sapphire89

Thanks Desmond! Wow! You're on the forum already despite another 3 year wait! I only found this place about 4 months back and I've stalked it since then. It's fun reading other people's recounts of their renovation process and learning from them! But it also makes you wish you had the house ready so you can get your hands dirty and decorate!

Back again! I lived in Oslo for about 6 months previously and I loved the place dearly from the architecture to the minimalist interiors yet keeping it functional, cosy and classy all at the same time. And I loved the cold. Only downside was Oslo was immensely expensive place to live in as an exchange student. One thing I reflected just before I left was how conflicted I was about the place. I loved the large spaces the land provided me with, the white and the woods. We had a little lake about 10 mins away which froze during the winter. But I was soul-weary. I missed the city, the sounds, and to an extent the crowd. All the hustle and bustle of it. Sounds like a joke but I did miss the lack of space. As such, choosing the flat that we were going to live in, it largely influenced me and the fiance to pick the 5-room over 4-rooms. The extra living room space we felt would help make the entire apartment look more open and spacious. We're saying bye bye to higher GST vouchers and U-save vouchers. Lucky us! The unit that was chosen in the end, as you have already noticed in my floor plan, would allow me to take the entire wall down and expand the living area further. Big whoppeee! Ok I can see you concerns coming already. You can't aircon the living area! You're not going to be able to do heavy cooking with the open concept kitchen you have.. Rest assured! I've got it all covered! We decided to install glass panels to expand and at the same time box up the kitchen demarcating the space. The full height panels would bring the kitchen space to the living room and the living space to the kitchen visually. Here are some photos that got me inspired~ This expansion also gave us an option of including what seems to be a rarity in HDB flats. A full fledged kitchen island counter. On one side, we could sit and have our breakfast together and not need to use the main dining area (reserved for entertaining and dinners!). The counter top space afforded to us would also increased as a result and I will be able to do my food preparation on the island. Drawers in the island will also allow me to get an increase storage capacity as both sides of the island will be made usable. Drawing back to my Nordic experience, my colour scheme reflects my reminisce of the days past. The large kitchen is going to be the main feature of our first home and despite the cost that will be eventually incurred in making this dream come true, we thought it'd be a good investment. The future hubby also commented to every single ID we interviewed that now I will no longer have a choice but to cook all the time! Lucky him then I guess... Or so I'll let him think for the moment! Who's going to do all the cleaning??? Be back with more ideas for the other parts of the house! XOXO, Sapphira

Hi all, It's finally time to start this blog that I've been dying to start.. Literally, itching fingers! And here's how the story goes~ Somewhere in 2012 when my then bf was in Canada on exchange, we started talking about the "queues" for flats and how we knew of people that couldn't get a number even after 8 tries. The horror and disappointment these friends experienced were not lost to us and we decided given the lag time for building, we were going to try our luck with applications as well. It was an in thing then, I'm sure it's still the in thing now. True to the high demands back then, our first application fell through! To be fair, we weren't expecting to get it. After all it was the premium flat in Punggol with the balcony units 11x or something oversubscribed. That was one of my dream home styles, having a balcony! Well, I'll have to settle for a service yard and consider it "THE BALCONY" then. *Sighs* So when we got the it the next time with a decent queue number to boot, we were like "wow.. that was easy?!?" Imagine our embarrassment when we told the same friends who still hadn't got there flats. Fast forward 2015 It's been 3 years now and we've grown up, graduated from university, accepted that we will never get any of the carrot grants that the govt has dangled for making flats more affordable (20k then turned to 40k now), and engaged to be married next year, we are finally planning for our new home together... Ok it's really just me with the planning and the fiance to approve the plans and the budgets. I'm the one with the very specific ideas including a kitchen island (woohoo!) and he's my true blue CFO (give me the main points! chop!). As you can already tell, if you leave it up to me to decide, I'd think we'd be or at least be going bankrupt by now. There's so much to learn from the forums here that, it's also time for me to pay it forward. We've actually signed our IDs on over the weekend and I will share a little later our interview process with the 4 we picked out and how we ended up with the ONE! Hurray! *Jumps with joy*. Meanwhile, I'm sharing my floorplan so that you can guess what I plan to do with the place! You will note how interesting where the household shelter is placed unlike the convention of blocking the kitchen wall off. Till then, hasta la vista, baby! *winks* XOXO, Sapphira

Hi CountryGlow! Lovely house you've got there! I'm just starting out sourcing for IDs etc and one of them actually suggested that I should do up the acrylic panes myself to save cost! Could you let me know where did you get the acrylic panes for your toilet and how much they cost? Also where did you buy those drain hair catchers? I soooo need them! Thank you!

Hi Lucidacid, I just saw the pictures of your glass panel door and wall for your study and I love it! Was wondering what was the quote for the glass panels? I'm planning to do this for the wall in my kitchen so need to budget. If you could PM me that will be great! Thanks!

Hi Yelena, Could you pm me the contacts for Mr. J & E please? Thanks!