Our Home Renovation by Ciseern

Since I have been having queries from friends and online forumers alike regarding our home renovation, I think it is best if I just share it here for everyone :)

So we were scouting around looking for contractors and Interior Designers, which most of them didn't seem like they were interested in doing business with us, till we happen to bumped into a home renovation exhibition over at the Singapore Expo.

There, we were approached by an ID from Ciseern called Kenneth. He wasn't rushing into our pockets and he explained in detailed the packages they were offering. Everything seems good and they even had free gifts to sweeten the deal.

Anyways, we ended up taking their package. Which consists of the following for a 5-room HDB Flat:

1. Kitchen homogeneous tile flooring
2. Kitchen top bottom cabinets/countertop
3. Laminated flooring of Living room and 3 Bedrooms
4. Tile flooring for Balcony
5. Wiring layout for house
6. 8 different colours to choose for whole house painting including doors.
7. Glass shower screen

And an additional payment of $500 for the sand required for the kitchen and balcony floorings.

Free Gifts:
1. Mitsubishi inverter air-con system for the 3 bedrooms (inclusive of installation)
2. Built in full top-bottom Wardrobe for master bedroom.
3. Mayer's Delizia Kitchen Hob and Hood Set
4. Choice of OM's Furniture Sofa set OR Dining table set (Free to choose designs available at OM's Showroom. Price Capped at $1.6k)

TOTAL Package Price: $21k ++

Downpayment of $800 to secure deal.
The rest were paid in stages via cheque from the bank servicing our renovation loan.

Below is the floor plan of our house.

I have also included the progress of the renovation that I managed to keep record of:

Renovation works progress

1^st Sept 2011

·         Tilings and sands move arrive

4^th Sept 2011

·         Work start

             Balcony tiling done

5^th Sept 2011

·         Kitchen tiling start

·         Kenneth quoted that fridge base not required. Minus off a bit from package cost– to confirm again the amount.

·         Kenneth to inform when can order the lightings and heaters by next week (tentatively will inform on 12^th sept)

22^nd Sept 2011

·         Kitchen tiling done

·         Balcony tiling done

·         Master Bedroom Shower Kerb Done

·         Fixing of Air-con trunkings done

26^th Sept 2011

·         Floor Lamination starts today

·         Painting of house to start within this week.

We eventually got our keys in early October after the house washing( including chemical wash for the kitchen floors) and the renovation was considered completed.


Things to Note:
- Kenneth brought us to the selection of the floor tiling type over at Balestier. (a well known tiling company) after which we went to do our shopping for our ceiling fan, water heater and lightings.

- Kenneth told us to inform him on the date of delivery of the lightings etc. so that he can arrange for his contractors to help us out FOC with the installations so that we do not need to  pay installation costs for these items from the shops. This free service will also include installation of any TV Mounts and curtain rods etc. Basically anything that requires drilling.

- For those of you planning to do Laminated floorings for their house, please note that if you are buying a brand new house, typically BTO, you will need to inform HDB to come over and do a floor screeding for the rooms that you intend to install your laminated floorings. This is an FOC service provided by HDB. But be warned that sometimes the contractors that HDB engages will delay these requests which will of course delay your whole house renovation. So you, as the owner, will have to keep chasing HDB like i did. Floor Screeding can be requested via HDB's website.

Below are some of the picture of our house and the renovation process:



Floor Screeding done prior to commencement of Renovation works.

The pile of sand that costs $500. Which I think was a little expensive.

Floor Screeding of the living room & Dining area

Some pictures of the renovation works already done:

One of the Air-conditioning given to us as a free gift.

Laminated Flooring fully completed in 2 days

The Built-In Wardrobe for the Master Bedroom

 Lights and Fan installed by Ciseern's contractors

The Free Delizia Kitchen Hob and Hood just arrived

One of the Toilet's light that we got for $10 each at Wihardja Teak  Furniture Kaki Bukit Showroom during their Grand Opening.

The view where the Tv and Tv console would be placed.

 Dining area Lighting installed

Common Bedroom 2

90% complete Kitchen Cabinet and countertop. Comes with soft closing cabinet doors.

Completed and Furnished house.

Furnitures by Om's Furnitures, Ikea and Wihardja Teak Furnitures.

Special thanks to the prople from Ciseerns Interior Design, Ikea Singapore, Om's Furnitures,

and Wihardja Teak Furnitures all for making our dream house come true!

Things to Note:

We later decided to install our window grilles since we were soon expecting our little bundle of joy. We did some research and decided to have the Invisible Grille installed for our balcony and the normal grilles for the rest of the house windows. We managed to get the friendly professionals from Invisys to get this job done. Stay tuned for pictures to this update!