hunting for interior designer #1

within a short time of 6 hours, dear and me had discussions with 2 IDs and ikea! not bad for a start i think.. =))

1st stop: six dimension design & decor pte ltd
person-in-charge: steven tay

this is an uncle in his late 40s/early 50s, looks very "lao jiao" aka old bird. seems to be very experienced when he talks. well, quite systematic lah, go thru one portion one portion and asks us what we want. generally is quite ok except when we are discussing about the master bedroom, he kept on commeting that the layout is no good, the room is small so no place to put wardrobe and suggested that we hack here hack there to gain more space.. well the more hacking we do, the more he can earn mah.. also commented that we cannot have sliding door for kitchen lah coz no space, so can only do foldable or swing frame door.. most bue tahan one is he suggested that the fridge door cannot face the toilet door coz dirty.. then i shoot him back by saying why not face the fridge door in another direction?? he was speechless..

best part is when it comes to the price, he estimated that the min is $25k-$30k and our jaws nearly touched the floor. wtf?! ours is a 75m2 and it cost min $25k? this is daylight looting! after i told him that our budget is below $20k you can see a change in his tone.. and kept on saying its worthwhile to spend 10% of the house price for renovation and so on.. and his company is still surviving after so long coz he "earn a comfortable margin for survival". i was like: wtf!? $30k for renovation is reasonable? furthermore from a consumer point of view, do i care if your company still exists 5 years down the road? so long as i get the best price for the work done thats my concern! you mean i should pay you extra so that you can "earn comfortably for survival?" thats a joke!!


2nd stop: ikea tampines
person-in-charge: aloysius yeo

very friendly guy who helped us drew up the floor plan and 3D view of the kitchen using ikea cabinets and stuffs. we quite like the layout and design with the red theme but coz its not custom made, there is possibility of small gaps and it will look pretty ugly. well.. the price also not very cheap: $4k++ for the kitchen.. *gasps*


3rd stop: ideal house pte ltd
person-in-charge: johnny shang

another friendly guy. waited for us for almost an hour. haha.. coz we jammed at ikea tampines mah. his approach was to offer us a package price for all the basic necessity then we discuss further on the add-ons which we will like to have, eg feature wall, platform, shoe rack, shower screen, etc. showed us quite a few designs which were pretty nice and gave us some ideas also. overall find that he is ok except his colour combination seems limited as he always likes to use the same colours for different clients, so it may end up that all his clients have the same colour scheme! we need to have our idea to avoid that issue..

the basic package itself is about $11k and the add-ons should come up to $18k. well, we will need to see which are not necessary so as to fit into our budget of S15k..