Our New Adobe Chronicles : Buying a flat in SG update : My husband's POV 2 - Choosing the Interior Designer

 Choosing the Interior Designer/ Contractor. This was a strenuous and exciting part of our renovation process. I think we have met and engaged via e-mail around 12-15 IDs before finalizing our decision.

I will provide my very honest opinion and do note that this is just my own personal experience and must never reflect the overall reputation of the company. This SHOULD NOT deter your decision if you are already in the midst of discussion with them. We are just very keen (is the word kiasu?) on this since we have a very limited budget of 35K and I need to be 100% sure that we chose the correct one. Your experience will of course vary!

Just PM me if you need my comments and experience with the IDs below  :notti:

    D*n from 3D Interior
    Y*ka from Superhome Design
    Sha*ow P*n of Leef Deco
    Jo*n*y from **
    E*na C*en from i-Bridge Design -
    Er*c H**ng from Homestyle Design
    De*n*s from Decomark
    R*n from NID Design Studio
    R*n from Top Design & Renovation
    I*a* from Eirado Design & Co
    A*v*n A* - Matrix Concept -
    J*h*ny from Scycreation + DC
    B*nja*in from Form&Space
    K*vin Contractor

 ... etc... some I forgot, some just those who dropped me an SMS or message via PM  but, didn't get back to me

 whew long post! now... the best of the best IDs coming up...  :jammin:
These are the best IDs that we got in touch with and you cannot go wrong with any of them!


E**ie from Faith Interior Design - One of the very first ID we met. Young guy... I think almost the same age as me. Very cool, enthusiastic, polite yet straight to the point! very well prepared in our first meeting... lots of design ideas. Very professional... I like also that their name is FAITH  :notti: This is the benchmark of all the IDs that we were looking for...

     The only thing that deterred us to take his services is the high quote he was giving us. He adjust the budget but had to cut some measurements like making the feature wall from 8ft to 6ft, Cutting some corners... etc.. They also had a kitchen/ toilet package that we can justify with the price. I think he quoted me around 15K ++... just for that alone... and whatever items you are adding in kitchen, then additional cost will of course incur.

 Andr*w from Designer Guy - This is an excellent top notch, ID. Lots of good reviews in the forum and I have seen his actual work when he let me visit one of the flat he just renovated. He is those guys that you can laugh with and easy to get along... only thing is, Language Barrier... when he first called me up, I really had difficulties understanding & conversing with him. We think that this could cause an issue when we need to explain what we wanted... there are also numerous times that he  keeps on bashing other ID that I'm feeling uncomfortable. His initial price was sky high but, managed to go down to 30K ... still a very very hard decision when we had to let him go because of the iD below.  :dunno:  :(

THE WINNER! :good:   Design4space!! We are still in the process of renovating so. I will reserve my overall judgment of the name of the ID but, so far all ok. This is a combination of Faith and DG's attitude. We like him that he is very keen into details, very easy to converse with and professional in dealing with us. We only spoke on the phone and when I 1st met up with him, he indeed remembered and wrote down all the details! Quote is also reasonable and with a discount LOL. mhc

Blessings ♥

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Our New Adobe Chronicles : Buying a flat in SG update : My husband's POV

In continuation to our new adobe saga, with the help of my hubby, I will be able to update my blog on that. Here's some of his post from a local forum.

Posted 02 August 2014 - 12:07 AM

Hi folks! Been reading Renovation Blogs for months now and decided to also share mine! We are a simple PR couple with 2 cute daughters living in your lovely country for 6 years now. We decided to look for our own home due to sky high prices of rental fee and relocating every 1 or  2 years is a NIGHTMARE! For those who were renting before will know how it feels.   Anyhow... enough about myself and start with some information with our new home!   
We were living most of life in Pasir Ris and we just love it due to (I think) smaller population, lots of nice local people, near the beach, Airport, clean, relatively safe (?), our Church is here as well as our family and friends hence, we did not even think about other district. Our main preference in our home is, it should be CORNER LOT (for privacy) and near DOWNTOWN EAST (for late night movies. HAHA) , VERY BRIGHT and with Balcony area that's it. Our property agent was pretty ok with helping us though, most of the time, it was our own effort in looking on the Property sites on the internet for the houses we need to view. I think we almost visited at least 25 homes before we decided on this. Got the keys 1 day in advance on the 28th! Started the renovation on the 30th of July! Soooo stoked...   
See the floorplan below, it's pretty ok ... we are currently living in an Executive Apartment rental HDB so, this is noticeably smaller but, not complaining at all, we experienced living in a 2 room hdb flat before so... this is all good. We just feel blessed that we finally have a home of our own for my kids to play and mess around. Floor size is 127 sqm, corner lot, low floor..
Notes:

• The study/ bedroom doesn't have a wall so we will be using this as a Dining Area. We don't need a 4 bedroom anyway. 
• Kitchen area is a bit small and does not have any service yard like the new BTOs. It is also quite odd that it has 2 entrance! So we will close the entrance near the storage and create a glass wall to make it more nicer and brighter.
• Master bedroom is just ok... it is rectangular so we will just have to do with what space we have
• The room adjacent to it will be for my young 6 years old kid and maid.
• Other common room is just for guests. 

 Here are some of the pre-renovated photos!

  Design. We initially does not have any clue.. me and my wife discussed that we are NOT really into those popular modern Scandinavian theme or anything to do with modern! LOL. Nope... we are not old, we're just in our early 30s. What inspired us are those HDB Malay Houses.... there's just this attractiveness with kampong 'old' style look in their home. We used to live in a 4rm flat Malay house we were renting and the Landlady decorated her home with some Jewels, Rattan swings, lots of Mirrors and Lattice Windows. THIS IS WHAT WE WANTED... old style, and a touch of country/ classic look. 
And end quote.

Blessings ♥

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Our New Adobe Chronicles : Buying a flat in SG update 4

9th of June 2014, we had our first appointment with the HDB Customer Relations Manager. It was successful and we already received a confirmation letter from them that we are now clear to proceed to Our last and final appointment which will be this July where the keys will be handed over to us. I really cant wait, mah! ⌛️

Every weekend we are out and about looking for appliances and furniture. It's exciting but at the same time really tiring! We had our eyes on a dining table + chairs for a couple of weeks now, we just can't decide sooner because we were waiting for the best timing but it's been too long and the store is willing to give discount anyway and so we just decided to buy it and have it scheduled for delivery end of August. We are looking to finish the renovation in hopefully 5 weeks time. Two of the IDs that we have shortlisted said that the reno would go beyond 4 weeks which means we will need to stay a week more on our current rented flat or move in to the new house with still some carpentry to finish. Still contemplating but I guess we really don't have a choice, do we?

On our list of the things to do is to visit renovation stores like the last time we visited Soon Bee huat a tile shop in Eunos. We were overwhelmed with the choices. They're a lot! 

                                     

And then yesterday, one of our shortlisted IDs brought us to another tile shop with much more wider choices! We don't know what to choose anymore. 

                                               

   We have a lot of tiling to do so we would need to carefully choose the best with the price that we can afford. As usual we don't want to go overboard.  

 As for the house furnishing, we have visited of course IKEA, Courts Tampines, Harvey Norman and Gain City - our list of choices are getting longer. So far its only the dining table that we technically have bought, still a long way to go! :_)

Samahan kami ng Diyos.

Blessings ♥

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