Our personal reviews on Contractors & Interior Designers

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18) ID, Irene (Intra Design)
Contacts From?: Forum - Highly Recommended in forum
Quotation Received?: No
Verdict: Dropped
Experience: Very Bad
In short, she is the worst ID / Contractor we ever met.
We offered to email her our requirement prior to the meetup but she rejected our offer even though we said we got some geomancer's requirement that we need to follow. We then went ahead to meet her, after showing her the requirement, she actually give us the very difficult to do face and then she really had difficultly doing the space planning.

We do not think that having geomancer's requirement is new and the only difficulty we had is the slanted stove, which is so easy to draw on paper though might be technically difficult to build.

She also do not know what is the differences between a island table and a L-shape table. She gave us recommendation blindly, like asking us to build our table that way, but can't be done because there will be NO more space for other important things like fridge and washing machine. When we told her it can't be done, she just anyhow amend to fit in.

Whenever we asked her for alternative to her wonderful "space planning" she proposed, she will just say things like "bo bian since you consult feng shui, then design has to be ugly", "Your layout too small, bo bian, got to leave with the small space and ugly design".

In actual fact, her layout is not only ugly but not workable too. Come on, isn't a ID supposed to solve my problem. She told us that she cannot do magic and even ask us how how other IDs have proposed. We refused to say and she told us we can engage another ID if we prefer their design.

Lastly, she told us she will give us the quotation after 2 weeks and refused to give us earlier. I guess she purposely drag so long so that we will not look for her anymore. As expected, no news from her since then.

To date, we have talk to 17 others ID and contractor and no one talk, behave and design the way she do. To think that someone like her have got good reviews in the forum, It's either the people house is very standard and requires no design, or that the person giving good comments is herself!


17) ID, Dave (Intra Design)
Contacts From?: Forum - Highly Recommended in forum
Quotation Received?: No
Verdict: Dropped
Experience: Neutral
Never respond to us at all.

16) ID, Kenneth (Ideal House)
Contacts From?: Forum - Highly Recommended in forum
Quotation Received?: Yes
Verdict: So far so good
Experience: So far so good
We called him and he said he is very busy and ask us to call back again in 3 weeks time and we really did call back in 3 weeks time =P He then asked us to email him our layout and requirement and we were quite okay with the pricing though some is not very applicable, thus we arrange to meet him at his office.

We were pretty comfortable with him and find him very easy-going and finally awarded the contract to him =)

15) ID, Roy (Inzen)
Contacts From?: Forum - Recommended in forum
Quotation Received?: Yes
Verdict: Neutral
Experience: Neutral
He was only recommended in the forum recently and i think out of a sudden, he received alot of customers and our guess is that, he is unable to cope.

It took him 2 weeks to give us the quotation and it was very incomplete thus we arrange for an appointment at our new house. Only on the day itself, he changed the appointment venue to his office because he was busy with one of his customer.

We reached his office and waited quite a while, he told his designer to show us some of his portfolio which is not at all interesting. Finally got to talk to him, took quite a while to break the ice but nevertheless, we were comfortable with him though he wasn't very comfortable in doing the slanted stove. We discuss about our requirements and then he said he can give us the revised quotation few days later.

We waited but did not receive the revised quotation and send him sms to remind. He then promise to send like within that few days but did not. Sms-ed him then no reply and decided to call him but nobody pick up. He called back within the same day and finally send us the revised quotation. We were wondering if we can really trust someone who is so not-contactable...

We then arrange to meet him and was annoyed that we do not have enough time to communicate with him. When we reach there, he was with another customer and we waited like 15minutes and after a while, another of his customer came. Everything seems to be so rush...

We were considering between him and Kenneth but in the end we awarded the contract to kenneth because we were afraid he couldn't handle so many projects. And main thing is that, we wasn't comfortable with someone who is so busy, might be un-contactable and someone who cannot afford to spend more than half an hour with us...

