The Geek in Me

Finally got the "approval" from my "finance controller" to indulge on a few gadgets for the new place.



It's was a pretty heavy haul all the way from town back home.



Behold, Krups Espresso Machine, Krup Coffee Beans Grinder & lastly my Benq DLP Projector.



Though I know I should have opened it only at the new place, but i supposed I have to try them out first to make sure that there are no defects which I can claim within 7 days of purchase right?

Everyone kept asking me to go for the nespresso capsule machine. But to me, whole beans will always taste better.



Haha, and of course, trying of the projector is the most fulfilling.

Can't wait to get my home theatre system up and running.

A costly affair

Gosh, couldn't believe that the amount of money to be spent for home accessories is going to be half of what our renovation is gonna cost us.

Really going to be very careful not to burst our budget from this point onwards.

Anyway, on one of the weekends, Sam brought us to OSK Lightings to choose our Lightings and Toilet accessories.



At the shop, the sale people there kept insisting that we were to get the LED Lightings which is more costly than the conventional ones.

Yes, I do agree that it's greener and in the long run, we should save from our electrical bills. Was almost tempted to buy it, till I realized that the LED systems they are using, are pretty much customized.

Ok, when referred to customized, I mean it just some LED solder to a PCB board with some circuitry.

That is a big no no for me, as I have no intention to limit myself on where I have to get my replacement bulbs when they are spoilt.

And I could feel the pressure from their hard selling and luckily, I am not as gullible as they thought.

As I am aware that even with a normal halogen bulb holder, i can always grab one of those Philips led from the hardware shop.

So in the end, here are our selection for the spotlight. We bought 5 nos of the square ones for the house.




As for the downlighting , we also skip the Led hard sell, and insisting on normal PLC ones.

And one thing to take note off. The shop self proclaim that they had modified the light holder to accept those screw in bulbs so that the ballast is not required.

When i questioned them what is the cost difference light of i were to stick to the norm, with the ballast, they told me it the same cost.

I was like,"huh?". How can the ballast makes no difference in the cost of the entire set?

So I decided not to be bullshit by them and asked for the normal PLC downlighting which requires the ballast.



This is the light for our balcony area, specially chosen by my wife. We opt for the wall mount kit.



The top floor of OSK lighting is their bathroom accessories wing.

The sales up stairs are so much better.

As our renovation quote includes full house hot and cold plumbing service, we thought it would be good to have taps which could utilised it.

However, half way choosing the taps required for the house, we realized that it's pretty expensive to opt for 2 way taps for the entire house.

And considering that Singapore been a topical county, which is hot all year round, we just couldn't justify the need for hot water on our normal tap requirements.

Hence we cancelled our first selection and re-select it accordingly.

In the end only our master bath room and common shower will comes with 2 ways tap.

So here at rout selection. Nothing too fanciful.







For the heater we are still not sure if we had made a wrong choice to get the 25 liter as we will be getting a tub as well.




We also got our kitchen stove, hob and oven from that place.

Initially we chose the oven on the top. But might be changing to the ones below as it looks better.

Will decide when i get the specs from the shop.


Our stove package comes with the hob.







That trip had made a slight dent in our budget, especially when considering that we have yet to choose our tub.

And I had forgotten to take pictures of the rain shower back then. Silly me.

1950 American Diners Payphone

Finally it's here.

A few weeks ago, while at Centrepoint, Robinson looking out for iRobot Roomba, we came across this 1950 American Diner Payphone selling for $300+

It was love at first sight but it's a little too costly for us, considering that we seldom use the landline at home nowadays.

But considering that we have this feature column post at our new apartment, we thought it would enhance the living area.

So, as a veteran googler, i jumped into the world wide web, and dig on that.

Armed with only the brand of the phone, "Wild & Wolf", I founded 3 sources.

2 from overseas site while another from Kris Store.

