Why I've decided to start this blog

A few months ago, we launched our new website http://www.meridiandesign.com.my/ . Alas! Since the new site is maintained by the webhost company, I'm unable to upload photos and my new designs anytime that I want to. Hence the thought came that I can still share my thoughts and inspirations on a blog like this!

Through this blog, I hope to achieve a few things :

1) Educating people about home renovations.

In Malaysia where contractors are not regulated by any laws or a statutory body, we frequently hear of people being given a raw deal or worse, being cheated by contractors. I hope to be able to educate people to better protect themselves and most of all to let people know that a new generation of contractors are emerging and what we are doing are quite unlike those whom your parents' generation dealt with.

2) To provide ID and project management service at a reasonable price.

It is our passion and mission to provide ID and project management service at a reasonable price. First and foremost, we do not charge a separate ID fee if the whole contract is awarded to us. To make this workable and feasible, we try to save costs in other ways WITHOUT SACRIFICING on quality and workmanship.

This is how we save cost :

a) The most expensive cost is TIME. We save time by not drawing the whole house but only areas that require renovation work.

b) We also save TIME by not drawing the whole layout of the house, the frontviews, sideviews, etc. - whichever is not necessary for the client to make a decision. We only prepare simple paperwork for our production workers.

c) We do not prepare the time-consuming full coloured 3D design before confirmation of order. During proposal stage, I normally do a quick hand-sketch to submit together with the quotation. While some IDs prepare the 3D drawing after collection of deposit and quotation is per square feet, I believe customers need to know what the quoted price is for and how the proposed design will be like before paying. Therefore a quick way to present this is by sketches.

d) We save overheads by having a website as an online showroom. Because we do not have to pay hefty rental bills and having heavy investment put up in the form of showroom sets, we save costs. We therefore are able to sell cheaper than showrooms by passing on this cost-savings to customers. We bring potential customers to current projects to view and judge for themselves the workmanship and quality.