Moi Simpur s$27k Renovation Journey

deodorant

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Hi everyone,

Just wanna share my reno journey ... and I guess also as a journal / reminder for myself

Anyway moi place is a humble 2br+1study, 915sqft resale condo (the 1st owner took keys almost 2 years ago but strangely enough never moved in ...). So it's "resale" but "never occupied" :s22:

Post #1: Day 0 after just took keys - floorplan & some photos of how the unit looks like before starting any work.
Post #9: Day 0 haven't start work yet - some additional photo of kitchen cabinet (comes with condo) + description of what work we want to do + the ID's first 3d rendering.
Post #18: Day 3 first on-site meeting with electrician, ceiling guy, ID and project co-ordinator. Electrician costs + some "wear and tear" items noticed.
Post #24: Day 7 feels quite fast, the ID already arranged to cardboard the floors and wrap up the aircons. Nice! I also need to choose washing machine & fridge based on some very small measurements ...
Post #39: Day 9 The workers started taking down the (old) false ceiling to put back new one (cos of the many many brown spots).
Post #42: Day 12 The false ceiling in living / dining room and master bedroom completed! Also the electrician also came and did a bit of the wiring ...
Post #44: Day 26 ID painted the walls of the house ... before doing lights / carpentry, strangely.
Post #62: Day 34 Went to visit the place to meet curtains lady and saw that the lights and fans all delivered (but not installed yet).
Post #63: Day 41 After a week ... lights and fans all installed, carpentry also more or less quite done, place starting to look nice now!!
Post #71: Day 46 Renovation work mostly pretty much all done!! Also took delivery of a TV and sound system. Now to touch up defects and take official handover from ID and then wait for the rest of the furniture ...
Post #72: Day 54 Took delivery of bomb shelter rack, half of the curtains and balcony blinds, kevo smart home lock and laundry drying rack ...
Post #83: Day 56 Delivery / Installation of shower caddy, fridge, washer/dryer and MyRepublic Internet ...
Post #88: Day 61 Second curtains installation (cos they screwed up measurements for the first visit).
Post #112: Day ?? Final photos of bedroom & living/dining room and also the ID details and overall review.

Floorplan ...

00-floorplan.jpg


Day 0 starts when took keys from lawyer office!! Jin heypi. Balcony overlooks road ... hopefully it isn't TOO noisy :( But moi budget dun allow to have pool facing high floor lol.

Living room ... moi dun really want to do much renovation but moi wife die die also insist on doing ...

01-before-living.jpg


The other side, can see dining area. One main thing I dun like is the bomb shelter door open to the dining area. Don't know why the architect didn't open it facing main door instead then dining table can stick to the side and no need leave space for bomb shelter opening ...

02-before-dining.jpg


Kitchen comes with oven, stove and hood (Bosch), but no fridge. Fridge opening only 80cm, so the choice of fridge we can buy is quite limited ...

03-before-kitchen.jpg


Masterbedroom ... new-ish layout, the rooms SIBEH small, put bed liao 100% cannot put desk or anything else sia ...

04-before-mbr.jpg


Just take a shot of the toilet also, but moi dun plan to do any work here.

05-before-toilet.jpg
 
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deodorant

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Common toilet entrance is in bedroom 2? Or did I see wrongly :s11:
Haha both bedrooms have their own toilet ... and then there is a third super small (literally like 10-15sqft) toilet at the yard area outside the kitchen.

06-before-toilet3.jpg


Nice and simple! What flooring did you choose?
Looks like the condo original default flooring?
Yeah, condo default flooring ba, I dun plan to change it. Some sort of wood parquet in the bedrooms (a bit drying out cos of almost 2 years of neglect), other rooms homogenous tiles.

This is definitely treasure trove
yeah lol :s13:
 
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deodorant

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Just one random shot of the kitchen drawers (come together with condo de)

07-before-kitchen2.jpg


Anyway Day 0 continued ... We engaged an ID and then wanted to do only the following:
- Living room / dining room false ceiling
- Living room TV cabinet area plus full wall cabinets for storage
- Feature to hide the bomb shelter
- Master bedroom
- Study

Decided to leave the rest "as is" and don't touch:
- Second bedroom (just gonna put lights and bed)
- Kitchen (buy fridge only)
- Yard (buy own hanging clothes laundry rack, washing machine)
- Bomb Shelter (buy own cabinet)
- Toilets (maybe might DIY a backside spray hose thing)

ID quote is around $27k for all that. The 3d looks like this so we'll see in 1-2 months time whether it end up looking like this or not ...

