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A reflection on differences

I'm just reflecting back on the numerous quotations I got from the 15 Interior Design/Construction companies.

Why is the price disparity so huge?

In the beginning, I did what most others would do. Get the ID firms to itemise and cost every single thing on the quote. Avoid those with lump sums. Simply because lump sums are assumed to be well, shady.

I started to compare haulage costs, flooring, etc etc. Item by item. Then I realised I was wasting my time. Whatever company A charged more in Item X, they charge lower for Item Y. Vice versa for company B and that put me back into square one again.

I knew I was running around like a headless chicken. But I had no choice. I needed more input. I needed more ideas. The apartment is small. But someone invented the word (and concept of) space planning.

So that got me running around in circles, wanting to see if there's anything else IDs can offer.

After meeting 4-5 companies, the ideas stopped being new.

I knew I had to define what I wanted specifically and only then can I compare costs fairly.

I started drawing my own floorplans. I started knowing exactly where I wanted my wardrobe, where I wanted my sofa, swaying only momentarily if I see something better online.



Just as one would expect, after meeting with so many IDs, I also became more street smart, more familiar with renovation lingo and right down to the material I want.

I look back now and I want to share the factors that make an ID more expensive than the other:

- 7% GST. This is a minimal amount in our daily lives but when we're talking about renovations that are usually $25K and above, 7% is no small sum. Get the ID to absorb the cost or find another that doesn't charge GST.

- Price of tiles. Some IDs are really smelly. They quote you for price of tiles of up to $4- to $5 psf when in reality, the usual tiles you and I would choose range between $2.50 to $3.20psf. Really. Go to any tile shop in Singapore and you will know. Besides, don't forget that the ID gets a cut off the displayed psf price in the tile shop as well. The overly expensive tiles add up to quite a fair bit. This is the same situation if you are using laminated flooring. Always, always do your research.

- Free gifts. You and I know that nothing is free in this world. If anything, the cost of your "free gifts" are already lumped into the renovation quotation. So if you want to go with the company with free gifts, add in the cost of the free gifts when comparing grand total.

I was faced with a cost difference as big as $7,000 for similar job scopes! The quote at the higher end one even told me I could upgrade my kitchen counter top to granite at no cost. Granite! Imagine the profits they are making!

Do you have any to add on to this list? I'll be happy to spread the word!

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Posted by Ju Ann at Friday, November 27, 2009
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Settling for the best

Getting into the customer mode really makes me cringe at how fickle customers are privileged to be.

I go to company A and speak with the salesperson on renovation and halfway through our conversation, I would have made up my mind about him/her/the company.

And when I step out of the office, I already know if I will be coming back here again.

Just like that.

If I don't like that mole on your face, I can easily let that be a reason and give the contract to someone else.

Or if you don't follow up with a call, I can brush you off easily because there are so many more out there to choose from.

The interior design/renovation industry is definitely competitive in Singapore.

Me being me, I spent time and effort to meet up with close to 15 interior design firms. Here's the list of them:

1) Northwest Interior Design
2) The Interior Place
3) Vegas Interior Design
4) Ideal House
5) *****
6) Renozone
7) Everlink Renovation
8) Zhi Seng Renovation
9) Beng Fong Renovation
10) Violet Interior
11) Darwin Interior
12) Home Guide
13) Some firm in IMM
14) One more firm in IMM
15) A firm near Koven MRT

So yea there you go! I actually went to 15 different companies and compared reputation, materials, online/friends feedback, rapport with interior designer, and most importantly, costing.

It's a cruel cruel world out there.

I wasn't going to settle for anything without knowing the full picture. So I went out there and spent countless hours reading up online, talking to different IDs and participated in online forums.

In the end, after 4 months of intensive research, I finally narrowed down to 2 firms - Vegas Interior Design and Ideal House.

The person I dealt with in Vegas Interior Design is CL. She is a bubbly person and her enthusiasm and confidence for the job is very infectious. Her confidence and constant assurance also made me feel that she could be trusted to do the job and do it well. Her quotation is not the lowest, nor is it the highest. Vegas is also reputed to be a more design-led company as well. CL has 8 years of experience in the industry. She is also the godsis of a friend.

The one I met with in Ideal House is JY. He's a very easy going guy. Careless in his quotation description but a fault he is quick to admit and amend. Ideal House is very much raved about in www.renotalk.com There are countless good reviews about the company and the IDs in the company. During the second meeting I had with him, he displayed willingness to think out of the box to solve my storage problems. That was quite a trait that was sorely missing in many of the IDs I met.

I had to make a decision. I only have one house. I only need one ID.

So who will it be?

CL or JY?


Stay tuned!

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Posted by Ju Ann at Tuesday, November 24, 2009
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A look at my kitchen

Oh yes, I don't believe I have shared my floor plan here yet. But here it is anyway! Let's zoom in to my kitchen!


