mummymantras

Aha! Now we know why he's taking so long to reply to emails from me and iPineapple...

Let's see the floorplan!

Pretty nice layout! Your dining area seems a tad cramped though... And there's way tooo many bedrooms for just the 2 of you (I assume there are only 2, since only 1 bedroom appears to be utilised), so have you thought about demolishing the study wall to expand the living space and then use one of the common bedrooms as the study?

You got it exactly! I want a jib door to hide the entrance to my service yard so that I don't get nosy visitors poking around in there or going there by accident when they are simply trying to find the toilet. On the kitchen-side entrance to the service yard, I've been thinking that instead of a traditional jib door (which looks like part of the wall), I'll have an entrance that looks like part of the kitchen cabinets (I think an earlier post of mine showed a pic of a house that had just that feature).

Just a suggestion: since you have 1 kid, could you demolish the walls to the common bedroom closest to the kitchen? Then, you could expand your living / dining space quite considerably. After all, with just 1 kid, you really only need 1 extra bedroom for your son to use when he's older. As you son gets older, you will need more living space (trust me, I have 2 kids of my own!). He'll need space to play and grow (and I assume you're not going to keep him confined to the nursery / bedroom till he's in primary school... ). And boys need a lot of space to play and grow!

Good morning, Renotalkers! In my reply to hafiizh (above), I mentioned wanting to install a jib door between my master bedroom and service yard. For the benefit of anyone who doesn't know what on earth a jib door is (I grew up in the UK, so I've seen jib doors my whole life. They usually lead to the service areas in large houses - my parents' house in Highgate, north London, had one connecting the dining room to the kitchen. But they aren't so common in Asia.), here's the Cliffs Notes version from The Peak of Chic (one of my fave blogs): http://thepeakofchic.blogspot.com/2007/12/mysterious-jib-door.html And some images of jib doors: If you look carefully, you can just see the outline of the door cut into the wall, partially covered by the picture. The only thing that gives away the presence of the door (other than the faint outline) is the keyhole just below the dado rail. A jib door cut into a wall covered by trompe d'oeil bookcase wallpaper. A jib door is bascially a hidden door used to access service areas of a home. It's hidden because there's no reason to attract attention to the presence of a door there. It usually doesn't lead to anywhere important (to guests and visitors anyway) and, in the past, it was usually used by servants only, so it was not deemed necessary to make them stand out or be nice to look at. Now, it's merely a practical thing to have and can improve the design of a room / wall by creating a seamless appearance.

Poor thing... My hubby and I like it 'cos it improves circulation in the room. People can choose to walk around either side of the bed and won't have to squueze past someone else just to get to the other side. For the same reason, we intend to have a hidden connecting door (i.e. a jib door) between the master bedroom and the service yard. It's a shortcut to the kitchen and living areas (you can see it in red in the layout above), and will make it easier for me to restock the bathrooms (since our excess toiletries will be kept in the service yard), get my hands on our cleaning equipment (which will also be kept in the service yard), and transfer freshly dried laundry to the bedrooms to be hung or folded away. These sorts of things become important when you don't have a domestic helper (like me!) and happen to be a stay-at-home mom who does all the housework (like me! Although my hubby does help me wash the dishes after dinner... ). I'm okay with a slightly jutting fridge. But if possible, I may just increase the depth of the cabinets to compensate and create a seamless frontage for kitchen. I haven't figured out where to group my sink, oven / hob and fridge yet. Still thinking about the perfect 'golden triangle' between the three... Yup! Besides it isn't quite fair to impose our tastes on my sis-in-law (she has quite a unique style of her own and may want to furnish her room quite differently). And it doesn't make sense to get fancy built-in stuff for our kids. Little tykes are highly destructive! And, as they grow, and their tastes grow and change, they would probably need very different furnishings too.

Thanks, Mickey M! I must say that when I first read your blog, my jaw quite literally dropped. Your home is amazing! I don't think there's any place quite like it anywhere in the world, let alone Singapore. You're truly original!

