gadgetgal

Waterproofing is for kitchen or wet areas (like toilet) so as to protect any water to sip or leak to your neighbours downstairs. For 4-rm flat owner with HDB tiles in the kitchen, owner can't hack (as it will damage the waterproofing and/or flooring underneath,which in turn may cause leakage to your neighbour downstairs). haha.. I believe so !! My granite top is from china (cheap) ones May get pearly white (instead of dark colour), I've come across granite top supply/install price of $90 psf, but didn't go for it, due to poor response/bad experience w that contractor. How come ur concrete support so exp? What is the length of your support? Mine as below: Supply/construct homogeneous tiles for Sink (4fts) & stove (5fts) - $1180

If not wrong, yours 2 wave/curves design for the glass (hope u know what I meant ). ours is a simple one, one wave/curve, cost $130 for two tube - MBR+SSR and $160 for 3 tube - living room (each tube 36 watt). Ours is only 2 type of lights pattern, either switch On the yellow light or switch on the white light or both. no LED. LED expensive.. around $180-200+. We're thinking to get a remote for one or some of them, each remote $28. Still deciding on which one will have remote. (though they said, it will spoilt easily, but it's better compare to run the pipe, hack, etc). We have no switch in SSR (Suggested study room), have to go out to predetermined point to switch on/off. That is why we're thinking to have remote controlled - mostly will opt all remote.. if possible . Hope will not kena by my SO... (Significant Others)

Binzz,... is it 3 lights?. Wow.. that means yours have LED lights that type!. can change colour one right?! We only have 2 type of lights, the small orange halogen light and the normal white light.

With regards to the curtain,.. anyone decided to install grilles?. How will grilles affect the design and installation of curtains?. If we have grilles, the curtains will be installed on the wall or on the grilles?. sigh.... headache.. headache..

Your renovator should charge you according to the length.

home tiles+ skirting for living and dining - $1990 extra cost for expensive tile $0.70 for living/dining - $320 household shehlter - $280 kitchen tiles supply/construct - $780 waterproofing - $250 Fridge,washing machine and cabinet bases - $390 Granite top 16ft - $1507 (I do a tall cabinet beside fridge, for my oven) What about yours?

Thanks for reminding us. So how is your lightings now?. Hope all went well. From what I know they use Akira light bulb, and use normal ballast. But again, their shop is very huge (3 shops combined into 1, corner unit), and the prices compared to others, I would say on the average 'at least' 30%-40% cheaper (compared to some expensive shope can even reach 60%). Dunno how they can survive till now. We decided to drop them though, we prefer spend a bit more and less headache. But I would say, the price, overall, very cheap and allow credit card payment - no surcharge..!. At first very very tempted... Bought our lightings at extreme lighting and noticed that their invoice and Strass share the same format and T&C,.. shucks.... just so scared if they same company/management or not. mamamiya.... praying hard, hope everything is okay!. Now hunting for Toilet accessories.... Well, after a while, all these activities really drained our energy a lot!. Average price different (per package) among shops is plus or minus 100-200 bucks for lightings.

I will be having granite top, as MIL will be needing a more durable materials due to heavy cook. Btw, anyone have any idea if the bottom of the cement support (the one right underneath the cooker will have tiles or not ar? (all the other 4 side - left, right, front and bottom) have tiles, the top one is only bare cement, while another side is for doors. Anyone know if the top one should have tiles or bare cement har?. Kinda weired cause the section below the cooker is bare cement.. Looks ugly and dirty if we place something below and the residue of the cement dropped. *Confused... Apple,... wow!!. thanks a lot... that is really an eye opening for me... I will post more pics tomorrow once I have finalized some of the item with renovator, cause the tiler cemented like 95% of my sink (below ONLY), and I may not be able to drill a hole through the sink to mount water filter in the future. aih.... anyone has any recommendation/advice?. (personally think, undermounted water filter may save space above, but may be difficult to maintain - need to squat down to perform maintenance), but again, I have not even source for any water filter as well. Some update, all my tiling works seems like completed... phew.. other works pending, erecting partition for study room, and some other stuffs. our ID?. Haiizz.. ok lar. I dunno whether I am Gan Cheong type, but I oversee the whole tiling works and visit every two days, while ID, mostly I am chasing him to give me update, etc. But again, he is not much into suggesting what may look nice, etc. everything also up to our preferences.. gave me a feeling of meeting me to request for payment only and discuss what we wanna do next (well, that's the only times I met him and around 2hrs before the tiling work begin). Summary,.. not much into design. Extra credit to the workmanship though - up to this moment,.. with some minor issues to patch up/fix (yet to finalize cause haven't met him up yet.

spent around $850 at extreme lighting today, covered all my lighting (mostly), left probably two passageway lightings and foyer lightings (not sure whether want to do or not), cause the lighting point is only one sharing between dining and foyer (just outside of kitchen entrance). Not sure whether to split that between dining and foyer (but kinda hate to see the encasement/trunking of the power on the ceiling).

