mark.low

I sawed the top of the cage off and used the Ikea lightset to hold the bulb.

Yes, the kitchen is very narrow, that is why we knocked down the entrance and also the service balcony so that it will look wider. My fridge, dryer and washing machine is all in the service balcony. haha will post a picture up when I take one. Must have missed the area out. Have you started your reno yet?

Thanks!~ The cage is a decorative cage from a shop in Arab Street area, I have seen some other similar decorative cages around in other shops. I did consider spray painting a real bird cage but my wife didn't like the sizes of them and a lot of them are much more expensive.

Hi Terence, The furniture shop seems to have closed down already, anyway the shop have quite a bad reputation online. :cx Luckily I didn't face much problem with them. TV Console is part of the built in furniture by my contractor. I think most TV Console is around that price? Maybe you can get a standalone piece from the shops out there.

Cont The 2m tall column light that I bought from another forum member @ around $15 if i recall correctly. Moved this back using my tiny vios!~~~ Full view of bedside My wifey's favourite crystal lights together with our storage bedframe, goes well with the wallpaper we have chosen. Common Toilet Thats all for now~

Cont 2nd Bedroom currently used as Playroom The flora ottoman is actually part of our hall's sofa set but in the extra black cover we ordered. Really don't have space for it in the living room~ Completed Full length wardrobe Our contractor installed T5 lights within so we can have an easier time looking for our clothes. Concealed master bedroom door Kids all like to go inside~ This is how it looks inside, double sink for me and wifey Another angle

Cont TV console, opted for a simplier design. Kitchen, it is now much brighter in the kitchen with the glass partition~ Study, mainly from Ikea, Luckily our contractor arranged for her guys to help us with the assembly of most of the stuff~ Had wall paper done on one of the walls but can't really see from this angle. Probably take a clearer picture of the wallpaper when i am free. Corridor Light Corridor

Are you refering to the coffee table? Yes, the sides do have blocks that seems to look like blocks of chocolate. But it didn't really occur to me before lol~

And now for the finished product!~ :c) Our main colours are orange and white. Orange main door and shoe cabinet, the smaller cabinet is to hide the fusebox. 90% of the lights from our house is from Brillant Source @ Joo Chiat View from the living room to our main door, my wife spent a long time pasting the decal clock. Divider was "inspired" by designs we saw from other stores. Our white marble dining table that is a tad too big. Closer look at our dining table, the bench is from a seperate furniture shop but we thought it could go well together. Added a mirror beside the dining table area. Tada!~ Full view of our living room! We love the "balls" lights we bought, 12 balls to be exact and we have 2 of them to really brighten up our living room. Bright orange sofa set that we fell in love at first sight with~ We took it even though they only had the display set left. Personally prefer fabric sofas so we can have extra covers of a different design made. We had a platform made for our cosy corner at the windows, storage space is available under the platform, we didn't really have time to do up our cosy corner yet. Our DIY birdcage light! My wifey really wanted a birdcage light for our house but no way am I going to pay $200+ for one. So we DIYed one ourselves for a fraction of the cost. :c) Thats all for the day~ Its getting real late~

Cont Master Bedroom Built in wardrobe, this "eats" into the 2nd bedroom. This is how it looks from the 2nd Bedroom Piping from kitchen before kitchen cabinet goes up, we are using Citygas heaters so there are more pipes running into the toilets. But luckily most of the pipings could be concealed by our contractor so most of them are not visible at all. Kitchen Cabinet, they had to remount it as something wasn't right the first time. Parquet flooring for all 3 rooms, feels really nice. We opted for the matt finishing but we are pretty paranoid abt leaving windows open when we leave home or liquid spilling on them.

It's at Bedok Reservoir View~ More work in progress photos to come. Added a "partition" to level our Master Bedroom so that it looks neater. TV Console, extra partition added behind so that there will not be a gap behind the TV Console Service Balcony with wall/door removed, now the kitchen looks wider combined with the service balcony~~~ Half length partition for study Common Toilet Tiles, the workmenship of the tilers were pretty good.

Work in progress photos Study Hacked down the wall to make a half length glass partition to allow more light to enter the room, and also, so that we can see what is on the TV while we are in the study! Room 2 and Master Bedroom Hacked the wall between the 2 rooms so that we can extend our full length wardrobe into room 2. We also hacked the walls between the service balcony and kitchen, and also the entrance of the kitchen. We choose 4 tiles for the entire house, one each for the toilets Master Bedroom Tile Choose this due to the design of the tile as we liked the shapes on each piece. Common Toilet Tile Honeycomb design Floor tiles for both toilets We like this as it had glittery effects and also that it is rough. Me and my wife didn't like the feel of smooth tiles.

