#asKingBin About Our Home

[kingandbin 13]

16 hours ago, Mannequin said:

Can share contractor E's contacts? Thanks!

Hello! You've got a PM

[kingandbin 13]

TO-TILE-LY NEW LOOK

Hello hello! We are back with some updates and with the to-tile-ly new look of our floors and selected walls hehe. Contractor E mentioned last weekend that screeding and tiling works will commence between Monday to Wednesday this week. In the end he sent us photos of the progress on Monday, Tuesday and today 

Living Room + Walkway:
Wood-look tiles with matching grout, laid in a random staggered pattern. Looks more rustic than originally planned but it should still work well!

Master, Study and Common Bedrooms:
Grey toned wood-look tiles also in random staggered pattern, grout colour to match tiles. Grout yet to be done up in this pic. As of today the study room and common bedroom are done but have since been covered up with protective sheet, so the actual effect is still a mystery to us 

Kitchen:
Subway tiles backsplash (yet to grout) for only 1 side of the kitchen.

Common Bathroom:
Shower feature wall and the ugly brown mosaic strips covered up with simple subway tiles. Floor overlaid with dark grey cement-looking tiles.

 

E STANDS FOR: EEYER Y U SO BAD!

This afternoon, we asked for updates for the master bathroom's feature wall and Contractor E sent this picture to our group chat... 

As you can see, he's quite good at trolling us and it's not the first time this happened already! Kings always likes to play along also hahaha. Anyway, we visited the site the night before cause Bin was super excited after receiving the pics and just had to see + touch everything in person. So we know what it looks like already   Just that E didn't know. The pic below was taken at night when everything's pitch dark so please pardon the image quality!

Master Bathroom:
Shower feature wall overlaid with long(er) subway tiles in herringbone pattern, grouting yet to be done. As we were not shown any pics of its progress, we both gasped a little upon seeing it irl and did little happy sighs.   E actually isn't aware of the exact name of this pattern and just got his workers to follow the picture we gave him haha. Very pleased with its outcome so far! 

*    *    *    *

Some tips for this part of masonry works of renovation, especially if you are working with a contractor. Not too sure if IDs will seek clients' opinions on these but contractors will most likely need you to direct them on the following:

(1) How you want the tiles to be laid

There are probably 101 ways for tiles to be laid so have in mind the design that you want. One of the most common styles we see for subway tiles is the "工" pattern. Below is just a few examples but you can google to research further. We chose to do vertical herringbone pattern while the pic below shows a diagonal herringbone pattern. The possibilities are endless!

For floor tiles that are rectangular like our wood-look tiles, you'll need to decide on the direction for the tiles to go. If you stand from the main doorway of the house, for example, will you prefer for the tiles to be running horizontally or vertically from your view? Will you want the bedrooms' tiles to be laid in the same direction as the walkway and living room? Where do you want your "pattern" to cut off or end? Decisions, decisions.

And for bathrooms, if long tiles are chosen for flooring, the direction it is laid can affect flow of water on the ground as well. It's best to seek your contractor's advice on this!

(2) What grout colour you want

Those who do cleaning often will know that the colour of the grout plays a large part, especially for areas such as bathrooms which are dirtied easily. Not only does the grout colour affect the overall maintenance, it also drastically changes the look of your space. This is specially so for mosaics, which have a lot more grout lines. Apart from regular grout you can also request for cement grouting, or even have the tiler customise the colour to match your tiles!

(3) How thick you want the grout lines to be

Finally, tiles generally have a suggested grout thickness based on its shape/size. For larger areas or longer tiles it's probably better to follow the contractor's lead. In our case, we indicated our preference of thinner grout lines for subway tiles so smaller spacers were used and thus the gaps between the tiles were smaller as well. This can affect the overall look too.

Disclaimer: We aren't experts on tiling or masonry works so the above is just based on our personal experience! Hopefully it can help guide fellow reno newbies to make the whole experience a little less daunting! 

Edited January 17, 2018 by kingandbin

[hideaki 1]

Hihi, can we have Contractor's E contact too? 

[babymonsta 0]

Hi,

Can you share your contractors contact with me too? The pictures look really good!

Thanks!

[kingandbin 13]

22 hours ago, hideaki said:

Hihi, can we have Contractor's E contact too? 

Hello! Have PMed you! 

6 hours ago, babymonsta said:

Hi,

Can you share your contractors contact with me too? The pictures look really good!

Thanks!

Hihi we're not able to send the details to you. Is your inbox full? 

