jez2014

Our Toilets (Renovation complete!) Toilets always remind me of a my mother. Let me tell you a story. A long time ago in... KL, we were on holiday, and when we arrived at Berjaya Times Square, her first comment was "Wow, this place has alot of toilets... Left, right, centre, also all toilets!" I was quite surprised, so I asked her "We just stepped into the mail, its our first time here, how can you tell there are many toilets??" She said there were signs. Indeed there were. All around us there were signs saying "To let". Not toilet lah! True story. No toilet humour from me in this post, I promise! The first picture is of the common toilet. There's nothing much of note, except that the hooks and toilet sink + vanity top came from Taobao. The hooks were an awesome buy. The sink + vanity top, not so much. You can read about the terrible sink here. The MBR toilet is abit more exciting, so I've got more photos of that. Here goes! You might have read about our bath tub and tile selection process, which can be found here. After the tub was done, we also added the sink + vanity top and a relatively unmodest mirror to the wall adjacent to the door. The first panoramic photo shows the view from the front door. As you can see, the mirror has a black aluminum frame, and covers practically the entire wall, starting from the door. For those of you who find it visually confusing, the left hand side is a reflection. Towel racks came from Taobao. The mirror was bought from our contractor (forgot the price). He encouraged us to go IKEA to find small mirrors, but we were unwilling to do so for large ones. Here's another panoramic view, this time from the toilet bowl area. You'll notice that our door doesn't have hooks. That was a oversight, and we're getting it rectified in our final touch ups in two weeks time. If you look carefully here, there's a bag of stuff just above the bath tub... The bag is actually a bag of seashells. We've been to a couple of beach vacations, and each time we'd pick some seashells we like, all in order to do something like... This! Zero practical value, but quite happy with how it turned out. We're placing it at the bath tub for now. If you were wondering where I got my white sand from, its from Taobao. No. You cannot order sand from Taobao. Its part of my minature Zen garden set. The Zen garden, in case you're wondering, was placed in my study. NOT the toilet! Lastly, here's a small freebie which your contractors/IDs should be able to do. I've mentioned them before, but leftover iQuartz from your kitchen counter tops can be used to fabricate bathroom ledges, and here's how they look like when completed:

Our Master Bedroom (Renovation Complete!) Playing bridge is like having sex. You either have a d@mn good partner Or you'll need a d@mn good hand. Woody Allen. Not me, I not Creative. I not like Sim Wong Hoo. The first photo I present is a panoramic shot showing the view from our MBR window. I had to squeeze my sweet cheeks against the window for this shot, so you better appreciate the effort. I was literally hauling a$$ for this shot. As I've mentioned in this post here, we made changes to the carpentry in our MBR, and we're unveiling them here (faster than an Arab can unveil his wife): 1) Adding full height cabinets along the long wall. 2) Adding a table, which you can see below the TV. The Aladdin lamp on the table is free, courtesy: Eubiq. The blue lit circle next to it is comes from our Eubiq USB charger. The only kind of charge I like... as opposed to service charge, conservancy charge, lawsuit charge If you're wondering where the service yard window is, its behind the cabinets (nearest the gray wall). I've posted a picture below to show how this works. This photo is a panoramic view of the master bedroom from the toilet door. The lights in the windows opposite the toilets come from the HDB blocks which face us. Which means when I come out of the bathroom, I cannot display my fullest glory for my wife. Haizzz. You should be able to make out the top cabinets above the bed more clearly. The wife insisted on the top cabinets, to maximize the space above the bed. The top cabinets have an S-shaped design (3 doors on top, 2 doors below). This was courtesy of my good friend, Google. I like to Google S-shapes... you all know what kind lah . Something worth mentioning: Our contractor was against the idea of the top cabinets as they might feel claustrophobic. After some discussion, he proposed creating a headboard for the bed (with the T5 light). He felt the headboard would "push" the bed further outwards, and we wouldn't be looking at our top cabinets as we slept. The wife and I actually didn't care about the claustrophobia, but ok. The room looks much cosier with the T5 lights in the end. Hehe. PS. The dustbin is from Taobao. Its cheap and functional. All I can say is, its not trashy. Hoho. As promised, this is the service yard window is located. You can see its behind the full height cabinets. In order to ensure the air-con servicemen can service the compressor outside, we chose to run a "pole" system. You can see the two poles. North pole and south pole haha. If the air con needs servicing, down come the poles (and everything on them - currently hanging there is all the wife's clothes. Not my problem haha). To get even more space out of this cupboard, the contractors also added one more plank in the cabinet, ABOVE the service yard window. It's not in the photo because this is an old picture - which explains how I suddenly made it change from night time to daytime The L-shaped cabinets run pretty deep. We managed to pack alot of clothes into them. The doors also swing very wide (I think almost 180 degrees). You can see this from the photo below. Swing wider means it easier to pack stuff clothes if when we get fat haha! "The best way to avoid getting fat, is to BE fat". Quoted for truth. Courtesy: Yours truly. By the way, all the clothes in the photograph belongs to the wife. My clothes are located in that tiny cupboard door to the right (currently being blocked by the open swing door). And I only occupy HALF of that cupboard. This is the table we requested. We made many measurements because we weren't convinced that there would be enough space for me to pass through, to get to my side (the inner side) of the bed. Now that I've lived in the home for a week or so, I can safely say, yup, no problem. But cannot put on weight - much incentive to exercise HAHA. The table is also special hoho. It folds down. It's not anything unheard of, or ingenious, but I think its useful - and I'm pretty proud that I came up with the suggestion Our table folds down to make more space, if not required. The folding down mechanism is pretty simple to operate. When the contractor first brought us to see the finished table, he explained how to fold down the table - there's a catch under the table to press on. Then I asked him "This table so easy to use? Got catch or not?" I thought I funny sia hahaha! Ok. Six photograph limit used up. My wife wants me to use the rest of tonight to tidy up - I said ok. What she doesn't know is I will use it to tidy up my my earlier posts, not our room. Hohoho!

