Gorilla and Mushroom Renovation

Doing a search on the forum Renotalk forums and this forum Singaporebrides forums would usually bring up quite a few threads on this topic

Anyways... to start you off, there are a few questions you need to ask yourself first
1) What is your renovation budget?
2) Are you the kind of person who is willing to maintain a high maintenance floor?

The norm for most families these days, Homogeneous is a popular choice... and laminates for the bedrooms are a close second

Kitchen, usually use non-slip homogeneous as well

The market rate today...can range anywhere from $2.20 all the way to $15.00, depending on who you get it from, where you get it from and what brand you are getting.

Different colors also command different pricing, whiter colors commanding slightly more than the colored ones within the same range for a particular model

Based on my renovation research, and using the average quotes...
doing laminates, including installation, works out to about $4.50 - $6.00
doing homogeneous for the same area, including labor and wastage, works out to about $5.00 - $6.50
depending on the price of tiles or laminates one chooses... the difference is not really a lot if one is choosing similar priced materials

the cheapest flooring we got for a 128m^2 area, excluding the toilets, is about $5.5-6k
Usually the labor cost vs material cost is about 1:1.5
That is what we were using as the yardstick to compare the different renovation IDs

Polished Homogeneous tiles from which country is good .. China or Malaysia ?
Hmmm... from my various conversations with the different suppliers, we gathered that Malaysia tiles are really dependant on luck... if you happen to get a good batch, all the tiles will be evenly thick, else, it will be a nightmare for the tiler who is going to lay your floor

as for china Homomogeneous, well, according to most of the suppliers, as long as the tiles are in the >$3.00 range, you are quite safe. Cos of a more stringent QC, that is why the price range is around there.
Again, if you decided on a tile around say $2.50 to $2.80, there should not be an issue as well, as the cost of creating the tiles really varies on the color, the whiter it is, the more expensive. QC is still done on those tiles as well, maybe material used is different... I guess

Champion tiles (the brand) are the favourites among the china homo tiles for the plain colored ones, but if you are looking at tiles with patterns or grains, champion will have less choices.

end of the day, as long as you like the tile, and looking at it, you feel that the tile is good, then go for it. You can always tell the sales person to lay at least two pieces of your selected tile on the floor to let you get a general feel of what it would look like.

Point to note though, looking at the tile on the wall and feeling it with your hands, it totally different from looking at it on the floor and stepping and feeling it with your feet!

More on the characteristics of the different tiles and materials available for flooring in my next post!

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