ricepapergirl

Omg. I don't think the discharge is SUPPOSED to have jelly-like substance or algae-ish liquid coming out!! Do you think there's actually something wrong with their pipes??? O_O. As far as I know the discharge is supposed to be condensation from the aircon which is water. If there's anything else coming out something needs to be done? O_O

I have to agree, between the maintenance and a mostly-wet shower area, I'll choose the latter. Plus, it will only drip when you have the aircon on? So depending on your usage, it might just be mostly wet on weekday nights, and maybe weekends if you're the kind that uses the aircon during the day. And then, on weekday nights, you'd probably shower anyway, so your floor would be wet, anyway?

@stray I fixed the photo problem!! Haha fortunately someone else told me about it. Guess I can't hotlink from Google Photos how irritating. OMG 20. I would CRY and hide in the corner. But bug spray is the best. I feel so helpless without it.

Have you checked how much it would cost to fill in the wall? Cos then you can at least figure out whether it's worth the price differential between ikea and custom? Hahaha yeah I'm terrified of flying roaches. I used to be relatively fine with them but there was one time when I was in my maiden home (top floor of the building) and they were fumigating/cleaning the rooftop so all the cockroaches ran away and many came in through our forever-open kitchen windows, and I was washing dishes one night and saw around 11 flying cockroaches one after the other in the kitchen, kitchen toilet and living room. I got a phobia from that one occurrence and never really recovered. Now I freak out when I see big cockroaches. Usually I can still deal with them using bug spray (spray them when they are relatively far away from me) but I've been banned from using bug spray since I'm pregnant... Small ones I can still handle (tissue paper + squish). YEAH I think my husband is a hero ;_; for helping to catch that cockroach for me. Yeah garbage chute is indoors ;_;. One of my conditions for our new place was that the chute needed to be outdoors, but long story cut short, not possible when combined with the other conditions we had, so am living with it indoors. The tall unit where the cockroach was IS the closest one to the chute and we keep the windows mostly closed, so most likely came from the chute. We put cockroach combat there though and hardly use it, but oh well. If I wasn't pregnant I would spray bug spray into the chute often! But oh well. ;_;