Bedroom 1 (Renovation Complete!) Bedroom 1 is very simply done up, as we want the room to grow with our son. We hope he grows more than the room haha. Therefore, the write up is also simple. Don't expect much! This is the a panoramic photograph, showing the view from the door. The cabinets look warped but the are NOT. Its the photographer no skill, shaky hands. As you can see, the thing we did in this room was the full height cabinets and window grilles (actually whole house also got grilles). The yellow shelf, the clock on the wall are from Taobao. Panoramic view number 2, view from the far corner of the room. The shelves with colorful trays are from Taobao, as are the animals hanging from the wall. The floor mat outside the door is also from Taobao. We got our contractor to install (nail, hook, hang etc) most of the things that we bought. The mobiles by the window were bought during our holidays, so - not from Taobao. You can see from both photographs that there is a recliner in the room. The wife wants to read to the kid from this recliner. Yes, its from Taobao, and yes there have been many people asking about it (and the sofa). Here it is: And in the reclining position: Comments on Taobao recliner: The recliner takes up a space of about 1m x 1m. It fills up the recess quite nicely. The only (very minor) complaint we have is that the material was supposed to be microfiber. In reality, the material feels abit more like suede/velvet - but we can still tell its microfiber. On the plus(h) side, but it is VERY comfortable. Wife is looking forward to taking ah fat there, and making him a bookworm like us. For $200 inclusive of shipping, this is a steal. The cheapest recliner we could find (that fit into our tiny room) was $400 at Lorenzo.

Our Kitchen (Renovation Complete!) This is home, truly, where I know I must be. This room is called Kit Chan what. I'm almost as amazed as my wife's ability to cook, as her ability to eat. Each meal is an astounding, mountainous pile; her appetite is legendary in hushed circles. Her ability to cook however, is beyond legendary. Every cooked meal is instant noodles or pasta, in different flavours. I even once got pasta with two meatballs and a sausage arranged to look like a face. Much amaze here folks! Here's a photograph of our kitchen from the living room. Because of our amaze cooking skills, we don't expect to cook much, we decided that non-glossy laminates were ok. For those who cook everyday, please choose glossy laminates - especially if its oily and tze char style with oil and woks - glossy laminates are easier to maintain/wipe down! You should be able to see that a kitchen base was constructed, but NOT a fridge base. A few of the more responsible IDs/contractors we met explained that this is very common now. You want a kitchen base to prevent dust from accumulating under your kitchen cabinets. Its a very long row of cabinets, and will be very hard to wipe underneath. Fridges on the other hand, usually come with wheels or four point supports, so base or no base, you will still have to sweep under them You can see our technogas induction hood and hob - we bought most of our large household appliances from the same shop in Bedok. You can read more about the prices here. We chose induction hob because it boils water VERY quickly and safely (good for our little ah fat at home), as well as easier to wipe. The gas hob still must scrub to clean out the grease etc. The laminate colors based on a picture off Google. Very pleased with the outcome. Here's a panoramic photograph of our kitchen, as viewed from the glass door. Above the sink (in the distance) there is a dish rack. Most of the ID firms and contractors we visited would throw this in free. Just remember to ask, and get it down in writing, in the contract. You should be able to see that the half height cabinets on the right make the kittchen look more spacious. Slight regret in using white laminate, for the right hand side ledge. Gets dirty easily and doesn't go very well with the rest of the kitchen. And yes, we are big fans of Starbucks. After drinking their calorie laden, very sweet coffee for years, it has turned us into even bigger fans of Starbucks LOL at my weighing scale. These are the lower cabinets on the left hand side. Depth is good, accommodates two plates comfortably, and even the chopping board haha. For those of you worrying about "Oh, no must I go and measure my plates etc", there's no need. Typically the IDs and contractors are experienced enough to know what depth to build for the cabinets. Industry standard lah. All our cabinets (in the whole house!) come with colored internal PVC finish, soft close [Excel(?) brand, much cheaper than Blum] and there are ABS trimmings for exposed surfaces. Will explain more about these for newbies in the next photo. About half the crockery is free gifts from buying our fridge lol. The next photo is a close up of the carpentry work (which was first requested by unfinished). This is the top left hand corner of our kitchen cabinets. You can see that the joints between the black laminates, where the pieces meet. You can also see for yourself the ABS finishing/trimming on the cabinet door. Laminate vs PVC vs ABS... whuuut? Ok as mentioned, for newbies, to save you the "on-the-job" learning we had to do (haha)... Pasted onto the outside face of your cabinet is a fake piece of plasticky-sticker-thing. It's called "laminate". So wherever you go, whether you see a white glossy cupboard, black matt finish cupboard, leopard preen, or even a cupboard that looks like wood - it's all laminate. Just a sticker. (Some rich man house is got real wood one lah, but freaking ex). The inside of your cabinets also have a sticker. This one is called PVC. So when you look at the picture above - our cabinets look like the internal is wood right? It's all stickers also. This time called "PVC". We chose PVC stickers that matched our laminates. The industry standard/default is white. Your ID/contractor will usually ask you to top up for colored PVC - but try to ask them to throw in free lah. Either for whole house, or one or two of your favorite rooms. Its not alot more expensive, but will make things look nicer. You can try to imagine if your external laminate is wood, and the internal is white... will look like from IKEA lor . (PS. Our colored PVC was thrown in free, for whole house) ABS finish. Stare closely at the bottom of the cabinet door. You should be able to make out a beige line running along the bottom and the left sides, that is the ABS finish. Without the ABS finish, the edges may feel rough, and the laminate joints will be more obvious. This is optional, but we also squeeze our contractor to give us free. He agreed to do so for all the exposed edges (places that the small ah fat is likely to touch - to prevent him from tearing out the laminate or getting wood splinters etc.) I think its safe to say that for carpentry, whether to think its neat or not, or if the finish is up to mark is a matter of personal preference. You decide for yourself if its neat - as one man's meat is another man's poison! Important Advice: we only provided one photograph. It is not enough. Because this is a matter of personal preference, we strongly suggest you ask your IDs and contractors to bring you to visit EXISTING renovations and NOT showflats. At a showflat, of course everything will be done up nicely! At an existing renovation site, there's nowhere to hide. This. I must talk about. Its' our mega-mouthful "USB-chargeable LED motion sensor light". I know there's something bright in the picture - that's not it. That's the reflection from the sunlight on our dish rack. The light is white, located below the bright glare, and is hanging from two hooks. You see, we never thought to install T5 lights underneath our dish rack, then realized one evening that it was abit too dark in the kitchen to wash dishes - there was still some evening light, but without the main light on, abit hard to see if the plates were clean. Enter our saviour, from Taobao (of course), costs about $12 after shipping, and is a wonderful invention! Its motion sensor, so whenever we walk into the kichen to use the sink, it will turn on. For those of you who are anal about aesthetics, its comes with a 3M metal strip to wall mount, and the light itself is magnetic - so you still can remove it to USB charge. We only got one to test, but its proven its worth, and we have bought another four more to put at various places in the house (like the insides of some cabinets - opening the cabinet is motion, and it will light up). Here's a close up of the light. It's quite slim, so not a problem squeezing it into most spaces. Ok. We've covered everything but the kitchen sink

