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ricepapergirl

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Everything posted by ricepapergirl

  1. ricepapergirl
    Another vote up for no built-ins! We've been getting push-back on the wardrobe side though so I've been trying to convince my husband that IKEA wardrobes are fine!
  2. ricepapergirl
    Since we are newlyweds, we will have to buy most of our furniture except our bed and mattress, which we bought a year ago when we got married. We spent many weekends walking through different furniture areas like Ikea, the Furniture Mall, IMM, Tan Boon Liat etc and have most of our stuff picked out. Again, not sure we even have a theme, though we generally are attracted to stuff that have nice tapered legs, darker wood, and one of the conditions (which has actually reduced a lot of our choices) was that the furniture should be kid-friendly with rounded corners as much as possible, because we intend to have kids and anyway I have very young nephews and a niece who would probably be visiting us often. So here are some photos of stuff we've picked out, though because we picked them out so early we may end up having to get something else if they no longer carry it by the time we get the keys! Naomi sofa from Castlery in teal! It passed the butt+back test for us. We will get it with the matching ottoman to make it like an L-shaped sofa but with more flexibility in deploying the ottoman as extra seating elsewhere. Instead of proper armchairs, which were a bit expensive and actually not that comfortable, we were aiming to get two of these Roselyn chairs in yellow from Castlery. They seem to be more like dining chairs but are actually really comfortable. Not intending to spend too much on coffee tables (why is it that the pricing seems to be around $300 and up even at Ikea??) and saw this cheaper version on Qoo10. There's probably an even cheaper option on Taobao somewhere. It's not easy trying to find a nice wooden TV console with rounded corners! We are probably getting something customized by Second Charm because how pretty is this? Will post on the rest of the rooms in other posts!
  3. ricepapergirl
    Hi LittleDino! Thanks for your recommendation!
  4. ricepapergirl
    Hi scarlett! Haha maybe? I originally wanted that black pipes on white wall look for most of the flat (maybe black ceiling fan, black track lighting etc) but husband seems to prefer white, so maybe the industrial bit is probably going to be less of an effect when we finally do up the place...
  5. ricepapergirl
    Hi scarlett!! Okay sounds like we need to make a trip down to WasserBath at Geylang then! And ooh I didn't know there were such integrated rainshowers with instant heaters. How cool! We're not too interested in rainshowers so we haven't been researching, but glad they solved that issue! Hope it works well for you too! And parquet flooring! *envious* Wish we could have some too, old or not, but ours is very retro tiling all over and it's so expensive to install new parquet floors! I'm sure it'll look lovely after it's been polished!
  6. ricepapergirl
    Looking forward to your journey! Also from the resale flat "group".
  7. ricepapergirl
    Hi scarlett!! Wow loving your purchases! We are aiming for Fujioh hob and hood set as well! And very interested in your Wasserbath purchases, we never managed to visit them, are they really competitive in pricing? For the instant heater and the rainshower, I remember reading quite a few people's T-blogs that instant heater cannot use with rainshowers in HDB, something about the water pressure not high enough? Did Wasserbath/Hoe Kee tell you about it?
  8. ricepapergirl
    My husband and I don't really have a "theme" per se. We spent some time looking online and then walking through many different furniture shops and malls. We started off with colour/material themes, from a lot of looking through other people's photos of their homes. Some of these pictures are of homes in Renotalk! These two really inspired us. We like the white walls with the concrete-coloured flooring, the walnut/dark medium wood furniture interspersed with more colourful pieces, and the simple colour wall. For our kitchen, I really liked this colour scheme of dark cabinets with a white subway tile backsplash, wood floors, brass handles and that wooden countertop. I'm quite wary of light-coloured cabinets in the kitchen after years of cleaning them at my parents' place. For our bathrooms, we wanted dark slate floor tiles with white subway tile walls and those black painted pipes! So in terms of a theme, I guess we're kind of... Danish/mid-century/chapalang?
  9. ricepapergirl
    Hi twinklecloud!! Thank you so much for your kind words! Also waiting patiently to see the transformation at your house! We're like reno twins lol. Hoping I can find the right ID/contractor as well!