For me, my husband really love Binzz's common bedroom's lighting... (the one it can be turned to yellow). It is so practical and looks nice,.. giving more option (2 options) to the person in the room to have total bright or semi-bright...feeling. Will check it out this weekend!

not sure about that, you should request your renovator to do the marking and/or ask the hdb cement screeding/whoever do cement screeding to get the correct height. Depends on laminate flooring (if you do sound proof/insulation - usually rubber to reduce the hollow plank sound when you wear high heel on top of it), it will increase the height. Not sure if I rem correctly, it'll be around 12mm-14/15mm from the top of the homogenous tile. (cause that's the thickness of laminate flooring + that rubber insulation). PS:always check with your renovator and laminate flooring guy. Me too.. will do trunking next weekend (before x'mas). Anyone care to share pics of how they run their trunking? (possibly from the 5-rm flat owner) Horrified with the way the aircon man proposed,... the trunking turn our ideal home/bedrooms upside down.. it is so thick,.. visible.. and running everywhere!!. mamamiya.... Please..... Appreciate it very very much...

Well, at this time of the year when they rush contractor to handover the estate to HDB, and they busy checking the handed over blocks, they may not have enough resources to do so. My first defect (somewhere in late august/early september) was quite fast, but a minor defects (after cement screeding they did), they never responded to me even after the whole house near complete (over two weeks, coming to three weeks now). But again, I never call and pester them, cause it's nothing much. Just make sure you talk on the phone with the person, wrote email stating the facts and ask them to acknowledge your mail/confirm, otherwise when your reno started, they may push the blame to your renovator. fly, what is alarm monitoring system har?. what alarm? smoke detection/burglar? will monitor the alarm and let us know if it has been activated?

Hi Lifestyle, thanks for the picture of your sink and sharing it with us!. It looks like there is no silicon or 'something' to cover the gap between granite support and your sink. do u think if there is any water could spill through this gap (between granite top and sink/cement support)? I've never experienced this (as my current house is using top mount). If so, then the bottom of the granite and cement support has the chance to always get wet. *sigh.. to do or not to do really bothers me a lot, and not sure whether the current workmanship/method is full proof or not. anyone has done undermount for over 5 years now?. or this is the latest trend and guaranteed to be good and practical? (not only looks good, as I am a person towards practicality rather than good) anyone?

Hi Phoenix,... Thanks for the suggestion, it really stressed me up a bit yesterday night when Yang Guo pointed this out and last till this morning. well, until now not sure whether our sink is mountable both ways or not. will verify at the scene with renovator. Hi Applefreak, I've visited your reno blog sometime back, and even commented your nice gate, and requested some info of your nice ceiling fan (the light mounted on it are very good). And the dining table,... that is the dining table I and Binzz are talking about in her blog! . very nice also... but am looking to have extra lazy suzie in the middle. Any info on where to get that piece of dining table and how much?. Binzz told us that she saw one in Carrefour suntec,.. while the one in Boonlay shopping complex is so so.. (very thick polish 'lak', makes it feel plastic and do not have cool effect, or doesn't seems nature stone) But still not sure whether to get ceiling fan or will do with standing fan, since we already have air-con. tight tight budget... *sigh.. For the sink, thanks a lot for the pointers.. really appreciate it. I think yours is undermount sink, while ours seems like top mount sink, because there's a bulge by the side of the sink. Doesn't seems impressed by the explanation of our renovator. Firstly, he NEVER see the sink at all, second he never consult us and simply mount (shocked me when I saw it is already up), and third, he still argue that undermount is good and suitable and 'norm'. *sigh... jia lat.. Hopefully it turns out good. Btw, do you mind take an up-close picture of it, especially the gap between your granite top and the sink?. what is it patched up with? silicon?.

Ahh... I got you. do you have the sample reno pictures of both and the effects it produced?. thanks for pointing out!!. Now we really need to act quick and check with them before they do tiling on my cement sink...

Hi Yang Guo, Errr... this is the first time I heard top mount sink and undermount sink.... Sorry,.. but I totally lost with your statement "if u buy top mount sink, do u intend to use the top mount sink to do undermount?" what is top mount sink, do undermount, and undermount sink do top mount ah? But... my sink is on top of the cement sink support. I do cement support for both sink and cooker area (full L-shape). I am quite surprised when they mount the sink on a bare cement sink (no tiles, no nothing, just newly constructed cement. May need to check or whack them if they do it wrongly. Don't wish they hack the cement to take out my sink if they did it wrongly.... For your sake, I am uploading the picture taken as of yesterday.