Our Living Room (Renovation Complete!) This is a panoramic photograph, with view from the window. This was before furniture was moved in. The light from the window is quite strong, and makes the long cabinet laminates look dark. I'll post a better image (much later in this post). Love the dining table light from Taobao (in the distance). Super cute! Another panoramic view from the window, but this time with furniture up! I haven't had the time (or energy) to sort out the TV cables at the feature wall. During the handover, the TV cables were concealed behind the TV, but we itchy hand went to adjust - so they're sagging abit right now. I don't like saggy things, so I will fix that ASAP. Silicon does the trick well. Hoho. We re still deciding how best to place our dining table. The original layout was to place the dining table with the short side against the wall. For now however, we have placed it with the long side against the wall. As a result, the dining table light is off-centre. It doesn't bother us though. Functionality over form in this case. Laminates still appear darker than they really are. Later got picture, can see All the ornaments on the shelf are from Taobao. Like. Really. All. Panoramic view, from the front door. This photo is quite whitewashed (I apologize), but light was absolutely just streaming in from the window! Check out the light above the feature wall (furthest from camera), its from Taobao too! The sofa and coffee table are also from Taobao. My living room is a shrine to Taobao. Haha! View of the feature wall, from the sofa. I love how our Eubiq track gives the wall a more seamless look. The only drawback is that for Eubiq, the sockets are oriented in one direction. The wires have to bend quite a fair bit, for the plug (head) to insert correctly into the socket - not sure if it will damage the wire in the long term. Bending to insert correctly... Nevermind. Forget I said that. This is the view from the walkway to the bedrooms. These are our full height cabinets. Told you the laminate was much lighter in color! We opened up a recess nearest to the front door to put keys and stuff - its just a convenient place to dump things when stepping into the home. There's a T5 light built above the recess, and its currently switched on in this picture. We were in two minds about whether or not to make the recess match the black frame of the cabinets. In the end we chose a dark (but not exactly black), textured laminate for the recess. Hence there's a color gradient/difference. Love the outcome (though we were basically gambling). After seeing the final outcome, I wouldn't advise textured laminates unless you know what you're doing. I almost used alot more of it in the house - I'm really thankful I didn't. This is our dining area. The dining table light is so cute! And by a stroke of good luck, it matches the stool we got (for changing shoes)! We also ended up with an extra mirror (very long story), which you can see. We installed it next to the front door. It's really good for a last minute "check my hair" thing. It also prevents that wall from being too bare. Next to the mirror is an aluminum framed tempered glass door. We chose the rectangles to match the zen feature wall heheheh. The Dining table and Eames chairs are actually from Taobao, and of VERY good wood. Our contractor took a look and said that it's made of teak beech (as corrected by Mrs Always Right) - he would have to charge up to $65 for fabricating just ONE leg. That's $260 per chair, excluding the moulded plastic part. @___@. Dunno whether he bluff us. Anyway, the chairs still have their foam padding on. Excited until forget to take out. Haha. I think we spent $300 on the tables AND four chairs (one in storeroom). I would totally buy the chairs again, but the dining table isn't built 100% straight, so it doesn't flush against the wall well. If you stare really carefully (especially the part nearer to camera), the table legs are out of alignment - you can see they aren't following the straight line of the floor tiles below. We are just thankful that its a small problem and not any worse. Those of you who are very particular about alignment and stuff should avoid. Many of you have asked about the sofa. It's not the softest sofa, but its comfortable, and has quite a few tricks up its sleeve haha! The middle pillow can be pulled down to reveal a drinks holder. I feel its good value for money. It also comes assembled (in modules). You just have to put the modules together and wait to hear the "click" sound to know it has caught. Modules also means the sofa modules can be adjusted (e.g. |__ or __| or even _|_ LOL!). If I have time I'll post more about the sofa. I wouldn't recommend the sofa to those who're texture adverse or very picky about plushness though! The wooden frame for the sofa also came in a much darker hue than what we ordered. We're trying to see if we can get 65 Daigou to fix it - but we can live with a dark brown frame. Word of advice: If you buy from IKEA or from Taobao, you can get your ID/contractor to assemble all the furniture for you if you can. They are the pros! Saves you alot of trouble. Don't be paiseh! We got them to install our bathroom hooks, mirrors, photo frames... they even helped to assemble our ah boy's colorful plastic toy cupboards and racks! (We bought them TONNES of kopi and drinks and food though! Not heartless, just lazy! Ha ha!) I don't think I will be posting anymore pictures till the weekend because: 1. To my living room and study look nice (haha!), I had to move ALL our boxes and barang barang into the other rooms. To make my other rooms look nice (for photos), I would have to move all the barang barang and boxes from the other rooms into the living room. Nah. Very tiring leh. 2. No internet connection in the new house until Friday. Sad. But true. Got mobile phone lah. But photobucket on 3G is just... -.-" 3. Must be more responsible and unpack lah. Everytime picture picture, wait get scolded by my wife!

