.::. My 3D home .::.

I'm obsessed with all things renovation and home decor these days.  We have just received some quotes and will be ironing out details with some IDs soon.  Hopefully, we can get someone to do it, within budget.

And because we can't wait to visualize our home, we have tried to build our own 3D drawings.  It's really tiring!  But after a few hours, I have finally learnt how to add materials and import 3D images.  *yay.  Sometimes, it's so difficult to explain to contractors/ID what you want, and I've downloaded plenty of pictures (and this 3D) to communicate our ideas.

Having said that, the 3D drawings still look very fake and flat.  After the whole night's work, I only managed to do up the living/dining/kitchen.




The dining and open-concept kitchen.



Overview from the living room.





View from the door.



Phew.  Very hard work, and it doesn't even look good.  *sigh!  Need to work on it some more.

And there's a lot of homework to do.  Need to be armed with as much information as possible before going to negotiate with contractors.  Knowledge is power, I'm not gonna be a 'carrot'!

.::. The Witch Hunt .::.

We are currently sourcing for a good and reliable contractor or ID for our renovations, and there's really so much to learn and research about.  How am I supposed to find the most reliable and reasonably priced contractor?  I've heard so many horror stories in forums, and I'm really paranoid about this renovation process.


We went to the interior fair at Expo 2 weeks back.  It's my first time at such a fair, and it was pretty quiet.

Apart from a few furniture and mattress booth, most of them seem to be interior designer firms.  There were also flooring booth, such as laminate and bamboo.  I'm pretty impressed with the bamboo flooring, I like how it looks and feel - very sturdy and durable.  I personally dislike laminate, I don't like how it feels when you step on them and the main reason why so many Singaporeans use them is due to its cheap price and perhaps variety of patterns.

We spoke to 4 interior designers, of which only one actually followed up.

Personally, I've a very specific style that I like, namely Scandinavian.  I love the warm wood flooring and bright white kitchen which feels very cosy.  I love textures and the loft-like feel using brick walls.  I dislike most of the done-up houses here, which feels impersonal to me.  It's difficult to explain, but I can totally visualize what I want and the ID's job is to make that come alive for me.

The first ID we spoke to was from ONE Design Werkz.  She was very friendly and suggested some options in the space planning in our room.  The master bedroom was a challenge since it's difficult to fit in a wardrobe and a king size bed plus side tables.  Overall, she was really sincere and experienced.  It feels like you can really trust her to follow up and monitor your whole renovation process.  She also showed us some 3D drawings and actual photos of her projects.  She also updates her clients of the renovation progress through photos using wadsapp.  Design wise, I still feel that she didn't fully get the Scandinavian feel I wanted, but was willing to listen and accommodate my wants.  However, getting a 3D drawing from her would require 1.5k deposit and we didn't get her to follow up with a quotation.  The estimated cost was about 40k-50k.

The second ID was from XXX.  I was reluctant to sit down and discuss, because he was an ah-beng uncle who smells like cigarettes.  He was telling us the package and free Samsung aircon if we sign up at the fair.  Then after showing us his basic packages (reading from the paper), he saw that the free gift is actually LG aircon instead.  I promptly thanked him and left without showing him my floor plan.  If he can't even get the brand of free gift right, how am I supposed to trust him with my renovations?  He's going to tell me that I chose black instead of white.

The third ID we spoke to was from Dyel.  She showed us the basic packages and jotted down what we wanted with our floor plan.  She also chatted with us and showed us some pictures to understand what we wanted.  However, it felt like she was really inexperienced and was going through the motion.  She promised to come up with a plan and get back to us, but we only heard from her after about 2 weeks. As I was busy and did not reply her, she did not actually follow up since then.  It's been another 2 weeks or so, and we've decided not to waste her time and ours.

The 4th ID we spoke to was from Rezt and Relax.  We were actually attracted by the showroom, which was pretty nicely done up and had  a textured faux brick wall.  We did sit down to talk to one 'ID' who was young and friendly, with a strong malaysian accent.  While we shared our ideas with him, he kept making pretty negative comments which really did annoy me.  He really didn't get or know about the Scandinavian theme at all, and insisted that a faux brick-wall looked like a real brick wall.  Even real brick walls can look very different with different spacing and grouting! Then he kept questioning me and said that my ideas were 'weird'.  I was really exasperated seriously!  He even asked if I wanted all white with wood because of Fengshui.  He promised to work on our design while I urged him to do some research about Scandinavian designs.

