Things are starting to fall into place now and I’m getting really excited! Especially after settling the essential stuffs that gave me a major headache. Thanks to my mum who kept helping me during this period when R was super busy with his work recently, we’re finally settled with the major decisions.
It just hit me that resale flats really come with a lot of additional high costs (will probably talk about this in another post), unless you plan to just move in without fixing anything. But still, I can confidently say I have no regrets as I prioritise convenience over other factors.
I also have friends who are in the same life phase as me currently, #adulthood much?
Anyway, even before we have collected our keys last year, we were already in search of renovation companies way ahead of time. Sounds a little kiasu but seriously time flies faster than you think. I’m not kidding. It just felt like not long ago and I’m panicking now.
The company that we engaged is:
Urban Design House
Being first-time buyers, we were quite clueless on what to expect and it’s still a learning journey for us. Out of all the IDs that we met, Jeremy gave us the most comfortable and reliable feeling. I actually asked many questions even before I confirmed him and he was still as patient as ever. And this has never changed. I won’t be going in depth about our ID selection at the moment (as the renovation is not complete) but so far we are very pleased with his service and attitude! In fact, he was very open when we wanted to choose other contractors for certain parts of the house. No hard selling and persuading to leave a deposit to secure any promo.
There’s no 100% guarantee in life but these are some main factors I take into consideration when choosing our ID. You probably have better advices but these are based on my first experience with renovation.
PRICE
I mean…. Who wouldn’t right? The price has to be reasonable or even affordable to begin with.
Another important thing to note is the details of the quotation. Some tend to leave out details of the quotation and that is when conflict and argument may come in later. But of course, I wouldn’t ask for super fine details until I’ve decided to confirm.
REVIEWS
I will always always ALWAYS cross check reviews online especially on Google/ FB before engaging any company (Including furniture).
Many renovation companies will actually hide their review page on FB, I will then google their name and see if there are any huge complaints on forums/ blogs. (Very kiasu but just to be sure)
LOCATION
This is probably not THAT important to some but I’d usually not even consider asking quotes from those that are too far away from me. Yes I’m that lazy, but I don’t want to dread long travels just to meet my ID.
GUT FEELING
If I still face any dilemma based on the above factors, I will choose based on my gut feeling! (Basically how I feel about the person in general – whether I’m comfortable during the discussion, the way he speaks or reacts to certain stuff, etc)
If everything still doesn’t turn out to be good in the end, I guess it’s just my luck.
Some choose their ID based on design as well. But for our case, we didn’t really have much design. For kitchen, our design is rather standard based on what I already wanted. And for toilets, we only needed to choose our wall and floor tiles. The only built-in furniture we have is the wardrobe in our dressing room, which was a really simple minimalistic design too.
We also engaged other contractors for vinyl flooring as we got a better rate elsewhere.
At this point of time, we’re already half way into our renovation and we have already purchased some of our furniture! I can’t wait to see the carpentry work!!