Our Study (Renovation Complete!) Primary school, I no like study. Secondary school, I no like study. Higher education, I also no like study. But now I love my study! This is a panoramic photo of the room, as viewed from the door. Check out the cute bookends (from Taobao) in our slanted cabinets. The man on the left is propping up the wall, the man on the right is running away from the falling wall. Funny sia Both chairs are also from Taobao. The pink one still got the styrofoam on, haven't remove haha. More about them later. This is another panoramic photo, view from the long wall. Really glad we decided to use simple laminate and paint colors. The wood and white basically match everything, so we can happily add splashes of color with objects instead. You can see the cyan dustbin (from Taobao), the pink chair (also from Taobao), and the cyan tempered glass, or acrylic. I forgot which it is - contractor throw in free for us one. This is the last of the panoramic views, taken this time from the far wall. We're going to add a picture of Singapore to that frame! It's a copy of a pencil sketch by an architecture student - we bought it online. Support local talent! Swivel table, pulled out. I've talked about this table to death, but there's one thing I didn't like about it - the orange wheels. I tried to get them changed, but the contractors told us that they couldn't find heavy duty wheels in black nor white. Sounds suspect to me, but the end result actually seems okay, now that there's more color in the room. The wife also convinced me by saying "Aiya, any wheel use long enough also become black". Ok. Win liao lor. Tempered glass board (one of the freebies we bargained for). We wanted it to add a touch of color for the room, and it also doubles up as a whiteboard for creative doodles. Regret not thinking about magnetic materials instead (or like, adding some metal plate behind). Would have been fun to put up magnets and notes there. Still can use Blu-Tac lah, but less nice. The Aladdin lamp on the table is a freebie from Eubiq. We got two, after much bargaining at a roadshow. Haha. The pink chair from Taobao ($40) is really adorable. Its the Mrs. Always Right chair. The black chair ($100) is really comfortable, and allows you to lean backwards to a large degree. But we are very disappointed that the shipment misplaced the head rest. I suppose if I didn't mention it, you might not have noticed. But once you see it, you can't un-see it. The headrest is a really practical/useful feature for kicking back and relaxing, so I'm quite miffed! Off with his head! Chairs in Singapore are priced quite competitively, I wouldn't buy it again, if I had a choice - money poorly spent.

Takaishi: Whoops. Sorry! Thought you were trolling haha. Anyway all the best for your open house (saw your thread nice!)