A few days after the fair, it was Rezt and Relax who followed up with us.  We made an appointment during the weekend and went down to their office.  It turned out the the ID is actually another guy, and the guy we met at Expo was only the coordinator.  The ID was a Chinese PRC who was really nice and did seem to understand what we wanted.  We did some space planning and discussed our needs with him.  He also shared some ideas and pictures of other houses.  He even offered to show us the finished products of some of his customers, and promised services such as choosing of tiles and furniture with us.  We went back again a week later for a detailed quote, which came up to 50k, excluding electrical and flooring for the rooms.  It was an exorbitant sum really!  I compared his quote with the 'market rate' research I have done, it was double for most items.  Laying of tiles (up to $3.20psf) cost about $12.50psf, kitchen cabinets were $170pf, toilet's vanity cost $390pf for mirror cabinet and vanity.

Having said that, they promised quality and lifetime warranty for their carpentry work.  We were actually pretty happy and comfortable with their attitude and service, something which was important to me.  I've read so many horror renovation stories and having a reliable ID who coordinates and monitors all the work with wadsapp progress updates sound really great.

However, price is really a big factor this time round.  I can't afford to pay for quality and service at that price.  I suppose there must be other firms with good service and lower price out there, but it's really time-consuming and tiring to source for good and reliable IDs.  It was so tiring sharing my design idea again and again!


Although we haven't finalized the quotations and ID selection, we will be trying to keep within a budget of 30k and sacrifice some details if needed.  I'm really excited and nervous about the impending renovations.  My dream home is really going to come to life!  Part of me is worried that it will not turn out to be what I want it to be, and I'm really worried about hiccups and monitoring the renovations.

.::. HSBC - Stop calling me! .::.

HSBC has successfully renewed my annoyance with them.  They have been calling me so much these days - 3 calls in 2 days!  I hate it when insurance companies, or banks or anyone who calls me and try to sell me something.  I hate it when people stuff things into my face, including SMS advertisements, pop-up ads and they even use Whatsapp these days!

Coming back to HSBC, their insurance people have been calling damn often some months back.  I got countless calls from them in a few months, then it all died down.  I thought they finally realized how much such calls piss people off.  And now, it started again! Now I pick up the call and tell them that I have received x number of calls in x days, I'm not interested!

And seriously, HSBC is probably one of the last banks which I will go to after my bad experience with them.

It goes like this.  The husband and I signed up for their credit card at their road show, just because he didn't have a credit card and they just happened to be there.  There was also a $50 rebate I think, the sales person was also friendly.  It was at Clementi and we had to go upstairs to a small push-cart to fill up the forms.  Then, we were given the forms and all the documents in an envelop for us to mail it ourselves.  The sales person said he was not supposed to do it for us.

I'm not someone who remembers to send out things.  And when I finally sent out the application forms, fully expecting to receive my card in a few weeks time, it didn't go that way.  I had a call more than a week after sending the application out, and was told that the sales person filled in my name wrongly, he missed a letter.  They had to come back to me with the form, so that I can edit it and counter-sign.  It was so much trouble, and I don't understand why can't they use my NRIC name since they had a copy of that plus my CPF statements!

Then, they wanted to send a courier down next week.  But I didn't agree, since I wanted the card in a hurry.  I asked them to arrange a courier down by tomorrow - isn't that ample time?!  So then said they'll come back to me, and finally agreed to send the courier here on a Friday afternoon.  They also asked for a photocopy of my payslips.  And when Friday came, the courier service called me and asked if they could come next week instead.  I was pissed by now, I'm the customer and I specifically wanted it THIS WEEK!  Then, they said they will get back to me again.  They finally agreed to come and I passed them the documents.  Again, fully expecting to receive my card in a week or two.

