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You're right. What's most important is how comfortable you are living in the house you designed. And be confident of your decisions you crack your brain over.. I went up to take a look at the narrow (width 70cm) vanity space with my wife. The first words that came out of her mouth is... "wah so small????".. My confidence took a big hit. Haha.. Looks like I have to have more faith in myself. And keep moving on. And on. And on..

PM-ed.

Hi, I usually boil and steam food. There is very little frying. So shouldn't have issue with maintaining the curtains.

Yup, we have officially moved in! We are really bare in our furnishing at the moment, but it's really fun to start building things up from scratch. Here are some pics of our furnishing so far. Our ikea mirror is up. ^_^ Our ikea dining table (telescopic) is also up! Took us 1 hr to put it together. It's 70 kg when assembled! No joke! Our living room is most furnished as you can see. =) Ikea rug, Mondi sofa bed(Bumble Bee), ikea TV Console and Philips 46'' TV. There's also two side tables on both sides; the bold blue one is from IKEA (yes again), and the marble one at the other end is from vhive. And finally, our bedroom. =) My wife's masterpiece is the scrabble design on the feature wall. We got the pole system from QOO10, and will be using a curtain to cover it up in the near future. Alright, more pics when the studio is done up! =)

Thanks. Last night I lie awake in bed thinking hard. "What theme am I trying to achieve?". "Am I too brave not to engage ID but to trust my own taste?" "Will it turn out a Rojak style and be a joke?" "Are the dimensions of the fixtures feasible baswd on my estimation only?" (Contractor wants me to do a 90cm vanity, but I insist on a 70cm one to allow more space for furniture placement in the tiny bedroom..) "Can the colours complimemt each other?" (Greys and light purples).. Then I conclude. Renovation involves big steps of faith. Just follow my instincts and live with confidence, regardless of what others say.. Then I fell asleep with a smile.

Slow is ok and unavoidable at times. Most important is the workmanship and no defects in their work

Yamaha YAS 201 With Wireless Subwoofer Couldn't resist a good bargain so just placed the order. Did a quick review and this model is pretty well received. A sound bar is a sound bar, am not a audiophile but this sound bar does has a function that caters to aging ears. The Clear Voice. One good thing about sound bar is that they are neater. Gone with the 6s, 7s, 8s speakers configuration where concealing wiring is a pain. Then and again, not for the audiophiles. Sound bar with wireless active subwoofer delivers superior surround sound from TV and Blu-ray sourcesSubwoofer uses Yamaha Advanced YST II technology to reproduce deep bass with clarity and powerAIR SURROUND XTREME reproduces 7.1 channel surround sound with excellent imaging and rich presenceClear Voice makes dialogue and narrations easy to hearUniVolume™ keeps programs and commercials at the same volume levelStylish design achieves visual beauty as well as ease of useGlossy black finish matches flat-screen TVsLatest design features extremely low height, for convenient positioning in front of a TV setWireless active subwoofer allows flexible placementUsing the YIT-W12 (optional accessory), you can also enjoy music wirelessly from an iPod®/iPhone®/iPad® or computerTV Remote Repeater forwards infrared signals even if obstructedLearning function enables operation from the TV remote controlSound bar can also be hung on a wall

Business too good, too bz to post liao?

Koori Thanks for the information. Meaning the part of the sink you all use concrete and not carpentry work to hold the sink ... Right ?

Those watt tester will not lie. I have experience buying 15 watts light, tested out all belongs to 8 watts category but I paid for 15 watts money.

Our funny bedroom ceilings In all 3 upstairs bedrooms, we have a square hole which contains a sarong cradle hook. We realised that it is less nice to have the square hole. However, we feel that a sarong cradle is a super important equipment when you have a baby and we decided to have one above the bed. vMBR ceiling by Harriette_Tan, on Flickr square hole with round peg by Harriette_Tan, on Flickr We didn't have such ceiling hooks when my daughter was born 2 years ago, so we bought a sarong cradle frame from Kiddy Palace. The broad square base occupied alot of space. frame for sarong cradle (1) by Harriette_Tan, on Flickr frame for sarong cradle (2) by Harriette_Tan, on Flickr