Taobao – MUST buy, CAN buy, DON’T buy (Guest Entry by the Spouse, with constant eyeball rolling from the wife) How are newborn chicks like Singaporeans? Whole day “cheep cheep cheep”. Traffic and my MIL We were stuck in slow traffic that day. (Actually, every day also). And the car behind must have been in a real hurry, because his horn like free one. The driver was the horniest driver I have ever seen. The strangest part of the experience however, was that every time he angrily tooted his horn for the whole world to hear, I would smile. I wasn’t at all the least bit angry, mind you. Because I would be reminded of my mother-in-law at a sale. Because all I could hear was… “Pi pi piiiiiiiiii” (Hokkien: meaning, cheap). So next time you encounter such drivers, smile lah. Even your mother-in-law queue move faster than his car. LOL. “Pi”, or “cheap” also brings me to Taobao. Taobao Purchases This post is directed at Taobao newbies. We kept it intentionally simple, so here goes: There are three types of purchases on Taobao: 1. MUST buy Lasting And Nice. Just Immediately “Add Order”. 2. CAN buy Cry Or Not Depends On Merchandise 3. DON’T buy Buy And Lose Lots. Sian. Type 1. Lasting And Nice. Just Immediately "Add Order" The act smart ones would've seen the acronym. You see, Type 1 L.A.N.J.I.A.O. happen to have the following attributes: a. Hard The harder the better. Unbreakable is best. b. Ugly but useful Design is not important. Who cares how it looks like. c. Not consumable Not likely to put into mouth or insert into body. Naughty naughty! Some examples of items fulfilling the above criteria would be - clothes hangers/pegs - stainless steel trays for kitchen - stainless steel bathroom racks - dustbins I know none of them sound like potential “WOW” – how much can you save on clothes hangers or dustbins, right? Clothes hangers We bought 1,000 clothes hangers. One thousand. Each at 36 cents, after shipping. That’s a total of $360 – and a lifetime’s supply. These are the non-slip type, mind you. When the wife’s clothes are on the hanger, I don’t want them to slip off. When they are on her however… In Singapore, we see them retailing at about $1 each. That would be $1000. We saved $640. Small amounts add up in this case. Of course, we don’t seriously expect to use ALL 1,000 hangers. We bought with some friends lah. Sharing is caring. Stainless steel stuff is another good buy. At popular shops like “Hoe Kee”, we saw a stainless steel towel rack retail for $30. That’s ONE single rack. This is our guest toilet: On Taobao, we bought a complete toilet set for $90, shipping inclusive. As you can see from the photograph, our set included a towel rack, a toilet roll holder, a towel bar (top left of photo, can see a small part of it), a cup holder (not yet installed), a corner rack (not yet installed),and the clothes hooks bar (next photo) The door has the clothes hooks: Because they’re not likely to break, and designs are so blah anyway, Taobao is definitely the way to go here. Type 2. (Cry Or Not Depends On Merchandise) A good C.O.N.D.O.M. should be 1. Flexible There are always substitutes, and you can go without one. 2. Simple to use Limited/simple electrical components. 3. Maximum Protection Insurance! Protection! Some examples of items fulfilling the above criteria would be - Shelf ornaments - T-5 lights, bomb shelter lights, toilet lights (the more “standard” lights) - Sofa (not for everybody though!) Because you’re taking a risk, you want the savings to be significant! I cannot emphasize enough the importance of “significant” when it comes to cost savings! No point finding an item that’s $500 in Singapore and $450 on Taobao. If the Taobao item turns out badly, you have to buy it in Singapore and fork out an additional $500. You’re taking a $450 risk for only $50 in savings. Do your sums people! Don’t be blinded by greed. As a general rule, I aim for a savings of at least 30%. Lastly check that any fragile items are insured! Your agent (who handles shipping) will usually offer it to you for free. Better still, if they are cheap enough, buy EXTRAS. Most electricians would recommend you buy extra, if buying from Taobao. We bought extra T-5 lights, but forgot to buy extra toilet lights. The former all worked, the latter were spoilt. Murphy’s Law lah. Type 3. Buy And Lose Lots. Sian. Last acronym, you should understand how things work by now. B.A.L.L.S. are: 1. Very fragile items Handle with care. 2. Things that cause spurting Toilet sinks/vanity tops, all problematic! 3. Work best in pairs If not matching, then how? Hoho. Toilet sinks deserve a mention because they seem quite popular in Renotalk t-blogs/forums. They were so frequently mentioned that we took a huge risk ourselves, and bought the vanity tops from Taobao. This was a bad buy, for FOUR reasons: a. Plumber informed me that the pipes in China have different diameters from those in Singapore. If you purchase, a lot of sealant(?) has to be used, and may still have leakages. If leakage really occurs, water damage to the house is going to cost more than ANY savings you achieve. Two days after installation, ours really leaked, but thankfully the leak was minor. We got it repaired immediately by the plumber. More sealant lor. b. Fragile. We ordered two vanity tops for both toilets in the house. One of them ended up cracked during shipping – we are trying to see what our agent insurance can do. c. We bought a pair. Since one of them cracked and the other didn't, we ended up with non-matching toilet vanity tops. LUCKILY for us, we were able redo the decor of the two toilets to match the vanity tops. d. The savings wasn't significant enough to justify the risk. In the end, we went to a hardware shop to buy a vanity top. It cost us $399 in Singapore whereas the Taobao one cost us $300. We tried to save only $99 and ended up $400 poorer. Seriously. B.A.L.L.S. lar.

Hey flylips, No worries. You're just lucky to catch us when we are still awake ha ha. We are going to bed soon - sign of old age. Twenty years ago time can mambo till 2-3am. Still plenty of energy. Ten years ago can night cycling till 2-3am. Still plenty of energy. Now ah. Now can't even play mahjong until midnight. Zzz.

Hi Patrick, Taobao Agent I can only read simple Chinese characters as I am not fluent in Mandarin. Never pay attention in Chinese lessons, what to do. My wife does all the shopping on Taobao. She is very fluent in Mandarin as her work is related to bilingualism - so I guess when she does Taobao in the office it can be considered "research" ? (ha ha) Agent wise, we use 65 Daigou, but I see in this thread that some people had bad experiences with 65 Daigou. Thankfully not us (so far) If you are more fluent in English, you may wish to use AliExpress, but from what I understand, it is more expensive that most of the other agents. General Advice You sound like its your first time using Taobao. If that is the case, I suggest you check carefully with your ID/contractor first! Some things may not be compatible with Singapore (e.g. I understand that for toilet sinks, the dimensions of the water outlets don't match). You may end up wasting MORE money if you buy from Taobao without fully understanding what you are buying. So do be careful! Lastly, A blessed weekend to you and your family.

T akaishi! R eally?? Are there??? O h wow! You are really observant then. L ooks like you spend lots of time on Renotalk. L OL. I've only noticed that suikoden asked twice for the contact and I replied twice - but he didn't respond. This despite me asking him to acknowledge receipt of my PM. I suppose some people are either busy or less polite. Either way, I'm not going to obsess about it. Wife and I have finalized our plans for this t-blog. We will be putting up exactly three more posts about the house, before we bid goodbye to Renotalk. We had fun, thanks people!

