Our Self-Designed Home Journey!

803

Japandi
HDB (BTO)
~1,000 sqft
3 br
Couple Living

We started our search for an ID/Contractor two years before key collection! For the search at the first two months, we consulted 7 IDs, of which none satisfied us. We did not rush into making any decision, and only resumed the ID/Contractor search 5 months before key collection. This time round, after having consulted 7 IDs, we kind of knew what we wanted for the house design. As we also were not doing major renovation works (We only did carpentry work for kitchen, 2 bedrooms, and entrance foyer area. For the bathrooms, it is just a simple shower screen and shower door only), we decided to focus our second round of search on finding main contractors.
Main contractors instead of direct contractor, as we wanted the project management service of the main contractors. After consulting and getting quotes from 5 popular main contractors, we realised that it was not necessarily the case that main contractors quotation is always lower.
- #interiordesigner
In the end, we went an ID company that could provide us "main contractor" service. No design fee was charged (though truthfully the design fee amount is quite little, just a few hundred dollars; but since we already knew what we wanted, we didn’t see the point of paying these additional few hundred dollars more), and the house was entirely built based on what we had designed. Under this “main contractor” service, no advice is given to us, and no 3D rendering is provided. Part of the reason we decided on this ID company was also because of word of mouth recommendation from our BTO neighbours, where a few others had also engaged them, and hence it gave us some "trust"? We also read reviews online before making our decision. One tip from HDB is to only contract HDB licensed contractor with paid up capital of at least $50,000. (And this criteria struck off one of the main contractor with direct carpentry which we thought was the most ideal choice - as they were not HDB licensed, and the paid up capital was a super low figure.) Also, you can check out when the company was incorporated! We used this website to find out more details https://www.companies.sg
- #contractor
Items you need to get ready before meeting your main contractor: 1. Your design for the house including cabinets sketch-up with measurements We spent many months deliberating on the house layout, and many different carpentry designs before we finalised our plans Here is a sample of the 3D design we did for our entrance foyer cabinet!
- #selfdesign
- #selfrender
2. Your choice of laminates and paint codes First, you will need to find out the laminate company that your contractor work with. We then made many trips to the laminate companies to view the large size laminates (which is very important for wood grains) before we made our final decisions. These are the final laminates we picked for our home! As for painting colours, we just relied on the brochure colours for our choices. 3. Electrical Plan Besides just the carpentry design, you will also need to think ahead of the electrical appliances you need for your house as well as to decide on the location for switches. As renovation involves large expenditure, do your due research before making your decision!