14) ID, Andrew (Fuse Concept)
Contacts From?: Forum - Recommended in forum
Quotation Received?: Yes
Verdict: Dropped
Experience: Bad

We wanted very much to award the contract to him, however things changed after he gave us the proposal and quotation. It is not about the design or the price but the kind of 'attitude' he choose to give us, and until now we are clueless on why he bahaved this way.

Sigh, It's really a pity.

Anyway, designers are weird... Perhaps he changed his mind and do not want to do our house anymore, or he is unhappy because we make comparison on the quotation he gave and the one his colleague Jet gave last year or just because he is over-confident that we will award the contract to him?

On the day he shown us the proposal and quotation, we were very impressed with the design. He remember every single information we gave him and came out with a layout that meet our requirement. The quotation is 20k after GST but the budget we gave him is just 18k(It should include GST, but he didn't ask so we didn't say too). Though it is more than our budget, we appreciate that he really did try to keep the cost low and not compromising on the design. He told us that he will not press us for an answer right away... but...

He sms-ed us for an answer the very next day! Not only that, he was very persistent...

There was some miscellanous items which add up to $1200 whilst Jet's quotation is FOC, we told Andrew and he kindly explained to us that the previous profit margin might be higher. He said he can give me all these free if i pay him 25k, but of course i take it as a joke...

Well, the thing is, the previous contract is around 20k without GST but Jet did mention he is willing to absorb the GST for us and the items we are doing is more or less the same so profit margin should not varies that much. Whatever it is, we didn't voice this up to him at all.

He then said the current quotation is already within our budget of 18k cos' he assume 18k budget is without GST, If we want it to be 18k inclusive of GST, he is unable to do so. Then later told us he is willing to absorb half of the 7% GST if we can commit by end of the month, which is ending in few days time.

Actually we wasn't really persistent in asking for discount, but he was persistent and even told us either he can give me the half of 7% discount or some freebies. We kinda feel that he is giving us a take it or leave it attitude. It is like we ask one question, he shoot us back with many many explanation. It seems like he is very eager to close the deal and want us to give him an answer right away.

We requested for showflats but he told us he has hand over most of the units, later told us he has one unit which can be view within 2 days because he is going to hand over soon. We agreed but on the day itself, just 20minutes before our appointment time, he sms-ed us and told us he is there but cannot view because the owner lock the main door. Well he did apologize...

We ask him to arrange for another one again and few days later, he sms-ed us whether we want to view the same flat on that day. We agreed and he said he will check with the owner then no news for few hours. We then sms him and asked "Is the viewing of showflat confirmed?". His reply was "It is not a showflat, we do not have showflat that is one of my project, it is never a showflat." We really felt very annoyed with his reply and ever since... no news from him.

13) ID, Gary Wong (Violet Interior Pte Ltd)
Contacts From?: Random Visit in Expo's roadshow.
Quotation Received?: Yes
Experience: Bad
Verdict: Dropped
As our new flat came with homogenous tiles with parquet skirting, and parquet flooring with parquet skirting, we were unable to use the promotion package. Thus we could not use the package. The budgetary quotation given by him was rather expensive. This guy seemed inexperienced, and later his senior entertained us. It seemed quite weird. I was wondering if his so-called senior was really capable. The measurements which he gave was way too off.


12) ID, Paul (Homeworkz Interior Pte Ltd)
Contacts From?: Random Walk-in Visit (From Newspaper Advertisement)
Quotation Received?: Yes
Verdict: Dropped
Experience: Very Bad
Was this guy an ID in the first place? Had he ever done any renovation before? Or he was living in his own era? We were shocked when he asked us where was the rubbish chute in the flat. And he seemed very blur throughout the whole discussion. Simply a waste of our time. Whenever we proposed something, he would bring us to see the few samples, asking if this was what we wanted in the design. Was our English so bad or his command of English was so poor? Furthermore, he quoted $1800 for painting of our 5-room flat with only 3 choices of colour.