The must have brickwall for Zakka home Dinning light Mrs so in love with the skirting which match our zakka theme well Mr strongly requested stripe wall Book shelve in progress

Hi Harriette, Congrats for ur new EM, awesome view and glass balcony is a super bonus! U are very lucky ☺ Saw your layout just wonder if your would wanna consider to relocate your helper door to the current shoe rack position and seal up the current entrance..then you may consider using this kinds pull open shelving for shoe rack? That way you don't compromise shoe rack space, at the same time meet HDB rule to have a safety entrance for helper *just my two cents*

some update on the carpentry work, MBR wardrobe is completed. Here are the inspirational photos and the actual product. vs

A look at the amazing transformation...

More updates

somethings which we think is very important for all who are planning for their renovation. You need to know what you want to do/reno (overlay, hacking of walls etc) Get a few quotation for comparison sake (sometime they will also give you more ideas on space planning) choose a id/contractor whom you can trust (based on gut feel) you need to factor in the work load of your id/contractor to get a realistic feel of how much time they can spend on your project amongst all their projects make sure that there is good 2 way communication between your and the ID/contractor

It has been a while since my first post as hubby and I have been super busy with sourcing for ID, purchases, work, and life in general. I will share a bit about how we finally chose our ID.. but first, thought I would share some pictures of how I would love my home to look like. (Of course not everything is feasible lah, but still, a girl can hope...) Living Room: First time I saw this picture, I thought - I must have this! My main door opens directly to a view of my ENTIRE living room area.. so this will give us some (very stylish) privacy. I really like the furniture in this photo. Clean and neat lines, very neutral with pops of colour. I like the idea of having photos above my sofa. Think I dig the mid-century modern look quite a bit. I like the furniture and the cosy feel of the house.. but too many colours for me! Again mid-century modern furniture - can't get enough of those legs.. and really digging the wallpaper.

Choosing a contractor: my experience I contacted a total of 5 contractors about 2 months before getting the key 1. first contractor I chanced upon his company on renotalk - no t-blogs named this contractor. 2. two contractors were through reading t-blogs on renotalk - the owners openly recommended these contractors 3. the remaining were through friends First I contact them via phone - speak to them - see whether can communicate Then described the reno work briefly. Then sent floor plan with scope of work via email. The floor plan and scope of work should be the same for every contractor you send to. This will help you to compare the quotation across all of them. My considerations were 1. Relatively lean budget I was very upfront about stating that I wanted to keep costs low. To me that meant no fancy designs. I wanted a clean and updated space so I can furnish and decorate. One way to keep costs low is have as little work as possible e.g. minimize cabinetry and false ceilings. For instance no TV feature wall, no false ceiling in living room, no shoe cabinets, no fancy pole system wardrobe, no walk-in wardrobe (WIW). I managed to see quite a few budgets from reno-talkers and if you look closely cabinetry/feature walls are one of the big ticket items. Minimizing these items means these savings can be used to buy nice furniture/decor that can create the look you desire. Also, no unnecessary hacking. Initially my plan was to hack the flooring of the living room/kitchen/bedroom and re-tile. However after speaking to one of the contractors, the floor is already flat! Why hack, just overlay instead! Moreover when they hack flooring, must re-do concrete screed and this may not be as smooth and flat. More hacking means more costs i.e. one more day of x number of banglas to hack floor, clear hubris, extra haulage costs. All these costs add up and also extra time needed! Once I told them about my lean budget, immediately 2 contractors didn't bother to give me quotation anymore despite me sending floor plan and scope of work. That's good cos both parties dont waste time. I also would not bother following up. If they dont want your business, they dont want your business. 2. Able to start work on my reno once I get the key Ask them directly whether the time frame you anticipate your reno to start and end is feasible for them. No point getting quotation then realise the contractor got too many projects and yours have to wait. If they are unable to commit resource to your reno project, confirm double confirm delay one. Also if after speaking with contractor and their next available follow-up appointment is like 2-3 weeks away, I immediately did not bother to follow-up. This guy likely very stretched among many projects and you will have to "fight" for his time and attention. 3. Experienced - must be able to tell me if my suggestion is not practical and offer alternatives I think this one is quite intuitive. Very hard to assess and based on feel. I feel more comfortable when I describe my idea and the contractor immediately told me what his concerns were. Those that just say ok without much questions made me uncomfortable. Surely miss things out in the quotation and you will have lots of VO (variation order) later. This happened to me - I planned to hack the wall and one contractor just quote me for hacking and erecting a new wall. But missed out the costs of making good the hacked area. This involved getting a new false ceiling in kitchen i.e. few hundred bucks! So his quote was missing some vital components. 4. His network of sub-contractors A good contractor is an excellent project manager and has good sub-cons that he engages i.e. tiling/wet works, demolitions/hacking, electrician, plumbing. Always ask where his sub-cons are from - Malaysia? China? Generally Malaysians will be better especially tiling. Demolitions/hacking - Bangla can already but usually have a Chinese supervisor. And another good question to ask is whether the sub-cons he usually engages will be doing your reno also. No point if he has good sub-cons but they are tied up in another project! You can view workmanship of his sub-cons by visiting his completed projects. If the workmanship is satisfactory - ask whether the same sub-cons will be used for your project. Also when you view the project, take note of all the small details like how the air-con trunking/piping is hidden. See whether you can tell or not. If you cant tell, good! Heh I was very fortunate to visit a reno-talkers EM and was very very impressed with the workmanship! Plus the contractor did it within a very lean budget and completed project AHEAD OF SCHEDULE. So rare that reno complete ahead of schedule lor! The owner was extremely grateful to the contractor and I could tell the contractor had a lot of pride in his work. Definitely very reassuring and made me confident to sign the quotation.

