summersann

You've got a point there about the toilet paper On another note, this is also something we had to constantly remind ourselves during our renovation. We want to be nice and accommodating, but sometimes, we have to be firm about things. We are paying them a huge sum to do our homes the way we want. Just as long as we're not unreasonable and demanding, I think being firm is fine. They better make sure it all turns out well!

I can second that this is true! It's stated on HDB's site under renovation that pipes in the toilet and kitchen must not be concealed. But my ID also told us that the only way to conceal pipes in the toilet will be to build a hollow wall. It will eat a little into your original toilet's space, but that's how you can conceal the pipes.

Timing sounds great! you have to spend anyway, so might as well do it during sales right? My furries claiming everything as their own

-_- they're going to change it right? Make sure they do! Seriously, what are they thinking. But on another note, your toilet bowl is in the shower area! Cool, I've always kinda wanted that

Mom needs an armchair, so I can finally have the armchair I liked! They just sent it for reholstering, so it's a different color from what I saw before. Loving it even more! They had to call another guy who was on his way to the store to tell him it's been sold. Sorry! P.S. Room of Woods is moving out after two more weekends! Owners say they're taking a break while searching for another warehouse.

Thank you your turn to renovate soon right? Like how you spray painted your items, personal touches! On another note, my naughty cat has decided that he likes the red chest. I think it's because it's cold

By room doors, do you mean the main door to the room, or the doors of the wardrobes in the rest of the house? My storeroom doors are the same thickness and quality as the wardrobe doors in the rest of the house, but of course not as solid as the main doors to the rooms. No matter what, I don't think u're supposed to see the staples!

it shouldn't be a problem? but I'm not too sure, because we changed all our windows. if you spray paint, it's still better to remove and spray right? Otherwise, there may be corners that don't get sprayed properly? I don't really know because I'm totally clueless about spray painting

Hahaha, story of our lives. Got to settle everything to do with the house on the weekends. Not enough time! Companies should totally have House Moving Leave so we can take leave and do things properly

If yours is considered an old HDB block, it shouldn't be a problem. Walk around the neighborhood and see if anyone else has windows in a different color. That's what my ID did before doing anything different from the standard done by HDB But spray painting isn't the best choice because I think it'll peel off over time, leaving patches, and it'd be difficult for you to remove it to spray paint again. Powder coating is still the best for windows because of frequent use.

I love this! Really gives the place character. Maybe pick the places that you want to highlight and go red for those? Certain places, like the bedroom, should still be calming, so I'd go with neutral colors. But then again, my entire house is neutral, so maybe I'm not the best to comment

The Europeans know how to make their houses lovely. And the views are to die for too Can't wait to see your wall trimmings!

We're fixing the areas bit by bit, spot by spot. Right now, nothing beats the feeling of seeing a corner of the house come together. Can't stand a mess of things (all the ugly moving boxes and plastic bags) Some areas in the making... This one isn't really "in the making" anymore, because it's pretty straightforward. The additional hanger we got for small items (kinda) helps to maximise the amount of laundry we can hang up. The laundry area is slowly taking shape. Now I need to decorate the wall a little, put up stuff on the noticeboard, place some cute things on the table, and fill the space below the table with pretty colors. The area for our guinea pigs is slowly coming together. Need more colors! The bookshelf upstairs is turning out to be rather handy, as a bookshelf, display shelf, and room divider. The boy has also decided to claim a corner of the shelf as his side table, for his phone and glasses

Heh, he is, but quite naughty! Caught him scratching our sofa! Thank goodness we didn't get a leather one We're cleaning area by area, so by the time we finish cleaning everything, the first area is dirty again like my ID said, it's going to take a while of cleaning before the place will stop feeling dusty. But I'm guilty of not doing much cleaning, the boy is doing most of it I'm in charge of planning what else needs to be bought and where things need to be placed. He's complaining about the stairs all the time. Silly, because we got an EM because of the balcony+stairs I wanted to! But we got so overwhelmed with the things we needed to do that we didn't want to have to look for a reliable company to clean for us. Super lazy we are! We also decided not to because our IDs said the place will feel dusty even after cleaning it once or twice, and that we need to clean a few times until the dust settles. So we thought it was a bit pointless to hire someone to come clean once. Might as well clean ourselves No need to thank me! The staircase storage was my IDs' idea la, so I can't claim it as my own

Love your personalized touches! Your housewarming looks great, cable & tissue boxes too how do you make the photo books? send it to a printer?

the black strips on the foyer ceiling + the living room/balcony divider window frame = gorgeous! Can't wait to see the windows go up!

Totally agree! But our case is more of having no time to clean or unpack properly because we're too lazy to do anything after coming back from work so it's taking a long time to get the house looking like a home.

Ah I know why! Because you have a bigger free standing space under the stairs for storage, so your drawers area is smaller. Soft closing is good! I like how I can just push the drawers back and they close on their own Kitchen and bar area are coming along nicely! Almost there

All the best with your ID/contractor search and good luck with renovation! you can check out a lot of t-blogs here featuring EMs to get a few ID/contractor suggestions

Gorgeous! This reminds me of a site I frequented when researching on renovation (http://bo-laget.se/objektvy.php?id=1505). I was very inspired by this style, but didn't go all the way. Can't wait to see your completed place!

Thank you Berlinbear and 3Dyms for your kind words! We try our best, but we're constantly stressed about getting the wrong stuff! Probably the best storage space in the house. So much space to put stuff, and makes things much more accessible. The best is that the ugly essentials are hidden

Totally owning the house by now

I'm sure she will like it! You did it with her in mind, that's good enough reason to like it No need to thank me for the drawer under staircase! Ideas are meant to be shared. Glad that it was of use to you Why is your staircase so short though! Interesting looking We're totally loving our staircase storage because it's so convenient. Don't have to keep digging in for stuff that we need because we can just pull out the drawer. Hope you love yours too!

He & She, hahaha. Yeah, they went to ask the HDB contractor, but HDB contractors apparently charge you exorbitant amounts when actually they provided it for dirt cheap under HDB. So the IDs found a cheaper source who had similar tiles. I don't really remember how much the ledges cost, but I remember it was quite cheap in the scheme of things (probably under $100). Our ID passed us the receipt from the tile shop for the tiles, so we paid them whatever the receipt quoted.

Shall feature certain areas along the way, while we're still giving the place a little more character. Our bathrooms were undergoing HDB upgrading when we were in the process of buying the place. Upgrading works were completed a month before we got the keys. Like all new HDBs, the upgrading meant we couldn't rework the bathrooms without voiding the 3-year warranty covered by HDB. We took a while to decide, and went with not hacking the bathrooms. We quite liked the baby blue+white combination, but there was an ugly strip of leaf-prints running across that we would prefer removed. Most IDs told us they couldn't do it without affecting the tiles around the strip, 1 ID said they could "try", but eventually chickened out and said they couldn't. The ID we finally settled on said, "Oh sure that's quite easy." Haha The end product, with the white mosaic tiles we chose to replace the leaf-prints. The white mosaics make me happy Also, kudos to our ID for paying attention to the details we forgot, like where we would place our shower bottles. We didn't hack the bathroom tiles, so doing a "hole in the wall" for the bottles (which seems like a popular choice now) didn't occur to us. Our ID suggested a concrete ledge, tiled with the same tiles as the ones HDB used. We're loving it so far!