He was very 'sincere', contacted us few times asking for our decision and send promotional sms saying they can absorb the GST if we sign within the week. The latest news we got from him is that he has opened his own company Classic 3D Design, and he is willing to abosrt the GST.


11) Ahmad Zaky (Dynamics - Oriental Interiors and Concept Pte Ltd)
Name / Company:
Contacts From?: Random Walk-in Visit
Quotation Received?: Yes
Experience: Neutral
Verdict: Dropped
This company only does Kitchen and the selling point they claimed is that they use Blum system. We were losing hope in choosing the correct IDs / Contractor and thought this company will be good for us since Blum = Good. We got a verbal quote of 6k, which we felt is rather reasonable because some companies quote us this amount too...

We checked with Blum and confirmed Blum only sell the parts mainly to contractors and they do not have a company or recommended company to do Kitchen for consumers. After some thoughts, we think this company is just like a normal contractor company that use blum.


10) ID, Khoo Hock Leng (Weiken)
Contacts From?: Random Walk-in Visit
Quotation Received?: Yes
Verdict: Dropped
Experience: Good
Khoo looked very senior to us, perhaps due to his white hair. He gave us the quotation on the spot. We kinda feel that he lacked creativity.

On the visit to our new flat, he advised us not to change the hollow tiles as these might affect the rest of the unaffected tiles in the future. He then cited a few cases of why tiles in some HDB flats came popping out. He also showed us a sketch of the layout in 2D view of the kitchen and study room, and gave us an official quotation on the same day. There were some reductions in the quotation. He also mentioned to us that management would start to implement GST starting 1 May 2008.

Well, we would have considered him if the quotation was much cheaper.


9) ID, Lance Ching (Home Guide Design & Contracts Pte Ltd)
Contacts From?: Crystalbelle
Quotation Received?: Yes
Verdict: Dropped
Experience: Good
Our impression of Lance was that he is rather creative in his design and thoughts, mainly because he has the designer style(風格). He did proposed a space planning layout based on our basic requirements, instead of us telling him what exactly we want.

At this stage, we have already paid the 10% deposit to Jason from Unimax, but Lance was very sincere so we went ahead to meet him for the proposal and quotation as planned. One of our geomancer's requiremenet is that there should not have any Fridge directly opposite our stove and he made this mistake. We kinda feel that he is not paying enough attention to our kitchen.

The quotation is quite shocking. He charged us on every little small items which most IDs could turn a blind eye to. For similar items in the list, it is like 3k more expensive than Unimax's quotation and when i told him that, he said this is normal. He did gave us an overall discount of 10% and round down to the nearest thousand but still it is too expensive.

We would have considered him if the quotation was much cheaper.


8) ID, Melvin (Ideal House)
Contacts From?: Jinny
Quotation Received?: No
Verdict: Dropped
Experience: Bad
We made an appointment with him and he informed us on the meeting day itself that he had overlooked his other appointments and got to postpone our appointment to the next day. Then he did not turn up giving us lame excuses that he rode a bike and was caught in the heavy rain. Even though we agreed to wait for him, he just refused.

He didn't even bother to call and apologize and no news ever since.


7) Contractor, Charles (Company Unknown - No Name Card given)
Contacts From?: Terence's boss
Quotation Received?: No
Verdict: Dropped
Experience: Neutral
We met him in our new house and everything was going on fine but it seems that he is not very confident of doing our slanted stove too. He then promised to get back to us the very next week for a quotation but he went Missing-In-Action. SMS-ed him but no reply!


6) Contractor, Alan Choi (Company Unknown - Name Card misplaced)
Contacts From?: Mint
Quotation Received?: No
Verdict: Dropped
Experience: Neutral
We met him in our new house and it seems that he is not very confident of doing our slanted stove. He even mention something like asking us to talk to the carpenter directly on what we want to do! He then promised to get back to us the very next week for a quotation but he went Missing-In-Action.


