<9 May 2019>
Met one last person for our house yesterday and that concludes our ID meeting and hunting! Now the hard part is deciding who to go with that suits our budget + the rapport, and how to reject the others who have patiently met us too??
Our house wants:
1. Half or full hack kitchen wall with glass panels
2. Must be able to have doors to close off the kitchen area for when I heavy cook
3. Must have a door between service yard and kitchen for me to close when heavy cook
4. Half hack the common bedroom and put glass panel (however first to strike off list if too much costs)
5. Must have entrance from master bedroom to common toilet/shower area, which is currently two separate cubicles
1. J* from E*:
Seems quite young and not v experienced. Least impression made. Quote super cheap but sent it over via WhatsApp so idk what it even entailed. Not surprising to say we never met up again 🤣
Design wise, the only idea she gave was the L shape wardrobe in the MBR. Everything else was also accordingly to what we suggested/wanted.
2. R* from A*
Has experience, came prepared for our first session with some plans he sketched, spent time to show us materials. However can be slightly pushy, feels a bit sales talk kind. Agreed on date for second meeting but didn't tell us the meeting was going to be part of their mother's day carnival (like sales fair), and only told me day before that the meeting was going to be at AMK (when all along I thought we meeting back at JE)
During the second meeting he was trying to get us to sign on that day itself to make use of the 'freebies' offered during the carnival. The usual sales talk kind la. Quote wise still reasonable. Maybe cos they are a big company they can afford to give cheaper rates due to mass quantity?
Design wise.. only main takeaway was thinking about opening the kitchen up from middle instead of the usual side opening. Otherwise rest of plans same as what we wanted/suggested. Nothing new 😅
3. Y* from WD*
Experienced. 3 person family owned company. Will show alot of confidence in their materials used in terms of quality (which is a plus point), did also share with us a few tips and what to look out for during Reno etc. Feels quite big sister kind?
Quote super ex. Even doing up an L shape wardrobe cost me 5k omgz. We did really like them but price wise if I were to minus so many things just to fit Yvonne into my budget then I'll really be left with bare
Minimum for my house.. which then I get an ID for what? To do contractor work??
Design wise, also not v different from what we had suggested/wanted.. so 🤷
4. A* from R*
Most fun first meeting, they really tried their best to find out our styles, our hobbies and interests to design something that is personalised for us. Most unique experience and R and I were really looking forward.
Second meeting was with A* and another colleague (she seemed new?) Cos she did the presentation to us however it didn't feel as much rapport as if A* had did it. Maybe cos first time we seeing her also, and she seems to be under supervision?
Design wise was the most unique and unexpected as well. The idea of a connected island kitchen and dining table top that spanned between both areas was super interesting. They also gave us a walk in wardrobe concept to conceal the MBR toilet entrance.
However in terms of the personal story of our house, they did highlight at the start of our interests such as running man and Roger's medals but it didn't really show in our house design. Maybe due to budget constraints..
Alex did say if we had like 60k he can also come up with a design hahaha which maybe will have more design elements 😍 sadly really limited by our budget.
Quote wise although was within our budget, however it was also because our toilet was left as-is.
However R* is also not pushy at all. No sales talk or anything also. We really liked their style of design and all but sadly I think our budget doesn't permit:( similar to Y*, when I started to cut out stuff to fit our budget I realised the only design element left was the island kitchen, and it was still ex. So if you have a higher budget do look for them for the design!! They are good.
Anyway actually out of all with the exception of R*, no one really gave any fantastic wow ideas, the meetings literally mostly went like so what do you want to do with your house?? Then comes the quote. Really if like that I might as well get a contractor hahaha.
5. D* from HB*
D* is the only one diff cos he's actually a contractor that was recommended to us by our MPC mentors. He also accompanied us on our second viewing of our HDB to give us a rough quote for Reno so we could factor into our offer price. He's a really sincere and honest small business owner, who also takes pride in his work. Our mentors also said he did a good job for them & his after sales is good. Also experienced with and been in industry for years
However he also has some design background from his years of experience and able to do up 3D drawings too. Also doesn't bat an eyelid at whatever random suggestions or ideas I have for our house and can tell us if feasible or not. Also came up with his design and quote for our house based on a priority of functionality and practicality (although design wise also didn't differ too much from what we suggested too).
Cost wise was reasonable within our budget. Materials quality also good
Toilet issues/ideas
We also had the issue with our common toilet where we wanted to do some combination and also create an opening from mbr. But somehow no one could really give us any good design on that ?? Everyone just gave us something that we thought about ourselves 🤣
Bear in mind that there are pipes in the middle of the toilet that's connected to the bathroom wall where the sink is that can't be easily moved
This is what our toilet and bathroom looks like. Two separate entities that can be connected from MBR. Pretty unique!
These are the two big pipes in the middle of the toilet where current sink is
The pipes under the sink that can't really be moved.. hence making hacking of the whole toilet into one a bit difficult cos you will always have pipes in the middle 🤷
This is the design from J*. Basically she couldn't really think of anything else to do with the toilet cos of said pipes in the middle
This is Yvonne's (Willis design) idea. But basically this hack all idea might not fully work as well due to the middle pipes? Also see how the toilet got extended out but under hdb permit might not be able to do it up as a wet area due to water proofing issues so idk if this plan really can work or not
This is R* design. He's also another one who disregarded the pipes in the middle, but had a really good idea to extend the toilet and make that part a shower area. But once again permit and water proofing issues? Also he seemed quite pushy on his 2 person vanity top when I already said I wanna minimise carpentry in my toilet.
Revealing our final idea!! Thought of in 5 mins while feeding a 2month old by R's cousin who studied architecture 😅
Rough drawing but I took this to Daniel who then measured the specs and told me is feasible!! Woo! Basically we create a shower area for the bath area, and invert the sink outwards along the passageway. That way we get dry and wet areas and won't affect the pipes and the hdb permit for extension of the toilet.
If anyone has alternate designs to suggest for our toilet do give a shout out!! 😍😍
So yay this concludes our ID journey, and most likely we will be going with D* cos price wise and rapport wise we feel most comfortable working with him, despite not having much design elements in our house.
But also cos with increased designs it also comes with extra costs which we currently can't :(
Going for final inspection before key handover this sat! Excited to see my house again :)
*Please pm me if you would like to know the ID names!