D'Brain Studio

[Update 11.4.22 ID was fully employed by d’brain at time of renovation and d’brain is refusing to take responsibility for the mess. My hope is the company will go down D’DRAIN.] You may think that getting a bad experience with an ID is like getting Covid - everyone is getting it but it won’t happen to you. Don’t ever believe that. Don’t even think about and consider engaging them. Unless stress, anxiety, cost, poor workmanship, forever chasing, unprofessionalism, 8-month long reno suffering is what you are looking for. You DO NOT want to take the risk. The stress, anxiety and cost are not worth it. Our floors that we wanted to keep from the previous owners weren’t well protected and that eventually led to us having to change them. Incurred cost. ID ordered window and grilles but instead of having the window people installing them, the foreign workers installed. They are not skilled for the job and the sliding windows and grilles are now not running smoothly. Like the floors that we wanted to keep, they also made a mistake with the bedroom window grilles that we wanted to keep. The ID instructed the worker to remove the grilles. Which were not supposed to be removed. The grilles were then fixed back, but the metals were already bent out of shape and the grilles couldn’t even slide to open and close. Can you imagine the frustration? THEN the ID said he will do another set of grilles and low and behold, measurement was made wrongly and the grilles did not fit into the window bracket. It was way too big. The kids’ bedroom windows are now grille-less, when we actually had perfectly good grilles. The plumber and worker who fixed our accessories were either not skilled or didn’t take their job seriously. The water pipes were not aligned properly, there were cracks on our tiles due to their drilling, towel racks are loose from their fixing. You pay thousands of dollars, for shoddy workmanship. At this point, are you sure you’ll still consider D’brain? Here comes the crux of it. The main bulk of the reno is the carpentry works. Which never arrived. 1. We kept asking for renders to see if the colours chosen are nice and how the design of our wardrobe and kitchen cabinets will look like. We never did receive them. 2. We kept asking if the factory in jb has fabricated our items and ID constantly insisted that they were. Never once he admitted that they were never made. Timeline: Tue (23/11): materials loaded onto truck. Will leave for SG Fri morning (10/12): the truck with our carpentry materials are missing. ID cannot contact them. Nowhere to be found. Disappeared into another dimension. ID’s solution to our frustration: will get another carpentry company to fabricate but need at least 14 more days. Do you think our carpentry was ever fabricated? He was so ready to re-fabricate 20k worth of carpentry works. If you’re still reading, are you seriously still considering them?? Our toilet doors and glass shower screens have been “fabricating” since Nov. At the time of my writing (Feb), ID is still chasing the vendors to come and install. JOKE. Eventually, we decided to outsource our own carpenter, electrician, plumber, painter, window grilles, glasswork, toilet doors, general cleaners to finish up all that the ID didn’t complete. Otherwise we will never move in. All requires extra cost. So if you believe all the 5 star ratings and still choose to take the risk to engage them as your reno company, good luck to you. May you never get to experience what we did. There’s a plethora of reno companies, must you REALLY be a risk-taker and choose D’brain? Don’t make the same mistake we did. Please. The only reason they get one star from me is because i can’t give no star. They are not deserving of even one star.

As first-time homeowners, it was a daunting task for me and my husband to find the right Interior Design Firm to renovate our dream home. We had many ideas in mind and created a moodboard so that it would be easier to find the right ID for our renovation. After shortlisting 6 Interior Designers, we eventually chose Mona as she had the most experience and an eye for design. She is committed, patient and extremely knowledgeable about interior design, so we put our full trust in her to design the 3D for our home. Her first drafts surprised me and my fiance as they were almost exactly the look we were going for, with some minor tweaks here and there. After about 3 drafts, we landed on a design we loved and Mona immediately got to work with the scheduling of the renovation. The overall renovation project went well with only minor touch ups needed toward the end, all of which were rectified asap. We are extremely happy with our home and will gladly recommend her to any other new homeowners who want home designs done well and on time.

Ask for ID Andy! He was very detailed in managing my renovations and despite the difficulty in securing contractors to do rectification works, he pulled through for me thanks to good relationship with them and great-planning on his side. Otherwise it would have been a headache for us as we wanted to move in before Christmas. Throughout the renovation, his men kept very good housekeeping at my home. My newly laid vinyl flooring was laid with protective sheet before the carpentry works came in to avoid any scratches, which was very much appreciated. He was also able to accommodate some last minute requests to install certain fixtures we got from Taobao (which I hear, other IDs would not entertain without charging). All in all, a good experience!

We chose D’Brain Studio due to their competitive pricing and impressive design for our whole house renovation. Their initial quotation within our budget and came with many design options so that we could pick and choose the one that suited us best. The after-sales service was also good. They even put in extra effort to help us move some furniture and clean up the place for us during moving day. Which he really didn’t have to but thank you! We can now celebrate Christmas with a peace of mind in our new home.

Kin was recommended to us by a colleague. After we met a number of IDs, he was the one we decided to engage for the renovation of our newly bought Condo. We went with him because unlike the other IDs, he didn't try to up-sell us. We were very clear from the start that we wanted to work within our budget and was very specific of the design we wanted. Kin was able to share his perspective of our space and gave us some very good suggestions on how to maximise our kitchen space. More importantly he managed to deliver on time, as we had a very tight deadline (6 weeks). Although there were some minor things here and there with site management, he helped us to sort it out with the contractors. In addition, we want to highlight that the quality of the material and workmanship was good! My mother-in-law really loves cooking in our kitchen now.

I found out about D’Brain Studio this year from a friend that recently completed her home renovation. I was pleasantly surprised to have met Jack, as he was very polite and accommodating to all my requests. I did not have a specific design in mind so Jack shared with me his portfolio, which helped me choose a modern bright theme for my home. With the current pandemic situation, I was afraid that my project would take longer than expected but Jack reassured me that he would try his best to meet the project deadline, which he eventually did. He was professional from start to end, placing his best effort to update me throughout the renovation process. Jack also went out of his way to personally touch up the house renovation works and ensure that our home was spotless before we moved in. Overall, a very eye-opening and impressive renovation experience!

We engaged D’Brain Studio late last year for our home renovation as they had a faster lead time compared to other Interior Designers with their in-house carpenter. This was especially important as we requested to stay at home during the renovation and wanted it to be as fast as possible in order to minimize disturbances to our day-to-day lives. Our ID Winn was able to design a home we did not like into our dream home. Despite our many requests for our house such as making the living room look spacious, beautifying the kitchen and getting recommendations for furnishings, Winn was able to accommodate all of them. During the renovation, Winn ensured that the scheduling of renovation works always worked with our timings. My wife is sensitive to dust, so we really appreciated that the housekeeping by the workers that kept the dust and debris to a minimum. I was truly impressed and took photos of how neat they kept the place! This renovation has been better than we had expected and we will not hesitate to engage them again!

My wife and I engaged D’Brain Studio for the renovation of our 4 room HDB flat. Despite our tight budget, Winn was able to keep the cost within our budget and did not push us to spend on things we did not need. We were looking for an ID that is in the same mindset in order for us to work well together. This is why Winn was our choice as he was able to grasp our design mindset and understood what we wanted in the different rooms. When work started, he was very nice and followed us to check on the workers and progress of house. We eventually left the checking up to him as he was consistently updating us on the progress throughout. There were some mistakes made but Winn and his team was able to quickly rectify them when we highlighted them out. Overall, we are happy with our new bedrooms and strongly recommend D'Brain to anyone looking for a worry-free renovation.