The Renovation Story: When "The Designer" Met "The Engineer"

Starring: "The Designer" and "The Engineer"

In "The Designer"'s world, the house should be designed to look like a showflat. That is, sleek designs, cozy lighting, proper placement of furniture, etc, so as to create a romantic and resort-like ambiance. Unfortunately, the expression of "The Designer"'s creative mind is severely restricted by (a) budget and (b) the existing grey granite floor.

Here are some of "The Designer"'s Inspirations (photos are linked directly from the web):
















In "The Engineer"'s world, the most important things to change are the toilet WCs and the kitchen. "The Engineer" is also strongly against standing standing fans and only endorses ceiling fans. Renovations to the rest of the house is secondary, and will take place only if budget permits.

Unfortunately, Woodlands Ring Road world belonged to both of them. There was a lot of compromising to be done, and a lot of expectations to be lowered.

Here's a summarised version of the renovation list that they came up with. The detailed version has around 90 items, and there is no need to bore the reader with irrelevant and uninteresting items like "Install kitchen sink with tap" and "Polishing of existing granite floor".

Living, Dining -- mainly the brainchild of the "The Designer"
1) Demolish existing hall feature, pillar, pipe cabinet, ceiling & cornices
2) Ceiling/Lighting/Ambiance feature
3) Sand & Re-varnish stairs railing
4) Timber venetian blinds
5) Elaborate oriental-styled TV console and shelving
6) Ceiling Fan -- veto-ed by "The Engineer" because she doesn't like standing fans

Toilets -- trump card played by "The Engineer"
1) Layover floor tiles
2) Replace WC & wash basin
3) Shower screen
4) Replace the bi-fold door

Kitchen -- Mutual decision
1) Entire makeover (including demolishing of existing floor & wall tiles)
2) Kitchen cabinet + Solid Surface + Stainless steel plate
3) Tempered glass sliding door

Master Bedroom -- Mutual decision
1) L-box/Cove Lighting -- Requested by "The Designer"
2) Full-height wardrobe
3) Timber venetian blinds
4) Ceiling fan

Whole House -- Mainly "The Designer"
1) Painting
2) Replace sliding windows to casement windows (white colour) -- "The Designer" claims that casement windows provide more ventilation
3) White colour window grilles -- "The Designer": For the minimalist look
4) Designer doors -- "The Designer" (duh)

Being a good civil servant ("The Engineer"), they asked for 3 quotations so that they can make an informed decision about who they wish to hire:
1) Random Interior Designer at IMM
2) "The Engineer"'s previous contractor
3) "The Designer"'s contractor contact

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Author's Note: Make sure that the contractor pays a visit to your house so that he can give a more accurate quotation. The site visit will also help him pick out potential problem areas and suggest alternative solutions.

The contractors take about 2 weeks to come back a preliminary quotation. After which, you should do a cost comparison based on each item in the quote. This action is highly-recommended because we discovered that despite giving all 3 contractors the same requirements, they all came back with quotations containing either too many or too little items.

Nonetheless, the general cost for our 90+ items to renovate is $10K more than our expected budget of $30K. We took a leap of faith, and "commissioned"* contractor 2 (details to be revealed in the next chapter). Thereafter we worked with him to push the renovation cost lower.

* Definition of "commissioned":
Pls note the word 'commissioned' used by the designer merely mean that the contractor 2 was approached to work out budget first.
No actual contract was signed at that point of time.