Ikea Kitchen - 2.75 months later Some photos of what lies behind those grey (Bobyn) doors of my Ikea kitchen. This is after 2.75 months of relatively constant use. Fortunately, I still have space! Starting with my beautiful Hitachi fridge. The front glass is so polished you can see my living room in the reflection lol! Top compartment - Yakult, Vitagen, japanese jelly, yogurt, packet drinks, condensed milk in a jar. The vacuum compartment is really useful for raw foodstuff I'm going to cook within the day. The door. All sorts of condiments, cornflakes, eggs, butter in airtight container, juice, milk (just finished!) and medicine. The only problem with this fridge? I can't fit the Meiji 2L bottle anywhere! So we buy 1L bottles instead. Skip the ice tray and the other small fast-freeze compartment (we use it for meats but nothing inside right now) - freezer compartment! Ice cream, frozen food, growing collection of cold-packs. Still so much space. Finally, vegetable drawer. Shallow tray very useful for chillis and ginger nubs, side pocket oddly fits Ayataka bottles but coke 1.5L bottles are a bit too tall (this fridge obviously made for japanese groceries), and the crisper drawer does seem to keep veges fresher for longer?! The front of the fridge is actually glass, so we use the side for the magnets. Love my magnetic organiser rack, cookbooks on top, kitchen towel, dish-drying cloth, hooks for rubber bands and oven gloves. Hanging below my top cabinets (it slots in to the bottom of the top cabinet) is my handy hook rack. Kitchen scissors, brush for washing long bottles, sieve, soup ladle and wooden spoon. Underneath that I have my knife rack for my santoku knife, my vege knife, a small fruit knife, my chopping board and chopping board cover. I really like this style of knife rack because it's relatively sanitary for the knife blades! The dish drainer above my sink! We took out the tray under the dish drainer which catches the water and just let the water drip directly into the sink. This way we can also hang hooks on the underside of the dish drainer for my frying pans to dry off before I put them away. There is actually space for another shelf above the dish drainer (and we have it) but for now we're just leaving it empty for better circulation + we have nothing to put there yet. Next to the dish drainer is my 20cm wide shelf. I got some Daiso "shoebox" plastic boxes to use as trays, otherwise I would never be able to reach what I put at the back of it! Mostly extra dry breakfast stuff like milo packs, tea bags and nutella. Pull-out section with breakfast drinks on top shelf (tea bags in tupperware, milo in packs, liang cha at the back) and root vegetables at the bottom (potatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, shallots). Under-sink drawers. This might be a big reason why I was never satisfied with other "custom" kitchens cos most of them charge me an arm and a leg to give me very unusable drawers under the sink. Ikea's solution: slightly shorter (in depth) high drawer right at the bottom to accommodate the water pipe, and a short medium drawer on the top to accommodate the sink pipe. With some handy organising boxes from NTUC I managed to fit most of our cleaning supplies in those two drawers with ease! Top drawer has two NTUC boxes (the height is just nice and doesn't hit the sink) and holds swiffer refills (wet and dry), magic eraser, Cif, all sorts of cleaning clothes, rubber gloves, ant and roach combat, extra sponges, squeegee, extra spray bottle. Bottom drawer has a lot of kitchen towels, extra dettol, extra dishwashing liquid, large ziplock bags (A4 or gallon size) and extra mop head! Time for some drawer-inception! Looks like 2 big drawers from the front/outside, actually 4 drawers inside. Top drawer - bamboo cutlery tray from Ikea, with cutlery, utensils, and for now, ziplock bags, aluminium foil and cling wrap. Second drawer - extra small cutting board, coasters, soy sauce dishes, plastic bowls, plates and plastic cups (super chapalang drawer, basically anything crockery-like that we don't use often) Third drawer - mixing bowl, steamer rack, measuring jug, extra cups, teapot, extra ziplocks and extra glass tupperware I need to do something about that massive stack of very big plates - "wedding present" from my mom, some of them dating from her wedding. O-o. Rest of the crockery we use relatively often, collection of Corelle plates and bowls. Above this 4-drawer unit are my dry pantry supplies in the overhead cabinet. I find the Daiso pull-out trays super useful when you have overhead cabinets and also want to make full use of the height of the shelf. There's instant noodles, soba, pasta, pancake mix, sugar in a jar, chicken stock cubes, breadcrumbs, extra cans of condensed milk and baked beans and chilli tuna, japanese curry packs, cup noodles etc. We also keep a supply of disposable plates and bowls and cups nicely corralled in one of the trays, and behind the pack of maple cream cookies is a set of wine glasses from Ikea. We really don't use those often or I would have gotten some sort of under cabinet rack to hang them. Very underpopulated top cabinet next to the dry pantry one has tupperware, empty jars, empty bento boxes and thermos, with "decorative" crockery on top (mostly wedding gifts). Even more underpopulated is almost-empty 20cm top cabinet at the end of the row. I'm sure it will fill up eventually but for now, it's empty. The reason why I don't have a "corner unit" for my kitchen even though it is L-shaped: the cabinets for my LPG tanks. The one on the left is connected to my hob, the right one is extra. On the counter-top I have my kettle, rice cooker, hot water thermos and 2 water jugs. 3 drawers under the hob, all shorter in depth than the usual to accommodate the hob gas connections, and not 4 drawers because the top one would hit the hob. Again, still very good use of space. Top drawer - cooking utensils. The grey divider comes from Ikea and I have things like a miso muddler, corkscrew, can opener, thermometer, peeler in it. The bigger stuff like my hand blender, oroshi maker, microplane, steel tongs, cheese grater, pasta tongs and steamer "claws" sit outside the divider. Smaller pots and pans in the second drawer! Bigger pots and pans at the bottom, including a frying-pan-wok. Another drawer-inception set, 4 drawers with the appearance of 2. This time at 40cm width. Top drawer still mostly empty. Just holds my spices in small baggies and my vanilla pods for now. Second and third drawers hold baby stuff for now. Most of it are gifts from my sis! Last drawer holds our rice (in a tupperware) and extra aluminium foil. I actually still have 2 drawers under my oven next to this, the bottom holds unused appliances (steriliser, small rice cooker, crockpot) and the top holds baking stuff together with the overhead cabinet, but as I mentioned in my previous post, certain cockroach encounter prevented me from taking photos... Also, a shot of my condiment racks. I really love them. Heh heh this was vaguely fun. Probably most useful only for people interested to see how some people organise their Ikea kitchens though, like @stray...