After (slowly) absorbing all the info that everyone has been throwing at us, me and hubby have revised our original suggested layout to come up with something that hopefully (a) makes better use of space and (b) is slightly more conventional (I know that seems a bit like a cop out but we've started to reach an age where being unique is tiring. So here is our new plan: Thoughts anyone? Note: The 2 common bedrooms have been left deliberately blank, as my sis-in-law (who is taking one room) will be buying her own furniture, and my kids (who will be taking the other room) will have special children's furniture bought for them. We figured that there was no real point to having custom closets / cabinetry installed for these 2 rooms as their purposes (and residents) may change over the years (e.g. in time, my sis-in-law might chose to move out and the girls might then have their own rooms each, which they might want to decorate to their own tastes). We will, however, be renovating these rooms nicely, of course (i.e. new flooring, paint, windows, grilles, ceiling fans, lights, air-con, etc.) but no actual furniture. They will remain blank slates for their current residents to fill.

Congrats! The layout isn't bad. It reminds me of my current place... just a little more squashed. How big is it?

You know, I really didn't look at this pic very carefully before, but when I finally did, I realised that the room next to the master bedroom is labelled "Future Little Pineapple's Room". Ha! Ha! Ha! I'm sure he'll be a very sweet little child! But maybe just a bit prickly...

I particularly like this smart walk-in-wardrobe (http://www.modresdes.com/2010/05/smart-walk-in-closet-idea-by-ima), that combines a wardrobe with a TV cabinet (and supposedly a writing desk too, but I don't see it). Closed. Open. From the top. Unfortunately, I don't think I'd be able to fit something like this into my place, unless I was to demolish one of the common bedrooms and integrate it into the master bedroom. However, with 2 kids (who'll take one of the common bedrooms) and a sister-in-law (who'll take the other), there's no way I can do that. Sigh...

Good morning, Renotalkers! Was reading demonyi's t-blog last night and I found myself in awe of his walk-in wardrobe (and his wife's Louis Vuitton handbag collection! Must remind hubby that our 10th wedding anniversary is coming up... ) : So I guess my obsession for today is walk-in wardrobes!

Thanks, adidaem! Yeah, I know $50K is a bit tight. Me and my hubby are still seeing what we can do about that... If we can't afford to spend more of our savings, we may just have to scale back our vision a bit. With 2 kids, we can't afford to overspend. Kids are expensive! Hopefully, we'll be able to find the ID we want (unfortunately, I don't think I can afford Ong + Ong!). It's still early days yet... The search continues...

I will NOT, however, show my hubby these pics... For obvious reasons...

Wow... I must show my husband these pics! Your wife is such a lucky gal! I only have 3 handbags... Well, actually just 2. One is a diaper bag.

Sure thing. Makes sense. Yeah. I must admit that I was impressed by all the good publicity they've been getting lately (cover of this month's issue of Lookbox no less!) and I do like what they did for the Minimalist Loft (also one of my faves). But frankly their attitude was ridiculous. Maybe it was the fact that the staff member who called me simply didn't have a good command of English (so perhaps he was simply suffering from an inability to express himself properly). Or perhaps it's the company's policy not to waste time by accepting jobs with overly tight budgets that might lead to conflict with the clients later on. But still, I find it absurd that he seemed unwilling to even discuss how we could possibly get the job done on the budget given. I even pointed out to him that we were very flexible and understood that if certain design elements were costly, that we could forgo them or opt for less costly alternatives. But all he did was continue to repeat over and over again that our budget was too small for them to work with... Anyway, if they don't want the job, I'm sure we can find another ID / contractor who does...

Sure. Here's the IDs / contractors that I've contacted so far (I may have to contact even more if none of these seem able to handle the job): (1) Loyd Pek (a Renotalk fave): He was the first to get back to me (just hours after I'd emailed him!) and he really seemed to be taking an effort to understand our requirements (he asked a lot of questions about my lifestyle needs that I hadn't even thought about!). I'll be meeting him soon to see if he's as capable as I would hope. (2) The Carpenter's: Seemed willing to spend some time and effort considering our requirements and thinking about how to design an appropriate home for us. I'll also be meeting them soon to see their design proposal and quotation. (3) Three-D Conceptwerke: Seemed strangely reluctant to take on the job I was offering. They kept repeating on the phone that the budget I'd set aside for renovations was far too low and there was no way they could do it for so little. And, oddly enough, they didn't even bother to talk about my needs or how they could modify some of my design suggestions to accommodate my budget. So, since they were unwilling to be flexible, I decided to be unwilling to be flexible too. And I told them that I wasn't willing to increase my budget so significantly just for the pleasure of having them as my ID. (4) i-Bridge Design: No reply yet. (5) The Design Practice: No reply yet. (6) Project File: No reply yet. (7) Bara Interior: No reply yet. (They did my present home 9 years ago, and so, we thought we'd give them a chance to do the next one, since they did a pretty reasonable job on the last one. )

What 'interesting' curtains... They are certainly eye-catching!

