Renovation (prelude)

After getting the keys to our house 2 weeks ago, we are now in the process of selecting our renovator. We have decided not to go the Interior Designer (ID) route, because we need to save costs and have heard that IDs jack up their prices by about 30% compared to contractors. And apparently, most IDs in Singapore are actually contractors. And anyway, I have a whole stack of home and design magazines to glean ideas from. But the bottomline is, we want to save money. Having said that, my principal is "what needs to be done has to be done". My husband's view differ abit in the sense that "if you can live with it, don't renovate it/if it's still good, recycle it". Case in point : The Kitchen. Ah, too much details to go into, I'll elaborate another time. So anyway we have at last reached an agreement to renovate almost the entire house, mostly the flooring, the kitchen and both toilets. Yesterday was the first time we met with 2 contractors at our new place, and soon after the contractors left we had an argument with each other, followed by the silent and cold treatment. This usually happens when we need to make decisions and have differing views. It's ok, this is part of married life, isn't it? My husband is more rational and level-headed, while I'm more impulsive and emotional, so at the end of the day we reach a balance and hope it'll work out for the best.

So anyway, have you heard of "overlaying" tiles? Hacking away the old tiles cost quite abit of money and one of the contractors suggested we just overlay them with new tiles. Easier than hacking and save cost. Initially this sounded like a good idea, but after we did some research and talked to other more "experienced" people (our dads) we decided that it is not such a good idea, one that we're not comfortable with.

Going through the house with the contractors really opened our eyes to see all the flaws with the existing condition of the house, and it's not really a pretty sight (it's a 14 year old property without much work done on the existing structure). The door frames, the flooring, the ceiling, the woodwork, the electricals, the plumbing, the AMOUNT OF WORK needed and the MONEY needed to get it done. We were a little depressed after that, maybe that was also why we had a meltdown with each other. Thankfully the quoted cost for now is still within our budget, but we have yet to include the cost of appliances and fixtures. Waiting for another quote and hopefully then we'll be good to get things started.