. 2 of them i believe have featured here in Renotalk forum while 1 more, most likely not.

Our needs were:

• to house 9 people and a cat
• three growing kids
• enough personal space for all
• preferably to not have dark areas in the house
• i believe there were more that we gave the designers.. hope it wasn’t too demanding.

In the end, because of budget, we had to choose the one that is the most cost effective and i am very thankful that they were the most innovative with their design as well. As they were just designers, we now had to search for contractors to realise the design.

The search for contractors were also tedious as we do not have any contacts, so we began looking around and got a few quotes. Our requests for contractors were that they were accurate in their quotes. We had hoped for them to come down to carry out measurements on site so that it would give them an idea as well on how the house would be.

We finally decided on one of the contractors that we reached out to quite late but they were very willing to meet up and carry out measurements.

Well, that was a summary of what happened in our journey of our new place.

Hi Tiyiz81, congrats in getting an EM in Serangoon. Hope you have a smooth renovation journey

[tiyiz81 0]

Thanks for the well wishes potatoes. It does seem that we are neighbours...

[tiyiz81 0]

Wed 18/3/2015

We went to our place to have a look at how things were getting on. While we were walking to our unit, we saw some workers setting off for the day.

It was supposed to be a day of hacking and indeed it was.

Living room

Kitchen

Cabinet Carcasses

[Whalegaga 2]

congrats!

Looking forward to the transformation!!

[tiyiz81 0]

Hi Whalegaga, thanks for dropping by our blog. I am hopeful that we would be able to realise the designs.

[tiyiz81 0]

25th March 2015

It has been a week since we last started this blog, for those who have visited this blog. Thanks for your time.

Our renovation is quite extensive and while we hope that it would happen quickly, i must say that it is happening quickly enough.

The last week was used to hack the floor of the units while the earlier part of this week was used to hack the internal walls of the house.

A lot of walls are coming down but there is still another wall that needs to come down. This would be the wall between the room and the recess area. We have initiated the purchase of the recess area and so the application to hack the wall will be submitted and hopefully be approved...

* To our neighbours, we sincerely apologise for the noise generated by the hacking. Seeking your kind understanding.

------

While visiting the site yesterday and also taking photos to document the progress of the renovation, we met up with our contractor who said that he was also there to view the progress. He mentioned that he would visit his sites not just once but multiple times a day.

Well it is indeed reassuring to know that we have a responsible contractor . He also says that the designer we got is very good as well.

Good for us!

------

Photos we got yesterday...

View of Kitchen (near entrance)

Closer view of the rubble in the kitchen (from the corner of the wall)

Current state of the living room

Up the staircase we go

To be Cont.....

Edited March 25, 2015 by tiyiz81

[tiyiz81 0]

Continued … as there is a limit to photos in each post.

We are hacking and reconstructing 2 rooms…. The Original MBR and The New MBR (BR2). OMBR will be converted to a normal room while NMBR will be having a ensuite toilet with his and her sinks. One of the few design factors that made us choose our current designer.

View from the corners of the NMBR

View from the kids room to the OMBR

View from the corners of the OMBR

[tiyiz81 0]

We went with Wood tiles for the living area...

and black white combination for our kitchen

[tiyiz81 0]

Apologies for this... Totally missed it out.

Here are the renders by the designers....

[potatoes 0]

Hi tiyiz21, your place is very nice and design is very unique. I like the way you redesign your bedrooms and bathrooms layout at the 2nd level. I think by doing so, your master now gets the city view rather than facing the park.

your 1st level also seems to be an complete overhaul. You have created a bedroom actually here and also changed the orientation of your staircase. Interestingly, you made use of the recess area and ultilty room to create the dining area.

Thumbs up! it would be exciting to see how the end product look. Jia you!!

Edited March 27, 2015 by potatoes

[Guest Vincent Lee]

Hi,

Do you mind telling me how much is the design fee?