Our Tiny Smart Scandinavian Home (Without ID)

[PinkMonkey 5]

Renovation Week 2

Well, it progress faster than we expected !

- Floor tiles layed for the whole house
- False ceiling completed
- some of shopping loots are here as well.

Floor tiles are done, once skirting are up as well, then floor is 100% completed.

False ceiling up !

[PinkMonkey 5]

Wiring started in the kitchen as well.

Edited April 5, 2016 by PinkMonkey

[PinkMonkey 5]

Today hubby went to supervise abit, and keep me updated through whatsapp 
Mainly due to contractor wants us to see some effects of the real thing before he do, as we didn't do any 3D drawing. Also he mention that it is better to see the real thing. Well, i think its good, at least better than after finish doing, and i have a shock. 

Most raw material for carpentry arrived.

"Back-bone" of the feature wall is already up when hubby is there. the contractor crew team was rather fast and kept the last 2 pieces unseal to confirm with hubby placement of those speaker wires.

Edited April 6, 2016 by PinkMonkey

[PinkMonkey 5]

Then, contractor further confirm interior of our MBR wardrobe. And let hubby have a feel after placing wardrobe, the remaining space for our King sized bed, if it is still ok.

Planning of our wardrobe, 2 full sized area. Mine is with the pull out mirror 

 

Contractor explaining the space the wardrobe will take up. 
Another thing i didn't notice yesterday, the L-box for my air-con piping to the MBR bathroom looks quite neat. 

And then it's fixed up!

We also brought this wardrobe sensor light from Ikea for contractor to install

Edited April 6, 2016 by PinkMonkey

[PinkMonkey 5]

End of the day, 1 portion of the living room wall is up. 2 more to go ! 

[bykaraanne 30]

eeek can't wait for more pictures!

I spy the MBR toilet is tiled also, looks chio!

[kingandbin 13]

I really like the wood laminate you picked! The colour tone looks soft and cozy. Will be keeping a look out for it during my laminate search process. 

Also, the cloth-like laminate is really unique! Have not seen anything like it so far! Which part of the bedroom will you be using it for?  

- Bin

[PinkMonkey 5]

On 4/7/2016 at 9:56 AM, bykaraanne said:

eeek can't wait for more pictures!

I spy the MBR toilet is tiled also, looks chio!

You have really sharp eyes! 
Will post pictures of the toilet once the lightings are up. On biz trip now, relying on hubby to supervise work progress.

23 hours ago, kingandbin said:

I really like the wood laminate you picked! The colour tone looks soft and cozy. Will be keeping a look out for it during my laminate search process. 

Also, the cloth-like laminate is really unique! Have not seen anything like it so far! Which part of the bedroom will you be using it for?  

- Bin

We plan to use it as the side and backing of our wardrobe. Because large area of the backing is facing the bed, and the bed frame will use wood laminate, we wanted to create a contrast between the element used. 

[PinkMonkey 5]

Shopping list - TV

There are just too many choices in the market for TV, with roadshow sales every weekend. Which TV should you buy? And what to look out for?
I have breakdown the selection process to these 5 main points to ask yourself before hunting for your TV, so that you do not fall in sales talk trap and buy on impulse. 

- Budget
- What do i normally watch? Sports? Movies? 
- Viewing distance
- Placement of your TV
- 4k or not?

Budget
TV value depreciates real fast, and technologies improves real quick. No point blowing up your budget now to get the biggest, when price potential drops 30-40% in a year. We can spend more on other renovation stuff. 

Content
If you like Sports or Gaming on TV, go for tv with less motion blur. What i really means is those 60hz, 120hz, 800hz alien looking figure that TV sales man tell you during TV selection.
In Sports program, quite often you see fast motion or camera view can pan over very fast. for example, soccer where the camera follows the ball very quickly. In big TV, if it is native 60hz, almost 90% chance you see those motion blur. But does this means buying a 800hz tv will be safe? Not exactly, in the market, most TV are either native 60hz, 120hz or 240hz (rare). 800hz for example are achieved by using TV's processor and artificially fill in pixels to make the motion more smooth, and that 800hz maybe recorded based on "best" results like a non-moving image. Below is an example of a very bad motion blur vs a decent tv. 

Simple way to choose: Google the TV model, go the manufacturer site. Look out of specification and look under native panel refresh rate. If it is 120hz, you have a chance of being a happy customer.

If you like Movies, go for tv with deep black. In TV, many TV do not produce really black color when it should be black. You normally dim down your room when watching movies, and have deep black tv really sets the mood in. 
Simply ask the sales person to show you some very dark movies, like Batman. 
Here is comparison between a bad deep black vs a good one. The good one, black color is deep and uniform across the screen. In most showroom, you notice they always show you very bright landscape images demo, and you could easily missed this important factor if you want to use your tv for movies.

View distance
The closer you sit, the easier you see pixelation. Use this chart as a guide. Since our free-to-air channel are now all digital (HD 1080i), it's time to get a big TV !