However Kris Store only allows purchase for people departing Singapore (crazy rule here) while one of the overseas site doesn't ship to Singapore.

Thank goodness, the last source does shipped internationally. And not juz that, they are way cheaper then buying it at Robinson or Kris Store. The difference is like almost $100+ more.

Side track a bit, retailer ought to wake up their idea about these crazy mark up of the prices. Especially when Internet is the way to go, if you know where to look.

Anyway, not only our last source are selling much more cheaper, but we got it like 3 days after paying and their customer service beats Singapore's hands down (just had one miserable encounter during the weekends when a service provider threaten to seek legal action against me, after I commented about their less then average services)

Anyway, behold the most expensive deco which I might have at the new place.

1st Appointment to Sell

Finally after a long wait, today we are at HDB Hub for our first appointment to sell our current place.

It's pretty fast. Got everything done within 30 mins.

So now for a little breakfast before heading back to office.

1st site visit with ID Firm

Today was the 1st site visit with our ID firm to access any issues with the house prior to renovation.

Also bought my parents along for this.

Basically there wasn't pretty much issues there, except for the HUGE pipes in the bathroom.

Well, as we intend to have a bathtub or some sort, in an orientation which we had fixed, these huge plumbing pipes seemed to be in the way no matter how we look at it.

This is specially highlighted to us by Sam, our ID firm representative from 3D Innovations.

So next weekends, we are scheduled for some tiles shopping with Sam, plus maybe shopping for a tub suitable for our bathroom.

Oh, took this picture showing the Views from our MBR.

Nothing pretty but at least we have some distance from the opposite block.

Up up we go

Yup it's getting stack higher and higher.

Still, we are still talking about the tip of the ice berg here.

Too much clothes

Ok, I know that this is some sort of a "first world" problem but yes, we have too much clothes.

Considering that we wouldn't be having any full height wardrobe at the new place, this might be an issue.

So I suggested to my wife about vacuum packing those winter clothing plus those which are too dear to be thrown away, to reduce the space required to store them.

Oh not to mention the blankets and bed sheets as well.

Anyway it seemed to be doing quite well and it might just work.

Too many things

Ok, I am gonna confessed that I am not doing a lot to help in packing for the new place.

My wife had been doing most of the hauling here.

Anyway, realize that we really have plenty of stuff here.

Despite wife clearing and throwing a lot of them out, we still have plenty, accumulated over the past 10 years living here.

Now I just hope that my design would accommodate all that is left and essential.

P.S. we still have open the pandora box (the storeroom)

Expensive Decorations

In the era of mobile phones, I can say that the landline phones are losing its popularity around the developed world.

That is why our decision on this purchase, is a excessive one, making this one of the our new house most expensive decorative item.

The classic Wild & Wolf 1950 Diners Payphone



And guess what? It's reaching us by end of this week. Awesome.

Time to slowly start packing

Ya, many might say packing 2 months in advance is an overkill.

But we really had tons of stuff.

So after scouring through Renotalk, we finally found out mover.

Elite Mover was chosen due to the good reviews in Renotalk by home owners who had previously used them.

Though they might not be the cheapest, but as long as they are not the most expensive in town and they can provide a good service, why not?

Afterall, with so much things on our list now, getting into too much hassle with service issues, are the last thing we hope to get.

Oh, we were given a total of 70 boxes based on Elite Movers' estimation.

And we really need start early, considering we have to stop whenever Ashley said so.

Drawing Principles

"Some people starts drawing by simple geometrical shapes like Circle, Square, etc before adding in the details to form the shape. But there will also be a handful who prefer to jump in direct, skipping the basic ground work. No right and wrong though"

- Just Saying 

Dinning & Chairs for the Studies

Our intention to use Laminate for the whole house, including kitchen, had brought us to a big decision.

1- To use normal laminate and risk water damage in the Kitchen

2- To pay a premium to use HERF and enjoy a lifetime worry free flooring though out the entire house.