Hi all. Very busy with moving - we are in the final week before handover. We will reply as soon as we can - but it might take awhile. Somehow I can post to the forum via iPhone but PM needs my PC... No time to do so at home yet. Sorry and thanks for understanding. We will probably be posting (at least) two more posts: 1. On Taobao shopping (advice on what to buy and what NOT to buy... Let's just say I have a "sinking" feeling about this post. Hoho.) 2. Our completed home Seeya everyone at the weekend! Emiclus: I'm quite surprised too!! We found them reasonable compared to other IDs/contractors we met up with... :/ I heard that this year they started charging GST... Maybe that's the reason? Sorry to hear that! Maybe this might help: For the items in the quotation that we found expensive, we would show them other quotations with lower unit price - and they would usually be willing to come down to match it. If not, you seem like a really nice person so I really hope you can find an awesome contractor!! I will also be sure to mention that they are more expensive now! -rawr-

Hi all, We've responded to everyone who has posted. Let us know if we've missed you out! Xiaohuiis: Your inbox is full, so we couldn't send you what you requested Alvinnoob: Hello, don't worry no, there's no difference. They both turn up together, for most of the meetings anyway.

Hi all, We have tried to reply via PM to everyone. Thanks for your interest and support! If we have not yet replied to you, it must mean we have (accidentally!) missed you out. Do let us know. Thanks!

Hi michyho, suikoden, bykaraanne, dfantasy, We've responded via PMs. Regardless of who you choose to renovate your home, good luck to all of you on your renovations! Hi intonewlife: Thanks! I think that most IDs/contractors should be able to do a similar table for you. You can show them the images in our t-blog. If I'm not wrong, its a "lazy susan" type of mechanism - you know, the type at those "Chinese Wedding" tables. Cheers!

Workmanship Workmanship is what most people obsess about, after price. For every contractor/ID we met, we would ask them to take us to current/existing projects to view the workmanship. (And you should do the same!) In early October, we visited one of contractor JE's (then) current projects. The workmanship was the deal clincher for us. We hoped that JE would keep up the good work for our house... Fast forward to Jan 2015 I am proud to present to you our study! I've highlighted the workmanship in each of the following three photographs. Some are so subtle you might miss it! Workmanship - Photo 1 If you're thinking "Ok, neat ,straight lines, nicely applied laminate," then I'm afraid you've missed the point of this picture. Look closely at the top wooden cabinet door. Its the one in white. You should now be able to make out the groove cut into the door. Its slanted ever so subtly, to ensure the top cabinet can be opened easily. This was amazing for us. High cabinets have the groove pointing "upwards", whilst low cabinets have their grooves pointing "downwards". You have to open the cabinets yourself, to get a feel of how useful such a small feature can prove to be. What's even more impressive is, if you go back to the picture just before this one (previous post), you'll see how the groove is invisible from the front. Not that it matters anyway, as the groove is actually quite aesthetically pleasing. Workmanship - Photo 2 You can see again for yourself how the half-height cabinet also has the groove cut into the base of the door, where you'd open it from. Once again, if you look back to Photo 1, you'll see how the groove for the half-height cabinet is otherwise hidden from view. The electrical socket (bottom left side, open shelf) is also neat, and I can't wait to see how it will look, once the socket is up! Because this is the study, we expect to place a printer in that area. We initially wanted it to be fitted to our printer (I like it tight... heh heh) - and we gave contractor E the dimensions of the printer. But he very helpfully reminded us "printer next time maybe need to change one leh". Good point. So we made the hole bigger. The picture above also conceals another surprising workmanship feature! Can you spot it? (Don't cheat and look at Photo 3!) Workmanship - Photo 3 Ta-daah! All the shelving that they do comes with this "AA track system". I hope I got the name right. This means that the height of the shelves is fully adjustable. For built in carpentry, I think this is a GODSEND. Imagine you have fabricated tonnes of built-in carpentry. Your house is stacked to the max with cabinets - but you find some of your ginormous stuff just won't fit into the shelves! Then how!! Boss even promised me extra planks and those metal pieces, in case I decide later that I need extra shelves! I feel slightly bad that they are so nice, because I feel I knocked him down quite hard on the final quotation... scarli (Singlish: what happens if?) they refuse to give me extra planks because the final price was too cheap... Comparing to the 3-D image Lastly, I thought I'd compare this with the 3-D image we were presented with (see: this post). To cut costs, we ended up: 1. Doing away with the false ceiling and T-5 light (behind the shelf). 2. No parquet flooring either. Sticking to the original tiles HDB gave us. We're still in the process of buying a super single bed for the room, but we're otherwise done! I'm happy to report that the study I got is exactly what I want! Next up Master Bedroom? (Planning the MBR give us the most "rawr!" moments)

My Custom Table I mentioned in an earlier post (here) that we consulted our contractor on the construction of a custom table. Immigration also got alot of Custom table ha ha. It works like a charm! First picture: You should be able to see how neatly the white portion tucks into the top plank. Second picture: You should be able to see that the white portion swivels! I apologize for highlighting the word swivel again. Those of you who've been following this blog will know I've been overkill on the word swivel - but I am SUPER excited about the table! You see, we are placing a bed to the right of the table. I love to work from beds, but my wife thinks its a total waste of space to have TWO tables in the study. We chanced upon this design which suits our limited space. I love it! Best part is, he charged us the regular per foot price for study tables (bottom piece also must pay lah). No ultra-expensive custom-built fee! His thoughts on the table were (summarized) "Quite easy to do. Not that much extra effort mah". (By the way! The groove cut into the table is for my Eubiq system, just in case you were wondering)

