Choosing Our Contractor/ID

I'm so thankful the kareshi is in the driver seat when it comes to dealing with our home related stuff.

While I'm all out for our wedding preparations, he helps sources out for home appliances at various places in and out of SG to make price comparisons and also arranges meetings with different IDs, often without me because his working schedule is more flexible.

All I have to do is to give approval and then pick the colour I prefer. Lucky is meeeee :D

After we have a clear goal of what we want and need to do with the house, we started our search for a reno contractor - just one week before our home keys collection lol. I know of people who actually started their ID selection process or even select one, years before they got hold of their keys.

So yea, obviously we're not as kiasu. hehee

Since we're both clueless on this whole renovation thingy, the kareshi started by submitting an enquiry for renovation quotation on Renotalk. It didn't take long for the companies to get back to him and arrange for meetups at his convenience. We totally lost count how many we've met so far, but let me tell you this :  the process is e x h a u s t i n g.

Generally, all the IDs we met are pretty alright in the sense that they're not pushy or tell us a straight no when we tell them what we want. They don't give a f-face when we tell them our (low)budget. All except for one, who shoved his ideas without even asking us, the home owner, what we want. He keeps going on and on how a house must have a WOW effect yada yada and judging from his proposed ideas it'd probably blow over our budget by three times -_-

Here are the top four that made it to my fav list:

1) Design ****ce 

This was the first company we met so it was pretty awkward at first. And it's not helping when the ID, E, who attended to us was an awkward turtle too! As soon as we sat down, he passed us a file and asked us to look through the packages before he walks away. *insert cricket sounds*

Another ID, J, approached us and he seems much friendlier. I showed him my floor plan.(more details in next post!) and started his sketches and give feedback on my ideas. E sat with us throughout the whole discussion but didn't give any input so I assume he is a newbie.

The quotation they gave was slightly more than we budgeted for, but still alright. Not until J told us that E will be in charge of our project. Working with someone we're both not comfortable with sounds like a nightmare.

2) * Creations

We met Mr R right after our appointment with the annoying ID mentioned above(the one who shoved ideas one) so my mood was pretty dampened by then. Walked into the office with zero expectations but the moment we sat at his workstation, I went woahhh. Cos he already prepared multiple copies of our layout and even 3D drawings!!

We met a few companies before this and none did this. So yeah, impressed level +100.

So of course with the 3D drawing, it's easier for us to visualise what works out and what doesn't for our home. I like how he advised on how to save reno cost like suggesting us to apply for cement screed from HDB instead, which will save us about $3.5K!

But yeah in case you don't know, cement screed by HDB takes yearssss to complete (ok I'm exagerating but I was informed waiting time is 8-10 weeks after application T_T) but since we're not in a rush to move in, we're fine with it. That $3.5K can be used for our honeymoon yaw!

3)****ry Interior Designers

A husband and wife duo. I find them super cute cos the husband always turn to his wife to help translate his sentences to proper english and later apologise endlessly for his poor english. I loooove this couple cos I find that I can get along well with the wife. And that's a bonus considering how I don't usually get along with other females very well.

We went for a showroom visit together and despite liking them, I find their workmanship can be improved. Got turned off when I heard creaking sounds as I open the wardrobe in the master bedroom.

4) ** *ink Construction

A client cum friend of the kareshi engaged this company and I kindda like what I see when we visited their house, which happens to be the block opposite ours. 

We met Mr O on the day we collected our keys and he came out with these sketches from scratch as we were discussing!

He seems like a nice and simple guy, he wrote the entire quotation on paper despite us telling him to send an email. Out of all the IDs we met, the kareshi liked this one the most.

*****

After hours of scrutinising the quotations and days of standing up for our preferred IDs, the kareshi and I decided that it's a tie. We're having two companies working on our home renovation project!

Basically his preferred contractor will be handling our flooring while the rest will be done by my preferred contractor. Why so you may ask? Cos when we compare the prices for flooring, there's a big difference between these two so of cos we opt for the cheaper one hehe.

Our renovation has officially started yesterday so more updates on the house coming up pretty soon!

xoxo