summersann

your house is lovely. Very personalized and totally shows character. So much respect for the many DIYs Can only hope ours turns out to be what we want it to be as well! Enjoy your home

love the subway tiles in your kitchen! So cute when it all comes together with your countertops Congrats on a smooth renovation!

Call in yourself! We had the same problem with the approval of the hacking of one of our walls. Took 2 weeks of our ID chasing HDB officer and still didn't get approval. Finally got irritated and called ourselves. Even had to ask to speak to the supervisor. Finally got the approval within a week. Can't imagine how much longer it would have dragged if we didn't call ourselves. All the best for yours! Your space planning looks very interesting

Oh oops. Not the bedroom, because it looks like you're placing it at the area that used to be part of the walkway outside the bedroom and toilet upstairs. I mean, wet areas can be extended outside of the designated bathroom area?

Wet areas can be extended out to the bedroom? Any waterproofing done?

Love the platform idea in the living room! All the best with your renovation

Not sure! ID said if everything goes according to schedule with no delay in the arrival of materials, we should get it by end of the month. That would be super fast though, considering we only started renovations on 21 December (2012)!

PM-ed you!

More pieces for the home! (Our standing lamp!) (Taller cabinet.) (Bedside table.)

The House, after 3 weeks of renovation.

Thanks! The tin toy and the phone are from Kwerkee. The light is from a vintage store

Online shopping for the new home! Finally got a tin toy A phone for the living room. And finally found the perfect accordion lamp!

Yay! Thankfully no delays and no need for PE endorsement Smooth renovation journey!

Happy renovation!

Your master bathroom sounds like it's going to look interesting! Show pictures when it's shaping up!

Seems like it would be too fast! we're not doing laminated flooring though, and the only parquet flooring we have is on the stairs and some patching up of the ones on the 2nd floor. But I'm just leaving it to the designers and site manager to know when to do what. From the updates my designer gives us, it seems like they're quite on task. The new master bedroom will be bigger than the usual master, but not super big la But I can't wait to see more too! Last hacking supposed to happen today!

Not yet! Still waiting for designer to come up with the design. We racked our brains quite a bit over the gate and went to and fro with ideas. Finally chanced upon a gate somewhere while we were lights shopping and the designer said he could do something for us that looked like it. So we're still waiting. If I do get a picture of it/know the cost, I'll share it with you! Interesting! Didn't know about the Tolix. I still prefer the one with the wood top Me too! All the best for yours as well!

The last wall (that took HDB forever to approve) will be hacked tomorrow! Then hacking will be all done. The new hollow-block walls have all been erected and the rooms upstairs have been plastered. The balcony has also been screed smooth. They've already begun tiling the service yard and kitchen, and my subway tiles are already up. Seems like things are going well so far. My designer actually told us on Saturday that if all goes well (she kept stressing IF ), we could possibly have our place by end of this month. We were quite stunned. Hahaha. Don't want it to be too fast and rushed though! Have fun with yours! Remember to post pictures! I love the hacking process

Yeah, it's important to pick someone you're comfortable with, who understands (or at least seems to understand) exactly what you want. You're going to be paying ID prices, you might as well pick someone you're comfortable with so that you don't have to constantly worry if they're doing the right thing My staircase was originally some sort of really old-school mosaic-looking tile. We're overlaying the steps with parquet planks (the risers(?) will be screed smooth and painted white) because we wanted to preserve the vintage-looking staircase railing & handle. We have a dog too, and him falling down the stairs in his excitement are what we're worried about as well. We're going to install a gate of sorts at the bottom of the stairs on the 1st floor so that we can stop the dog from going up the stairs when we're not home (in case he injures himself when there's no one around to help). Our designers are going to custom-make some sort of a gate for us, so we're still waiting to see how it turns out.

If I remember correctly, the shop's called i-lite. It's at Jalan Besar. Not sure if it'd be the best place to get stuff from though, because I didn't do research on where to buy lights and just followed the designer. Our relite fan is $148. Hahaha yeah, I think the loose bulbs will probably be hung from the ceiling above the stairs. They'll be staggered, so some will be lower than others. The boy is planning on keeping a ladder in the storeroom anyway, so I guess he'll be the one changing the lights! We're planning to use poles or something along that line to hook the light bulbs over for changing or something. If all else fails, we'll ask our designer for help. Hahaha

We also did a major overhaul of our EM, and swapped our bedrooms too! Seems like the cost of doing that for an EM really does come up to be about the same for many people in this forum. All the best for your renovation!

Lights shopping on Saturday, furniture shopping (on our own) today. Went to Tong Yuan building to check out egg3 and Grafunkt. And I thought Air was expensive enough. Grafunkt was just ridiculous. Was about to leave when we saw that Grafunkt was having a warehouse clearance sale on the 3rd floor. I didn't think it'd be worth our time, but the boy wanted to go. Was good that we went, because we found out that some of the pieces on level 2 were actually under clearance sale (because they had the same pieces on level 3). We spotted a coffee table we liked, and the price after discount was much more reasonable (can't say the same for some of the other discounted pieces). Went back to level 2 with the shop assistant to take a better look at the selection. Finally picked out our coffee tables! Went up to egg3 again after popping by Grafunkt. The prices there were much more reasonable (yes I know, it's not "designer", but seriously, $500 for a stool or $7000 for a bed frame?!). Fell in love with this stool when we first went in. Returned to get it after getting shocked by "designer" prices downstairs The shop assistant was nice enough to let us move chairs around the place to find the perfect match for our island/dining table. We ended up buying 5 chairs/stools! The chair that the boy really wanted for the study table. But I didn't think it'd be as outstanding against our parquet floor. Took it out after much thought

It's been a busy weekend of shopping (and mourning for the bank account). Lights + bathroom accessories shopping on Saturday. Designers brought us to a place for lights. The lights were really expensive. Probably could have saved more if we went sourcing for the lights ourselves, but it's too exhausting sourcing for everything, so we caved in Was so engrossed in the lights that I forgot to take pictures, so these random online pictures will have to do. Our track lights look something like this, except ours is completely white. The back part where the wire comes out from was black, but we requested for the shop to change it to white for us. Bought a few loose bulbs for lighting. 7 of them will be for the stairwell and 4 for all the bathrooms. The bulbs look something like this, but slightly bigger and the bulb holders are white. Very excited about these bulbs! The floodlight for our balcony looks somewhat like this, but ours only has 9 bulbs inside. The shop is also going to change the outer covering to white for us, leaving just the light board black. The wall mounted lamp for our balcony looks something like this, but ours is white. Also got our fans from the same shop. Relite petite. The bank account is groaning in pain.

Yup, heard from a friend who's into fengshui or something. It apparently sends out radioactive signals (or something like that) and therefore disrupts sleep. Think even radio and whatever isn't adviced too. I don't believe in these things so, *shrug*.