Okay wow that is one heck of a recessed wall. I personally feel you might be happier just getting someone to "fill in the recess" if you know what I mean, though it might cost a bit more and you lose what looks like 5cm(??) of space. Having non-continuous bottom cabinets is not impossible (it's much easier than the overhead beam problem) but you might have to pay a bit more for installation when it comes to them doing the cover panels for the exposed jutting out bits... thus, maybe just fill in the recess area?? >_< Jiayou!! Hahaha after your little encouragement I did go and take pictures of all my kitchen drawers etc... and then when I got to my last two drawers underneath the oven, I noticed that my baking tray had some black stuff on it. And was like, hweh? Dirt? Lifted it up, more black droppings or something on the tray below.... and then lo and behold, a behemoth of a flying adult cockroach appeared round the side. Cue long scream for husband to come and deal with the cockroach! Lol. I hate cockroaches, especially the adult flying types. In the end my poor husband had to spend another 20 minutes in the kitchen trying to catch that **** flying cockroach with a plastic bag on his hand, because we didn't have bug spray at home (he didn't allow, cos I'm pregnant right now). We tossed the two baking trays (they were quite old anyway) and disinfected the drawers and everything else in it. Fortunately the Ikea drawers are quite easy to clean and to take out and see whether there's been any infestation elsewhere. Hopefully it was a once-off problem! >_<

Hi @stray Hahaha gush away! I still adore my Ikea kitchen, no qualms there at all. One of these days I will take some photos of how I've been organizing my drawers and above-head cabinets maybe hahaha. As for the recessed wall, if you look carefully, the wall where I have my hood has a overhanging beam, which is similar to your problem of a recessed wall. (Basically, if you hang the rail on the overhanging beam the cabinet will have a gap behind and less structural integrity, and you cannot "cut-away" the top bit of the cabinet to conform to the shape of your beam). What I did for that eventually was just not hang any top-hung cabinets on that wall, but another possibility is definitely to fill in the recess (and you can use that "fill-in" bit to put your gas pipes and water pipes and hide electrical cabling even). Not sure whether your issue with the recessed wall is just with the overhanging beam bit, or with the wall getting recessed halfway along your bottom cabinets? If it's the latter, it's not an issue for the bottom cabinets usually. Sorry a bit hard to explain without drawing. Another way is to take your floorplan and go down with your contractor to the Ikea kitchen people (they sit downstairs on the first floor at Ikea Alexandra) and get their advice!

Hi @stray! No worries! Good luck with your Ikea kitchen, no matter what counter-top you go with! One thing I was toying with was getting the sink-area countertop in laminate but the hob area one in real wood... haha but worried about the change in texture. Another way is to have some sort of all-the-time towel barrier around your sink hahaha. Cos really, it's just the splashing from the sink you should be worried about. I would say that I really love my Ikea kitchen, after 2.5months I cannot complain! Everything is soft-close and everything works lovely. I particularly love how I can have all drawers under my countertop, and customize it to have like, 4 drawers when actually the outside looks like 2 large drawers! And different depths of the drawers so that you can accommodate the sink pipe and LPG gas tubes!

Hi @stray ! Actually, my countertop is not butcherblock wood! It's wood-like countertop, laminate I think. I can't find it on the ikea website right now, but if I remember correctly it's either the Ekbacken or the Saljan (I suspect it's the Saljan because I remember the ikea guy telling me it's the thicker laminate but the Ikea website doesn't show the wood-like Saljan countertops). I'm also slightly wary of actual butcherblock wood for countertops because I didn't think I would be super neat and always keep my countertops dry and stuff, and I read on some websites that if you don't constantly oil it or maintain it the wood does get mouldy, depending on your luck, so I thought I'll go for wood-like laminate instead! We do wipe down the countertops often (more because I do food prep on it and it should be clean anyway) and when I put hot pans on the countertop I usually stick a trivet underneath it, so we haven't really tested it per se, but the countertop still looks like new 2.5 months on. It gets some oil splatter when I deep fry but a quick whiff with some dishwashing liquid on kitchen towels and a damp cloth wipe solves that quite easily. The only thing is that don't try and use the magic eraser on it, it seems to rub off some of the surface shine for some odd reason. Sorry I didn't help much for the wooden countertop problem! >_<

Oh!!! I'm so glad that tip worked! Yay for not needing to change the handshower! Also, really loving your subway tiles for the kitchen! Looks really nice!

