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3D drawings and Lighting points

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By the way we haven't paid for anything yet. These are the 3D Drawings provided by Mr Patrick @ The Home Concept.


Confirmed Layout
(See additional storeroom created next to kitchen)




Lighting Points




3D Living/Dining Hall




3D Kitchen




3D Master Bedroom






3D Bedroom

Only doing up one built-in Wardrobe for one bedroom.

Interior Designer

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We approached more than 10 Interior Designers (IDs) for quotation from recommendations on various websites like RenoTalk and SGBrides.

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Here's a list of IDs we have approached so far :

1) Barouque (General: Highly recommended online with good workmanship and price ; Personal: Response was slow and no follow-ups after 2 amendments and appointments, otherwise ID was rather nice and approachable)

2) Earnest Interior (General : Highly recommended online and great wokmanship. Approach ID Frankie, great 3D drawings!)

3) Intra Design (Personal: Qouted us $10K above the rest who have qouted us. Too expensive)

4) GPlan (Great reviews on SG home reno websites with good workmanship)

5) Ideal Home (General: Highly recommended in most SG home reno forums; Personal: Not bad, price was ok and it was 2nd to our choice of ID)

6) A-Win @IMM (General: No Reviews and comments so far; Personal: Approached them 1 month before CNY, no response til now.)

7) Wei Ken @ Trade Hub21 (General: Highly recommended by forumers online and had many great reviews with good workmanship .. do your homework online and check which ID is good, ; Personal: We were attended to by a v v inexperienced 'ID', we had to tell her what to do, etc.. we became our own IDs .. it was just our unlucky day)

8) Chew Interior ( General: Too expensive but good workmanship, Personal: Experienced ID attended to us 2 weeks before CNY and never hear from him ever since)

9) Darwin Interior (General: Good reviews, forumers commented about their interest on depo$sit collection ; Personal: Good Price and qoutation were given on the spot They were more interested in collecting the depo$it than any thing else)

10) De'sprit Interior (General: No comments about their service and workmanship. Personal: Approached them about 1 week before CNY and no news ever since)

11) Ideal Design (General: No comments online and anywhere else. Personal: Not recommended at all as ID also never respond)

12) The Home Concept @ TradeHub21 (We chose this ID)



General: Little comments online on RenoTalk forum and had reasonably good reviews about workmanship and pricing.

Personal: Quotation was emailed to us in 3 days! We feel totally comfortable with ID Patrick on first meetup. Always contactable even during CNY. Very approachable and has good and economical suggestions. Even amendments in quotations was also sent to us promptly via email. Gave us the 3D drawings and pictures free of charge even though we have not confirm whether we are engaging him. Mr Patrick also took us to a couple of completed and uncompleted units undergoing renovation to have a look at the carpentery and workmanship. Also, this is one guy who is really passionate about his job and treats every single home renovation project like his own home.

Post reno, he was still contactable and still very patient about correcting things that went wrong or had to be corrected.

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Most importantly, when talking to IDs, you have to come straight to the point of what you want. List down a list of stuffs you want to do to your place. An easy way is to classify the list into different rooms, e.g Living room, kitchen, Master Bedroom. etc.

Choosing Auspicious Wedding Date

No Tong Shu 2009, No Fortune Tellers, No Feng Shui Masters ...


We decided to skip the Fortune Tellers and Feng Shui Masters. We did our own research online and have narrowed down to two dates for our customary wedding next year.





What I did was that I triple checked all websites to make sure that I got the right information on the dates. Too bad 2009 Tong Shu will not be out til June this year or else my dad can do the readings for me.


Here are the websites:

1) http://verywed.com/lunar/index.php

2) http://astro.sina.com.cn/2008newyear.html

3) http://mindcity.sina.com.hk/MC-lunar/index.cgi

4) http://mindcity.sina.com/MC-lunar/search/index.html

1st Appointment @ HDB 22nd Feb 08, 9am

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We spent over 2 hours at HDB Hub @ Toa Payoh today with my parents, seller and my agent. Everything went thru smoothly as the HDB Officers were efficient and thorough. We signed on almost 8 different documents in 1/2 hour with one officer. Also, today is the day that both of our CPF goes down to ZERO dollar.

SO, the first thing I did when I reached home was to check my CPF account online. That was sometime in the afternoon and $urpri$ingly the money wa$ still there!

Just checked 5 minutes ago, it's $till THERE!!

The 2nd appointment will most probably be some time in mid to late April.