  10. ricepapergirl
    Hi all! I've been a grateful reader of renotalk for quite a few months now and have learnt so many things from here! I am hoping that by starting a T-blog, the discussions in it could also somehow help other people as well. My husband and I are "newlyweds" (when does one disqualify from being newlyweds? 1 year? 2 years? before kids?) and were lucky enough to spend a year away in London straight after getting married, where he studied for his Masters and I worked and also kept our tiny student dorm room clean and full of food. Since coming back in July this year, we searched around for our own place whilst living with his parents in his room, and in October, managed to exercise our option to purchase on a nice 30-year-old first-gen executive maisonette in Jurong West, which is also near to his parents' house. We've nicknamed our new place "Emma" (because it's an EM?), but actually it's not really our place yet till our second HDB appointment in end Jan 2016, and even then the owners have asked to extend their stay for another two months, so in reality we will only get our keys sometime in March 2016. Even so, we've basically been looking at renovations and furniture and tiles and light fixtures and appliances since October, so you can say we are preparing quite early. The layout! I've actually modified this from the version we received from HDB, since the current owners had done some modifications to knock down the wall between the utility room and the kitchen. The layout is very similar to twinklecloud's EM otherwise, a typical first-gen EM with the long balcony at the living room and much of the unit still in original condition or at least 15-year-old decorations. We don't intend to do that much modification to the existing structure, though we wanted to reinstate the utility room (and make it slightly longer to accommodate storage shelves and a bed if possible) and as a result, make the kitchen slightly smaller. After seeing twinklecloud's desired layout, we've also become a bit more daring and are hoping to change the kitchen toilet to an L-shaped toilet so that it wouldn't feel so cramped and potentially be wheelchair-accessible(??). There's also the usual hacking of tiles on the first floor (the existing ones are pastel, matt, 30x30cm and super retro) and thinking of overlaying HERF on the second floor to save some money. We are keeping the balcony open and maybe just installing a retractable awning. We are also not intending to have too much built-ins as we intend to start a family soon and want to keep the house quite flexible in terms of layout. Despite that, we've been looking at relatively expensive quotes, guess that it comes with the EM territory...
  11. ricepapergirl
    Just a question, did you need to get clearance to change the bottom kitchen and kitchen toilet configuration that way? (Can you tell I'm going wild thinking of possibilities for layout on the 1st floor?!) And also, does that mean your MBR extends past the railing at the Void?
  12. ricepapergirl
    Wow great tip on visiting the neighbours below! Mine is also resale and 30 years old to boot so we might do that too.
  13. ricepapergirl
    Wow I was away for a week and so much has happened. That layout! OMG wow! Love how you changed the layout of the toilet downstairs, super creative! What are you leaving the "ex" dining room area empty for? Really loving that redesigned layout and definitely interested in your recommendations for IDs as well! Will PM you!
  14. ricepapergirl
    Hi dien, Not quite yet, prob only get our keys in end March! But mine is a resale as well, so I am learning things from your reno as well! We are thinking of changing pipes as well, cos ours is a 30-yr-old unit.
  15. ricepapergirl
    Wow everything so fast for you! Good luck and waiting to see how it turns out in the end!
  16. ricepapergirl
    Oh wow timotan really? Is it the exact same layout?? I would have thought HDB would forbid building over the void, especially the much larger void that the L-shaped staircase EM units have. I was talking to an ID who also mentioned he did something creative with the void area for another client but when I double-checked with him on my specific unit he realized that the void area he was talking about was smaller and narrower than our first gen EMs, so he said it couldn't be done for my unit. Still, really interesting to hear! Maybe I'll explore with our ID.
  17. ricepapergirl
    Wow thank you so much for this breakdown of aircon specs! Has motivated me to finally go and study a bit about aircon requirements for my own use.
  18. ricepapergirl
    Retro false ceiling!! Our unit also has the most lovely old-style flowery cornices and this super elaborate chandelier-connection ceiling decoration but sadly it all has to go for our rewiring. I half wanted to keep it.