ID vs contractor I think most reno-talkers struggle with this question. A considerable number of people no doubt spend ALOT of time meeting IDs and contractors. After reviewing a lot of experiences and accounts from reno-talkers, it's well known that ID is more expensive than contractor Economically, they must charge more than contractor since they are the additional project managers and designers and afterall must engage a contractor to do the work Some conservative estimates point to IDs charging about 30% mark-up from contractor based on these services. This is probably the accepted median It is not surprising if the mark-up is higher especially if the ID firm is big. They have bigger advertising budgets for TV/print/internet, bigger shopfronts and bigger exhibition booths i.e. bigger mark-ups, probably 50% upwards of contractor price. Also, all the big bosses in the ID firm who don't do projects and generate business need to be paid fat salaries Nonetheless, there are some contractors who are trying to go up the value chain and have ID services as well. No doubt they will charge ID type prices. I met a contractor like this. You know this immediately once the contractor offers 3D drawings, throws in freebies, has an in-house designer etc - all ID-like characteristics. Conversely, there are ID firms which are just starting out and growing their business. They tend to have lower margins in order to get volume and grow their portfolio. These will be cheaper and may be somewhat comparable to an average contractor pricing. However, they still need to pay a contractor to carry out all the reno so how do they manage to get comparable contractor pricing. There will probably be less people working on the wet works, tiling, demolitions, erecting walls, carpentry etc. Project may face delays because there is inadequate manpower to get the job done. Moreover, once everything completed, they won't entertain many rectification works. For me, it was a relatively simple decision. I wanted as cheap a reno to achieve the desired look/feel. Although I'm not a designer and have zero experience in reno, I knew the look that I wanted to achieve. There are very few IDs which can do industrial designs, simply because they turn to "standard" designs. This is to save effort and resource for them since they have done many projects in a certain look/feel. These are mostly modern contemporary. Having said that, choosing a contractor meant I needed to do ALOT more research on my own. I started to gather a lot of info about reno, the process, the materials and the rough pricing. To the point where people in the industry think I'm a contractor! If there are reno-talkers out there in a similar situation, I hope this will help you eliminate wasting time with meeting too many IDs and contractors.

My taps and shower systems are here! Arrived in SG on thursday. Haha haven't even gotten a key collection date. So they are just lying around in my parent's living room. Fingers crossed that there aren't anything missing from the boxes they shipped in (haha i won't know until the plumber installs them) Here are the pictures! Common Toilet sink faucet - Grohe Eurosmart cosmopolitan This mixer is seriously heavy... Such a big shower head!! way bigger than i expected As compared to a tissue box!