Wow! Poor thing... When I read your story (and that of others on Renotalk who've had to deal with similarly shoddy work), I feel very relieved that the contractor I used 9 years ago to renovate my flat did a good job. In all the years I've lived here, nothing has broken off, peeled away, fallen apart or discoloured. Just pure luck... *sayang, sayang*

Yeah. Trying to find an ID who is even willing to listen to what I need is a real pain... And I guess that it's also really hard for me to connect with many of the ID 'cos I'm really bad at visualising things... I'm a 'word' person, not a 'picture' person (which is why I became a writer... I would suck at being a photographer!). I could list down all the things I'd like to have in my home, but I wouldn't be able to give a clear description of how to put them together in a coherent style. So, I really need the help of a good ID to give my messy ramblings some sense and direction. Hopefully, I'll find one soon... *twiddling thumbs*

Our design concept would probably be a cross between an indie bookstore (we have a lot of books) and a boutique hotel (we have a lot of artworks). Given that I work from home (and do ocassionally meet my clients and collegues at home) I need the 'public' areas of my home (i.e. the living / dining room & kitchen) to exude a warm but intellectual feel – similar to that in an independent bookstore. Also, for the same reason, the ‘public’ areas of the home need to be kept separate from the ‘private’ areas of the home (i.e. the bedrooms), so that the visiting clients and colleagues are not tempted to poke around in the ‘private’ areas of the home. For the 'private' areas of the home (i.e. the bedrooms), they need to feel warm, personable and soothing to the eye – similar to that in a boutique hotel - in order to showcase our collection of artworks and photographs, and reflect our interest in arts and design. Examples of local boutique hotels with quirky but pleasing aesthetics include New Majestic Hotel (http://www.newmajestichotel.com), The Club Hotel (http://theclub.com.sg) and Wanderlust (http://wanderlusthotel.com). I think this is probably why most of the IDs I've called go absolutely speechless when I plunge into my long list of needs. They usually wait for me to finish and then they ask (in some confusion), "So, what look you want, ah? Modern? Black and white? Retro? Zen? Resort?" And then I explain that I like natural materials - wood, cloth, stone. And clean lines. And good design. But I'm not too fussy. For me, the most important thing actually is that my books and artworks are well-placed and that my home is a place where I can work during the day and relax at night. Simple. Anyway, if I already had a specific look in mind for my place, why would I need an ID... I could just get a contractor, right? Then, they go slient again. And, then they usually repeat themselves. "So, what look you want, ah? Modern? Black and white? Retro? Zen? Resort?" Sigh...

I don't think it's extenable. But, yes, I love it too because it's so sturdy and solid. It feels like it would last forever and is heavy enough not to be knocked over easily by rambunctious children (or pets!). And the solid wood surface would age gracefully and slowly develop a smooth, finely grained patina as the years go by. Beautiful! I've been thinking about getting two of the benches for either side of the table. But, I would indeed also buy a few padded chairs for those older members of the family who ... ahem ... require more comfortable seating options. Your idea of a kopitiam chair with a little built-in cushion is a nice thought actually. And not something I'd considered previously. But interesting... And it could definitely work... I've got some nice stuff from the seventies (including my mum's old portable Olivetti typewriter) that we will be displaying around the flat and they'll probably go well with some 'uniquely Singaporean' furnishings.

More pics of homes I love... This is another conservation shophouse at 55, Blair Road (anyone starting to spot a pattern yet... ), which was rejuvenated by Ong + Ong. Absolute perfection! Beautiful bookshelves. Gorgeous colour scheme. But I object to covering the books in white though! Again, excellent balance of clean lines and warmth. Like the antique chest on the floor. But I'd do without the huge Mao poster... It would be a bit alarming to have him looming over the bed every night as I sleep!

This is why I'm moving to Old Airport Road... http://www.cnngo.com/singapore/eat/10-best-hawker-food-stalls-singapore-236530 Home of some of the best food in Singapore! And whatever isn't at the Old Airport Road Food Centre is mostly either at Chinatown or along East Coast Road / East Coast Lagoon Food Village, which isn't too far away either.