Showing posts with label Renovation needs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Renovation needs. Show all posts

Dear readers, thanks for dropping by. Kindly note that I have migrated all these posts to my new blog All Things Cozy and Homely . I will blog at the new site from Jan 15 onwards.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Renovation Plans Ahead

 Image copyrighted to paretoraw

 Renovation Plans Ahead

I have fallen pretty sick for the past few days. It is fortunate that my husband, let us address him as Mr Diva for this post, was around to take care of me and our place when I was out of action.

On the first day, I clogged up our basin because I couldn’t keep any food in my tummy. Then I realised how silly I was after Mr Diva gently reminded me that I should have used the toilet bowl instead. Over the next 2 days, Mr Diva constantly fussed over me and also took the opportunity to reassess together (by the bedside when I became restless after waking up from my drug-induced sleep) how we should best remodel our nest place.

Well, since I was constantly brainstorming on how to optimise and reorganise our so-very-limited space, I leaped on this rare chance to share with him some of my mini-renovation scope of work for  the coming year.

Our Study and Guest room was deliberately left out of our original renovation scope of work as we were unsure how we should maximise the physical space. We figured that instead of wasting precious resources – read: money, time and effort – on these two rooms, we should concentrate our efforts in other areas which we utilise more often.

Well, our lifestyle needs have evolved and certain habits have somewhat converged and become shared habits after living together for around half a decade. Aside from drawing, my interests expanded to include home interior designs, trends and new media, whilst Mr Diva has taken up photography and even serious political readings! Our shared hobby is now mountain biking.

Thus, we are in serious need of customised book-shelves and cupboard to store the numerous piles of books, magazines, photos, paintings and photography equipments and tools. Not forgetting, a decent storage solution for our pair of mountain bikes too.

We also realised that our living room is more multi-dimensional that we have originally thought of; for guest entertainment, meals, studying, doing work (somehow we dislike working in the study room), relaxation and chill out after a hard day work. In fact, we spend an extraordinary amount of time there. Thus we are looking at creating more storage space in our living room to keep up with such heavy utilisation.
We have more intimate knowledge of our flat right now and realised that although our home features the much sought-after breath-taking unblocked view of part of our neighbourhood, our place is still warm especially in the first half of the year. Although the fans and air-con helped, we are looking at having solar window firms to keep the heat out and consequently, our carbon foot prints down.
When we first started our renovation journey, we concentrated heavily on our needs, and our wants were set aside. As a result, our toilets were also left untouched and as what Mr Diva always deadpanned (whenever our relatives or friends enquired about the apparent clash in our design theme), in 100% “stock-condition”. However, we have somewhat gotten really tired of the awfully mismatched wall tiles – all thanks to aesthetically-challenged HDB architect – and desperately wished for a decent face-lift.
We felt that this mini to-do-renovation-list might be a bit too ambitious to accomplish over the upcoming year. Even though we have narrowed down our scope, we have yet to perform some decent ball-park figure on the total expected expenses and work out a decent renovation plan.
Well nevertheless, let us see how these will work out over the next year.  :)

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Dear readers, thanks for dropping by. Kindly note that I have migrated all these posts to my new blog All Things Cozy and Homely . I will blog at the new site from Jan 15 onwards.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

How to make Your Home Elderly Proof: Part 1 - Making Your Home User-friendly

 

How to make Your Home Elderly Proof:

Part 1 - Making Your Home User-friendly

Interior design is meant to increase the quality of our life. Thus planning for a renovation without considering the needs of the elderly members will be detrimental. Unfortunately, I have seen too many young couples who are too caught up with constructing their “dream” home that they have sadly sidelined the needs of their aged parents or grandparents.

In fact, I am very disheartened to see that so much emphasis is placed in the look and feel of the home design that they forgot that a home is ultimately where our loved ones live in. Don't these couple know that their aged family members have feelings and specific needs too? To me, it is ironic that a house is so stylishly and modernly furnished and yet, our loved ones faced difficulty living in it.
Why is making a home elderly proof so important?

In addition, these couple fail to realize is that by making their home elderly proof also means that their senior family members get to maintain their independence and this means a whole world to them. In fact, the elderly prided their autonomy very much and want to move around the house with minimal assistance.


