Our Concept and Tender Interview

Our Concept of the house came from looking at magazine, furniture, a certain switches, floor tiles, and maybe some construction materials. So we shortlisted a few design which we think is nice:

Interesting down lighting

The brick wall looks nice

Wife love hanging lights and big books shelves

Grey tiles for the living area

  

So with some concept in mind we started to seek quotation from many many ID firms....

1. Ideal House
2. Hwa li
3. Inner View
4. Promax
5. Brilliant ID
6. Home Success
7. GPlan Design
8. Urban Design
9. And a freelance Designer

So we atleast repeat what we wanted 9 times....i think i might have left out 1 or 2....but if i dont remember them means they are not shortlisted. Some responded fast, some slow, some never came back. Some came back with quotation within our budget but was unwilling to sent the floor plan lay out unless we go down to discuss. This is sometime a way to hard sell their service, when u go down, they will ask you to sign with them. So we think if they dont sent then we wont be going down to meet them.

The interesting about this process is that you will be able to see who are those interested to do your business and who actually know what they are talking about. My wife who works in the "garment" sector have gone the extra miles to break down some of the items into per unit rates. For example, cost of wardrobe by per metre run, solid kitchen top also break down to per meter cost.

Then we will go thru why the different in cost, how the ID perform during our meeting, respond time, knowledge about renovation works, understanding to what we wanted.....etc. To us cost is just one part of the deal. Once a ID told us, an designer can can out with a wonderful design but it might not be practical to maintain and does not suit our live style. For example, I'm fat and i have a tummy, if the designer design a platfrom bed which is low, every morning i will have problem flipping myself out and up from the bed. Likewise for changing the bed sheets.

To my wife and i, we just want to live in a house that we have both design and decide on the smallest things together. Where to put what, what colour to paint, what lamp to buy, what sofa nice, whether to cement the whole house, i think is a task by itself. We do like to have everything that we want, but what we want sometimes does not means what we need. So there needs to be a balance, i guess. If money not a concern, we would not even be buying a HDB flat....rite? but its something that we both will treasure as every single cent spent is from our hard earn money and is spent on our dream house. We dont have much, but we have enough. I'm not wealthy but i feel rich, be'coz i have a understanding wife!  

Time to sleep, wife dagger eyes are on me!!

Post No. 2 - The Process

I wanted to do all these on paper (sketch book), but it seems very old school and too lazy to start, so blog seem easier. heehee...  :) This is to track how did we end up with our house design and end product.....Enjoy!

My wife and i started seeking for ideas for our house after we got married in 2011 April. We went thru about 20 plus magazine and books, website, forum and some showroom. We have (as usual) many ideas, but $$$ was always an issue. We wanted our house to look different, but not weird, look nice but to expensive. The thing is spending alot of money don't always means the house is going to cozy or complete, a nice house is also not equal to a warm home......once i heard a pastor saying during a friends wedding, when i was half asleep, he said, the couple have a wonderful house, a house to die for, but it will take the couple to make it a home. How truth..... :) Simplicity is a bliss..... that is our concept. Keep it simple, keep it practical and keep it "Us"......a house with a personal touch.

I started with what kind of kitchen i would like, Coz i like to eat, so example, Red cabinet with black solid top. So this was the first idea of our kitchen














Something like that lah, red and black combi, and not lights below

My Wife was at the moment more into furniture like sofa, dinning table, sometime lamps.....etc, not so focus.....coz to her its still a long way from getting keys. So below are her findings:

And many more......



The places we went to look for furniture are as listed : OM (liang court, Joo Seng and IMM), Lifestory, Nova, Cellini, Park Mall, Lush-Lush, Harvey Norman, Courts, Furniture Mall@beach road and Toh Guan, Trade hub 21, Defu Lane 1-9, All shop under the furniture club (CALIA ITALIA , F C HOMES....etc) Logans, IFC at Sungei Kadut.......and many many more

 As for me i was into electronic stuff like : 

 

 






And many more.....








To me the process is more important then the end product, coz its the only few big project we could do together. A part from the wedding, this would be the next big thing, with regards to money spent. The process of listening, understanding, arguing, convincing, compromise, learning more about my wife and more about myself. The key for us is to enjoy the process and do what is within our budget.Anyway for our "little pigeon box" house, doing more might make the house look even smaller.

Being to like writting.... :) next The Concept.....hahaha

First Time Doing This - Work in Progress

Just feel like starting a blog to record down my wife and mine journey in building our house and home. Hope i have the stamina to finish what i started. hahaha

We started saving $$$$ the moment we both started working something like 7 years ago or more. Saving up for our wedding, our honeymoon to USA, and finally our new house. We have yet to receive our KEYS from the HDB which the collection of keys seem everlasting. (Can see, can touch, can smell but cannot collect). Thou we have not receive the good new from the "garment" we have started to homework by visiting ID firms, furniture shop, electronic shop, fav harvey norman shop (Coz can see, can test can ask, but dont buy).

We started with a recommendation from a friend to try getting a quotation for renovation at Ideal House @ Upper Serangoon Rd. So we just drop by on one Sunday afternoon, after we woke up late and after lunch. We walk in and said that we wanted to have someone to give us a quotation on our house reno. A young man approach us and assisted us. He is Mr Daniel Wong. He is younger then both my wife and i, but seems to know what he is talking about. We spent about 2-3 hours (i think), to discuss what we wanted for our house. We have many many ideas but have little little budget. So we told him we have not more then 30k to play around with.

We wanted a Big to Huge wardrobe for my wife.....ops! For her endless collection of clothes, handbags...etc But ok lah, It's also something i would like my wife to have, who endure me for almost 9 years as a couple and 1 year as husband and wife and still enduring. The funny thing about our new house is that it does not comes with bedroom doors, toilet also no doors, so the HDB think nowadays young people very open mind, *Sh@t, eat and change in the open.

Our very first Floor plan

That's all for today, continue tml 28/05/2012