The Little Home On The Waterway

[kenoro 1]

After quietly reading so many blog posts here, and benefited a lot from them, we decided that it's now the time to contribute back.

We got our 5-room BTO flat in Waterway Terraces 1 in year 2010. It was among the "hottest" BTOs at that time, since it was the first launch of “waterfront living” in HDB flats. 5-room flats were actually 20 times oversubscribed. So we consider ourselves very lucky to get it In Feb 2015, HDB started to hand over the keys.

Our renovation is actually going to complete soon, with only a few items left, meaning this is not a 'live' blog. We are also busy with a lot of things at the moment, so will keep this blog short and simple. Nevertheless, we will try to include all the information that others may find useful.

Below are the topics that we will cover:

• Planning - Floor plan and design idea
• Design - ID selection
• Design - Requirements and 3D sketches
• Design - 3D rendering
• Purchase - Lights
• Purchase - Kitchen and toilet accessories
• Purchase - Furniture
• Purchase - Appliances
• Purchase - Networking stuffs
• Keys Collection
• Reno - Paint and laminate selection
• Reno - Door-arm replacement
• Reno - Electricity running
• Reno - Aircon installation
• Reno - False ceiling
• Reno - Carpentry
• Reno - Data points conversion
• Reno - Moving in
• Reno - Curtains
• Reno - Storage Shelving
• Reno - Completion photos
• Looking Back...

Edited May 10, 2015 by kenoro

[kenoro 1]

Planning - Floor plan and design idea

Floor plan: floor plan for 5-room flat in Waterway Terraces 1. My balcony is at the 2 bedrooms, other flats may have it at the living room

Design idea: we don't go for any design theme, and therefore did not spend time researching them. Our requirements are that the design should be simple, contemporary, and practical. The main color theme in the living room is white + wood combination, so that it will look bright at day time, and look cosy at night.

[Oinkoink 0]

Hi neighbour, am following ur blog I'm from blk b.

[kenoro 1]

Design - ID selection

In Dec 2014, we got a notice from HDB about the Probable Completion Date of the block. Yay...time to look for an ID!

Selecting a right ID is crucial to the success of our renovation. As you may already be aware, there were many cases of IDs doing a bad job and then just ran away. For that reason, many people actually spend on a lot of time to talk to many IDs, meet them multiple times, and then select one. We did not have that much time. Instead, we relied on the amazing renotalk forum, to shortlist the IDs that other people had engaged and recommended.

Below are the 3 IDs that we shortlisted:

1. HomeTrend: this is actually a furniture shop, but they also offer to do renovation projects. This was recommended to us by the property agent that was helping us sell our existing flat. Since they do the carpentry work themselves, we were hoping that their price is more competitive (since many ID firms actually outsource their carpentry work to others). We went to their place in Woodlands Industrial Park and had a chance to see the sample work. Very impressive! And they only use Blum mechanism. The boss actually warned us that their price is not cheap because they go for quality. However, they do not seem to have a lot of design ideas, which is understandable because that is not their core business. We waited for their quotation, but after 1 week, they did not send, but instead asked us to come back for some more discussion. So it could be that they are either not very interested, or their price is way above our budget. Either way, maybe they are not for us.

2. Renoguyz - Nick: quite popular in renotalk, known for 'cheap yet good', and also his blunt character. We met him at a fast food restaurant, and went through our requirements. He gave some design ideas, and advised us against unnecessary and impractical stuffs like living room divider, or acrylic coating for furniture (get scratches easily). He sent us the quotation in the same evening (wow...fast!), in a very simple and clear excel format (which I like! Simple format means easier to see) and I could tell that his pricing was very competitive. He also told me that he would not be able to offer discount (except a bit only), since his price was already very low.

3. Dots n Tots: very popular ID firm, with a lot of good reviews. We called and visited their office, and met Nicholas there. We went through our requirements. Basically, we tried to ask for the same items as agreed with Renoguyz, so that we could compare the 2 quotations. He sent us the quotation back 4 days later, in a very fancy (but not so clear) format, which included items in the package deal and additional items outside the package (which made me confused a bit). Most of the itemized price was higher than Renoguyz's, although I am very sure we could negotiate if we wanted to engage them.

In the end we chose Renoguyz, due to the good feedback from other renotalk members (we will give our own feedback in the last section of this blog), his clear and competitive quotation (many ID firms offer 'package' deals, but they are nothing but marketing gimmicks)

Edited April 25, 2015 by kenoro

[michael368 1]

Hi Kenoro,

Do share with us your reno process if you have started. Thanks

[kenoro 1]

Design - Requirements and 3D sketches

Renovation requirements:

We want to have as much open space as possible, meaning things like divider in living room, glass walls for study area or kitchen, etc. are out of the picture.

We did not go for the HDB Optional Component Scheme to have the room and toilet doors, which has proved to be a very very very correct decision Must thank my friend for advising me against that OCS 5 yrs ago.

