Aussino Members Sale

Got a call from my wife one day at work and she told me that there is this Aussino Members' Sale going on.

So we went and made some good purchase of 2 complete sets of Hight Thread Count Bedsheets & Quilt Covers.

Though its a 50% sales, but I still ended up chalking up quite a bit that my wallet bleed for a few weeks.

So I hope that our 1st purchase for our new house is well worth it for this little indulgence.

Planning Ahead, Financially

Now that we have chosen the ID firm to handle our project, we can finally move on to the more detail planning required.

The most important but basic first thing to look into is however, financial planning.

Money don't grow on trees you know, hence its important to plan and differential based on our requirements, the difference between a "Want" and a "Need".

So we had entered some figures into this little excel sheets to plan, budget and monitor the amount of funds involved.

It's dangerous to embark on a project like this, if you don't plan properly financially.

Haha, with all those been said, we also have a little shopping list of stuff which we have to grab while the Great Singapore Sales are still not.

The Selected One

Ok, after all the time spending all those time to repeat to all the ID firms of our requirement and showed them the our proposed layout (interestingly, I am confused who is providing who the design service here). It time for the final selection.

They will be selected based on 1st & 2nd impression (as you have read, there are already some who had failed their 1st impression to us) and on top of that, of course, is their quote.

While we will not be going into detail here about their quotes, all I can say is that, there are some who quoted us 90K+, 69K while another 50K+ but with lots of hidden stuff not included in the quote.

So in the end, after comparison, we have chosen 3D Innovation, Sam for the project.

He had given us quite an impressive 1st & 2nd impression plus his quote, though wasn't the lowest but at least was the most honest in our opinion.

So here we go......

First Impression Counts

First impression counts. That is a very important life lesson to take note of.

Especially to those IDs firm who happened to meet up with us recently and stumbled upon our blog, this might be useful for you business in the future.

During the past weekends, we have met up 4 IDs for the 1^st meet up sessions. Let me express my 1^st impression with the 4 IDs:-

1) Ideal Design Interior – Wilson Wee

Late for an hour as he was stuck in JB jam but at least he gave us a call that he can’t make it on time.

He is friendly and quite observant. He is kind enough to offer help to check with HDB officer on all hacking works and other special renovation works which we want.

Overall he is quite okay and pleasant to talk with but seems too careful that we found him a lot of things he can’t answer us on spot. He needs to check then can get back to us.

2) A2Z – Shawn Lee

His 1^st impression to us was very “Beng look cum Beng talk”. I don’t really have good impression on him as I am quite pissed off when I am trying to explain my design and how it works; he was talking with my wife on his own design. He didn’t bother to listen or interested on what I say. 

But he is the only one who comes out with a design and present to us (Even though what he presented was typical HDB stuff). But then when we present our design and said that we want like this, he asked us whether can we allow him to put our house design as his company portfolio and he give us a good quote whereby outside can’t get, if we choose him.

We told him if his quote is beautiful and within our budget, we might consider.

3) 3D Innovation – Sam Toh

Sam is a friendly, chatty n funny chap. He is very organized and knows what he is doing. He very open to us and explain to in details. He told us that he doesn’t like to have any arguments or confusion between customers and IDs therefore everything he will say out and let customer know. No hidden stuffs which leads to misunderstanding or confusion. He gave us a lot of renovation information. He is detail and noted down everything we said. We have quite a good impression on him. 

4) Sky Creation – Gary n Yona

The 1^st impression on Sky Creation was Gary screwed up our 1^st meet up session. He tot it was the following Sunday and he only realized his mistake when I text him to remind him that we have an appt later. In the end, we have to re-schedule the time from 1pm to 5.30pm.

When he reached our house, there’s another lady with him, He introduced the lady to us saying she is the designer called Yona. She is very quiet, didn’t say anything.

At first, they are going to present their design. But then Gary asked us whether we have any design, let’s see our design first. So we showed them ours. In the end, they didn’t show us theirs and they gave us an impression that they are in a hurry. While we were telling them what we want, they didn’t really take note all the stuffs, just a few things here and there and wanna rush to pack and go. He kept telling us; they will also come out with a new design with ours + theirs combination and do out the quotation. So around half an hour, they left our house.

Overall after the meet up session with 4 IDs, our conclusion:-

Sky Creation (Gary n Yona) - A ‘No-No’ as they screwed up our schedule. Can’t imagine he kept screw our schedule on our renovation then we will be living in hell! Also they just took half an hour for our 1^st meet up session and didn’t take note on all our “Wants” and “Don’ts”. A very busy IDs huh! How to trust and give job to an IDs who are very busy, screw up your schedule and didn’t’ take note on what you want.

But we still wait for their quotation and we are curious how much they quote.

