klimoo

Hi Anw, PMed!

More updates on carpentry works! shoe cabinet and display shelf still pending doors for the shoe cabinet, which is the shorter half and is to be suspended. really like this design very much may not be a very practical design but in this case my heart wins over my mind haha glass frame a slim wooden frame for our L shaped glass which is still pending. the wooden stick in the middle is there temporarily for support. we are planning to diy some curtains from ikea for the glass as we were quoted abt $700 for roller blinds here..ouch. platform the laminates are yet to be glued onto the platform..I've always wanted a balcony and this is the closest we can get to the balcony feel hahaha mbr vanity counter and close up of rounded part pending doors and counter top..my favourite amongst the carpentry items is the curved bottom right of this vanity counter..very beautifully done! but too bad cannot be admired lol. but at least now we wouldn't bang our legs into sharp corners in the tight space in the toilet

hahahaha..the brick wall and subway tiles are like his signature ahh

And finally carpentry works were delivered to our place yday! Very excited the day before haha..According to the uncle, they were there since 8.30am and planned to work till 9-10pm! This is what I have as of yday evening. kitchen - counter seating/breakfast area kitchen - beside the counter seating area. this is the side with the hob and hood. kitchen - where the sink will be Notice how there's a part above the windows that is jutting out? Apparantly that's due to the box up of the water pipes and we were totally not expecting this. Prior communication with the carpenter and drawings did not mention this at all! We told the carpenter we want the cabinets to be flushed and they'll have to take it down and fix it..but how, i'm still not sure. display shelf - to be together with shoe cabinet, not pictured mbr wardrobe mbr toilet - vanity counter lying on its side Yet to closely inspect the workmanship yet, but have alr seen some strips of laminates with uneven edges. Hopefully nothing too major turns up during closer inspection!

The bedroom floors were polished and revarnished last week followed by chemical cleaning a few days after. second bedroom mbr The uneven walls (actually partitions) in the mbr is where the wardrobe will be built. The walls were hacked down and partitions were constructed. The back of those walls are the blue walls in the second bedroom.

Water works On the same saturday that lights were fixed up, workers were also arranged to fix up the storage heater, toilet fittings etc. I didn't expect that it will take around half a day to fix up everything in the two toilets (except for the mbr basin as its awaiting the vanity counter by carpentry). But its good that everything went without a glitch. Common toilet Initially we didn't want to change the wash basin in the common toilet due to cost but when we were at poh seng, we saw this basin going at $80 and thought it was very reasonable..so we bought it! We also got the metal piping to go with it and really like how everything looks when put tog! We also got the stainless steel bidet spray from poh seng but kinda regret it afterwards as its a tad ex at $48 each. Jovan 35L storage heater's from poh seng too. The black (bronze?) accessories are from taobao. MBR toilet Really like the shower cubicle in the mbr toilet! heeLikewise the bronze accessories are from taobao. Toilet bowl's from Rigel. We got the power and soul shower set from amazon usa as insani didn't have stock for that. The grohtherm thermostatic bath/shower mixer and another grohe and hansa taps r from insani which was cheaper than buying in sg even after adding in shipping costs. The experience buying from insani was good. Items were received in good condition in abt 1-2 weeks. But over the last weekend we saw some grohe sale at interior affairs and the prices in the papers looked quite good too!

Lights And we've one more light for the dining area, which is from light craft (pardon the plastic packaging). A pretty good buy at around $50 and I like how the white lampshade with its blue trimmings matches the light blue wall. Love! And this is a shot from the kitchen doorway, with the white relite petite ceiling fan up. When friends and family see our living room..their first reaction is usually "wah so many lights!". Or they've also said its like a "stage", "studio", "cafe" etc. lol. Initially the two lights above the platform r meant for the dining area. But in the end we decided to get a square dining table so I thought 1 big pendent light's more suitable than 2 small ones, so they were shifted to the platform area and so we ended up with so many lights. But I think brightness wise its alright, not an overkill, so still ok. Just that cleaning may require more work. But that's smth to worry later haha

Lights (from taobao) kitchen (doorway) mbr (bedside) corridor living room (above platform) living room (track lights) living room (above sofa) Some lights from tb are really good buys, like the track lights (7w) that costs about S$10 each and the pendent lights above the sofa which is about $50 for all 3 and the platform lights ard S$50 for 2. But the rest are fairly expensive, abt S$40-50 each, after factoring in shipping. But they may still be cheaper than in Sg? Not very sure about that as I didn't check. Hopefully we've saved some money!

Switches (legrand mallia) matt black plate with dark silver rocker to match the grey wall of the mbr all others - dark silver plate with silver rocker The relite petite fan comes with a 3 speed regulator. However legrand mallia only has a 5 speed regulator. When I was buying the fan regulator, I checked with the salesperson at choo chiang if it can be used for the fan and he joked that it will make the fan go faster! lol. So before installation, I was thinking maybe 2 of the speeds cannot be used. i.e. can only turn to max speed 3. But in the end, speeds 1 - 5 all worked but speed 1 was really slow and I don't think its the standard speed 1. But so far all has been well!