Living Room:

- Study table and cabinet

- Full-height cabinets with altar area

- Shoe cabinet

- TV feature wall with suspended console

- False ceiling with L box

- Laying cat-6 LAN cables and audio cables from TV area to study area

- Breakfast table / bar counter with quartz top and at the side, glass backing in front

- Full-height mirror

Master bedroom:

- Full-height L-shape wardrobe

- Dressing table

- Veneer door

Common Bedroom 1:

- Full-height wardrobe

- Veneer door

Common Bedroom 2:

- Full-height wardrobe

- Veneer door

MBR Toilet:

- Bath tub (replaced with show screens, after realizing it's pathetically tiny after flat collection)

- Vanity with quartz top and mirror cabinet

- Bifold door

Common Toilet:

- Shower screens (removed, after realizing it's pathetically tiny after flat collection)

- Vanity with quartz top and mirror cabinet (removed, after realizing it's pathetically tiny after flat collection)

- Bifold door

- Water heater

Kitchen:

- Full height cabinet

- Top and bottom cabinet with quartz top and glass backing between top and bottom cabinet

- Built-in oven and microwave

Service yard:

- Windows

Others:

- Painting

- Plumbing

- Lights installation

3D Sketches:

Kitchen:

Study area + cabinet (special thanks to Jez as I actually 'copied' the open shelf design from his post)

TV feature wall + suspended console

MBR

Common Room

MBR Toilet

[kenoro 1]

Design - 3D Renderings

Kitchen:

Living - 1:

Living - 2:

[kenoro 1]

Purchase - Lights

Downlights: After reading the reviews from renotalk, we decided to buy good quality down lights from Singapore. We got the contact of Gary, who is a LED distributor, and supplies the down lights for many shopping malls here (which means his lights should be very durable due to the high usage in shopping malls)

LED Lights: We also got the LED lights from Gary to be used as ceiling lights in common bedrooms, store room, and common toilet (I chose the round one).

LED Strip:

Edited April 25, 2015 by kenoro

[kenoro 1]

Purchase - Lights (Cont)

The other lights were bought from lightinthebox.com. They also ship the lights from China. Though their price is higher than taobao, they offer good shipping service, and after sales service. Some parts of the lights I bought have defects such as chips, scratches, etc. and they have been willing to send me the replacement parts foc.

Dining light:

Breakfast table / bar counter light:

MBR ceiling light:

MBR toilet light:

Service yard ceiling light:

Living room ceiling light:

[kenoro 1]

Purchase - Lights (Cont)

I also bought some lights from taobao

Kitchen lights: (I chose the black one)

MBR door ceiling light:

[kenoro 1]

Purchase - Kitchen and toilet accessories

Kitchen basin: We bought most of the toilet and kitchen accessories from Taobao, except the kitchen sink and mixer since we wanted to buy a good one. We also decided to buy the bathroom basin from local store, since shipping one from China is risky and price is not much cheaper.

We bought Blanco Naya 8 Silgranite sink from Hoe Kee (We chose Anthracite - black color, not the color in the photo below):

Toilet and kitchen accessories:

• Bidet spray
• Toilet paper holder
• Towel rack
  
• Hook
• Tall tap
• Shower set with rain shower
  
• Bathroom rack
  
• Single-rod rack
• Kitchen sink's rack
• Toothbrush rack
• Knife holder

Decorations

• Wall Clock - Wood
• Wall Clock - Bird
• LED Clock
  
• Paintings - Flower vase
• Paintings - Abstract
• Wall stickers
• Pillows

[Ha88yLife 0]

Hi Kenoro,

Can you PM me Nick & Gary's contact, thanks inadvance

[kenoro 1]

Purchase - Furniture

We decided to reuse our old bed, and to buy new dining set, sofa, and coffee table. We bought all of them from Cellini Changi showroom (unlike the one in Suntec, the sale person in the Changi showroom (Coco Ng) was able to offer us some bundle deal, on top of the existing promotion).

Dining Set: (the one in the photo below is 1.5m. We actually bought the 1.8m)

Sofa: (followed the ID's advice, we chose this deign but with a lighter fabric color)

[kenoro 1]

Purchase - Appliances

We bought the oven, built-in microwave, hood, hob, TV, and dryer from Mega Discount Store @ United Square.

Tips: do you home work and check for the best price of the items you want to buy, and then ask Mega Discount to at least match it.

Oven: Bosch HBG23B550J

Microwave: Bosch HMT-84G651

Hood: Fujioh SLM-900R

TV: Samsung UA 55HU7200

Dryer: Bosch WTV-74100SG (7KG) - come with free stacking kit

[kenoro 1]

Purchase - Networking stuffs

Since new BTO flats are equipped with built-in cat-6 cables, it's important that we take advantage of that. The TV already already has 1 network point, and we wanted to run 4 more cat-6 cables, together with the audio cables (for surrounding speakers) to the study area.

Network cables: Belkin cat-6, 50 feet

Switch: Netgear ProSAFE GS108Ev3 8-Port Gigabit Plus Switch

Audio cable: 16-Gauge Speaker Wire - 100 Feet