A2Z (Shawn Lee) – Not good impression at all. Just keep listening to himself and pissed off when realized he didn’t listen to my explanation. But becos he said he will give us a special quotation if we choose him and allow our house design to be their company portfolio. Therefore we are curious how special his quotation is. We shall wait and see!

Ideal Design (Wilson Wee) – Very good impression as he is observant, listening and taking note. He is helpful and kind enough to help us check with HDB officer before we sign him up. Just that he is too careful and seems like a lot of things he can’t answer on spot and need to check before answering us.

3D Innovation (Sam Toh) – Quite good impression. Organize and details. Give lots of useful information to us. Very easy to talk with and looking forward to his quotation. Whatever questions shot out, there’s always answer from him.

So we shall see what quotation they comes out with. Very excited and looking forward!

iD Hunt

Ok, now that that we have a "plan" we need to find someone to help us execute it.

So that, we need to find someone who can connect with us, understand our requirements and most important fit our budget.

With a renovating budget of about 60K, we where hoping that someone could quote us of  around 50K and any variation orders will fall within our range.

However, life as it is, is never expectable.

So, after reading thru Renotalk forum for a very long time, we decided that we will seek out worthy mentioned people who can help us.

And since we already know what we need, plus I am already in the design field, whether its a iD firm or Contractor firm doesn't really matters to us.

But of course if the package comes with a designer, we would be most glad to exchange pointers and make sure what I want doesn't have any issues materializing.

We went to Renotalk website to request ICompare for renovation quotation.

After I click sent and wait! 1 hr later, calls started to flood in. On the day itself, I have received 7 calls. The subsequence 3 days, I have another 3 more calls. 

In total, I have around 10 Renovation contacts who want to arrange a meet up session with us. Instate, we just shortlisted 4 IDs for meet up sessions.

Here are the 4 IDs we have shortlisted:-

1) Ideal Design Interior – Wilson Wee

2) A2Z – Shawn Lee

3) 3D Innovation – Sam Toh is the ID (Benny Tan liaise the appt with me but he is their boss)

4) Sky Creation - Gary

We will touch on our interviews session with them shortly.

Painting on a blank canvas

Ok, remember what I said about painting on a blank canvas?

Because, what I normally do for floor plans, is that I would re-draw it but without those walls, except for those which I couldn't get rid off, so that I could work on it as a blank canvas.

After all, why work within the boundaries set by others when you can actually remove them and think out of the "box"?

That is exactly what I have did.

And remember what I said about having a balcony as my main priority? Well, if you have seen in my earlier post about the original floor plan, it clear that that is not going to happen.

But I am not ready to accept that. I am going to create one in the most unique places of an average HDB apartment.

Here is my proposed layout below. Nothing too fanciful but its something that both of us like.

Many some people might come to us, saying how bad it is this way or that or even if its ugly.

But, design is unique in every way, that doesn't really have to appeal to everyone. The most important people that it must be appealing to, are the people who will be using it. And that is us.

Oh just in case if you think this nice and might be interested in borrowing a few ideas here and there for you own use, kindly please provide some referencing credit back to this site would be most appreciated.

Our Mini Jumbo's Floorplan

Ok, there might be some of you who wonder, what exactly is a mini-jumbo apartment?

Well, for starters, a typical 5 Room apartment nowadays is only 110sqm.

A Jumbo Apartment is a combination of either a 5 Room apartment to a 3 Room apartment or a 4 Room apartment to a 3 Room apartment. Its floor space could be as high as over 170sqm.

A mini-jumbo is just 2 3 Room apartment combined together, giving you a floors place of around 134 sqm.

And here is a peak at the original floor plan of the house.

A Mini Jumbo

After we lost the chance at the Executive Maisonette, basically we were totally demoralized in the hope of finding something which would give us the feeling that it would be a perfect home.

Everything else seemed to second best and I was worried that I might have to compromise and ended up with an apartment which I might not really like or even regretted later.

It was about a month later after giving up, we came to this amazing place.

When we just thought that we are looking at a 5 Room apartment, we ended up with hopes of getting an Executive Maisonette.

When hopes getting the Executive Maisonette is lost and we thought it's back to a typical 5 Room again, we came across this "Mini Jumbo" which is actually 2 3 Rooms apartment combined into one huge space.

And most importantly it is within our budget and it is located at the top floor, within almost all the criteria on our list except for, the balcony.

I was a little reluctant at first in getting it, but after thinking thought the state of been homeless and how I can "paint" on this canvas, we decided to gave it a shot.

Though with a little complication here and there, we manage to secure the apartment and will be going through all the government required proceeding to purchase it soon.

Life, its interesting when behind every twist and turn, it might be a new possibilities.

