mummychua

originally we plan to have a hole cut out for the bed and let the bed sit in. but contractor suggest to do without the cut out and have my bed will be placed directly on the platform, this allow me flexibility to shift the bed around, and easy cleaning. platform will be make with floor laminate rather than carpentry laminate. but we had not decide on the laminate as the samples my contractor showed me do not have what i want. mbr toilet carpentry will be in gloss white too. my mbr inspiration. he will find something as close as possible to the picture. laminates for the wardrobe. question! which floor laminate i should choose for the kids room? i like the bottom one but find it a little to rustic for kids. the top one is certainly a safe choice but boring looking?

met up with my contractor to finalize the details for the carpentry, paint, and lighting and powerpoint plan. a very simple plan, runway false ceiling for the dining and living. another small false ceiling in mbr. only cove, downlight and simple ceiling light. no hanging lights. boring? maybe a little... part of my kitchen carpentry. created one hole to put my water flask and cups. the other side of my kitchen... winter for my quartz table top. celestial white for most part of the kitchen. my experience with white matt isnt good, although there wont be any fingerprints on matt laminate, but its difficult to clean after it got stained. my old place uses matt white, i can see water lines on it after sometime. cross fingers that gloss white will be easier to clean... and this laminate for the 'hole'. thinking if i should use this on only of the drawers on the other side of the kitchen.

got my bosch hood, hob and oven. understand that not all things from Bosch are good but i like to coordinate all my brands. cant stand having a different brand of hob and hood. plus bosch oven looks so chio. looking forward to bake with it... http://www.bosch-home.com.sg/store/product/bProfessionalBlackGlassBundlebbrHoodHobOven/PCG-771 my fridge is from Hitachi. find side by side capacity a little too big for me, but i love the french door opening. so this 3 door fridge fits my requirement and its so pretty. according to a sales person at Best, hitachi has the best energy efficient fridge as it uses dual fan cooling. and he warn us against those fridge with digital inverter. according to him the digital control won't last more than 2yrs and once it spoilt, the fridge will take up alot more electricity. anyone can verify this information? http://www.hitachiconsumer.com/sg/products_details.aspx?oid=3370 got all these from Kong Tai Electric. Total damage $3600. Save a few hundreds buying from them rather than those major electric store.

thanks for the advise. trying to keep my want in check.

i was thinking of going without a feature wall, as my wall is quite long so very expensive to do one wall for the purpose of hiding wires. so contractor suggest to hack the wall a little, put in a aircon size casing, patch back. a little illegal... but what will hdb do if they catch this kind of thing?

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went to spot check the reno last friday. new windows are up. aluminium sliding with clear glass for all windows. initially want to have windows and grilles in white powder coated but was advise against it by not just one but 2 contractors and 1 guy selling grilles. all of them says that it will be of high maintenance and white powder coat could turn yellowish. with 2 kids and a dog, i will probably be cleaning window once a yr, so aluminium windows for me. actually it doesn't look too bad. and with clear glass panel, the whole house looked so much brighter. got a msg from contractor, waterproofing for toilet and kitchen is done. looks like reno is on schedule for me to move in before 7th month.

my reno is similar to ur, do those essential stuff 1st. very little carpentry but still my quotation is standing at $47k, only got this price after i squeeze my contractor. but with my very tight schedule, i cannot go with my cheapest quotation. during their roadshow, the price quoted is abt $1.6k for a simple design gate and a regular sized door plus they free a digital peek hole (is this the term use?). ur door is bigger than usual?

This is near to bukit timah. 4rm corridor unit. Thats what everyone haa been telling me. One time pain but when u see the reno figure and the cost of all the fittings and furniture, it is really painful lor... ouch ouch ouch...

LinJie, im try to complete my 4rm resell reno before 7th mth too! God bless us that things are able to complete on time. Im texting my contractor everyday for updates. I think he's starting to regret taking up my project. Lol... As for ur neighbor, go say hi and apologize 1st. Get ur ID to patch things back for them. After u move in, invite them for ur housewarming? Thats what i plan to do for my neighbors, although i didnt receive any complained. But can build up relationships with them.

saw this door at one of the roadshow at Kovan. anyone got it? looks like a really good to have at the new place. http://www.doctordoors.com.sg/combi-door.html

for a 5 to 6yr non-inverter, i will probably change, since non-inverter system has a shorter lifespan that the inverter ones. plus re-pipe of aircon cost a fair bit too. i might keep the current system but re-pipe the whole thing as the current pipe is old and part of it has been torn down due to the hacking of toilet wall tiles. but my re-pipe work will cost me $900. decision decision...