[kingandbin 13]

TAOBAO ORDER 2

Over the past week, Bin has been busy purchasing items from Taobao while King has been busy.. gaming  For this larger order, we'll be shipping through Oops.sg's DIY Re-Ship. So far we are still awaiting some purchases to reach the warehouse before we consolidate + ship to sg via sea. Apart from the below items, Bin took the chance to add on orders for some clothes here and there to be shipped over together  #shunbian. We keep adding on purchases so it means that by the time we ship everything over together (which we have yet to do as some orders are still otw to the warehouse in China!), it may take another 3 weeks to arrive. Sobs.

Hopefully everything adds up to at least 1 cubic meter, Oops' minimum requirement! We have no idea how much volume our ordered items take up so we'll wait and see! Update: it's 0.59cbm! Surprisingly little. And because the minimum is 1cbm, we had to pay for 1cbm worth + 7% GST. 

Here's what we got for Order 2:

Lighting Fixtures

(1) Small ceiling lamp ball for mbr entryway. What does 'lampry' mean? #engrish 

(2) Flat round ceiling light (King calls it the "cake light"!)

(3) Hanging lamp for living room entrance

(4) LED light strips in warm white (10m) for master toilet box-up and cabinet, plus extra drivers/switches
(5) LED light strips in cool white (5m) for kitchen's under cabinets

(6) Additional 0.5m track lights (x3) and connectors

(6) Simple LED ceiling light for kitchen

(7) Simple (and cheap!) LED ceiling lights for bathrooms and storeroom (1, 2, 3)

Update: Not providing the link for round light (1) with gold trimming because it arrived very dented. Plus, turns out it's made entirely of somewhat soft plastic & quality is poor. But no loss as it only less costed than $2. 

 

(8) Black ceiling fan with light kit for study room

(9) White ceiling fan with light kit for common bedroom

 

Bathroom Fixtures

(1) Black toiletries rack for common toilet

(2) Single bar towel rack for common toilet

(3) Clothes/towel hooks for common toilet

(4) Toilet paper holder with cover for common toilet. Need one with a cover as the common toilet will not have any shower screen!

(5) Towel rack for master toilet

(6) Toilet paper holder for master toilet

(7) Bidet spray for master toilet

(8) 2 x Glass shelves for master toilet shower area

Other Purchases

(1) 2 x Laundry bags

(2) Drawer pulls in gold and copper

(3) Wooden furniture legs to DIY an old tv console  

(4) Wooden dresser. Thank you @lalashir for providing the link to this item previously! 

(5) Wooden bench (not including the table)

Edited September 23, 2016 by kingandbin

[kingandbin 13]

OUR WEEKEND VISIT

We visited again on Saturday to check on the progress and were surprised to find two workers in the house. We weren't expecting works to continue during weekends too! Anyway, we took a quick look around and left within 10min as we didn't want to disturb the workers. But from what we could see, general progress seems pretty speedy. 

Yesterday we popped by our new place once again - to introduce ourselves to neighbours and also to apologize for the inconvenience the reno has caused thus far. As ours is a SOBF unit, our neighbours have been living there for the past 2 years already. Surprisingly, they either said they were totally unaffected by the noise or were very understanding about the situation. Probably due to the hospital being built next door, the noise and disturbance from our reno doesn't seem significant. Yay to great neighbours! 

This is what we saw upon entering on Sunday... So neat and tidy!

All flooring with skirting up. Here's a better representation of the living room floor's actual colour. The half wall at our entrance is almost done as well!

Kitchen backsplash filled with grey grout! Trying to decide if the tone of white for the laminate chosen matches the tiles' colour.

Cabinet base on one side of the kitchen. Bin requested for white tiles on the side to match the cupboards. Sink area has a tiled bottom instead of carpentry base as a prevention in case of any leaks from the kitchen sink. Our poor man's alternative to a concrete sink support which costs 8x more 

Cabinet base on shorter end of the kitchen. To the right we'll have the fridge, which we opted not to do up a base for.

Bedrooms floors all done! Pardon the feet, Bin likes to think they help beautify photos 

Common toilet tiling works complete.  King really likes the difference in tiles for the shower area, makes him feel as though it's an entryway to another world (like Harry Potter's platform 9 3/4) 

Master bathroom tiles are done as well, with the shower kerb up. 

Notice the aircon pipe that we got rectified (in below pic). Contractor E reckons it's more convenient to clean the shower area if we just cut the entire pipe away, leaving water to constantly trickle out from the spot where the trunking is, on the left. Not too sure whether the convenience of easy cleaning beats having a constantly wet shower area so we're still considering whether to trim the pipe! Any feedback on the maintenance from those whose piping runs like this in the shower area too?

Edited January 17, 2018 by kingandbin

[stray 12]

7 hours ago, kingandbin said:

Notice the aircon pipe that we got rectified (in below pic). Contractor E reckons it's more convenient to clean the shower area if we just cut the entire pipe away, leaving water to constantly trickle out from the spot where the trunking is, on the left. Not too sure whether the convenience of easy cleaning beats having a constantly wet shower area so we're still considering whether to trim the pipe! Any feedback on the maintenance from those whose piping runs like this in the shower area too?