Oh dear, hope the painting goes better! As for the water pressure, does your showerhead have different "settings"? Sorry I have a hansgrohe instead, but also with an instant heater. For us, there is one setting which is very nice and strong, and the others are more soothing/rainshower-like, so maybe that could be it.

Aww hope it helps somehow! Wow if one of you is a regular aircon user then I think splurge on the higher ticks model! We didn't care too much about it because we're much less of aircon users (just switch it on for an hour and then we use the overhead ceiling fan instead when we're actually sleeping, and we usually use standing fans or ceiling fans during the day). Yeah our fridge is the Made in Japan Hitachi series, 5 doors. It was close to $3k. Big splurge but we justified it by hoping that the Made In Japan series will last longer than others. Plus the multiple doors really does help in electrical consumption.

Hi! We have the Mitsubishi Electric Starmex system, because we've read reviews and basically Mitsubishi Electric seems to be the best model for aircons in Singapore (from families, from renotalk, from our contractor, from the Gain City people etc). My maiden home has had the Starmex system for a long while too. So far, we've been living with it for about 2 months and no regrets so far, quiet, cooling, can be easily tweaked (for coolness etc). Also, easier to maintain because many other people have it too so parts and expertise is easy to find. For us, we ended up with a 3(?) ticks system. The ticks is only for the compressor, not for the fancoil units btw, and for the BTU we needed (system-3) and the brand we wanted, only the 3ticks version was available. One thing to think about is calculate the supposed utility bill savings? Often the stores will write what is the approximate monthly electrical bill for the 2 ticks versus the 5 ticks, then you multiply that by per year and figure out whether the extra $700 is worth it. For aircon, esp if you are going to be using it every day and every night, the utility bill savings might add up to quite a lot. We did the same comparison for when we bought our fridge (also paid around $1500 more for a 5 tick versus a 3 tick) and figured that the bill savings more than outweigh the extra price over time. For hob, if you're getting gas, do note that if you also have a fan in the kitchen, that you need to get one where the fire doesn't get affected by the fan. I don't have a fan in the kitchen but I can rig up one to blow in from the kitchen door, but when I do that, even though the fire from the hob looks the same, my pans don't get hot, so now when I'm actually cooking I have to switch the fan off. Of course if you have induction then that's a different issue. I also chose glass surface because it's easy to maintain. Got a Rinnai cos I like Japanese brands. I also have a Fujioh hood but to be perfectly honest we haven't really tested it out fully with deep frying yet, so I really don't know whether it's that much stronger than other hood brands haha.

Wow wow wow! Such a lovely reno and such a lovely place! Really glad for you! Love the transformation!

Hahaha so glad I helped! Love Chan Huat if you're the kind that needs to see the light before you buy it (and see it switched on and off!)! Wow your 45 degree tile problem! Hope it gets solved! I have similar 3D subway tiles in my kitchen but we only tiled the backsplash so we had no issues with the corners... phew?

Really loving the photos! The place looks amazing!