It's a L-shaped kitchen. I pretty much have set my heart on where I want my various kitchen accessories and cabinets layout - will prolly share that with you on my next post.

But today, I have here, some 3D drawings that 2 different IDs very kindly took the effort to do up in order to sell their idea and services.



This is by a guy who is extremely nice. I didn't go with him in the end because he'll prolly too nice to his workers as well and get stepped all over.

It's not a very accurate drawing. There are pipes where he neatly placed cabinets at and all. Not ideal YET.

Looking at it like that does make the whole thing come to life and my already massive excitement grows.

The colour scheme seems too modern and too common.

This is the 2nd one by another ID from Hong Kong with a Malaysian hubby working in the same company. She couldn't speak English well enough but she could understand me. I met her at the Singapore Expo show but at that time, she didn't seem too interested in my project. Later on, she followed up with me and even took the effort to do up this drawing.

She was a nicer person outside of the show - maybe the show at Singapore Expo was too tiring the day I met her.



Another similar layout but when you're in my position, having the damn fridge on the left or right WILL make a whole world of difference. Haha!

The colour scheme looks better here. But will it match the rest of my house? What on earth is the other parts of the house going to look like anyway! Details details.

Anyway, I shall discuss my ideal kitchen layout in another post. :)

So what do you think of the colours?

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Posted by Ju Ann at Monday, November 23, 2009
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My Attemps at Slimming

[This is a repost because I won Consolation Prize for this contest!!]

I am big. No hold it. Hold the nice words. Don't say I am not fat. I am.

I wanted to show a picture of myself in 2005 when I was at my fattest ever... but I am really too cowardy to show it. It's so painful to even look back!

Tagged Size L

I wear an L (sometimes XL and then I ban that brand of clothing) and I never let anyone know my real weight. Never. It's a secret. Literally, a big one.


=(

It's never fun being fat. If my clothes are too tight (which they often are) my fats will spill out and look unsightly... I'm sick of wearing black all the time. I have arm scallops so tube tops are out. Ya arm scallops. When I first heard of this term a couple of years back, I was depressed. With over-descriptive terms like arm scallops, buffalo humps and bat wings, one really needs little else to make another feel ugly.

Arm Scallops: Unsightly pockets of flesh that no amount of exercise seems to have been able to minimise - aka pudgy armpits
Buffalo Humps: Lumps of fat that bulge from the back of the bra. Eek!
Bat Wings: Also causing a flap are ‘bat wings', or flabby upper arms.

How I tried to combat my less than ideal body

There are several ways women can fix their jiggly nemesis: liposuction, radiofrequency treatments, physical exercise and, if all else fails, hide behind clothes.

A common method offered by slimming centres is slimming via radiofrequency treatments. Although I have signed up for such a package with a beauty salon, I have yet to start utilising it! Wonder if it works though.

There has been many attempts at slimming in my life (though if you ask me, I'm on a life-long diet). I'll like to share a couple out of the many I've tried.

The Atkins Way

And who hasn't heard of the Atkins Diet? I tried my best to stick as closely to the diet plan as possible. Quite difficult if you ask me since I'm in Singapore where everything has carbs in them.
Just imagine. It's time for lunch and I head to a food centre - Amoy Street Food Centre. 2 storeys big sprawling place right? Well, but I couldn't find anything in low carbs. Char Kway Teow? Fishball Noodle? Fishball also have carbs in it ok!

No processed food allowed during the first week of induction. No fruits allowed cos they contain sugar. Yong Tau Fu? But that comes with processed fish meat in between the vegetables! Nasi Briyani? Economical rice? No sugared drinks too!

Trust me. I tried. I went round and round the food centre countless of times. Each time, I end up eating something that is not recommended in the induction phase!


Byebye carbs

There is this "Acceptable Food List" and the rule is to not eat anything not in the list! Salad. Yes that's good. But tell me where to find a below $5 salad in Shenton Way? Meat. Yes that's good too! But how can I eat $10 + meals every day for lunch? So I ended up alienating all my colleagues and staying in to eat my own prepared meals. Steamed broccoli, canned tuna in water, .... Needless to say, the invitations to join others for lunch became less frequent.

There was so much I couldn't eat and so little I could. I was hungry most of the time and I even thought of getting the appetite suppressant, Duromine!


Food label

Don't assume any food is low in carbohydrate—instead, I learnt to read labels. I had to check the carb count (it's on every package) or practice agaration. During this same period, I also went for extra yoga classes.

The end result? I was trimmer but my weight remained the same. After I went off the Atkins Diet, my weight even went up! So depressing!

Diet Pills!

This is really quite ineffective and really, a lazy man's weakness. There are plenty of pills out there in the market that boasts of many amazing things like blocking fat, blocking carbs, blocking calories... etc.. The list goes on. I tried the carb and fat blocker. Truth to tell, there were zero results.