But no, it didn't stop here.  They called and told me that my payslips were not acceptable because the last few letters of my company name was cut off in the photocopy.  I WAS SO PISSED.  They had my CPF statements and the name of my company corresponded with my payslip!  And they are making a big fuss because the last 2 letters of my company was cut off?!  I pointed that out, and they told me that it's their company policy - have to see full company name.  I was so annoyed that I asked to cancel my application.

I DO NOT WANT YOUR CARD AND WILL NOT EVER SIGN FOR YOUR SERVICES ANYMORE, HSBC.

They did such a great job of pissing me off, seriously.  The thing is, my company is one of those old-fashioned companies who gives out our payslips by hand.  You have to tear out the 3 sides to open it up, and the alignment inside isn't perfect.  When you tear out the side, the last few letters of the company name gets torn out too.  There's no way that I can provide a payslip with full company name!  Don't tell me to contact HR to get any official or additional documents, I'm not going to all that trouble for a damn credit card.  There are so many choices in the market, many are fuss-free.  Moreover, HSBC's perks are pretty lousy and EpiCenter's installment plan works for most local credit cards except HSBC.

I just got the UOB ONE card and Standard Chartered Manhattan card for the cash rebates.  I paid $5,000 for my banquet downpayment with the Manhattan card and earned a $200 cash rebate plus $20 cash-back for signing up.  I simply dropped into the Standard Chartered when I passed by, took 10 minutes to fill up the form and had my card in the mail in less than 2 weeks.  The UOB card was even more amazing, I downloaded the form online, filled it up and faxed it over.  The card arrived in a few days.  I also have OCBC cards, though they pissed me off and signed me up for their cashline service initially, I like it that the customer service is easily reachable and helpful.  However, OCBC only gave me 2x credit limit (of my salary) while UOB and Standard Chartered gave me 4x.

So there goes.  I have a really bad impression of HSBC and will probably never ever use their services.  I don't get why are they so rigid with credit card applications, which is supposed to be fuss-free.  The poor sales tried so hard to get customers to sign up, yet the back-end operations basically screwed everything.  Perhaps it's the procedures, but seriously, I provided CPF statements with my company name corresponding to my payslip, and I don't think I'm a particularly high-risk customer!

I can't wait for the 'Do not call' registry to start.  I'm going to be the first to sign up, and I'm not going to be nice to people who still continues to call me!

.::. Boycott Wild Honey? .::.

Have you read about the Wild Honey incident?

It pisses me off when restaurants give such service.  This is so unacceptable, especially at that price point.  What's worst is the way they handled the issue and conveniently gave an excuse that 'the third person did not come for some reason'.  Seriously?

Although the food is pretty good, the queue is always long and it's really pricey.  And I don't think I'm gonna spend money on such restaurants.

So yea, goodbye Wild Honey.  I'm so going to boycott you.

.::. Found! .::.

I think I have found my dining table and sideboard!  Have been furniture shopping for my dining table to suit my Scandinavian theme for the longest time.

Source: herworldplus.com via Jan on Pinterest

Shall drop by Playfair Road this weekend before deciding.  Price is a factor, but I love the sideboard!

Too excited to sleep these days.  I wished I had more hours in a day.

.::. Week in pictures .::.

It was a killer week, tiring but pretty interesting.  The highlight of the week was dinner at Jaan at Swissotel.  It was really good!  Pardon the iPhone pictures though.



We arrived early and this was the view that greeted us.



The view was amazing.  I love the twilights.  And admiring this after a long day at work with a glass of champagne in hand makes me really feel at peace with the world.



It turned dark after awhile.



We had a private area for our dinner.



And this was the view we ate to.



The menu.



Some mushroom with tea dish.  It was really good!



I think it was sea bass, my first time eating it, raw.  It was refreshing, I liked it.



I'm not a fan of ravioli but this was the best I ever had!  It had tasty crab/lobster meat in it and the sauces went well together.



Foie gras with mango and some caramel biscuit.  *yummy!



I think this was fish, I am not very sure.  But I didn't like leek, so this was probably my least favorite though it was still good.



Very unique dessert but definitely not my favorite - there was coconut (I don't fancy coconut) with pineapple, very hawaiian feel.

