whitehousey

Hi there. This is my eubiq power track. I like it a lot. I have no clue about pricing because my darling bought it. As for the installation our contractor got his electrician to install it for a normal electrical point cost.

Now I need some help from you reno/house geniuses out there. 1) My wireless internet transmitter is not powerful enough to reach my masterbed room. I know you can purchase a booster from places like DealExtreme.com or Mertiline.com but a friend of ours got one from there and it didn't work. Any suggestions? 2) Also, there are so many cables behind our TV console! I love cleaning the house but that the one place I don't dare vacuum. How should I tidy up the cables? BTW, aren't the daisies beautiful.

our new clock! and a close up of our eubiq track.

Some updates. Got a new TV and mounted it lower... The previous one was an older Made in Japan Sony LCD TV but sadly couldn't play HD that well so we decided to get a new one. This new one is a 46" too but it looks so much smaller because of it's slim bezel(which I love). We insisted on getting it slim mounted so it's only 2-3cm from the wall and it's so beautiful now. Love the slim mount, looks like a picture on the wall.

The TV console$499 from their sale again! But this one is not solid teak.. But much cheaper then the $2k TV console our ID proposed.. And we can take it with us when we leave too!

Hey Kim, your place looks great! I'm just a bit confused with the layout now, is that the main door at the end of the kitchen?

Scanteak! They have regular promotions and you should be able to get a set like mine for between $1300-$1500. My parents have been using the same teak table for 20 years now. Worth the investment if the design doesn't become obiang too soon.

Hi there. I got this artichoke from 'Furniture and Furnishings' at Suntec Level 2, just infront of Carrefour. The guy there told me they were going to stop selling lights because their main business is furniture and they don't sell many light pieces. Price tag on it was $828 but we bargained it down quite a bit. If I'm not wrong the original artichoke lamp is 82cm in diameter, mine is only 48cm. Most places that sells these replicas would have a few sizes for you to choose from and 48cm is the smallest. We've had a few dinner gatherings already and this light/table combo has stolen the show. It provides very good strong light on the food in the center and it also creates a warm ambiance around too. Perfect!

Thanks May_dream1! Clean and cosy is the same response from some of our visitors too. May be I should have titled this blog *clean and cosy*. Hi again applepie. Thanks to recommendations from renotalk, we got our curtains from Jimmy Textiles at tanjong katong complex. Their prices were relatively cheap so we opted for a thicker material which helps the cosy effect. I highly recommend them too.

I love this coffee table. Probably my favourite piece of furniture in the house actually! yeah they are from scanteak.

Yeah that's nice right. It's a secret... Haha. The TV was just mounted without any cables in this photo actually. The contractor mounted it without plugging anything in and it was so difficult for us to plug in everything after. Yup it's not as pretty now with the cables dangling.

Some but not all. We do like wood stuff as you can see.

Final photos

I'm totally with you guys on this. And I've also seen taichipanda's multiple suggestions to everybody about caesarstone, so much so that I was actually expecting such a reply from him when I wrote my last post. But hats off to you Taichipanda for your enthusiasm! There are always so many different "levels" you can select for any one of your purchases. Choosing one that would meet my needs for function/looks(being honest here) vs the price was the recurring question throughout this whole renovation process. For flooring, all my bedrooms already have timber flooring so I had to consider between timber throughout the house or just the standard homogeneous tiles.. Marble came into the picture too but I couldn't justify the price difference so I settled with Homogeneous tiles. For the toilet bowls and sink, we first considered the China brands then came across Japanese and European brands. We finally settled on Toto. I also don't know why we chose it but I think/hope they will last. For taps, we also wanted something cheap but ended up with the lower range of Hansgrohe. Is it better? I don't know either. For furniture, we like the wood look and were choosing between the cheaper IKEA stuff, other veneer stuff and finally settled on solid wood. This was an expensive option but we know that solid wood furniture will last so we took the plunge. When choosing a fridge, we had to choose between paying almost double for a made in Korea Samsung or the made in Indonesia Samsung. Ended up with the Korean one. When choosing an oven.. This one was difficult. I really wanted a Gaggenau because I bake a lot... after a lot of "discussions" we settled for a basic Brandt that was about 4 time cheaper. My conclusion after all these choices is very simple. When you pay more, you usually(not always) get better stuff but then you'll be stuck with those for a longer time. If I got all cheap particle board Ikea furniture at 1/3 the price of my furniture, I can change them every few years when it's out of fashion and even when friends come over and damage it I wouldn't feel too much about it. Do I regret any of my purchases so far? Well not yet, but I'm pretty sure I will have new preferences down the road and that will be reflected in my next home.

The Kitchen Top came in. We wanted to use silestone but with this much top involved it was going to burn a hole in our pockets... Finally settled on LG Hi-mac. The oven at it's new height. There was a lot of gap around the dishwasher which we asked our ID to sort out. Artichoke.. Either you love it or you don't. We do.

The glass guy came in. And our toilets turned from this To this One special touch our ID did that I don't see in many renos is he embedded the U Channel for the shower screen glass into the tiles. Not sure about it's function/durability but it definitely looks better.

Carpentry... And we had a slight problem. We wanted the oven to be slightly higher than the kitchen counter but not a full height cabinet, with a functional space above the oven to put stuff on. Although we wanted the oven at about 12 inches higher than the counter our ID kept saying that was too high and suggested 4-8 inches and then our ID recommended that we build a thick border around the oven to make it the center piece in the kitchen. So this was his drawing. But what we got was this, only 2 inches above the kitchen counter and without the border. Because of their slight error, we negotiated for them to rebuild the oven cabinet to be at the same height as the rest of the kitchen and also in the same laminates. We're really not too adventurous. I think our ID just wanted some colour in our kitchen and we kept turning down every single idea.

Tiles Done! Yes we kept the shoe cabinet. It's not going to match the new design/theme but it's very functional. Save $$$. After removing the sliding door to the balcony there was a little gap in the wall. This was a last minute request and our ID sorted it out very quickly.

Yeah I know we're all in the same area. the coffee shop with the handmade pau has a new stall.. It sell laksa and some noodles stuff, took over from the prata stall there. Has any of you checked it out yet? My house is done up, just some minor touch up left for the contractor to do. Photos will be up soon. The kitchen was done up about 4-5 years ago i think. We actually had the intention of keeping the existing kitchen but upon closer inspection we found that the counter top was turning yellow, you could see the joint line in the top, the wood in the cabinets were on the verge or rotting.. On top of that we wanted a dry kitchen, our ID advised us that matching that old/yellowish counter top may not be easy. Furthermore we both cook a lot, so we decided it'll be best to start with a new kitchen.

Last update for now. Finally the hacking done. Tiling was done soon after.

There was a long pause in the reno here. It took almost a month after the commencement of hacking before the permit was giving to: 1) Build into the balcony 2) Hack existing kitchen wall In the mean time, the tilers started...

Hacking... The living looks much bigger with out the TV console.

Before photo The house was in a good condition when we took over, but due to the new floor plan quite a lot of the existing stuff had to go. There was a TV console splitting the living area. Living area was an elevated timber flooring. This is the balcony that will be incorporated into the living. Existing kitchen Common toilet Master toilet

Wow you guys reply fast.. Don't know if I can keep up with this! I totally forgot to mention that the theme of the house if you haven't already picked up on is "WHITE! and simple". Nothing new but we love it. Thank you May. Yes the last one has a huge kitchen, especially if you open it up. But because we both cook a lot and definitely need a dry kitchen, a confined space for that was imperative. And that last floor plan really works best when it's totally opened up which we prefer not to.