5) Contractor, Stanley Teo (Kim Teck Lee Renovation Contractor)
Contacts From?: Lynn (Valerie's Sister)
Quotation Received?: Yes
Verdict: Dropped
Experience: Neutral
Stanley seemed to be very experienced but refused to listen to our requirements, very stubborn in nature and said we got no choice but to follow his proposed layout because of our slanted stove position. Despite all these, we are confident that he can do a good job, mainly because he just renovated Lynn's house not long ago.

We had high expectations of him that the quotation would be much more cheaper but was disappointed that the price of individual items quoted was either the same or even more expensive than what Jason from Unimax quoted.

We would have considered him if the quotation was much cheaper.


4) ID, Jason Yip (Unimax Creative / Unimax Creation)
Name / Company:
Contacts From?: Random
Quotation Received?: Yes
Verdict: Selected and paid 10% Deposit.
Experience: Terribly horrible. Highly NOT recommended.

In short, he lied and then twists his words. Imagine our renovation haven even started and we getting this kind of shit from him.

Not to mention we found out the quotation he gave us is so much higher! Though we are very pissed off with him, we are really pleased and feel so fortunate that we did not engage him only to have problems during the renovation.

Please read here for more details...

ID, Jason Yip (Unimax Creative / Unimax Creation) - Part 1

ID, Jason Yip (Unimax Creative / Unimax Creation) - Part 2

ID, Jason Yip (Unimax Creative / Unimax Creation) - Part 3

ID, Jason Yip (Unimax Creative / Unimax Creation) - Part 4

3) ID, Alan Neo (GPlan Design Pte Ltd)
Contacts From?: Walk-in Visit because company is highly recommended in forum.
Quotation Received?: No
Verdict: Dropped
Experience: Neutral
Another typical Interior "Designer". After a discussion with Alan at GPlan, we arranged for a second appointment to view one of his show flats near our new house and he promised to give us the quotation on that day. But in the end he said he was too busy and would emailed us in a few days time. No news ever since.

The show flat we visited was already occupied by a young couple. Not sure whether the young couple maintained the flat properly or not, as the workmanship seemed to be quite bad.

Well, We feel that they are over-rated in forum.


2) ID, Chris Chua (Summit Design)
Contacts From?: Random Visit in Expo's roadshow.
Quotation Received?: No
Verdict: Dropped
Experience: Bad.
Just like a typical Interior "Designer", we have to tell him exactly what we want to do. He even promised to give us a 3D design and quotation in 2 weeks time but no news ever since. Simply a waste of our time.


1) ID, Jet Li (Fuse Concept Pte Ltd)
Contacts From?: Squarerooms magazine, "Interior Design Plans for free" promotion form.
Quotation Received?: Yes
Verdict: Dropped
Experience: Very Good
In short, we weren't ready yet. We were not prepared for the renovation, clueless about renovation, clueless about what we wanted, not sure when we wanted to start and had yet to consult a geomancer. We also unsure what was our budget.

Jet was the first ID we met and he was the only one whom we could rest assured that he would be able to give us an unique design that was different from the rest. A young chap full of ideas, everything he proposed he was able to explain to us the reasons behind it.

He didn't seem to like the idea of us engaging a geomancer as this would restrict his ideas and designs. After we engaged a geomancer and got back to him regarding the slanted stove position, he seemed to be completely clueless on how to design our kitchen. He also commented that if we were to start our renovation only end of the year, it is better for us to start looking for a interior designer / contractor later part of the year because design trends and material prices would be different by then. We were also worried that he only knew design and might not be able to control the whole renovation progress well, thus we didn't follow up with him.

We did consider meeting him again with our new requirements and see what he can proposed, but decided to give his colleague, Andrew, a try instead.

Last Updated: June 14, 2008