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!!