Mix & Match

28th April 2007 - Hb and I met Eesy (yes, that's the name of the guy) at Kallang in the morning and he brought us to Haffari, a shop at Balestier that sells tiles. There we were, selecting tiles for different parts of the house and it was kinda fun! We were pretty amazed that Haffari actually carries tiles with wallpaper designs! So who says you have got to use wallpaper? Use tiles manz! They even come with shiny specks! I love our toilet tiles, wahahahhaha! Did I mention we are going to redo both toilets?? Yes, that's what we are going to do, as I hate the current tiles provided by H*B! In particular, I like the tiles we are going to use for our balcony ledge. Kinda retro in a way, and being glossy, the black colour, together with its design, becomes an attraction by itself! Eesy was quite surprised that we only took 1.5 hours to select all our tiles. I guess he doesn't know that I like to do things "chop chop", lol. We went to his office at Upper Boon Keng Road to select the type of laminate we want for the bedrooms and study. Done within 20 mins, haha! Eesy told us that he has already applied for the permit, so we'll be able to start on our renovation next week, yay! Can't wait for our little corner to be done up nicely!

*Different designs for different parts of the house. We were given samples of those that we selected to bring home too, cool!

Showed The Low Clan the sample tiles we brought back and they also like the designs we chose, phew! Eesy is really quite easy-going, lol. We were supposed to select the $2.70 psf range for the toilet, but we eyed the range that cost $3.20 psf and he was willing to absorb the cost! In fact, there are many things he is quite flexible with and doesn't charge us extra. I am sure if it were Albert, he would definitely charge is the extra cost per square feet!


- Phebe

Life in a Glass House (Part 2)

Yes, True Believers, the moment you have been waiting for is here. So make sure you are securely strapped into a comfortable chair as I unveil the magical numbers that make little neon dollar signs go "Ka-ching!" in the eyes of contractors all over Singapore, JB, and some say Timbuktu.

There we were, Her Royal Majesty and I, tucked in a corner of a burger joint at Jurong Point, waiting for the salesperson to show up with his quotation. With the amount of work he had proposed (hacking down walls, putting up glass panels, glass doors, converting the master bedroom to a walk-in-wardrobe, etc), we were confident that the final sum would at least exceed our budget by 10K. In fact, I was pretty sure that it would overshoot our wallet capacity by about 20K.

The moment he fished out the quotation from his file, we immediately pushed aside the remnants of our artery-bursting dinner, and quickly flipped to the last page. To our surprise, the total sum was a few hundred dollars below our budget!!

We had always thought that this salesperson's ideas for our flat were different from most other contractors, but in a good way. So it was a happy surprise for us when we found out that he had managed to secure sponsorships from some of his suppliers, and was able to provide some items at no charge!

Her Royal Majesty and I managed to suppress our primal urges to burst out in scary, evil laughter, and did our best to smile politely so that the salesperson won't be tempted to call the police or whoever it is that you call when a pair of homeowners are utterly convinced that they have gotten the bargain of the year.

Needless to say, we signed on the dotted line soon after, and today, the total sum has grown by a couple of hundred dollars to hit the exact upper limit of our budget. To date, we are happy to report that the cash outflow seems to have extremely poor growth prospects, and we are looking forward to see our very own glass house come into fruition.

- Melvin

Life in a Glass House

Our journey to building a livable, comfortable, 50% stylish, 100% affordable home has been nothing short of eventful so far. From encounters with talkative old men to our discovery of the dirty truth behind an established "interior design company", we have probably had our fair share of excitement so far.

Just when we were about to wash our hands of the interior design industry, along came an offer by a little known outfit --- Sxxxtxxce Interior Design. Like most other companies, they initially took our list of "to-do items" and offered to give us a quotation for that. However, somehow as we started discussing about what we could do to our house, I guess we must have infected the salesperson with our enthusiasm, which in turn led to his somewhat audacious suggestion: to build us a glasshouse.

Or at least, that's what it seems like on hindsight. Essentially, the idea was to tear down several walls, and replace them with glass panels to expand the field of vision and allow more light to enter. If everything works out nicely, we should be able to have a full view of the living room, balcony and study, the moment they step into our flat.

That, plus the suggestion to convert the master bedroom into a giant walk-in-wardrobe, caused all sorts of alarm bells to go off. While the salesperson's ideas were somewhat dangerously seductive, they also caused our wallets to automatically deflat as we furiously did our mental sums of the costs involved.