Furnitures and Stuffs Before Reno

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Teakwood Sidetable (from The Home Merchant)

www.thehomemerchant.com



Bought during a moving out sale at The Home Merchant. Quality teakwood stuffs at a low price. The Home Merchant is probably one of the best place other than ScanTeak to buy Teakwood furniture. They carry some of the finest teakwood furniture. Don't believe in cheap teak wood sale from W*******, M***** F******* etc if u are looking for quality teak wood. You can tell the quality of teakwood by:

1) Dark Stained teak wood furnitures are usually low grade wood. They are stained dark to hide the ugly wood grains (Good quality teak wood looks more creamy and golden brown)
2) If u run your hand on low grade teak wood furnitures, some how or another, the wood does not feel smooth and it's not nice to touch. Thus this can easily collect dust.
3) Low quality teak wood furnitures are usually nailed together
4) Pull out the drawers to take a look at the rails of the drawers. Good teakwood furnitures have metal rails and makes it easy to open and close.
5) Always try to lift the furniture up with your hands. Good ones are usually very very heavy.
6)Fine carvings are evidence of good workmanship.
7) Low quality teakwood furniture like from W****** uses young teak (small pieces are thus pieced together to make furniture) or low quality Grade C wood. Highy quality teakwood are of Grade AB.

Teak Wood Furniture Rankings


1) The Home Merchant @ IFC (Great workmanship. Great if u can catch the sale sometimes up to 80% off!)
2) Summit House Singapore Pte Ltd @ IFC (Good workmanship at reasonable price)
3) Scanteak ( Great place to find bed frames, good workmanship, look out for sales)
4) Teakland Gallery @ Serangoon (Great price to find low cost sidetables and chest of drawers)
5) Natural Living (carries more dark stained teakwood furnitures, likely are made of low quality teak wood)
6)Mandalay Gallery @East Coast Road (carries more dark stained teakwood furnitures, likely are made of low quality teak wood, quite pricey)
7) Mirage Fineteak @Gillman Village ( Wide ranges of outdoor and indoor furniture, rather pricy, quality of furniture is slightly better than Wihardja)
8) Wihardja Furnishing Pte Ltd ( Good place to look for low priced day beds and outdoor furnitures or shoe cabinets, furnitures always on sale, sometimes u might be able to get a lemon if u are lucky!)










Hansgrohe Talis S Kitchen Mixer


Bought at a steal!










Network cables Cat 6, Patch Panels, Wall sockets and Trunking for housing

Laxton is planning to do some networking in the house. Hmm.. guy's stuff, so I don't know how to explain. Laxton explained that with network cables, internet connections is much faster than wireless network.

Pictures of our place!

This is a 5 room point block unit. Previous owner have bought over the recess area (i.e i's a 4sqm part of the corridor) from HDB. That makes our place a total of 120 sqm. Located in the east and it is eqi-distant from both our parents' place. It there takes about 10 mins car ride to go to our parent's place or about 20-30 mins bus ride.


Floor Plan





Entrance and Recess Area






Living Hall






Kitchen Entrance (Future storeroom to be constructed)



Kitchen













Kitchen Toilet





Master Bedroom





Master Bedroom Toilet





Bedroom 1 (Future study room)







Bedroom 2 (For parents to stay in if needed)

Why Love at first sight?

1) Near hawker centre, coffee shops and wet market (not forgetting NTUC)
2) 10 mins to Bedok Swimming Complex (Great for kids in the future)
3) 10 mins to Bedok Stadium
4) 10mins to Tanah Merah MRT station
5) 3 Bus Stops from Bedok Interchange and MRT station
6) Many bus services to almost anywhere!
7) Good Primary schools like Temasek Primary School nearby
8) Near to Temasek Secondary School, Bedok Green Primary School, St Anthony Convent etc

Parents' opinion about the house matters

Opinions about the flat from older folks like our parents matters to us. Because they can see other 'flaws' that we don't see (Esp. when we are too over-excited). To my surprise, my parents love the place. You know old folks don't usually like low floor units but my dad and mum think it was ok. They liked the green surroundings and thought that the MRT isn't that loud after all. My mum like the fact that hawker centre and wet market is just across the carpark. There's even a NTUC there!

Love at first sight Part 2

We had really really low expectation about this 5-room unit we were about to view that night because it is:

1) a 3rd floor unit (Noisy? Dirty?)
2) Condition is original (Not move in condition)
3) Near MRT tracks (Noisy?)
4) Near a busy road (Noisy? Dusty?)
5) 30K COV (too high for a low floor unit)

Things didn't turn out the way we thought it would (i.e we didn't like the flat). YES, we liked it!

When both of us view flats, we usually will go seperate ways to view the room etc. For me, I do not usually listen to what the agent says about the house because they always talk about the good things and not the bad. Laxton usually will have his own opinions about the house.

To my surprise, right after viewing this unit, we had a short discussion and realised that we both had good feelings about the house. Within 5 mins, we made an offer to the agent and that very night, we've got a 'Yes'!

That night both of us were so excited that we couldn't sleep ...

Love at first sight Part 1

After viewing more than 15 four-room flats and changing 2 house agents since September 07, we found it!

4-room flats are so high in demand that they are mostly overpriced. One day, we decided to open our search into the 5-room category.

This is the 1st and only 5-room unit we saw and it was love-at-first-sight. On the same night, the price was decided and it was well within our budget at $380K ($10K cash above valuation). This is definately the best Christmas Gift we can ever wish for!