My First Home: The Bachelorette Pad Edition

[bie18 3]

Finally arrived at the magical age where I am allowed to get my own gov't subsidised bachelorette pad. Went resale flat hunting 3-4 weeks before my birthhday in Sept, selected a flat within days of my birthday and signed the Option to Purchase within a week or so after that. Between then and my first HDB appointment in early Dec, got quotes from 3 contractors and 3 IDs. Selected one at around the same time as the HDB appointment, and the fun part (finalising designs) is finally about the begin!

Below is my floor-plan. It's a 4S flat in a mature estate, only a few bus-stops away from my parents' place. Flat is abt 30 yrs old, with original condition tiles . I fell in love with it because of the reasonable price and the lovely corridor which is very wide and only shared with one other neighbour. 

[bie18 3]

Here are some ideas compiled in my look-book. You can click on each set of photos to expand them. Will add more later.

 

 

Edited January 29, 2017 by bie18
Updated with photos

[bie18 3]

Choosing ID/Contractor

Altogether, got quotes from 3 IDs and 3 contractors. The ID rates were around 10-20k higher than the contractor ones. In the end, I chose to go with a contractor since I have my own ideas for the interior design.

The price we agreed on was around $29k, with the following scope of works (keeping it general for now). 

- 2 toilets: hacking and laying new floor tiles. Full height tiles only for shower area. Half-height on other walls. Concrete vanity & single-pane glass shower panel for MBR toilet

- kitchen cabinets (top and bottom along 1 wall only), includes 1 tall cbinet for ovens. Glass splashback, kompacplus work top.

- kitchen walls: hacking of tiles, replastering and painting

- kictchen floors: hacking and laying new tiles

- hacking of kitchen entrance walls & wall between MBR and living room

- hacking of ceiling cornices and replastering

- glass doors for kitchen (1 fixed panel, 1 sliding panel)

Other optional items that I am still considering (which will require top-ups)

- folding divider door between living room and master bedroom

- hacking living room and bedroom floors & laying of cement screed. This is pending inspection by the vinyl flooring contractor. Since my tiles are 30 yrs old, there is a risk of popping. 

- hacking and replacement of wardrobes in bedrooms 2 & 3. I didn't take a close look at the wardrobes when purchasing the flat, so will have to decide later when i get the keys.

Besides the reasonable price, some reasons for selecting my contractor: it is a well-established business;  the person dealing with me is the daughter of the main contractor - as we are around the same age, and she speaks good english, communication is pretty smooth. She seems to know her stuff and can offer good technical advice. She listens to my ideas and offers counter-suggestions that are more appropriate. They have their own inhouse teams for the various types of works and will coordinate everything. They were also Ok with me shopping around for things like vinyl flooring, pole system wardrobe, toilet doors, instead of being foreced to take the options they offered. They seem to work systematically and at our first appointment after I selected them, she already gave me an idea of the schedule of works. Workmanship seems good, based on the reviews on fb. They also let me visit an almost-completed flat to view workmanship before i confirmed with them.

We are at the stage of discussing materials and design. So far so good. Will update with a review after all works are completed in end Feb/early Mar.

Edited January 2, 2017 by bie18
Updated with info

[bie18 3]

<Reserved: Furnishing choices>

[bie18 3]

Tiles

Things finally felt real when I had to go down to Hafary to choose my tiles. I guess it's cos that was the first concrete (pun intended ) decision I had to make for the reno. Since I had chosen to use a contractor rather than ID, I would hv to make all the design decisions myself. But I was happy my contractor met me there to orientate me around the vast Eunos showroom and give general guidelines on the size and texture of tiles to select for different rooms. Also, thankfully I only had to select tiles for my 2 bathrooms and kitchen since I had already decided to go with vinyl for the rest of the house.

After reading so many accounts of how ppl had to spend hours or even days to narrow down their choices at tile showrooms, I made sure to do lots of research before hand. It really helped and I ended up spending just 5hrs or sk at Hafary (3hrs + on Sat 7 jan, and another 1 hr + on the next day when I had to retrieve my samsung tab that I had accidentallt left behind the previous day). Then, I spent the next 2 weeks or so deliberating on the choices (based on the samples I got) before confirming the tile selection with my contractor on key collection day (19 jan). Hacking started a couple of days after that, the tiled were ordered and delivered, and now waiting to be laid after CNY.

Anyway, here goes, my tile selections (most costing $3psf as per the budget given by my contractor).

Kitchen

Look I am going for is moden rustic, with light green/mint cabinets and wood coloured kompacplus worktop. 

In line with that, decided to go for sandy-coloured matt flooring. Didn't want to use vinyl for the kitchen floor, and wood look tiles would be overkill with wood look vinyl flooring for the rest of the house. So I thought this one would be a good alternative (hafary code SA03)

Guest bathroom

Decided to go with a fun design for the walls, with colours that complement the kitchen. Decided on blue, white and grey hexagon tiles, to be laid in a random pattern like this:

The tiles I chose (the blue and white ones... plus grey, not shown in this pic).

Chose light coloured flooring with a bit of blue-grey to match the walls (colour is a bit distorted by the warm lighting in the showroom...actual tiles are whiter than that) (hafary code SG4E1D)

MBR bathroom

Look I am going for is the modern resort look, with pebbled flooring in the shower area, sandstone-like wall tiles and greyish slate-like floor tiles. 

Went with this wall tile, which has a bit of texture (hafary code QD639612)

For the floor tiles, chose this (the greyish one on the top part of the photo. Code: Sm813D)

Spotted these rustic looking tiles for the shower feature wall (ignore the top row of tiles)  (code: nerva gris mat).