Ok, we pick "Worries Free" hence we have asked our ID firm to quote us Evorich Allure HERF.

But his quote didn't came out too "beautiful", so to let him understand that we are not just a pair of "blind" consumer, buying without thinking, we told him that we will be going direct to Evorich for a quote.

And we were glad that we did, as the price is unbelievable. So we past the information to our ID and hope that if he is interested, he will have to do something magical about it.

Since Evorich is at Tai Seng, we thought why not drop by Lush Lush for a peek.

Wow.. this trip to peek had made me poorer this weekend.

We have bought 4 EM Plastic Chairs for the dinning area, 2 EM Plastic Chairs with Arm Rest for the Studies and 2 Panton Chair for the Living Room.

Ouch.

Boring Lightings to be avoided

Been through many blogs on their lightings and even did a little of googling around.

One word, "Boring".

More of less, what I am seeing a a combination of down lights and clove lights, making everyone's house almost identical.

So the search is on for interesting lighting ideas.

We can't be using too much hanging lights, as we have intention to put up ceiling fans at areas where people will gather. We need to avoid the "Hellish Flickering Light" cause by the ceiling fan syndrome.

Also, as I have the fear of height, the lights chosen eventually, shouldn't need me to meddle around too much just to change a bulb or tube.

But yesterday while on an outing, I saw this lighting while waiting for my wife outside the ladies, and I thought, wow.. this is interesting.

The Best Place for Inspiration, IKEA

Considering that our new house will be based on our design, the ID firm didn't managed to impress us with anything they had, we begin our research on the furniture, decor and accessories which will suit our style.

And talking about searching for inspirations, what better place to see it all but at IKEA.

As we had decided not to do the "traditional" 2 Tier Kitchen Counter which is like practically can be found in any HDB Flat, we really need to figure out how to fully make use of what we will be having and pack in as much storage space as possible.

Saw these modernize kitchen storage solution here at IKEA and decided to take a few snapshots of it, so that we can show it to our carpenter when the time comes.

 Oh, great, saw this and it makes a good reference photo to show our ID Firm exactly what I have drew in my layout for them.

Want to nicely arrange my washer and dryer in such a way that I can still make use of the countertop space on top.

 No upper tier kitchen counter storage means need to find ways to store stuff, traditional store "up" there.

Told my wife that I wanted at least 2 tiers of these rods across the entire span of the kitchen where I could hang these accessories required in the kitchen.

Oh, and saw there ergonomic dimension specification for kitchen at IKEA.

Thought that it would be useful to take a few photos for reference later too.

We have brought down many walls in our plan reducing from 4 bedrooms to just 2.5 bedrooms.

And wife said we need to have some contingency plans set aside for situation when our parents sleeps over at our place.

So no choice but to search for a decent sofa bed to squeeze into the already small study room.

Saw this but still not sure if this is a perfect choice as it seemed more bed than sofa to me.

Wife saw this and her reaction was "Oh, I don't care, I want this in the bathroom".

So I snapped this picture.

 We thought that these would make a good display for our balcony in our room.

So I snapped this picture as well.

 Ok, though our bathroom is huge, when compared to typical HDB flat bathroom, we wanted even more space.

So to do this, we decide for some small but yet unique basin for both the common and master bed room.

 For the first time, I wanted some spotlight in the house, especially to cast that sweet warm lighting at our featured bookshelf in the living area and the feature walls at our dinning area.

Saw these which I think think is quite interesting.

But the final decision will be comparing what the electrician can offer for those built in ones.

Saw these nice hanging pendant light which I suppose would make a good match in our kitchen, above the counter top for the much needed direct lighting during food preparation.

It also gives our kitchen a little bit more of the Cafe feel to it.

After our IKEA inspiration "hunt", we did popped over at Courts to check out for anything interesting.

Sadly such a big complex but nothing worth taking picture of in it.

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.