A vanishing dream house

At first, we thought we might be just looking at another 5 room apartment, with no thoughts about upgrading to more space.

But after 1 1/2 month of house hunting and 20 houses later, we saw this Executive Maisonette which comes with the most amazing views and location.

And most importantly of all, it is way within our budget.

Though the house wasn't pretty well maintain, but what the heck, I am not going to buy a house for what the existing owners like! And in the end, when "its" in my hands, I am going to start off with a blank canvas anyway. So been poorly renovated and badly maintain, doesn't affect me at one tiny bit. Even better, it's also the reason why its valued cheaply enough to falls into our budget.

We start visualizing the amazing views which we would be looking at, which happens to be a hill, and the final product of the renovations.

We made our offer and we pray that the owner is agreeable to it.

Day in, day out as days became weeks, on our 3 week, the owner's agent told us to move  on.

Apparently, it seemed that they were having some form of issues, securing their housing loan for their new place hence they can't sell.

Knowing that, was a terrible blow to us, especially after we already had dreamt in our sleep that we were already in that house.

Criterial for our new apartment

Ok, thankfully, we have managed to sell away our house within a month. Maybe you might ask, why "thankfully"?

Well, our apartment is listed as a 5 room, but in actual fact, we are 1 room less. This is because, during our renovation, we decided that under the standard configuration, the existing Master Bed Room (MBR) is too "tiny" for our liking. Hence, we combined 2 rooms into one huge MBR, with regards to Singapore's HDB flat of course.

Now that our apartment had been sold, it's going to be a race to quickly find our new home before we really ended up homeless.

Our criterial for our new apartment, well, is pretty straight forward.

• It has to be closed to our parents's place, as they are all getting old. This would makes it easier to reach them when required.
• It must be closed to the Bus Interchange (main bus terminal) so we can cut down on extra cost if we can avoid taking any feeder services.
• It must be closed to the Shopping Mall, so if we went for any mid night movie events, we wouldn't end up paying an arm or a leg for the cab services.
• It has to be nearby a Primary school so that our kiddo don't have to spend too much time transiting to and fro home and school.
• My number one priority, it must have a balcony with a not too bad view.
• Direct lift access so that we don't need to haul up our bicycles or end up paying extras during the BIG MOVE.

Ok, maybe it not that straight forward but well, this might be our last move so selection can't be too sloppy right? Furthermore, apartments in Singapore are too costly for any sloppy decision making.

Our current home

Before we begin, of course, we need to show you our existing house.
With that it will be easier to gauge with the type of setting for our new house, is it better or worst.

Part of our current living is been used as our dinning cum study areas.
Maybe many might wonder why putting the study area in the living room.
I can only say that I am a person who prefers bright areas. And this part of the house is the brightest and with the best views.

Another view into our living areas, showing our home entertainment area.

A peep into our extremely long kitchen area. This is a love and hate situation, as this is the darkest part of the house, thanks to the "intelligent" architect who designed this block.

Our huge Master Bedroom is as you see here. Big.
It is actually 2 rooms combined into one.

This shows the view when looking out from our closet area.

Our humble Master Bedroom toilet.

And lastly, our second bedroom.
The searched for a suitable buyer of our house is not without a challenge.
This is due to the fact that we had one room less when compared to the original configuration this house should have.
But fortunately for us, our humble home finally found a new owner.
And it's not easy, since there are more than 50 units in this estate on sale and we are at a low floor unit.

The search for a new place

Once I thought we will be growing old in our current house with chances of moving to a new place would be very slim. But however, slim this chances are, it seemed that it was all fated that we need to move on. It all begins some time earlier this year, when my Dad was admitted into the hospital and the doctor told us that it could be a case of Cancer. This worried us, other than the Cancer, but also the amount of time and effort which will soon be required for us to transit to and fro daily to visit my Dad at the hospital or him at his place. You see, I am a pretty homely person who prefers to stay at home most of the time, some might call it being "lazy". But with the consideration of chances which will soon be taking place at my parents' home, especially they are getting older, both my wife and I felt that its time to move to a house closer to them. This way, not only that it will be easier to take care of both our parents when required (her parents were living close to mine as well), but also I am a little tired of the bad town planning at my existing area. So the search begins.

Ideal Starting Point

I used to have an interesting website showcasing interesting creative ideals from around the world of Design. But unfortunately, I no longer operates that domain, considering that it belongs to another company back than which I have since left them. I told myself that I need to restart this again, as a way of building up my idea "book" online. Considered purchasing an actual domain and a more official website, but was afraid that I might not be able to see it through considering my hectic schedules nowadays. So I decided to start off small before moving further, and what better time to begin with, considering that I am in the midst of doing up my new apartment. Hope you people reading it will enjoy what will be shared from here.