@kingandbin love that herringbone feature wall, CHIO!

My current rental has the air-con pipe done this way, and I gotta say: it's a real b**** to clean. In addition to the mould that gets between and under the pipe, sometimes hair gets trapped under the pipe as well. So cleaning involves cleaning between and under it as well, which is an unnecessary chore in my opinion. So maybe cutting away the pipe might be a good rectification. Plus, it looks less irksome? 

[ricepapergirl 21]

16 hours ago, stray said:

@kingandbin love that herringbone feature wall, CHIO!

My current rental has the air-con pipe done this way, and I gotta say: it's a real b**** to clean. In addition to the mould that gets between and under the pipe, sometimes hair gets trapped under the pipe as well. So cleaning involves cleaning between and under it as well, which is an unnecessary chore in my opinion. So maybe cutting away the pipe might be a good rectification. Plus, it looks less irksome? 

I have to agree, between the maintenance and a mostly-wet shower area, I'll choose the latter. Plus, it will only drip when you have the aircon on? So depending on your usage, it might just be mostly wet on weekday nights, and maybe weekends if you're the kind that uses the aircon during the day. And then, on weekday nights, you'd probably shower anyway, so your floor would be wet, anyway?

[Sendo999 1]

21 hours ago, kingandbin said:

Notice the aircon pipe that we got rectified (in below pic). Contractor E reckons it's more convenient to clean the shower area if we just cut the entire pipe away, leaving water to constantly trickle out from the spot where the trunking is, on the left. Not too sure whether the convenience of easy cleaning beats having a constantly wet shower area so we're still considering whether to trim the pipe! Any feedback on the maintenance from those whose piping runs like this in the shower area too?

Hi King and bin, 

Same tots as richpapagirl n stray. 

Firstly, it looks more pleasing to the eye without the long pipe. 

Secondly, it makes cleaning easier. 

Lastly, since u are doing a wet / dry area in the toilet, it will only wet the wet area. The dry area will not be affected. 

 

[kingandbin 13]

Thanks guys for sharing!  

The main reason we are pensive about trimming the pipe is not simply due to the area being wet, but because one of our mums feedback that their discharge pipe sometimes has jelly-like substance or even green algae-ish liquid flowing out. Somehow their pipe discharges not just water but also other odd substances too! This made us rather squirmish . But hey, if our pipe discharges just regular ol' water then definitely no second thoughts about removing it! 

Plus our other mom (MIL) totally downplayed the ease of washing the pipes. She was like, "No problem at all!! Just move it up. Very easy to clean one. "  But @stray raised a very valid point about hair possibly being trapped below or around it! 

We will prolly get them to trim the pipe for us when the aircon guys come by to fix a gap we found in the trunking. Kudos to our contractor for his suggestion & to @stray @ricepapergirl @Sendo999 for your feedback as well! 

Edited August 23, 2016 by kingandbin

[stray 12]

Your mum has a valid point! With my current rental, I've not noticed any sludge-like, gooey discharge, but possibly because the flat is pretty new, around 6 years old and owner has it serviced annually. Maybe an annual maintenance and cleaning session might help! And.... if that really happens, could you just get a plumber to come extend the pipe to its current state? That might be a decade down the road ha   

[ricepapergirl 21]

16 hours ago, kingandbin said:

Thanks guys for sharing!  

The main reason we are pensive about trimming the pipe is not simply due to the area being wet, but because one of our mums feedback that their discharge pipe sometimes has jelly-like substance or even green algae-ish liquid flowing out. Somehow their pipe discharges not just water but also other odd substances too! This made us rather squirmish . But hey, if our pipe discharges just regular ol' water then definitely no second thoughts about removing it! 

Plus our other mom (MIL) totally downplayed the ease of washing the pipes. She was like, "No problem at all!! Just move it up. Very easy to clean one. "  But @stray raised a very valid point about hair possibly being trapped below or around it! 

We will prolly get them to trim the pipe for us when the aircon guys come by to fix a gap we found in the trunking. Kudos to our contractor for his suggestion & to @stray @ricepapergirl @Sendo999 for your feedback as well! 

Omg. I don't think the discharge is SUPPOSED to have jelly-like substance or algae-ish liquid coming out!! Do you think there's actually something wrong with their pipes??? O_O. As far as I know the discharge is supposed to be condensation from the aircon which is water. If there's anything else coming out something needs to be done? O_O

[BenTan 0]

Hi 

may I have the contact for E please?

[brekkie 0]

Hello, will you be able to share contractor E's contacts? Thanks!