Hey guys, would like to know how did you guys renovate your condo?

My situation: I have a semi-furnished unit which comes with aircond, hood and hob, sink and other standard items. The thing right now is actually to renovate the unit according to the ID plan that I have. I have gotten someone that I know to come out with the layout and etc for the unit.

So, would really like to find out, how did you all manage the renovation process? I have the following questions:
1. Should I just appoint one main contractor and then show him the layout, then he will know what to do? Is this a common thing to do here?
2. Or will it be better to appoint different contractors for different parts? (for e.g.: built-in wardrobe, electricity wiring, wallpaper, plaster ceiling and etc).
3. As for the furniture, should I get them myself and then let the contractor install and everything? Then, should I get those furniture first before appointing the contractors to do the work or should I get it during the work? (I think furniture might take a week or two to be delivered).

As I know, there will be no wet works.

Thanks in advance for helping out a newbie!

Firstly, do you have the time to supervise all those work ?

If is yes, then go ahead as your reno mostly involve sourcing for suppliers and installation work. You need to know the flow of the reno work ... which reno to do first and last.

Otherwise, ask the 'someone' to be your main con since he is the one who came out with the design.

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This post has been edited by blancpain4470: Dec 14 2020, 09:56 PM

If I were to appoint the ID to be the main con, will he/she be in charge of sourcing for suppliers as well? (e.g.: furniture and etc).

If the renovation doesn’t involve wet works, i suggest you appoint your individual sub contractor. I am currently renovating my house and out of all sub con under my main con, only the tilers did a great job. The rest just giving me headache

Lucky for me I didn’t give wardrobe, KC & grille contract to my main con. Otherwise more headache

And for melamine based carpentry, I would highly recommend Bespoke Kitchen aka homemark

Minor hacking required for the electrical and AC piping runs.
Usually it is best to get the specialist for each field.. just like in office work, we have division of labour to ensure everything in each department works as intended.

Generally a Gen con will not know electrical code and may introduce headaches eg if they mess up the colour codes or run fake cables or undersized cables as well as compared to a proper electrician. Some elcheapo wannabe faux electrician even screw 13A socket onto thw insulation

Or a gen con who never really do full house tiling works (at most do car porches) may just slobber on five dollops of mortar per tile, and expect the cement mortar to flow like butter. This will still look ok on the outside..until say 2 pax step on the unsupported half of that one tile, maybe u do tango dance or just see see got bug somewhere...krakkk and u hurt your feet. Backbuttering both side of the tile, use spacers, etc will avoid this kind of situation. Everyone can make it stick but for quality job you also need to know how common no nos for each field, hence specialist in ea field better.

Furniture IMO best ordered late ie around 80+ to 100pc completion. Moving furniture around/trying to cover them whilst drilling/hacking/painting work still in progress will be a bother. Plus plaster ceiling will generally require all area access at some point.

Since you be paying the id, let him do the sourcing but you make the decision to buy from which suppliers. You can also do the sourcing for one or two preferred items and ask the id to follow up.

Work closely with the id and you must also be proactive by doing regular inspection of progress work. Any mistake can be rectified b4 completion.

depend on how many budget u are talking here actually.. if you have no budget concern, you can find an ID and let him do it everything for u.. but u have limited ID, source yourself and show them your ideal looks and let them do it for you..

I have reached out to a contractor and showed him/her some reference pictures but it seems that he/she are unable to provide a quote as they dont know how the actual unit looks like and what materials do we need.

I can get someone to do the ID for free but how detail does this ID need to be so that when i pass it to the contractor then he/she will know what do? (e.g.: do i need to list out the materials and etc?)

I don't think this ID friend of mine will be able to be the main con since she's doing this on a voluntarily basis and she has other full time job.

What do you guys recommend?

Of course the contractor cant give you a quote without going on site and understand exactly what you want to do, your friend need to be able to tell you exactly what is needed to be done. If you have no experience in getting your own contractors and suppliers, it is better you just pay the money to someone experience to handle for you. Free design work but you cant execute it and deliver it on your own whats the point right, worst part is that the end results did not turn out to be what is drawn

You really has to evaluate if you have the capacity to manage all this your own, if you have different sub cons you need to make sure they are all coordinated well so they don’t overlap and mess up each other works

This post has been edited by selinix: Dec 18 2020, 01:40 PM

I appointed 1 main con to subcon everything. As it's my 1st home, with no experience, better let other supervise the job. Quality is so-so, but i'm spending less than 50k for basic stuff. So can't complain much.

Same with me. Appointed one main con who sub con to all “specialist”. Quality was hit and miss. Only tiling work was perfect. The rest was so so, some even sub standard like painting. Lucky for me I look for my own sub con for carpentry & grille which is a huge portion of my budget.

I also hired one main contractor to handle everything because I'm not an expert so I rather leave it to them to handle it.

I agree with some of the comments though, that budget is a huge consideration when it comes to deciding.

If it helps, I think I found my designer through https://www.homerenoguru.sg/