The previous owner left a 1yr old system 3 aircon, but only till today i was told that the is not a inverter system. We are a little bothered abt it as we will be turning on 2 aircon every nite. But im not sure if the increase of electricity consumation is justifiable for the change. If we will change i will most probably get a system 4 so that the living could have one but a system 4 cost almost 4k. Piangz... budget burst like siao...

hey, can i have your contact for craftbricks? thanks!

thanks for the inform. didnt know that they are rivals! their names make them sounds more like sister company than rivals. dont see what's the big deal about those so called high end models. to me turn tap, water can come out ok le... but must look nice lah and i want to coordinate my tap and mixer brand. very assuring to hear that. i read your write up on how to purchase from taobao, very helpful. tried to download aliwahwah but somehow i cant do it on my computer. anyway with my lousy chinese, it will probably take me half a day to type a single sentence in chinese. will probably buy basin thru peeka and get them to tell the seller to crate it.

2 set of Grohe mixer and tap from Home & Bathroom, just beside Hafary at Balestier. According to my contractor, this shop sells the cheapest Grohe stuff. Well they are slight cheaper than what i see at IMM but i cant rmb the different. saw a rainshower with thermostat mixer selling at S$600plus, quite a good buy i think but paymaster object since we are not the rainshower ppl, it will just for show. well... toilet bowl from a shop doing closing down sale along Balestier rd. S$330 a piece, not sure if its cheap but its a one piece bowl so chin cai just buy. Now thinking if i should buy basin from taobao. saw one i like, selling S$200 locally, tb sells it at 200plus rmb. but worry if the basin will survive the trip

the 1st purchase for the house is from taobao http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=35757948001&spm=a1z09.2.9.9.o0egkf not the cheapest sink in taobao, but i wanted a 60/40 double bowl sink with the tap mounted on the sink rather than on the kitchen counter top. saw the same sink selling locally at S$500plus without the tap nor the soap dispenser. and the qty looks good, as good as how it look on the pictures. thrown in some LED downlight and LED stripe with the shipment and ship via amcon. hoping to get the sink in quickly as i requested for my contractor to do a concrete sink support instead of the regular wood support and he requested to have the sink in earlier. i should have shipped this few item via peeka instead. too kanchong liao.

My Tiles... Tile for the living, kitchen and part of mbr (most of mbr will be covered by platform). Choose the same tile for all 3 areas, hoping for a uniform and flowing look. grey tile for yard and the 2 toilet floor, matching up against the main tiles for the house. toilet wall tile and floor tiles. somehow the floor tile look different here. subway tile for my kitchen wall. hope that i wont die cleaning them. bought a chimney hood, pray that it will do what it claim to do. anyone else uses this type of subway tile?

started hacking on the 12june and within a day, everything hacked and debris cleared. looks promising...

Choosing of ID/Contractor we didnt have much time to shop for a contractor as we sold our old house way before we bought this unit. currently we are bunking in with my dad, whole family in a small room, not the best arrangement. that's why we need to rush the renovation and hopefully move in before the start of chinese 7th mth. therefore when it comes to choosing of contractor, our 1st consideration is dateline then price. all in all, i talked to 3 contractors and 1 IDs. was very keen to work with the other 2 contractors as they are very competitively priced. the only ID we talked to is a intro from a very good friend but she's over-priced plus she doesn't seems to have much idea on the design of the house. behave more like a contractor than an ID. we finally made the choice to engage the 3rd contractor who promise to make the dateline and price not too far of from the other 2, plus he's seems to be able to help with some design and color coordination. he feels more like a ID than the so called ID my friend recommended. fingers crossed that he really do a proper job in such a short period of time.

As per the blog title, view outside my new home. Love it...

Photos of the house before hacking:

Without further ado, my floor plan... We took a long time to buy this house. This previous owner finally sell it to us on the 3rd offer. I'm probably the only few people who paid for relatively high COV in this current market. Plus the place need a overhaul. The previous owner hacked off the kitchen wall and store, reposition the mbr door to the left and build a store using part of the 3rd bedroom with the door of the store open between the 2 common room. Stove and bed position indicated on the floor plan by my fsm. So here is the biggest problem with the renovation. The recommended bed position for mbr is blocked by the toilet. Initially we planned to hack and make the toilet smaller. But its not possible cos there is a water pipe is blocking the way, i cant hack all the way, so no point hacking. Went back to fsm for another position, but the 2nd position wont work too. Paymaster insist to follow fsm recommendation so now my idea is to build a platform instead of having a normal bed frame so that the bed can sit in rather than popping out. No idea if this will be weird. Any other suggestion are welcome!

i just bought this hood for my new place. any reason for selling?

love ur ceiling lights, i'm looking at the same lights on tmall. any reviews on it? in future if the light spoil, u will have to change the whole thing rite?