So about two weeks ago I lifted the lid to my MBR toilet toilet bowl tank, in order to drop one of those blue thingies (to make the toilet water turn blue and disinfect at the same time, Chlorox?) into the tank, when my hand slipped and the entire lid (which is pretty heavy) dropped onto the actual toilet seat cover (which is plastic). The end result of that is a long crack along the seat of the toilet bowl itself and underneath the tank which started leaking water. The toilet bowl tank lid was also damaged. Sigh. At first, my reaction was to turn off the water to the toilet bowl (this is why I am so glad there are multiple water pipe switches in our toilets, one for the toilet bowl, one for the sink, though strangely enough none for the shower...), and then thought that perhaps after the water drained out, that we could apply some form of silicon sealant to "seal" the crack and hold on for a couple of years. After doing some research online, turns out it might be dangerous because of the location of the crack, constant pressure (by sitting on it) over time would widen the crack and then maybe one day the whole structure would collapse which might be even worse, if someone was sitting on it at that time (cuts on butts etc). So (after some procrastination, we were using the other two toilet bowls) we finally bit the bullet and called up Le Bath and our ID, and got them to send us a replacement toilet bowl and the plumber to fix it. Hopefully can settle it sometime this month or so. ;_; Feel so bad that I caused us to have to spend more money after only one month in the house! Now my husband insists we lift the toilet bowl tank lid together as a team lolweep. Thought I would share this experience with the forum in case it ever becomes useful to anyone else. Also, now that I'm in my sixth month of pregnancy, and we've nicely settled into the house for more than a month, we're picking up speed to finish furnishing the house! Still have quite a bit of stuff to get! - Utility room racks - last two dining chairs (done! popped down to Comfort Design over the weekend to order them) - Balcony furniture (low priority, still looking around) - living room lego display case (dithering between something from Jottergoods or more expensive customized piece from Second Charm) - Single bed frame and mattress for nursery - Baby changing mat, changing table for first floor, baby bathtub Not to mention the toilet bowl to fix!

Oh wow that's quite a change! I might try that out for my own pipes as well, they are starting to get a bit yellow (white and not painted)!

I see a Roomba!

Hi althevin! Haha thanks for the compliment. It's not 100% finished but we're taking it slow to really do that last bit (decorating, for one, pictures and plants etc). I also really like my kitchen too, probably my favourite part of the house together with the living room. We got the towel ladder from Japan, you can get it off either Rakuten Global or there's a Qoo10 shop that also sells it. http://list.qoo10.sg/item/FREE-SHIPPING-TOWER-LADDER-HANGER-WHITE-02812-YAMAZAKI-BUSINESSMAN/442812923?selectedOptions There's a black colour version as well, we have both, the white one in our MBR and the black one near our study where we use it to hold bags using S-hooks. Think we actually bought the black colour one from Rakuten JP and asked for it to be shipped via SAL (instead of the much faster but much more expensive EMS) together with other stuff like our washing machine rack and the towel rack next to the towel ladder. Hope that helps!

Awww Thank you!

Hope everything goes well for you! We also had a resale flat and instead of waiting for HIP/MUP we asked our ID to change all the pipes for us (so he was the one who explained to us that even for HIP/MUP they only replace the pipes that are visible in the house, and do not touch the parts that are embedded in the ceiling/floor areas) so that we can have peace of mind. Our ID, in changing the pipes, also helped to put in more "updated" pipe configurations so that funny branching-out pipes were removed etc which made life a bit easier when putting in stuff in the kitchen or toilets. We also specifically asked for all our pipes to be exposed to prevent future leakage issues from being undetected, but I recognize that's not for everyone.

Don't underestimate how much the insurance companies would do to get out of paying you money?

