hcbing

Rarely login anymore nowadays. Just to see if anyone comments haha. Been busy with the wedding, settling in the new place and now occupied with exams. How are you and family, bro?

bump! up! ?

Asked Henry loh, bro. Hehe. But even when we've added up the cost of the wallpaper, shipping charges plus the installation fee, it's still just a third of what you would probably be paying locally.

Hi marsh, the kitchen tiles we opted for are light beige coloured ceramic floor tiles 30 x 30. It kinda has a slightly rough surface area, but not bad enough to collect dust Got it from LSH.

Haha...thanks thanks!

Hi patsy, my wife got it online at taobao from a seller in Shanghai. But we can't find the link anymore unfortunately. Cheers!

Haha...been real busy with work and juggling flying back and forth for the past couple of months, bro! I guess we designed the house with practicality in mind. Simplicity and minimalistic. Thanks!

Hey ernie, thanks for the compliments! Haha...I guess you pretty much must have had some sort of 心理准备 (try psycho yourself ) when you made the decision to have it 90% white, no? After moving in for more than two months now, I've come to accept the fact that maintenance is gonna and probably will always be your worst nightmare when it comes to keeping it immaculate and clean white Now it gets worse when you have lots of glossy surfaces be it glass, laminates, tiles etc like mine. ...nah I'm just pulling your leg dude. Honestly it is a bit hard to maintain. Can be tiring. An all-white house...not for the lazy hehehe... Total reno cost? The magic 3

Thanks folks!

Thanks, dude!

Haha...I guess we opted for such a position because it sort of gave a feeling of being enclosed within that room. Gives out the impression of privacy if I have to term it in another way.

Hi valkimer, you mean how come? Haha...camera angle I guess. The HDMI and Ethernet cable for the Mio STB is definitely very visible if you're standing close to the TV console. As for the TV, I tied up the power and HDMI cable and hid them behind the TV stand in the middle. And yes, that's just the original wall with wallpaper on it Cheers!

Thanks folks!

Hi pinkpetter! It's been awhile since we last talked. Thanks for all the compliments

Hey froggy! Just about to log off...and you're my first victim!...errr I mean question. Thanks for the comment. As for the full-length mirror in the dining hall, I do have skirting done right at the bottom to prevent the chair legs from bumping into the glass. Cheers!

Phew...it's been a long night and I gotta wake up for work in like 5 hours. There are a whole lot more details I've yet to put in for now, but I'll get to that in stages. Hope you folks had fun seeing the before-and-afters. If you're interested in the catalogue of photos I've taken of the whole renovation period, it's here. Cheers and goodnight!

The Living Hall - Before The flat comes with a balcony. The missus and I debated quite awhile over the practicality of it. I guess most people would probably hack away the full-length windows and sort of extend out the living hall area. And one peculiar observation is that the full-length windows turn green as it gets darker in the late evenings. It wasn't some sort of solar film, so we couldn't do much with that. The Living Hall - After We got the entire ceiling in the living hall re-done with a new false ceiling for the downlights. Opted for a wallpaper-centric feature wall with a suspended TV console (own design). The missus got the wallpaper shipped in from Shanghai considering that it's only a third of the costs here.

The Dining hall - Before The dining area's pretty spacious I think. Could probably sit 8 just fine for dinner. The standard HDB-SCDF bomb shelter is next to the dining hall and you could see the shelter door there right before the kitchen entrance. The Dining hall - After We wanted a feature wall to hide the shelter door away, so Henry suggested the usual feature wall & tic-tac door. Again, design was our own. Chose black laminates with floral patterns as highlights. The missus chose that Looks much brighter in the end. We went through a whole lot of trouble getting those full-length wall mirrors installed. All four pieces were smashed to smithereens during the first day of installation. Long story to that but to cut it short, some young bugger idiotically knocked down all four pieces at the block's lobby area. The fella ran for his life when I chased him down with my trusty chainsaw. ...just kidding. But we never caught the idiot.

The Master Bedroom No before pics and this is the only photo of the all-important room that I was allowed to post online Other than a new false ceiling for the downlights, a fresh coat of paint and a new wardrobe, nothing much else was done in this room. We maintained the existing floor tiles. The Wardrobe All laminated with glossy piano white. The wardrobe's approximately 7 feet in length. We came up with our own design for the interior shelving. This wardrobe served as a partition of sorts between the bed and the attached toilet.