That's when the salesguy casually repeated that he was keen on using our flat as his company's pièce de résistance and would be willing to sponsor a portion of the total cost for the privilege of doing so. Naturally, Her Royal Majesty and I were cautious about such an offer, and our immediate reaction was that of cynicism and disbelief. After all, how much could a relatively unknown company sponsor? Nevertheless, as typical Singaporeans, we believe that letting go of the opportunity to grab any bargain is unpardonable, and agreed to let him come back to us with an offer. Secretly, Her Royal Majesty and I made a side-bet on how much the offer would exceed our budget, whether it would be 10K or 20K.

Watch this space to find out how much the salesperson eventually quoted us for our renovation and whether our wallets survive this ordeal.


- Melvin

Renozone Interior Design

I realise that Sgbrides forum is really quite useful. Useful when you need quick information. Someone recommended me to Renozone and we decided to give them a call. We emailed our floor plan to Miker, who was only given half a day to come up with a quotation for what we wanted. Hb and I went down to Renozone, which was located at Jalan Klapa, somewhere between Bugis and Lavender.

Miker is very customer service oriented and so far, Hb and I feel that his service is the best. He listened with patience and never interrupted us, unlike Alan. In fact, we were very surprised that within the short time frame given, Miker was able to come up with 3 sheets of proposed floor plan! He would also explain to us various methods we can go about doing the things we want. Here are some examples….

Kitchen cabinets – He showed us many samples of solid surface tops and explained to us the difference.

Walk-in- Wardrobe – He showed us samples of different types of wood and explained to us the benefits of each.

Feature Walls – He shows us other methods to do it cheaper but yet as good.

Window grilles – He showed us many samples and colours and explained the difference.

The above are just some of many examples. Hb and I both felt “enlightened” when we left Renozone. It was as if we had attended some kind of technical crash course and the information gained was indeed very useful.

We met up with Miker at our flat as well for him to take measurements. His quotation is also very reasonable and he tries his best to help us reduce the cost.

I received feedback from a friend that her flat renovation with Renozone is going on very well and she is very satisfied with their work.

Conclusion: Hb and I did not engage Renozone’s services as we have a better offer. However, in terms of customer service, Miker is really good.

Sharing our experience with Renozone, Miker in particular, is the least we can do in return for all his help. For those of you who are looking for IDs, you may consider this company!

Good luck!


- Phebe

Tick Tat Tick Tat

23 Apr 2007 - Hb and I went down to our new place again at night as we wanted to finish checking the toilet floor tiles as we had to submit our defect list on Wednesday. Hb brought along his table lamp while The EL (aka my dad) gave us one of his powerful bulbs. It was quite fun visiting the flat at night, haha and it was kind of thrilling in a way! Hb checked for hollow tiles while I lazed around as I didn’t want to get myself all hot and sweaty, lol.

Knock Knock...Swish Swoosh

22 Apr 2007 - After church, Hb and I went down to our new place again. Hb was supposed to wash the toilets to clean off all the masking tapes. As a form of displaying my moral support, I went to buy detergent and scrubbing materials for him. Never thought the day would come when I would shop for toilet cleaning items and the shop attendant was trying not to burst out laughing when he saw me scrutinizing the different types of toilet brushes, lol. In the end, I decided to buy the brush I thought looked the prettiest, lol. To make our lives easier, we even brought along the 2 portable stools we bought when camping overnight at HDB in January!

While Hb washed the toilets, I kept myself busy by checking for hollow tiles in the kitchen. Super tiring and I passed on the job to Hb after he finished cleaning the toilets. Felt particularly satisfied even though we did not manage to finish checking the floor tiles of the toilets as I had to go back to the office at night.


- Phebe

We Have Collected Our Keys!

21 Apr 2007 - After a long wait of more than 3 months since we applied for our EA, we finally collected our keys! Hb and I went down to HDB on 21 April 2007 and after all the paperwork was done, we were given a key pouch containing 26 keys! Signed on the legal documents more than 20 times until I also didn’t know what I was signing, haha! Surprisingly, everything was done within 1.5 hours! By right, Hb has a 90% ownership since most of the monthly payment will be borne by him, plus all the PUB bills and conservancy charges, but by left, since he indicated in the contract as “Joint tenancy”, that means that officially, its 50-50! Wahahahahahahaa! We had to pay 3 months worth of conservancy charges that amounted to $241.50…. that means $80.50 per month just for rubbish clearance and general maintenance! Now I understand why Singapore is so cash rich…

Went over to our new place in the evening and started checking for defects as we were supposed to submit our defect list within a week. Super tiring! The Low Clan came over to help us check for defects as well and thankfully, there weren’t too many as expected~!


- Phebe