08-concept1.jpg

08-concept2.jpg

08-concept3.jpg

08-concept4.jpg

08-concept5.jpg


(mosaic'ed the ID logo cos moi dunno issit allowed to anyhow share publicly or not lol)
 
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deodorant

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So the photos are before or after? :(
1st post photos are all "before," can see the lighting points just got wires and no lights lol. condo normally come with the kitchen and toilets quite renovated liao ba.
 

mero_cwj

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subscribed to see how it turns out, next year I'm also taking possession and intending to do roughly the same amount of reno.

didn't know condos got bomb shelter, or is it that the newer condos have scrapped the bomb shelter in the house and built common area shelters instead?
 

deodorant

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didn't know condos got bomb shelter, or is it that the newer condos have scrapped the bomb shelter in the house and built common area shelters instead?
the vast majority of condos i went to see within my budget, the bomb shelter is in the staircase (shared among all units), so inside the unit no bomb shelter.

but no bomb shelter also means no store room.

for me the fact that this unit got store room and also a yard with drying ledge was a big factor in choosing it, so no need to hang clothes on the balcony which IMO is ugly as hell.
 

Sambuca78

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Hi everyone,

Just wanna share my reno journey ... and I guess also as a journal / reminder for myself

Anyway moi place is a humble 2br+1study, 915sqft resale condo (the 1st owner took keys almost 2 years ago but strangely enough never moved in ...). So it's "resale" but "never occupied" :s22:

How much? Got low-balled the seller ma? :s13:
 

deodorant

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Day 3: First On-Site meeting. So on the 3rd day after taking key, I met up with the ID, the ID's Project Manager (I guess "coordinator" might be a better word), the "ceiling guy" and the electrician.

Long story short end up they draw a lot of stuff on the wall, and I have to start committing to pay extra from what is not included in the ID package.

TT-001.jpg


The electrician come around with the ID with me and look at the plan and discuss on, ok which light go to which switch, which area need how many power sockets, relocate the LAN ports and pull extra LAN cables, etc etc. End quote - $2,650 extra for all the electrician work :s22:

Then the ceiling guy ... by right the living/dining and masterbedroom false ceiling + cove lights is included in the ID package, so that's fine. But the existing false ceiling (in the kitchen, walkway, yard, study, main toilet full of these brown spots.

TT-000.jpg


ID and ceiling guy tell me either they can just paint over, but they recommend to tear it down and put new one so that can 'sun bian' check what is the problem. Since they quote additional s$800 it seems reasonable for me so I say Ok.

Two other small problems. The grout in between the tiles in the living/dining lots of dirt and black spots from over a year of the house never being cleaned lol. I think I will just after cleaning and handover, go and buy grout pen and clean it myself (unless you guys/gals got recommendation for what to do)?

TT-002.jpg


Furthermore the parquet in the two bedrooms machiam starting to be a bit drying out liao. The project coordinator say is cos one year ++ with no curtains probably got too much sun. He recommend me go find somebody to re-varnish it. I still haven't made up my mind whether to revarnish it or not.

TT-003.jpg
 
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kyteo79

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Day 3: First On-Site meeting. So on the 3rd day after taking key, I met up with the ID, the ID's Project Manager (I guess "coordinator" might be a better word), the "ceiling guy" and the electrician.

Long story short end up they draw a lot of stuff on the wall, and I have to start committing to pay extra from what is not included in the ID package.

TT-001.jpg


The electrician come around with the ID with me and look at the plan and discuss on, ok which light go to which switch, which area need how many power sockets, relocate the LAN ports and pull extra LAN cables, etc etc. End quote - $2,650 extra for all the electrician work :s22:

Then the ceiling guy ... by right the living/dining and masterbedroom false ceiling + cove lights is included in the ID package, so that's fine. But the existing false ceiling (in the kitchen, walkway, yard, study, main toilet full of these brown spots.

TT-000.jpg


ID and ceiling guy tell me either they can just paint over, but they recommend to tear it down and put new one so that can 'sun bian' check what is the problem. Since they quote additional s$800 it seems reasonable for me so I say Ok.

Two other small problems. The grout in between the tiles in the living/dining lots of dirt and black spots from over a year of the house never being cleaned lol. I think I will just after cleaning and handover, go and buy grout pen and clean it myself (unless you guys/gals got recommendation for what to do)?

TT-002.jpg


Furthermore the parquet in the two bedrooms machiam starting to be a bit drying out liao. The project coordinator say is cos one year ++ with no curtains probably got too much sun. He recommend me go find somebody to re-varnish it. I still haven't made up my mind whether to revarnish it or not.

TT-003.jpg


use the 800 to do spring cleaning and painting lah ... brown spots change ceiling ? they chu spot issit ?
 

doody_

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Flooring can revarnish yourself to save the money if you are not very particular
 
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