Emma Housetour: Level 1 Starting with our favourite room (or at least, the most photogenic?): Living Room We love our soft and armchairs from Castlery, and the double poufs effectively mean both my husband and I can prop up our feet whilst watching TV (U-shaped sofa, anyone?) or they can double up as extra seating when we're entertaining. We love how the Kueh Tutu cushion fits in so perfectly (it was a Secret Santa gift from Christmas!) and how the cushion covers I bought years ago and never used matches our yellow wall and the green/teal balcony wall perfectly (though I need to go and sew them smaller since I didn't realize my old cushions were so small...). Coffee table is small and foldable, from Kii-mono/Rakuten, and that retro-looking radio is really a retro-looking radio (wedding gift, two years old and we never used it till we moved in), we switch it on in the mornings whilst having breakfast and when I'm cooking in the evening for some entertainment. You can't really see it but our overhead ceiling fan is switched on in this picture, moving too fast to be captured. Best investment ever, ceiling fans. The view from the yellow wall: our Second Charm solid wood TV console and the somehow-matchy-matchy Ikea CD shelves, Sony TV, TV antenna and router behind the tissue box. There's still space on the left of the TV console for some sort of display shelving, we want to display my husband's old Lego toys there eventually. For now, it's empty. Balcony Our balcony, with half of the balcony doors opened, and clothes hanging out to dry, retractable awning retracted. View from the TV console area. The other end of the balcony, from the sofa area: Opened balcony doors, our bamboo poles neatly in a row when not used, via 3M Command Broom Grippers (they occasionally fall off when there's a massive rain, I should have used the bathroom series, am slowly changing them out, but otherwise they work very well), and husband's brainwave at using cheapo Daiso "plant pots" to hold our clothes pegs. Eventually we should have some balcony furniture for relaxing, and maybe some plants. Also work-in-progress! Dining Room The view from the sofa area to the dining area: the middle is nice and empty for now! Under-staircase area - maybe future nook for kids to play in? The dining area. Kind of still incomplete, we wanted 6 chairs (mismatched, we still need to source another two chairs.... somewhere) and there are a couple of tenugui we bought from Japan that we wanted to frame up and hang at the wall on the right (Clifton Karhu! We aim to one day go back to Kanazawa and buy an actual piece of work, but for now, his tenugui will have to do), and that roll of exercise mats in the corner ought to belong in the utility room... but our dining room is quite cosy for now. Dining table from Commune (solid wood!), chairs from Castlery and from HipVan, shelf for our ONT and telephone in the corner as well as the wooden sideboard under the window also from Castlery. No point showing the utility room for now, we haven't got around to getting utility room shelves so everything is just in boxes on the floor! Kitchen Kitchen, in much better lighting! Byrakaanne, the floormat you loved was being washed and dried, we're still going to use it, but it's not in this photo lol. I've been using it to cook more consistently now so it's definitely getting a more lived-in feel to it. Loving my Hitachi fridge on the right! You can kind of see the glass sliding door on the right, and the flip side of some leafy stickers we got from Ikea to decorate it with. This is the main prep area, dish drainer above the sink (I removed the draining tray so that the water will drip directly into the sink, plus we use the underside of the rack to hang stuff using S-hooks, like pots and pans when they are drying. The top-cabinets are hung at the perfect height, so much so that I can actually stand up nicely in the little space to the left of the picture underneath the top-cabinets without hitting my head lol! Close-up view of the cooking area, with my rice cooker, kettle, hot water flask and normal water flasks on the right, and all my condiments on the left. Fujioh hood, Rinnai hob. So far everything has worked quite well! The view from where my rice cooker area is, towards the kitchen windows, and the little nook that's effectively my service yard after we expanded the kitchen toilet into an L-shape. You can just see the washing machine peeking out from underneath the kitchen windows. Opposite the washing machine would be the rubbish chute. Also, handy step-stool from Ikea for me to reach into the taller cabinets, or for husband to sit when he's in the kitchen haha. Oddly colourful service yard/laundry area! We have a Panasonic washer/dryer machine, covered by the most adorable punny tea towel (I stare at it sometimes whilst doing laundry and always find a new joke. There's one of a picture of steaks floating in clouds and it says "The Steaks Are High" underneath it) which doubles up as sort of a dust cover/soaks up stray water. The washing machine rack is from Rakuten, and just barely fits into the area lol. I keep my soapnuts and baking soda in those tall spaghetti containers and the yellow box holds all those spare plastic bags folded up. Above is this multi-function huge plastic washing-up tub from Ikea, we use it to put mildly wet clothes after washing to the balcony to hang, and it is also used to handwash huge things like our floormats. Kitchen toilet View from the doorway, we managed to squeeze in a frosted glass swing door for this toilet as well! I wanted to avoid sliding/bifold/PD doors for any of the toilets as much as possible, bad experiences with all three. Being the first floor toilet, it's the least "pretty" haha since we use it often for mopping etc so all the buckets and basins come here. That broom gripper is usually reserved for our mop, husband had been cleaning the balcony with that stiff-brush (it usually belongs on the side of my tall kitchen unit where the oven is) instead that day so the mop got relegated elsewhere, but it's a good way of keeping it dry between uses. We also use this toilet all the time to wash our feet when we first get home. The view from the shower area, the tiny sink and how it works with the swing door, which unfortunately would bang onto the towel rack (no other place for it) if not for a silicone squidgy thing we put on the door, and also by the fact that we keep the mop-bucket there and it prevents the door from opening all the way. But it works well generally! That's all! Our house isn't very photogenic, but we love it very much. It's easy to clean and maintain (very important for first-time home-owners and a big EM) and is very nice and cosy for us! Hope my T-blog could be of use to people and may everyone's renovation go smoothly! Next up, a review of Andrew!