The Master Bedroom Toilet - Before The previous owners must have really loved marble tops. That, we've hacked away as well. Basically, we've maintained the position of things. Less hassle there. The Master Bedroom Toilet - After Went for a minimalistic form and choice of accessories. Solid surface top for the vanity with sliding cabinet doors. Full-length mirror so that I could see myself all nekkid in the shower (bad idea!). In the 2nd photo, you'd be able to see how the shower screen looks like. The t-shaped block next to the instant water heater is actually the gypsum board box-up for the HDB U-shaped sewage pipes.

The Study Room - Before Well, what you're looking at here is actually the small room in between the master bedroom and common room. The previous owner had the original wall separating this room and the master bedroom hacked off. You could see the adjoining adjacent wall there on the right. We wanted a small room as a study so we reinstated that wall in the end. It is far more expensive to erect a new wall than to hack it off The Study Room - After Obviously the room's still a mess now. Haven't got much furniture in it yet save for the suspended study table. The wall on the left is the reinstated new wall. This is the only room in the whole house that we've given a non-white coat of paint. Choice of color: Latte.

The Common Toilet - Before This is the common toilet located in the kitchen area. Old tiles, but basically everything's still pretty much intact. The Common Toilet - After Yeap, even toilets' gonna look white! Covered up the HDB sewage pipes. Went for a compact W.C. (on the left) and a shower screen w/ glass door on the right. Opted for a drop down (about an inch depth) to separate the dry and shower area. I had a lot of people asking me how come the wash basin is so small. That really is an honest mistake on my part. Kinda misjudged the basin's dimensions and its ratio to the size of the dry area. Got a good scolding from the missus too hehe.

The Kitchen - Before I believe at the heart of a place that I'd finally call my own home lies in the kitchen, so let's start with that. Photo above of this messy old kitchen was taken on the first day of viewing. There wasn't any top kitchen cabinet and the bottom cabinet was made of those 80's-styled marble. Look real retro. We hacked it all off eventually. The Kitchen - After Yes, it's all white! Glossy white to be exact. I maintained the L-shape of the bottom cabinet (the kitchen sink area isn't in the photo) and had them suspended. The cabinet top is of the usual solid surface material. I came to understand later on that some effort have to be put in to maintain such solid surface tops from scratches, smudges and of course to avoid placing hot objects directly onto it i.e. kettle. Pretty much came up with our own design i.e. no. of doors, dimensions, inner shelves etc. Blum soft-closing runners installed on the 3 smaller drawers and Blummotion hinges for all the cabinet doors.

Hi folks, I'm back! After a couple of months of inactivity, that is. Been pretty busy with the house ever since we've moved in and currently we (we a.k.a me and the missus) are swamped with the preparations for our traditional wedding ceremony next month. Two locations. Two countries. *big sweat* I'll still hang out in RT occasionally whenever time permits. If there are questions here and there, do bear with me if you only get replies like once a week or something. Anyway, on to the story. I'm writing this entire piece off-hand while trying to recall as much as I can along the way. I'm pretty sure there will be bits and pieces being left out here and there, albeit unintentionally, so I'll just add those on whenever...(I would want to say "whenever I get the chance" here but I don't really want to promise anything) Yeah...yeah...you could say I'm lazy and all. I've got tons of pics here on my PC taken since day 1 of the reno 'till now, but I kinda lost the momentum when I saw the bunch of seemingly endless pics I would have to upload, organize, tag, describe, post etc. So, think I'll do this t-blog the quick and easy way. Short and straight to the pics that matter. A before and after comparison But first, for those whom I've bugged shamelessly in RT for the past few months as well as those whom I've PM-ed with before, you'd know by now that I've engaged Henry of I.D. Note Design & Build to doll up my Punggol 5rm resale flat. If you're interested to check out his portfolio and past projects, just head on to those links on my sig. So, in all manners of a customary RT-styled t-blog, I'll start with this...haha. This is the initial planned layout of the house before I went scouting around for contractors/IDs. Used Floorplanner for this as I only needed a 2D view of the whole place to plan stuff out. It's pretty easy to use and it gave me quite a good approximation of where things should be, the dimensions and how practical it is gonna be for me and the missus. I guess the house is pretty much squarish with 4 sides and 4 corners everywhere. I'm not really a big fan of odd shapes really.

Haha. Yeah, I'm back on RT...but just logging in occasionally when I'm too stressed out cleaning up the place. Handed over on 30th May loh. It's been more than a month and I'm still cleaning up Pictures will come after furnitures are in end of the month. Wedding's prep-ed for Sept hehe. Congrats to you too, marshmallow!