"No need exercise! Eat all you want!" Yea, right.

The only difference was after eating the fat blocker, I pee'd oil and poo'ed some black stuff out. Toxics I guess. The 2nd and 3rd pill on didn't have much visible effect.

Besides, let's all not forget Andrea De Cruz and Slim 10 saga.

Lately...

... I've been contemplating with the purchase of a Wii Fit. Problem is, I don't even have a damn Wii Console! Buying everything would set me back by quite a fair bit. I tried it out at my cousin's place and it was damn fun! I even sweated! Imagine that! Maybe more frequent exercise would help me lose weight?


I can already see myself doing this!

How about the ability to annihilate fat without surgery?

Called cavitation, it is a new fat-breaking technology by Cenosis - something I've never tried. According to their website, cavitation breaks the fat cells membrane through the bursting of micro-bubbles. Often featured on Channel 8’s BioSkin show, Cenosis says that this new technology can target fat on certain body parts, and reduce it permanently - without any invasive actions.

Slimming technology today really makes slimming seem effortless. With 3 years of research to make this right and only doctors and physiotherapists with N2 license from NEA who can operate this machine... surely it's something safe that's worth exploring.

There are apparently a lot of other inferior machines similar to this out there in the market. But many of which are not able to penetrate deep enough into the fat cells area to hit the core of it all.

Cenosis is the first and only slimming centre to own this medical machine.


Cavitation in action - Complex fatty acids are broken down into simpler fatty acids and these simple fatty acids are then passed out from our bodies.

You know what this means? This means I can go look for these experts and get my arm scallops, my bat wings and my buffalo humps ANNIHILATED. Period. Now we're talking! (Lol as I read this again, I couldn't resist giving my arm scallops a bye bye squeeze.)

Make an appointment with Cenosis right now, to find out how you can benefit from this wonderful technology at a special price of $33. Call 7000 700 6626 or visit www.cenosis.biz/cavitation.php to make an appointment.

Tagged as: , 14 comments
Posted by Ju Ann at Thursday, November 19, 2009
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Nice enough to bully

The previous owner of the flat I bought is pissing me endlessly.

1st she says the current old couple who is renting the master bedroom would find it very difficult to rent a place for 2 months. Cos that's when they will move out of Singapore and back to Malaysia for good.

So fine, I accomodate her request and said that the old couple can stay.

Now she says that the gangster looking tenant that rents the other 2 rooms with his children cannot move out till end December.

Hello? I need to move in by end December and there's renovation to be done! The old couple is a hindrance that I have to work with but another 2 tenants? If I give in to her then where on earth am I going to stay when my current lease ends in December?

Ridiculous.

The last time I saw that guy, he was smoking, his naked top half revealed tattoos and his eyes were blood-shot!

It really doesn't pay to be nice.

Anyway saying yes to the old couple was the last straw. I'm standing my ground on the gangster tenant. I hope it doesn't have to be ugly.

Tagged as: 4 comments
Posted by Ju Ann at Thursday, November 19, 2009
/ 0

Grateful to have my own

As you all know, I have recently gone ahead and put myself waist deep in debts by purchasing a 4-room flat in Singapore.



Home ownership in Singapore is 90.1%! But what Singaporeans really are is everyone here is in debt. Home loans here do extremly well.

Well, mine's a small apartment but it's at a lovely place near town. I'm pretty excited to start this new phase in my life. There's a supermarket 5 mins walk away, a coffee shop just down my block, the MRT is 10 mins walk away and there's food everywhere.

I know I'm pretty lucky to be able to own a flat at my age. I wouldn't have been able to do it without my parents support.

I pay $500 to rent a room now. In other words, I'm paying someone else to own a flat. Well, that wouldn't be so bad if not for the shit that comes with renting. But well, that's another ranting post for another time. :)

*

In Singapore, when you buy a HDB (housing development board) flat aka government owned flat, you have to go through a lengthy procedure. And, the waiting is extremely nerve wrecking.



On the 23rd of July earlier this year, I signed the Option to Purchase form and paid $1,000 deposit to secure the promise to purchase the flat.

1 week later, on the 30th of July, I paid the remaining $4,000 deposit and "exercised" the option to purchase.

The housing agent submitted the application to buy and sell form to HDB and I was informed that my first appointment with HDB would be on the 29th of October.

Yes, it was 4 month wait. But that's over and done with. :)

I'm now awaiting to be the owner of my new flat on the beautiful day of 10th December.

Needless to say, I cannot wait! :)

I'm extremly excited about the new nest I'll make. I'll have a piano, the hamsters and I'll have a lovely kitchen I can cook in...


As I enter into this new phase in my life, I'm afraid I'll begin to bore you with details of renovation and the ups and downs that come with it. Look out!

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Posted by Ju Ann at Monday, November 16, 2009
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