Our 'bird Nest' In The Sunny Singapore

[samuel202 0]

This is a late start to our renovation journey.

We have gotten our keys in late Dec and since January we have begin our search for IDs and stuff.

At this moment of writing, we have already done up our lights.

Pictures and more details will be shared along the way!

[chilarvet 7]

Looking forward to ur pictures.

Have a good reno!

[samuel202 0]

Hi,

Here's the lights that we have just put up. It's in the process of completion.

We decided to case our ceiling with black casing to make it look like we have framed the ceiling.

Will share lights of our bedrooms next.

[benetay 14]

Interesting concept can't wait to see the framed ciling.

[infinity2015 1]

looks nice. no false ceiling ?

May i know if your unit is top floor? if so, it is true that the ceiling is higher than normal units ? thanks

[ckwhon 0]

I would like to know too if you have false ceiling too because I want to know how your lightings' and ceiling fan's points are routed. Do PM me if not convenient to reveal here. Thanks.

[samuel202 0]

looks nice. no false ceiling ?

May i know if your unit is top floor? if so, it is true that the ceiling is higher than normal units ? thanks

Hi infinity2015, our unit isn't the top floor. It's the 3rd highest floor. Don't think it's true that the ceiling is higher than normal units. Our seems like any other house. Lol

[samuel202 0]

I would like to know too if you have false ceiling too because I want to know how your lightings' and ceiling fan's points are routed. Do PM me if not convenient to reveal here. Thanks.

Hi ckwhon, no we do not have false ceiling. Decided to go with track lights and black casing instead. We will be taking more pictures to put up by tmr.

I've PM-ed you as well.

Edited April 9, 2015 by samuel202

[samuel202 0]

Just so that everyone is on the same page, me and my wife will be replying/blogging/uploading photos on this T-blog using just 1 user.

Hence, it might sound like 2 different voices under 1 user because there are really 2 persons!

Our purpose is to share our experience as well as capture the tears, sweat and joy behind this journey of ours.

For a start, these are the few things we have completed (photos will be coming up shortly!):

1) door stopper - Our main door has no stopper. Hence, we found a contractor to install it for us. It is well-worth the money and we highly recommend it!

2) Lights - All our lights in the house are up! The photos will be coming up shortly. All our lights are LEDs. We basically used track lights for our living room, bedroom corridor and one for our master bedroom.

3) Service Yard windows - We have installed the service yard windows and we have chosen green glass with white frame as it is the same provided by HDB for our flat.

Edited April 10, 2015 by samuel202

[samuel202 0]

Our journey begin in January 2015 where after we collected the key in late December 2014, we begin looking at designs and seeing IDs.

In total, we have met over 10 IDs but some took our layout and never came back.

We tried a couple of methods such as giving our ideas to the IDs as well as pretended we knew nothing and let the ID give us his/her creativity.

We managed to pick some brains of the IDs, but overall, I have to say, we probably had 90% knowledge of what we wanted so it was really down to which ID provided us with service and could understand what we wanted.

At the end of the day, my recommendation is to take a look at websites such as , Pinterest, Home and decor.sg and renotalk to look for ideas and keep a board on Pinterest so that you can have all the ideas on the click of a button and you can pin it even as you walk! (credit goes to my wife who started the board for us to keep track)

Our pinterest board is https://www.pinterest.com/leVeh/home-interior-design/

Feel free to see and take notes of what you guys need!

Basically, to cut the story short, we contemplated between going for individual contractors for each specific items or going to an ID.

In the end, we had a hybrid to keep cost lower but yet maintained that we get professional opinion and help for our theme and colour etc.

From 10 IDs, we narrowed to 3 as they followed up with us even though the quotation was provided to us before or just after CNY but we did not get back to them till mid March.

[samuel202 0]

Our criteria are:

1) Sincerity

2) Creativity

3) Value for money

The 3 IDs are:

1) Mr B - The ID is very polite and very hardworking. He followed up with us more than 3 times and showed sincerity to win our project. Had it not been that the ID we went with had a better quotation, we would have probably choose him.

2) Miss M - The ID we had met her during the Expo show and she followed up with us continuously as well. However, during the critical final discussion, we realised that she had left the company our project was given to another ID. It was quite a shock to us. The service was still good nevertheless but the quote was the most expensive.

3) Mr K - The legend of Renotalk is the one we went with. His reviews are really excellent here and his quote was the lowest and comes with certain things that other IDs did not provide. Mr K is really a man of little words but when we describe our idea with him, he could immediately capture our theme! Something none of the other IDs could! While we had our concerns with whether he could come up with the designs we wanted, we thoroughly checked many portfolios of his.

Edited April 9, 2015 by samuel202

[samuel202 0]

Hihi,

Here's the photos of the rest of our lights and mirrors in our place.

Mr K's people will be coming next week to start the building the kerbs for the washing machine and cabinet soon.

This is the light for our master bedroom. It's like a big pawprint.

This is the super small corridor we have in our master bedroom too.

[samuel202 0]

[samuel202 0]

This is the kitchen.

This is the balcony.

Our fan is also up. It took us some time to get the fan up because of the rod. We bought this fan in Malaysia (since it is a lot cheap there) but the rod was too long. It was 8 inches long and we need a 6 inch one. Singapore has alpha fan and sells its parts but you do need to have a lot of patience talking to them. It took several emails before we found out that they could confirm that they have a 6 inch rod. But by then we have sawed the rod to 6 inches. LOL

Works either way. Just wanted to share this experience so that new home owners know what to look out for when buying a fan from malaysia. Make sure the rod is 6 inches long.

[samuel202 0]

Here's our mirror and shower screen that are also up. Our family recommended this guy named Steven. He is really very good and very professional.

If you are looking for someone to do your shower screen and mirror, we highly recommend his services. PM us if you want his number.

Good things / information should be shared.