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Dear readers, thanks for dropping by. Kindly note that I have migrated all these posts to my new blog All Things Cozy and Homely . I will blog at the new site from Jan 15 onwards.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Why do you need a Renovation Plan?

Why do we start with a Plan?

Many people, in their over enthusiasm to jump start the renovation, plunged head on into the process without a proper plan. This is hardly recommended, especially for people who are new to renovation.

“Why?” Some of you might wonder, “So what is the big deal of having a renovation plan?”







Well, a good renovation plan prevents cost over-run and delays. It even makes sure that the renovation work delivered by the Contractor or ID is of certain quality standards.

On the other hand, some of you do believe in having a renovation plan, but have mistakenly thought that the contractor or ID whom you have employed, will have a renovation plan.

Unfortunately, most contractors or IDs' idea of a renovation plan is very loosely defined, with them paying more attention to their payment milestones instead of ensuring that their work will be completed within the given budget, quality standards or on time. This is simply because Contractors and ID firms are profit driven. In fact, they are most certainly glad to persuade you to spend more on additional fixtures and renovation works which you have not planned for.

Furthermore, some unscrupulous Contractors or IDs might even “accidentally” leave out certain scope of work so as to “meet” your budget during the initial contract discussion, only to have them discretely added into the renovation works much later on.





On other hand, popular contractors and ID firms might have to extend the given renovation timeline due to the over-whelming number of renovation projects at hand.

Thus, a well thought out renovation plan should be able to help to prevent cost over-runs and delays.

In actual fact, it is interesting to note that renovation contractor and ID firms love to highlight the design skills that their contractors and IDs are capable of producing. Just take a walk around and you will notice a thick catalog full of photos and pictures depicting home design belonging to their past clients.  

Some companies went as far as saying that their company is ISO 9000/9001 certified; which by the way simply means that their company has been audited that they have the proper paper work and procedures in place. This has very little or no relation to whatever they are capable of completing the renovation works to your satisfaction. However, you can take comfort that at least companies with ISO 9001 certification will have a proper complaint procedure.

In addition, I observed none of the Contractor or ID forms highlight that they are capable of deploying successful renovation projects; which means meeting the key performance indicators (K.P.I). These targets should include completing the renovation project:

1)      Within budget;
2)      Within timeline;
3)      Meeting the Requirements and Scope (i.e. design, look and feel of the home interiors);
4)      Meeting Quality Standards and
5)      Meeting Customer Expectations and Satisfaction.
 
These are essential key indicators of a successful renovation project deployment.

In the IT industry, people handing IT projects are expected to be PMI PMP (Project Management Process) certified. Unfortunately, in the Renovation industry these Contractors and IDs are not expected to undergo similar certification. So, how do they learn to manage a renovation project? The more fortunate ones have an experienced “Shi-fu” aka Master whom they can learn from while the rest learn through trial and errors on their own.  

However fret not, there are some good project management practices which you can use in managing your renovation project and ensure that your contractor and ID are on the right track.

I will cover these practices in my subsequent posts. :)

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Dear readers, thanks for dropping by. Kindly note that I have migrated all these posts to my new blog All Things Cozy and Homely . I will blog at the new site from Jan 15 onwards.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Lifestyle - "All day home" and "Out all day" Renovation needs

All Day Home Renovation needs

If you are spending more than 70% of your time at home, space management and storage needs is inevitably the most important area you should pay attention too.

Space management: Arrange and plan the kind of activities you would do during the morning, day and night. Plan a place for entertainment, a place for work (if you bring your work home) and place for play. If you any particular hobby you might need display cabinets, storage needs for tools and materials.

The checklist can be as follows:
  • Areas for entertaining, work and play
  • Comfortable cooking and eating area
  • Sufficient storage spaces
  • Computer room (for those who work from home)
  • etc

Out All Day Renovation needs

If you are spending more than 70% of your time outside, you might not need so much storage needs. Instead, the time you spend at home will most probably be for relaxation after a long day outside.

The checklist can be as follows:
  • Minimum storage requirements
  • Minimum cooking needs
  • Display cabinets
  • etc

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