Lights (from Philips) mbr (main) and third bedroom uses the same light second bedroom same as mbr but this has a nickel frame kitchen (main) led light service yard and home shelter both toilets mbr doorway

Paint selection from dulux mbr - grey star second bedroom - crystal blue third bedroom - lemon ice dining room - winterscape This is only the first round of painting, after carpentry is up there'll be one more round of painting to do. Initially I was quite disappointed that winterscape turned out to be very bluish, similar to crystal blue, as I was expecting it to be a little more turquoise. The two colors r so similar the painter even thought there was a mistake and on a tiny part of the wall, he painted winterscape on top of crystal blue and found that winterscape is slightly darker. But luckily the blue winterscape gradually grew on me as it looks so soft and gentle and goes wonderfully with the dining lights (which I'll post later) and now I love how it looks! my ability to psycho myself to like smith is quite powerful hahaha and its a good thing! For the bedrooms, only one/two walls were colored so it wouldn't be too overwhelming. The walls u don't see are painted with the color 'frosted dawn' and the ceiling is just regular white paint. FYI, our quote allows us to select 4 colors, 1 white color and even though frosted dawn is white, it is considered as one color. So we'll have to top up for that. I guess the white color included is the default type which u cannot select.

air con trunking in the living room nicely boxed up to be flushed with the false beam of the half wall.

Half wall constructed air con trunking in the MBR air con trunking along the corridor. we chose to expose the air con trunking instead of boxing it up which should make it easier for future maintenance if any problem arises. ceiling fan and lighting points in the living room. addition of switches in the mbr. these will be above our bedside tables and one of them is a two way switch so that we can turn off/on the main light in the mbr while we are in bed instead of walking to switch located at the door.

Tiling completed MBR toilet [before] MBR toilet [after] Brick wall Kitchen When the marble mosaic wall in the mbr toilet was first completed, we noticed some portions were 'blacker' than the others. The mosaic came in 1 sq foot pieces and some had more white parts while others were almost completely black. We were prepared to accept it as it is, thinking it couldn't be helped. But one day when we went to check the progress, we found the tiling uncle painstakingly digging out some tiles from the blacker parts and replaced them with tiles with more white parts! We were very pleased with how it finally turned out and really respect the uncle for taking so much pride in his work!!

We retained almost all the flooring in the house, and the mr was in love with subway tiles - which we'll be using for the kitchen and common toilet walls, so tile selection was pretty quick. Only had to decide on tiles for the MBR toilet. I was inspired by this picture I saw while browsing online and chose tiles that hopefully can recreate that look. Bathroom inspiration Tiles selection for MBR Tiles were selected on our second trip to Sin Lek. Made trips to soon bee huat and hafary@tradehub but the tiles at Sin Lek were closest to what we wanted for the bathroom. Craft bricks Craft bricks were brought in for the wall opp the half glass wall, which is where we'll be placing our tv console.

So works began with hacking, which involved 2 areas. The wall between the 3rd bedroom and living room was removed and we'll be reconstructing a 1.2m high wall and the top half will be glass. HDB didn't approve of us just hacking half the wall and required us to hack everything and reconstruct. Still don't understand why it has to be like this when we have heard of other projects that are permitted to only hack the portions they want removed. Any idea why?? we also removed the wall between the 2nd bedroom and MBR. The wardrobe will be constructed over here, eating into the space of the 2nd bedroom to keep the MBR more spacious..so that 5 years down the road..if we have kids..they can sleep with us in the MBR! hahaha

Hi chubbylobster, I think I've finally figured out how to upload photos..lol. super noob when it comes to these things and when you see the pics of the reno you may be able to figure out who the contractor is!!

Hi blackpeace, the size of the MBR toilet is alright. But for the common toilet, the space between the toilet bowl and the wall to its right is rather tight. So the shower kerb will be in the way i.e. your feet will probably touch/be on the kerb when you are seated on the toilet bowl. The contractor warned us about that before constructing the kerb and we are ok with that, but it seemed like a big concern to him lol. So we'll just have shower curtains for the common toilet instead of a shower screen.

somethings which we think is very important for all who are planning for their renovation. You need to know what you want to do/reno (overlay, hacking of walls etc) Get a few quotation for comparison sake (sometime they will also give you more ideas on space planning) choose a id/contractor whom you can trust (based on gut feel) you need to factor in the work load of your id/contractor to get a realistic feel of how much time they can spend on your project amongst all their projects make sure that there is good 2 way communication between your and the ID/contractor

hi there, thanks for the tips! finally got the photos uploaded! more to come!

More photos of our new house: Living and dining room Kitchen BR#3 BR#2 MBR Common Toilet MBR Toilet

Hello everyone! We are starting this t blog 1.5 months into our reno to chronicle the ups and downs of our reno journey and to share our experience after gaining so much from renotalk. Let me begin with a brief introduction to what has happened in the past few months. We collected our keys at the beginning of july and quickly went through a few rounds of meeting IDers and looking through quotations and finally we confirmed our contractor as we felt comfortable with him and liked the projects he has done. Works commenced on 26th September and is still on going now. So let me share our floor plan! which is not too exciting as its a very standard 4 room bto hee.

Great site!