  19. ricepapergirl
    Hi twinklecloud, I PM you? Haha but I'm only a noob so not sure whether we budgeted everything in but we tried!
  20. ricepapergirl
    Yeah! We went down to their Kallang showroom and saw quite a lot of their TV consoles being made. They were originally above budget for us but we really can't find anything close to what they were doing for TV consoles so we upped our own budget for it . We really love their mid-century rounded-corners look, we're looking for rounded-corners furniture (kid-proof and my-own-clumsiness-proof) and it's really difficult to find something nice with rounded corners for TV consoles so it wasn't difficult to up our budget for them. I remember we went downstairs to their 3rd storey showroom and a bunch of young girls (teenagers) were listening to pop music and sanding down a large teak armchair at the same time. Love the family-feel of the place.
  21. ricepapergirl
    Hi Lazyfatcat007!! Actually I think I probably got the idea from your renotalk t-blog! Haha! I remember reading it somewhere and so when we were looking at the scary quote and zooming in on the expensive line items I looked at my husband and just jokingly said someone on renotalk is not tiling her kitchen and he was like... Oooh why not. Haven't checked in (and not sure whether we would) with parentals but it will probably cut maybe a few thousand dollars off the budget so seriously considering it. We're thinking only do backsplash tiling, everything else just wash and wear and hope for the best.
  22. ricepapergirl
    Oh and also another note on the Crock-Pot, it might just be our model but the lid for ours doesn't close super tightly (or might be too light) so when we are cooking stuff with a lot of liquid like soup the escaping air will lift the lid very slightly and there will be liquid bubbles popping. First time this happened and we didn't realize we came home to the kitchen countertop wet with soup. After that we usually put a rag/kitchen cloth either on top of the lid or on the countertop where we think the liquid will go to. After a while we identified which position the lid should be to minimize the leakage and marked the lid and the pot with marker so that we can align it again properly next time. Not sure whether this will happen to you but it's not a huge issue. Just sharing tips!
  23. ricepapergirl
    Hi twinklecloud! Haha yeah when we first found out about the timelines for our EM purchase we also thought, wah, so much time, can think very slowly for reno liao. Cos we were coordinating to do our 1st HDB appt 2-3 weeks after the owner has her 1st HDB appt (something about a bridging loan??) so that her purchase of her new place can be done around the same time as ours and then chop-chop reno so that they won't have to stay too long at their own place even after 2nd appt. So we gave them 2 months extension as well as delayed our own 1st HDB appt. Then with CNY etc... Haha. We actually exercised our option on 5 October so we were looking at 5-6 months delay before we could get our own keys. Then I'm the kind that needs to have everything planned out properly and does a lot of research for stuff so use this time to keep thinking and thinking. Gosh we had our first proper full quotation from an ID yesterday and the price was faint! ;_; EM big so price tag also very big! We already have a proper budget spreadsheet with all the smaller items (furniture, appliances, lighting etc) factored in so we knew exactly how much we were willing to spend on the reno itself and the quote was way over. Now hoping that other people can quote more reasonably and finding ways to shave off some $$! Now thinking maybe don't need to fully tile the kitchen, just paint with wash and wear paint, not sure whether feasible. I know the parentals would frown on it but nowadays got hood and air fryer so husband and I are thinking it's worth it (and saves quite a tidy sum!!). Balcony? Haha think we are still set on having it as a proper balcony. We've been told that it's possible that HDB would not approve the wooden trellis/pergola we had in mind but need to check with ID/contractor what the issue is so that we can change the idea somehow. Actually the biggest headache is the doors from the living room to the balcony! We wanted to get bifold/trifold doors between the living room to the balcony so that you can open them fully and we didn't like having bottom rails (which you would need if you get sliding doors because I've never seen top-hung sliding doors go across 5 metres!) but most of the quotes coming back for such a long bifold/trifold door are really expensive!
  24. ricepapergirl
    The bar stools are so pretty!! So tempted now.
  25. ricepapergirl
    I see you're a lover of Second Charm! I love their stuff too, though I might have to do them in phases since some of the stuff I want from them are beyond my current budget.
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