Also wanted pebbled tiles for my shower floor, which my contractor hasnt found yet (i failed to find it in hafary). Hope she finds something suitable!

 

Edited January 27, 2017 by bie18
Updated with info and photos

[bie18 3]

<Reserved: Applicances>

[bie18 3]

<Reserved: Before photos>

[bie18 3]

<Reserved: Reno Part 1>

[bie18 3]

DIY Projects

Project 1: Painting switch plates

Having chosen Legrand Mallia switch&plug covers in Dark Silver, was disturbed by the standard white switch boxes. So roped in my mum and dad to spray paint the boxes silver for a more matching look. To avoid getting spray paint on the walls (which were already painted with a white basecoat), mum and I taped up paper all around the switches while dad did the spraying. Each box needed 2-3 coats of paint and we managed to do 10 switch points in the MBR and living rm in abt 2 hrs. There're still the kitchen switches left to do, but i guess those will have to wait another weekend (when the walls wld alrd hv beeb painted.. Will hv to be extra careful!

The spray paint wasnt done evenly in some places, but hopefully wont be so noticeable..I decided i could live with some small imperfections. Still wayyy better than the white boxes!

Some photos below.

Edited February 26, 2017 by bie18

[bie18 3]

Reno Part 3

Spent the whole morning getting house stuff. Doing reno with an ID is more stressful than I imagined and I can't help but wish it would all be over a.s.a.p. But schedule shows there are abt 3 weeks to go, so gotto grit my teeth and get on with it. 

Today, managed to get:

1) Tracklights from this shop (they have a small showroom at Citimac building in Tai Seng): https://sg.carousell.com/jack.diyovation/. I briefly compared its prices with another online retailer and some lights shops in JB and found its prices pretty reasonable. Aluminium track light casings were $17.90 each, GU10 LED lightbulbs (600 lumen, cool white) at $10 each and a 2m track at $18. Shop also offers the more premium Megaman casing at $22. However, only Megaman GU10 LED lightbulbs are compatible with that casing and they tend to be more ex. than generic GU10 lightbulbs. Also grabbed the following ceiling bunker light at $25 only for my laundry area. Attracted by the pastel green, matching my kitchen colour scheme.

Around $200 for living room lights and 1 bunker light. Not bad lah.

2) Custom-sized aluminium composite sheets to replace the wooden panels at the top of my room doors, from Dama Trading (http://dama.com.sg). Found out abt it fm another renotalk T-blog. Though in an industrial area, they deal with retail customers and can cut custom sizes while you wait. They also offer acrylic sheets in a variety of colours, but i though the extra aluminium layer for the composite sheets would ensure the panels are more durable. The aluminium composite sheets measuring 83cm by 43 cm were $25 each.

Photo of wooden panels that I will replace (DIY with my dad's help).

3) confirmed the wallpaper pattern i wanted to get from here: wallhub.com.sg. I had visited their showroom last week and put down a deposit. Picked out a few patterns i liked, but couldnt decide on one, so told the shop to hold back from ordering for the moment. Went down again with my mun today to get a second opinion. Finally decided on a totally different pattern from the ones I'd shortlisted earlier! It is for my living room feature wall. Installation will be done after the vinyl floor has been installed. One tip..korean wallpaper is abt 30-40% cheaper than European wallpaper. Hurrah for the koreans and their design acumen!

4) Nippon spray paint from Horme Hardware (Ubi Road 1). Going to spray paint my electrical socket and plug boxes to match the legrand cover plates below (dark silver). The shop is huuuuggeee.. will surely be back there with my dad to pick out staple home maintenance tools like ladders, toolsets, etc. 

Legrande Mallia - chose the colour and asked my contractor to get for me.

Edited February 25, 2017 by bie18

[bie18 3]

Learning points

Will keep a running list here which I will keep updating as the reno progresses. Hopefully some points will be beneficial to others in the future.

Contractor quotes: Some items may be missed out and get discovered along the way. Also, they may assume you want things done a certain standard way and you may discover it costs more to change designs or materials along the way. Try to have as detailed discussion as possible before works start (if possible before you pay the first deposit) and check with the contractor how things are going to be designed or built. Ask them to advice on the implications of various design decisions (like removing cornices, etc.) Some top-ups I have had to do along the way:

• Ramp at toilet entrance (instead of kerb)
• Box-up of water and gas pipes across the living room leading to the kitchen that became exposed after cornices are ripped out. 
• Plastering of the walls and ceiling of the whole house. The original quote only included the price of plastering areas where the tiles had been hacked. Whether this is needed or not can be discovered through a detailed site visit before you sign on to the contractor, which some may not want to do.
• Will add more if any pop up.

To be fair to my contractor, they only charge me for works that we actually go ahead with. For example, we discovered that my kitchen cabinets will not not as long as we thought they would be after replanning the space. So my contractor recalculated and reduced the cabinet size. This is unlike an ID i met who said that the cabinet prices are offered as a package and will remain the same even if my cabinet ends up being smaller. 

Edited February 25, 2017 by bie18

[bie18 3]

<Reserved: Final Unveiling>

[bie18 3]

Realised that when i edit posts, the topic doesn't get bumped up. Anyway, bumping up to highlight my posts on my look-book and contractor choices. 

[Lazyfatcat007 5]

Very nice ideas! Looking forward to see more!

[bie18 3]

On 1/3/2017 at 7:56 AM, Lazyfatcat007 said:

Very nice ideas! Looking forward to see more!

Thanks! You're the first one to comment and i feel more encouraged to cont. updating.