Homeowner in S'pore had crazy 5 months of interior design hell

You wouldn't want to be them.

Guan Zhen Tan | February 01, 2017, 07:09 PM

If you've seen one of those home makeover shows, the narrative sounds simple enough.

After experiencing various obstacles with the home renovation works that look as if everything is going to go completely haywire, the eventual result is still a cosy place to call home.

But for a husband-and-wife pair in Singapore, the happy ending never seemed to arrive.

Writing on her site Shopmytiki, the woman related the experience of undergoing five months of interior design hell in detail.

 

Background

The interior design company she engaged to work on her new home had initially promised to take two months maximum to complete renovation work, which started in September 2016, after discussions had taken place a month earlier.

However, the two people in-charge (referred to as IDs, short for interior designers) of the project resigned early on, supposedly due to personal matters, and left the project in the hands of Staff A.

That was when things went downhill for the couple.

Slow or no responses

Staff A (whose name is censored in blue) was often non-responsive and not returning messages and calls from the couple.

The homeowner couple then requested Staff B, who is the boss of Staff A, to take over the project, but Staff A continued to oversee the renovation works.

 

Shoddy work complaints

Staff A's lack of communication was only the tip of the iceberg, as more problems surfaced over the course of the project.

This included tiles that were supposed to be used but were left at the void deck:

Cheaper materials and paint being bought and used, despite clear instructions for better quality items:

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The scheduling was also a mess, with workers coming in at the wrong time, or not even coming on the agreed date at all.

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Cover-ups

Subsequently, the woman's husband even found out by accident that the air-conditioner pipe wasn't fixed before the tiles were placed over it.

This caused ugly water marks on the wall as a result of leakage.

The couple had no choice, but to hack the wall to prevent the issue from worsening.

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The kitchen was not spared either, as the brand-new cooking hood was in bad condition after installation.

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Boss battle

After experiencing the above issues and more, the couple resorted to telling Staff B again to take over the project instead.

However, difficult contractors and unsatisfactory responses from Staff B (censored in orange) continued.

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Throughout the entire ordeal, Staff A and B did not apologise to the couple.

The company speaks up 

Fortunately, or unfortunately, the matter had not gone unnoticed.

In a recent Facebook post by the interior design company in question, it appears that they have responded.

As seen in the post below, they mentioned having "the respective manager and staff internally censured (sic)", which is a vague statement but may indicate some kind of action taken against Staff A and B.

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The upside is that other previous satisfied customers who used the services of the interior design company were quick to express their shock, as they had satisfactory experiences previously.

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But some respondents had pointed out that the company had given them problems before as well, including Staff B.

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It seems that the problem was ultimately with irresponsible IDs, rather than the company.

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We can only hope we won't meet with a real-life horror story like this and learn a little more about what can actually happen during home renovations.

 

All images (except for Facebook screenshots) via

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