Week 2 - mid of the week, cement screeding started (we only do MBR and suggested study room), the rest homo tiles. You may wonder why, well,.. those two places are the most visited place by us. the rest of the other two rooms,.. guest room and entertainment room bah.. yet MBR Cement screeding (taken picture, cause HDB dirty my lovely door!), but .... see further below, they finally clean it lar Suggested study room (will build a box up partition there for a room, study room) Again, HDB Contractor,.. aih... they simply spill all their work on the common toilet. Pray hard they didn't hardened the drainage! After a few days of cement screeding, they cleaned the MBR door Week 2 weekend,.. shopping for Sink and Tap at HoeKee new world. (Lots of variety, but price on the medium to high side). Well, no choice, we've spent the previous two weekends in the earlier month to source and check the design, and it came to a point that my hubby can get everything all in one shop plus we're too tired to source. So here are our Sink and Tap (we may change the tap, cause the neck is too short from its base).

For the following: As we visit our reno site, 3-4 times a week (weekday average once every two days,mainly tuesday/monday and then thursday/friday and another visit on saturday/sunday) Format of the identification I will use for the pictures will be (Week number, early of the week indicated by 1,2 or 3, 1 means early of the week, 2 means mid of the week and 3 means late of that week, while subsequent indication means, the order of the picture taken. e.g: Week 03-1-04 (means 03-third week, 1-early of third week, running number of the picture) So here it is... for your viewing pleasure, comments and critics all welcome, appreciate if your can remind me on things I missed out and things I need to remember. *now to fullfil most of my neighbours request, I am doing some backdating jobs, uploading pics up to week 6 or 7. phew.... Week 1, HDB loaded the sand and prepare to do cement screeding - early November 2007. Week 01-1-01 Week 01-1-02

View to MBR (on the right is the MBR toilet) MBR toilet One of the room hehe... but really feel a bit paiseh... not sure at the end will look kinda run down or not we didn't do feature wall, didn't do false ceiling, L-box or anything on top. all lighting maintain the same (still contemplating to add foyer light, as dining and foyer only have one lighting point.. *sigh..). Initial reno target is around 18k.. but burst by around 4k (excluding air-con, lightings and other moveable electrical appliances/furnitures) paiseh,misleading you.. ours' 5-rm.. will edit my first few post to avoid confusion

View to kitchen View to kitchen and common toilet View to common toilet Again.. common toilet Nice design to protect water drop from cloths hung upstairs... thumbs up!

Hi All, Thanks for all the support. Actually a bit pressure to create this blog and to upload pics, cause we din do any much design, just normal house, so really paiseh to upload below average normal hdb house . Anyway, for the sake of others who just started out and wish to gain experience on the progress, below are the schedule of our house reno progress. As for the actual schedule my ID/Contractor doesn't seem to give me a written one (he looks like a middle man for a contractor to me), cause he really didn't provide drawing, sketches and didn't advise a lot on what will look nice to us. For actual schedule, your may refer to XLAN's schedule here Start renovating in early November 2007 for our 5-rm flat at Jln Membina Blk 25A... So for those who just started out, maybe you can have rough idea on some of the progress. Reference of the floor plan: View from one of the room to outside (facing the school) View from kitchen entrance to the living room View from living room to entrance, kitchen, household shelter, passageway to MBR View from living room to kitchen, household shelter, passageway to MBR and one of the room

Xlan, you laminate room very very.. spacious look, cosy and lovely!. really really wish to visit you.. but tonight schedule quite messed up. Let me know when you will open house again... please.. wanna have "eyes relaxation" on your white laminate.. btw, have your kitchen cabinet up yet?. For your eubiq, earlier you plan to put in the dry section next to your cooker is it?.

Hehe,.. we plan to get iroboot scooba (model 350 or 380) to help us mop the home+kitchen tiles only, not sure how good it is (been reviewing this item, and seems the review has been good so far).Anyone has used this for a while care to give your personal review?. Last time GKRobots (www.gkrobots.com) do sell this at pretty cheap price compare to US/HQ side (btw, dun buy frm authorised dealer in sgp - they really cut throat almost by 40%, plus they push for outdated model!!)

Binzz,... Thanks for having us visiting your unit last night, phew,... your lightings are all very nice!. I love the idea of having the options of yellow light switched on by itself!. Very good thought and consideration!. The MBR little moveable spotlight is also quite good to create the ambience! Care to share where you've got those lighting?. (or pm me the itemised breakdown, as we'll most likely be getting the lightings this weekend after two day visits to some of the shops to get ideas on the design+practicality) thanks again for having us visiting your site ytd nite..! ps: your platform also very nice... contemplating whether to hv it now or later after move in (aih..tight budget..tight budget).

At last,... after much of the struggle at last created this blog. Confused between community blog and all other options appearing in the profile section. Anyway,.. first post, and I will post even more stuffs and more pics once I got home. Summary : Jln Membina Blk 25A, 5-rm flat, through balloting exercise. Further updates, please refer to my Signature.