We decided that we will be doing most of the house "design" by ourselves (or rather by my wife haha...) so we were looking out for contractors rather than interior designer... Our friend whom bought a similar unit in our area had hers done up by her contractor and after inspecting the workmanship, we decided to have the same contractor do up our house too. We were rather kan chiong and actually had started buying things for our home even before the final appointment at HDB was over. Good thing was that the previous owner was rather flexible and we could bring our contractor over to take a look at the place before the handing over date. Our contractor is a female and we were actually pretty surprised as our friend didn't mention this to us beforehand. :cX After the final appointment, we met our contractor, Jessie on the following day to finalise on the design and layout at our new home. We decided to do a rather intensive renovation as the house is about 10 years old... and mainly also my wife wants to haha... Good thing about our contractor is that she will give us quite alot of suggestions and she is not afraid to tell us if our ideas are too crazy. And so the demolition starts once the HDB approval is given~ Clearing the leftover items Hacked kitchen Master Bedroom Toilet Future Study Lucky thing is that the previous owner had minimal built-in furniture so that means the hacking easier. However, we are hacking away a couple of walls so in all... still quite a massive amount of debris to be cleared.

Cont Our flat have rather spacious toilets Master Bedroom Toilet Master Bedroom Toilet was odd-shaped too, slanted to one side. Common Toilet Kitchen The same arch entrance, kitchen was also dark and we found it rather small. Service Balcony

Didn't really have the time to do up a proper T-Blog to chronicle the entire process of our renovation but I would like to just do a simple sharing of the before, work in progress and after photos of our renovation. I would also like to take this as a chance to share some experience we had with some of the furniture shops/vendors and of course our contractor. We got ourselves a 4 room resale flat near my parents as we were rather specific in our flat search, so here are the "Before" photos. Hall (After previous owner have cleared out) We really liked the long hall~ Master Bedroom It was on the small side and it didn't help that one end of the room was in a odd shape. Room 2 Room 2 seems larger than the master bedroom and we toyed with the idea of converting it into the main bedroom for awhile. Room 3 The smallest room and what was bad about it was that it was really dark, we decided to convert this into our future study. Room Corridor It had a arched entrance which both me and my wife didn't like so we decided that we would definitely be doing away with the arch.

Me and my wife did our furniture shopping alot ealier than we should :cX

Got a dining table and storage bed frame from them. Delivery was delay by about 2 weeks and my wife commented that the delivery staff was rather rude to her. However, we both agree that the bed frame and dining table are pretty decent and are up to our expectations. So no complains regarding that. They shifted to a side building next to Silver River at Joo Seng Road area, we only knew about this when we called them as we wanted to make some amendments to our bed frame design, not too sure if they are under Silver River or not.

Hi Dennis, please email a picture of the carpets to me at mark.low@gmail.com Thanks!

First delivery was about 3 weeks ago, however, the bench that was delivered had a "styroform stain" imprinted on it that cannot be removed. Told them to bring back for replacement. Coffee table that i purchased had a door that juts out when closed. The "Phantom Chair" that i bought had some small stains on it but those are easily cleaned off. 2 weeks later when they redelivered the bench, the delivery people realigned the door of the coffee table and it doesn't juts out anymore. The 2nd bench they delivered was free from defect. Overall, me and my wife are happy with the quality of their products, given their price. Could have been a better experience if everything went smoothly during the first delivery but well, i think hiccups are unavoidable in life.

Courts outsources their air con installation to external parties. I got tired of waiting for them to get back to me with a site visit/installation date(dispite numerous smses and calls) that i canceled the order, got my deposit back and got a better deal at one of the recent expos. Their "lowest price guarantee" couldn't match an earlier quote from prices i got from an earlier expo too, even thou the sales person promised that he could do so over the phone when i contacted him regarding the better offer from the other expo.

My wife adds essence laundry detergent into the washing machine for washing, the clothes smell alot nicer but i think they cost quite abit as compared to normal detergent.

Can try King Wong and Wong at Nex.

Installed the MA-10L in my service balcony but will only be able to test it next month when everything is ready. I think you need to consider how the extra hot water piping will run from your service balcony to your toilets/kitchen as the stainless steel piping might not to be your liking. You will also need an extra power point for the MA-10L.

Thanks! But will it be feasible to paint them? Will the paint peel off easily? Especially if the pipes i intend to paint are in the toilets.

Hi all, Would like to check if it is possible to actually paint over the stainless steel water pipes we have at home? Anybody have any advice or experience on that?