I really liked the mini baguette too, I had quite a few throughout the night.

This was the best french restaurant I've been to in Singapore!  I was disappointed by quite a few, in fact all of the previous dinner places.

Perhaps I will be back with the husband someday, but I reckon the prices ain't cheap!



The next stop - St James' Dragonfly.  It was Canto night, the crowd was old and they were singing very old songs!



It wasn't that bad, since I realized that I can sing to the old songs.  =_="  The french were very amused though.



Huge bottles of champagne with sparklers.  We had VSOP mixers too.



2nd stop was to Mink at Pan Pacific Hotel.  It was a club, really loud, and the lights were giving me a headache.



These people really get high on a Wednesday night.  I barely stayed for 5 minutes before calling it a night while some of them stayed to party and drink more vodka.

I was drained by the time we ended at about 1am.  After all, we had champagne, white wine, red wine, rose champagne, VSOP mixers, champagne again and vodka mixers all in a night.  It's ridiculous, but it ups your alcohol threshold really quick.

It's Sunday already, which means Monday is around the corner. =(

.::. Chye's Forever 21 .::.

It was our dear Chye's birthday early this month.  It's a little quiet since Jo and Ju isn't here.

Chye chose this place which was good for shabu-shabu.  It's tucked behind Orchard and isn't that easy to reach without a car.

Although we made a reservation at 7pm and arrived at about 710pm, we had to wait for 20 minutes before we were seated.  We had to wait for a family to leave before we got the table.  The staff were pretty polite and served us green tea while we waited.

The husband was famished, but still managed to look....demure.  Hahas!

Since we were sharing a present, and I didn't want to come empty-handed, I bought Chye a flower.  I couldn't bring myself to buy her a sunflower though I know that she likes it (and I loath it).

This was the 'cereal prawn' sushi which we ordered first, before Chye and JH arrived.  It was yummy!  I liked it.  It was so crispy inside, and went well with the soft warm rice.

Of course we had their famous shabu-shabu with black pork.  The soup was made of real ingredients without any MSG.  It was fresh and tasty.

This is the different parts of the pork.

And this is the beef.

With the dear birthday girl.

It was a nice and cozy place, though they don't seem to refill your tea until you ask for it.  Service was alright, not fantastic.  Prices were pretty steep, we paid like $90 for 2 person with a bowl of ramen, sashimi, 3 spider rolls, 2 drinks and 2 green tea, and an extra portion of meat.

Happy birthday my dear.  May all dreams come true.  =)

Eno-Oka
56 Cairnhill Road
Tel: +65 6887 5527

.::. Casa Clementi Keys Collection .::.

We collected our keys last Friday, after postponing it for 5 weeks.  Our appointment was at 8am and we both woke up at 5-ish to have breakfast before going for the appointment.  Both of us were so tired!

We took our queue number at 8am sharp and waited shortly for our turn.  The whole process took about an hour.  There were endless forms to sign, so many that both of us couldn't really keep track of what we were signing.  But anyway, we had to sign them, not like we could negotiate terms with HDB!

We paid out $23,145.15 in cash!  Both of us were busy transferring money into the joint account to reach that amount.  The poor husband transferred all his money and only had $1 left.  It was my first time writing a cheque and was really nerve-wracking to part with such a large sum of money.

The couple beside us were also collecting keys for Casa Clementi, and they only had to pay like $57 in cash when their flat was more expensive than ours!  I reckon these people must have been working for quite some time to have over $60,000 in CPF.

It felt surreal.  I rushed back to work after collecting the keys and looked forward to visiting our new home on Saturday!

We met for lunch and went to NTUC to buy a pineapple for the 'opening ceremony'.  It's a very, perhaps superstitious and traditional thing we chinese do.  We did the 'simplified' version, just for tradition sake.



The husband said it took him about 14 minutes to walk from our home to the train station.



Our future home!





Here's the husband trying to open the gate.



And here's the things we prepared for the opening ceremony.  You are supposed to roll the pineapple into the house when you first open it and say 'Ping An Fa Cai' which means peach and prosperity.  Then, you are supposed to sprinkle the rice and green bean into your house to signify sowing the seeds of wealth.  I'm not an expert on this, but a simple google search seem to suggest this consistently and it was simple enough to follow.  There are some very complicated procedures which include buying a huat kuey and joss sticks, which was obviously too much for me!