Carpentry If you want to become a dentist, you study dentistry. If you want to become a carpenter, you study carpentry. If you want to become an adult leh...? Today's post will focus on the carpentry in the study! If you've been following the t-blog however, you'll know that in late Nov 2014, we finalized our 3-D drawings! The post can be found here. While we were generally VERY satisfied with the drawings provided to us, there were some minor changes (which we'll keep secret until we unveil them shhh!). After the changes were approved, in early December, we gave contractor E the go ahead to: 1. Paint the house 2. Begin fabricating the carpentry Within a week, the paint was done. It was quite a conservative paint job, and you can read more about our "ceiling color" paint scheme here. So nothing much to share here, but it made us very happy to walk into a house with color . Bonus: The contractor we chose promised us a second round of paint/touch up after carpentry is complete. I will remind him if he forgets! By end December, there was wood in our house. Wooden Invaders! For those of you who are very "ngeow ku" (dialect: fussy, picky) like me, go ahead and scrutinize the image for the corrugated floor protection. It runs all the way to the skirting, and properly covers the floor. Must say that it made me quite happy to see that! Overall however, I remember feeling underwhelmed. It was a huge mess, and I couldn't see how things would fit together. I couldn't even see the laminates that we chose! It felt like Christmas, but without being to open your presents Early January Fast forward about one week, and I suddenly could see the carcass! All the pieces finally seemed to fit! Hypeeeeeee! Excites! Today Fast forward to today! (9th Jan 2015) Here's the view as from the common corridor, as I slowly crept into the room this morning. So far so good. Quite like the laminate choices we made. White and wood, with internal PVC finish - also in wood. The V-shaped top cabinets look nicer than I thought! My dad hiam (dialect: comment in a displeased manner) the V-shaped cabinets not very practical. But I said "Aesthetic. Need not be pathetic. No need confuse. I will find a use." I thought my rhyming cool sia! Another POV Anyway, here's how it looks like from the other side of the room (the window side).

Hi gosailor and JohnB, I've responded to your queries by PM. Thanks for reading! Aside Phew! This is turning out to be (practically) a full-time job!! @___@" We aren't sure how long we can keep this up for - but if work gets busy and we don't reply, we apologize in advance!!

Our Renovation Begins! Guest entry by the Spouse (part 4) The wife watched Madagascar as a kid, and she LOVED the movie. Ever since then, she has been pestering me to go on Safari in Africa. Her top three wishes are: 1. Hear a lion roar 2. Watch a zebra(s) gallop across the savannah 3. Laugh at a hippopotamus relaxing in the river Being the budget conscious person I am, for #3, I offered her a bathtub and a mirror. When she got angry, I promised to take her to Hafary. Close enough to Safari lah... hor? First Stop: Tub! And this brings me to our first renovation project. The bath tub! It might sound strange that the bathtub would be the first project, but apparently, it is quite normal to settle the tub early. You see, the pipes leading out from the air con unit are usually placed in the toilet nearest to the compressor. The condensate (water) is allowed to drain into the nearest available drainage hole. For BTOs these days, the compressor is at the air con service ledge, which is at the master bedroom. This means the nearest toilet is the master toilet. The nearest drainage hole is also the one in the master toilet. Bath tubs are usually for the master toilet only. So I'm sure you can see by now... TL;DR (Too Long, Didn't Read) version: Your bath tub fights for the same hole as the air con pipe. Bo pian. Some holes are more popular than others Timeline You may have already read in this post that we managed to practically STEAL a bath tub for $99 (usual price $300 and up). The installation of the bath tub proved to be much simpler than we thought. Here's a timeline of what happened after that. Early Dec 2014: Select and confirm bathtub tiles Early Dec 2014: Air con man had to come to lay the piping first (air con man uses the hole first) Mid Dec 2014: Plumber came to fix the pipes for the tub (plumber gets to use the hole second... eeyer ) Mid Dec 2014: Tiler came to lay the tiles we selected. Finish. It was so quick, it became somewhat anti-climatic. The bath tub came quickly. The air con man came quickly. The plumber came quickly. Every one came so quickly I started to suspect that Pfizer was having a Viagra sale. Process But anyway, here's some of the jucier details. In early December 2014, our contractor took us to Hafary, to view tiles. Hafary is an amazing place. Here are the top three amaze things that amazed me! Amazing(!) 1: SO many types of tiles! There must have been like 1,000,000 tiles! One million. MEE-LEE-ON! Rows of tiles. Colums of tiles. Tiles on top of tiles. Piles of tiles. Walls and walls of tiles. I never touch so many tiles in my life before! Before going to Hafary, the only tiles I knew were Mahjong tiles. Amazing(!) 2: None of the tiles I touch is the tile I want! Just like my luck at Mahjong... Super amazing how ugly 90% of them were! But my wife say I was mean. She say, "different strokes for different folks lah", "one man's meat is another man's poison lah". Then I realized, she made sense. I told her "Ya hor. Some people will say my wife ugly. But I think hippopotamus is cute leh, what to do? " I thought I was agreeing with her! Why she get angry at me (again) leh. Amazing(!) 3: We found the one! Super amaze! Despite being trapped in a maze (hoho. my pun so clever.) of 900,000 ugly tiles (1 million multiply by 90%; my maths good hor!), we found something we wanted! It was cute (like me), neat (like me), classy (like me), dense enough (like my wife) and black (like my wife face now)! Some women just get angry easily. Haiyah. Cannot please her. Voila! Our Tub Because everything finished faster than a 70-year old Ah Pek with hot China wife, we got no time to take "before" and "after" photos. Haiyah. Presenting photos of our finished bathtub! Actual Tub Tiles The seashells. SO CUTE omg. Loves! My wife is giving me the "are you a man or not?!" look. I don't care! I like cute things, that's why I married her. Workmanship In the close up, you can see how neatly the tiles are laid. (The top white part IS the bath tub btw) Our contractor told me this job was done by his favorite tiler. He likes this tiler so much, our contractor even tried to make the tiler a partner in his contracting business - but the tiler apparently prefers to be freelance. His own man. Freebie ALERT! Sometime in mid Dec, my contractor out of the blue came to me to tell me that he calculated there would be leftover iQuartz from the kitchen counter tops. (see this post) Based on his calculations, he figures the EXTRA pieces can be cut and fashioned into bathroom ledges! Like those you find in hotels (those put shampoo etc on it one). No extra charge. Free. As free as Madagascan zebras. Dunno why I think of zebras. Must be the bra. Its not done yet, but I will put up a photo when it's ready. That was seriously.a.great.idea! Parting Shot Final advice for those of you looking to start your renovations will come in the form of a photograph-cum-caption (Today's post alot of innuendos sia. Its a sign! Bath tub is naughty corner anyway ) Treat your renovators nicely! Happy staff = better work (My personal belief, lah!)