Placement of your TV
This is simple, if the place you are going to place your TV is near window.... well.. this happens to most BTO flats. Then you should get a Flat screen one, avoid curve tv at all cost! If possible, choose a matte finish screen over the glossy one. 
Glossy one gives too much reflection, making you hard to concentrate and bad for your eyes. 
Curve TV gives out even more reflection!

4K or not!
Most TV content now are FullHD (1080p). You get 4k mainly only from paid TV.
There are also TV with 4K upscaling, meaning their processor fill up more "agar agar" color to a FullHD and fill up more pixels. End results will be, it looks more "clearer" than a FullHD, but less detail than a true 4K content. The difference is really small.

My choice in the end is Sony R550A - 60in.
- My budget was $1500. Didn't want to spend any higher, as I want something that I can easily change after 2-3 years, without a headache
- I watch mainly FullHD stuff, no 4K content. 
- I didn't need a smart tv, because I am connecting to android TV box anyway, which I can change easily later.

[Changbp 5]

On 31 March 2016 at 11:27 PM, PinkMonkey said:

Planning

Some of the wishlist we have.

- No TV console in living room. 

- Home shelter serve as media rack + storage

- Wardrobe to block toilet door in Master bedroom. The lights when someone enter toilet at night sure interrupt other partner sleeping.

 

Hubby wants to do a 5.1 speaker setup.

 

You may need more power points in the living room. Default Hdb comes with some, but consider adding 1 where you will be sitting, 1 for where you will be dining, 1 for where you think is the best position for a floor standing fan.

[Stream 4]

On 4/6/2016 at 11:25 PM, PinkMonkey said:

End of the day, 1 portion of the living room wall is up. 2 more to go ! 

Can you tell us more about the wall panels? Is that Lamitek used on plywood? Do you have vertical metal strips between the panels? tks

[PinkMonkey 5]

On 4/9/2016 at 10:28 AM, Changbp said:

 

You may need more power points in the living room. Default Hdb comes with some, but consider adding 1 where you will be sitting, 1 for where you will be dining, 1 for where you think is the best position for a floor standing fan.

Thanks for the advise. You're right, actually on that planning doesn't include those existing power point. 
We have only added power point to the dinning area. The sitting area and fan area already have power point. 

[PinkMonkey 5]

22 hours ago, Stream said:

Can you tell us more about the wall panels? Is that Lamitek used on plywood? Do you have vertical metal strips between the panels? tks

Yup, I wanted to explain more on the living room in the next few posts. Quite a few thoughts were put into consideration when planning for the panel.
quick answer
1) Yes, its laminate on plywood, but 2 layers of plywood were used.
2) No vertical metal strips between the panels. 

[PinkMonkey 5]

Planning for Living Room - Part 1 (Configuration)

First thing we consider when planning for the living room was natural lighting. How lights enter into the living room.
And how we can make use of it to lighten up the place. Tool we use is http://suncalc.net/
Secondly, we use this to see in general wind directions http://www.windfinder.com/windstatistics/singapore_changi
Using these 2 tools + Google map, you will know the which direction sun and wind enters your house, and when and where you expect your house to be hotter.
This helps you determine where to place your sofa, your TV etc (although in general you have limited options, but still you are able to pick the best out of the situation).

[PinkMonkey 5]

Planning for Living Room - Part 2 (Wall Panel)

One of the reference picture we used when designing our own wall panel is this.

Why wooden wall?
In most scandinavian home, you will see white brick wall. For us, we wanted scandinavian, but at the same time very practical as well. We wants somethings easy to maintain, so wall panel was our choice for the wall beside the dinning table, behind where we sit, and where the TV is.
How good it is if you don't have to worry about dirt on your painted wall where you can clean. 

What we wanted to achieve is
1) Vertical arrangement of wooden wall panel. To make the wall looks taller.
2) The wood pattern in vertical lines as well, we hope this further make it even taller.
3) Make the wall, where the TV is placed looks longer than it should be. Because this is the 1st wall you will see when you open the main door.
4) Conceal all wires

You may be thinking, if you want the wall to look taller, why use false ceiling?
- Hiding wires, clean and sleek look. This makes the wall looks and feel taller than it should be.

How we use it...
So... how to adapt this wall panel to our home?
Firstly, the laminate we chosen, max length is 8 ft. And we didn't wanna have any joint, so each panel = 8 ft tall. To get that seamless look.

Then we have to plan width of each panel. 
Wall A & B will have 3 panels each of the same width.
Wall C will have bigger width panel.

There is 3 main ideas behind this arrangement.

1. Wall C : If you see the picture below, by right, it should look really long, but since some parts are taken by the DB cabinet, so it is not that long anymore.
   To make this wall looks longer, we use wider width of the panel on this wall.
   Also, we use a slightly darker tone.
2. Wall A & B : We use smaller width panel because this portion of the house is broken up by the passage way to the rooms. If we use same or wider width than Wall C, it will make Wall A & B in comparison smaller. so the smaller panel is to make the wall looks "bigger"
3. We want the light to come in gently into the passage way. 

 

 

- Metal strip / trims were not used in between each panel. As we wanted to have a more comfy, warm feel. So we opt for black paint for the "gap" in between panel. This helps to create a bit of depth, making the laminate more standout.

Edited April 11, 2016 by PinkMonkey