Once you open the door, you see the kitchen.  I'm going to hack off the left wall for a open-concept kitchen to open up the space.



The living room, I find it pretty small really.  I imagined it to be a lot bigger.



The master bedroom, which was also miserably small.  It can't fit a king-sized bed, with 2 side tables and a wardrobe.



The view from the master bedroom yesterday.



The view from the master bedroom today.



The view from the air-con ledge window in the master bedroom.  It's unblocked and facing the sea, so there's a lot of wind coming in from here.



The master bedroom toilet, which was really small too!



This is the opening to our toilet and the door blocks off 1/4 of the sink.  You have to either close the door when you use the sink or hit your elbows!



Bedroom 2



Bedroom 3



The other toilet which is very big!  We are planning to make this into a really pretty toilet that does not look like a toilet.

I have been there 3 times in 2 days, once with him alone, once with my parents and once with his parents.  We have also met up with his uncle who will be doing the renovations for us.  We spent the whole Saturday talking to IDs and choosing things like sinks and taps and laminates.  It's so tiring!  We haven't got the quote from his uncle, but the detailed quote we got from the other ID firm is 58k excluding electrical, plumbing, floorings for the rooms and all lights, hoods, stove etc.  It's ridiculously expensive, and I seriously don't think that our design is complicated at all!

We are trying to kickstart the renovations by June if possible, and there is so much to do in the next few months!

At least this is happy work.  My dream home is materializing.  =)

.::. Clementi Ridges vs Casa Clementi .::.

Our Casa Clementi flat was ready for keys collection early March, but we've postponed it to as late as possible - mid-April (this week), mainly because we can hardly afford the downpayment.  Everything happened so quickly.  I reckon we didn't expect to get a flat this quickly. Having only worked for about 4 years in total (both of us), we have insufficient CPF even for the first 10% downpayment.  Our cash payment to HDB is going to exceed 20k, emptying our savings.  It's a stressful period, yet all we can do it take a step at a time.

HDB is surprisingly very efficient.  We joined the September Sale of Balance Flats exercise and got our results in October.  Our selection date was in mid-January, and 7 weeks after, we got our HLE and appointment to collect keys/sign lease.  It took HDB only 7 weeks after selection to give us the keys! The whole process took us 5 months, and people who are applying for SOBF must be prepared for the cash outlay or producing the marriage certificate really soon!

Although we've got our flat and are out of the race for the March BTO, I still feel really excited looking at the launch.  There are so many great areas which I would love to stay at.  Having said that, the prices are getting ridiculously expensive. 

Why is it that prices seem to keep going up every launch?

There's ONE more Casa Clementi 4-room unit put up on SOBF this March.  It's at Block 425, #05-289 and it's going at $501,000 for 100sqm.  The September's SOBF offered #04-289 at $464,300 and #06-289 at $473,500.  The price obviously went up this launch and comes to $465psf.  This was high-floor prices the last launch in the same project.  Average 5th floor units cost $443psf the last launch, and that's a 5% increase in price within a 6-month period!

Since we have just got our Clementi flat, I am obviously more interested in looking at Clementi Ridges and comparing it to Casa Clementi.

Location wise, Clementi Ridges win hands-down.  It's a 5 minutes walk to the train station and malls.  It's also within 1km of the branded Nan Hua Primary School and right beside Trevilis, the Clementi DBSS.  However, I do not mind Casa Clementi's location either.  It's a 10 minutes walk to the train station and 5 minutes walk to the NTUC and town centre.  It's about 800m, 2 bus-stops away and some may find it too far, but I'm used to walking 10 minutes to the train station and prefer walking to squeezing on buses.  Moreover, Casa Clementi is near to NUS High, NUS, Singapore Poly, Nan Hua Secondary School and the SDTU - I've already seen tenants looking to rent flats in Casa Clementi.  Rental demand will be high given the proximity to so many schools.  I also like it that the estate has its own supermarket and food centre.  The stadium and swimming pool is only across the road too.  The walk home passes through the town centre, which means that I have many chances to do my grocery shopping or buying food back on the way home.  It'll take a detour to go to the town centre for Clementi Ridges, since it is on the other side of the train track.  Distance to amenities such as banks and post offices or the wet market is comparable for both projects.  The only difference is the distance to train station actually. (Yes, I'm biased, I spent half a million, of course I am).