Hi Celztang: I tried to PM you but your inbox is also full. I've cleared some space from mine. You can try to PM us again. Graphicicj: SORRY! We composed a message to you, but didn't press send button yet! Thanks for reminding us. Anyway I will send when I can. Somehow t-blog message does not work well on iPhone. Need go home use laptop :/ Note that I do not reply by email as it opens us up to spam. Thanks

Hi Alvin, We've replied you via PM You're also very sharp! My wife used the blog on this website. But only ONCE. That was at the start, when she was on maternity leave and wanted to manage both a blog and a t-blog. Bored lah, so not itchy also scratch. In the end (like most people), ambition was larger than execution, so we've abandoned that blog. Its easier to manage just one thing. DUH. Hope that doesn't happen if we have a second child HAHA!

Hi everyone! We've tried to respond to everyone who posted. Do let us know if we missed you out by mistake. Thanks!

3-D Drawings! Guest Entry by the Spouse (Part 3) A crime was committed. A wooden plank, a light bulb and a drawing were all suspects. I saw the wooden plank, But the drawing was framed and hung. And the light bulb got screwed as well. Not very funny, I know, but its the best I can do given that its almost 2300h. Anyway today's update will be about our 3-D drawings! I was very happy to hear that our contractor would provide us with 3-D drawings of the house! From what I understand, they actually outsource the 3-D drawing to a design firm, at no additional cost to us - the only catch is they can only provide 3-4 perspectives. This is because the 3-D drawing firm bills them per drawing, and at 3-4 drawings, they can still absorb the cost, but more than that and... you know lah. Money talks (and mine always says "bye bye!" ) So without further ado, here are the 3-D drawings of our home, and some comments on each: Living Room I did mention that we were going for a clean, Zen look! (Scandinavian is WAYYYYY overdone!) The best part for me was knowing that the cupboards would give the wall a "seamless" look - the original wall had a ugly "indent". Those of you who have collected keys to your homes will know lah - not all walls are built straight. Stupid beams. Our house paint scheme is "ceiling color". We basically made every room quite uniform except the ceiling splash some color. Not creative lah, but play safe. Simple is best. The TV feature wall (the black and white bit) was actually the most complicated part! We had to do ALOT of mathematics to decide the actual width of each "white" square on the wall. The whole process was quite manual, and one point, even involved printing out rectangles on Microsoft Excel, to see if which rectangle size we liked. No wonder my maths teacher say algebra is useful manzzzzz! I had to let x be the height of the wall can! Kitchen Quartz top, eh, don't play play! We heard many bad things about solid surface top AND granite tops (the former is **** CMI). So we forked out abit more to get iQuartz. The color scheme was chosen by yours truly - the ceiling she wanted green lah. By building full height on ONE side only, we feel it gives the kitchen a more spacious look. Plus, save my money! Endangered species! Study My wife say look more like bedroom. But I absolutely LOVE working from a bed. So we decided to have a bed in the study (Weird, I know right!) If you haven't noticed by now, I bold for you. The table SWIVELSSSS! By some stupid luck, we stumbled upon this swivel table design at a furniture fair. That means, when not in use, it can swivel under the brown part, and be hidden/kept against the wall. When I want to work (or play my games HAHA) from the bed, I just swivel it out! At the fair, we were quoted almost $800... and it was supposedly on "clearance"! My heart say "yes", limpeh wallet say "no". So... I tried my luck with Contractor JE. I explained what I saw to Contractor JE. I even took out a paper to draw. He took one look at my dam cui drawing, and said "aiya this one, one extra plank only mah. No extra charge. Charge you as per normal study table." My custom study table was FREEEEEE (at least the custom part). That word. Loves. Oh ya. The cabinet design also nice sia Master Bedroom This room made me VERY thankful we had 3-D drawings. My wife did the design herself, but HATED the outcome. HENG AH! You see, most MBR in BTOs now have a FUGLY aircon ledge window. We tried to use the air con ledge window, by building a table under it. Sounded like a nice idea. In fact, if you look at the 3-D drawing, it DOES look quite nice to work at a table with natural light. BUT It means the full height cupboard next to it is a JOKE! Our contractor tried to warn us that the cupboard would be tiny - but it was the 3-D drawing that TRULY allowed us to see how small that cupboard would be. Store underwear only loh. Thanks to the 3-D drawing, we SCRAPPED the table, and opted for a full height cupboard along the WHOLE wall. For the aircon ledge window, we built a "pole system, backless wardrobe". Meaning, just one horizontal pole across, can hang clothes is good enough liao. When aircon man comes, just open the cupboard doors and take the whole pole down. My wife volunteer liao Moral of Story: Please insist on 3-D diagrams! Lifesaver! Phew! Overall: I think the house has a nice clean look - and there's ALOT of carpentry for 25k. **** happy Furthermore, when signing the contract we actually haggled quite abit to get extra paints, extra laminates etc - but end up never use. I will try to knock the price down further because in the end I choose so much white! White is actually the cheapest (we learnt from them)! Next Episode: Actual works start! Stay tuned!

Hi Doris. We are at work today. We will PM you when we get home (and have time to find the link haha)