Size wise, Casa Clementi wins hands down!  The 4-room flat we chose had a floor area of 100sqm which is pretty big for today's BTO standard.  Clementi Ridges have 4-room flats of 93sqm and 5-room flats of 113sqm.  I've visited many DBSS flats with areas ranging from 83sqm to 90sqm and found it really tiny.  100sqm without balconies would logically be noticeably bigger than the 90sqm with balconies I suppose.  Clementi Ridges is the norm for today's BTOs but it's still really small!

Price wise, I would say Casa Clementi is a better bargain.  In the September SOBF, the average price was $459psf.  This is in comparison to Clementi Ridge's $504psf, which makes Clementi Ridge about 10% more pricey psf.  I'm not sure if the relative proximity to the train station is worth this premium, considering that the distance to town centre for both is similar.  Moreover, Clementi Ridge will only be ready in 4 years' time and you'll have to start paying the downpayment and forgo interest income for 4 years!  That would cost 3.6% p.a. given CPF's interest rates now (assuming that the downpayment is paid by CPF).  If like me, you've insufficient CPF for downpayment, this will be more painful.

Can someone tell me how a installment to income ratio that exceeds 30% be 'affordable'?  There are the bills like handphone, internet, electricity, allowances to parents, whatever licensing fees and miscellaneous HDB fees.  And when the kids come into the picture, there’s the maid and car and education and tuition.  I shudder when I think about these.  How are you supposed to maintain marriages and want kids when you are under so much stress in your everyday life?  What about retirement?  These are all assuming that your income will not drop for the next 30 years and both of us have to work!

The only silver lining is to hope that housing prices continue to increase and we can make some money when we eventually sell the house.  That should probably be enough for retirement if we downgrade.

Looking at resale prices in Clementi now, there is a good chance that people who got Clementi flats at 500k would make a decent profit of 200k.  But that is after 30 years of hard slog and stress.

My excitement and enthusiasm has waned after the reality of dollar and cents set in.  It's difficult to be too excited when you're penniless and do not have enough for renovation nor furniture.  It's like all the dreams of our ideal home is not going to materialize.  But I suppose, we will make do with whatever we have.  Afterall, we have been very lucky that things turned out really positive for us.

Whatever it is, I'm getting slightly excited about collecting our keys and living in the neighborhood soon.  I can imagine myself in a very functional but small kitchen cooking and baking, getting up early to get fresh food from the market, doing grocery shopping and trying out new recipes, jogging regularly in the stadium opposite and eating hawker food at the food centre nearby.

Despite the high prices of Clementi Ridges, I'm sure it's going to be a tough fight to get a unit.  Reviews are saying that getting a unit is like winning TOTO!  Good luck and I share the excitement!

Anyway, here is a summary of March's BTO prices.  Clementi is ridiculously expensive and have breached the 500psf price.  It wasn't too long ago that you could get a suburban condominium for around that price.

And here's the average rental yield from Q2 2009.  Rents seem to have risen like prices have.

P.S. Data from HDB.  Use at your own risk.

Did I mention that I'm really excited about collecting our keys this Friday?  *wee.  All I see in my mind now is my future home, Scandinavian styled warm wood flooring with bright white kitchen.

We have met up with a few interior designers, and it hasn't been such a great experience.  I reckon the Scandinavian style has not caught up with most of the interior designers here.  The featured ones in magazines can produce the look and feel I want, at a price tag of easily $80k.  Quotations I have gotten is an estimated $40-$50k, excluding electrical and plumbing works, nor the stoves, hood, toilet bowls and sinks and rain showers.  Did you know that a rain shower can easily cost $1k?! I'm gonna blog about my experience with interior designers soon.

Did I mention that I'm really excited?