Emma Housetour: Level 2 It's been 2.5 weeks since we officially moved in, though we are still cleaning! Husband rolled up his sleeves and spent most of the weekend cleaning the main door gate grille and kitchen window grilles and cleaning our balcony and mopping the floor, and I also spent some time cleaning the corridor-facing window grille and window, and half of the glass panes of our balcony door! The grilles are the most difficult because we kept the original from the ex-owners so it has many years of dirt and grime built up over time! But it's worth it because we really love the design. I keep meaning to take some pictures of the house in the day, but the weekend was filled with chores and cooking so I just gave up and took some pictures at night instead. Let's start with level 2 first (because I didn't manage to upload all of level 1 yet hahaha). This is pretty much how our home looks like on an everyday basis, nothing "styled" or extra-cleaned up about it. Effectively, lived-in photos! Master Bedroom Our simple Scanteak bedframe and Ikea Pax sliding door wardrobe. If you squint you can see the triangular side tables I got from Rakuten! They are super cute and small. View from the bed area: our little "island" made from two sets of Ikea Kallax shelves with legs, just the right height for putting stuff to prepare in the morning (I don't really get the idea of a dressing table...) and in the future, a handy area to change baby's diapers. The Ikea Poang chair in the corner is for future night-time feeds. Temporarily "empty" wall for now, eventually the crib will reside here. Non-permanent movable racks to hang clothes and towels on this wall for now. The other Kallax shelf facing this direction is mostly empty and will hold baby stuff. MBR toilet from the doorway. We got a frosted glass swing door (and have yet to lock it really haha). Closer look at how we currently utilize the shelf that runs across the wall: one side for shower stuff, one side for basin stuff. Basin next to the wall with the top-hung window and the towel holder there. Husband and I generally keep our towels outside of the bathroom so the towel rack only gets used when we need to shower. Toilet bowl facing the shower area. We opted for no shower screen so it gets a little bit wet but not much and I love the fact that I have less glass to clean. Slight mistake of mounting the toilet roll holder too near to the shower area though, it gets a little bit wet after showering but dries out quickly. Our Ikea Molger shelf next to the pipes and toilet bowl! It's made from wood and it covers the other drainage hole right now, which means water that's not in the actual step-down shower area drains towards under the shelving unit, not great to have the wood legs constantly in contact with water. Solution? $1.75 for a set of 4 silicone leg "cups" meant for easy moving of furniture, which protect the wooden legs perfectly from water. Ikea meets neighbourhood shop = solution. Corridor and Staircase Go out the MBR door into the corridor, look down towards the living room (on the right) and dining room (on the left). Love my easy-to-clean and simple staircase landing wall now. Wall light has very minimal surface area for dust to collect on as well! We re-polished the original parquet for the staircase (and just repainted the original railings and banister) and the ex-owners (who popped by over the weekend to collect their letters and to look-see look-see) could not believe this was their original staircase flooring! Nursery Nicknamed the green room. Mostly empty for now, we have two Ikea Stuva wardrobes inside and our indestructible Ikea Expedit shelves, eventually it will have at least a single bed for the confinement nanny. Currently is my husband's ironing room and where Roy the Roomba's second floor dock will sit. Also, most of my craft and sewing stuff is here, until I figure out where I shall put my sewing corner... -_- #toomuchstuff Study The very crowded study room. Lol. The pile of cardboard box and bags in the middle will eventually end up in the utility room once we get the utility room shelves sorted. There's a Muji beanbag that's supposed to be in this room eventually as well.... hahaha. Our collection of books in this set of Ikea Billy shelves. We hate having to clean dust off our books so we wanted bookshelves with doors. Amazing how little selection you can get for bookshelves with doors. Why??? Anyway, we have so many books that having them alphabetically (and split between Japanese, fiction and non-fiction) means that there was no way our bookshelves would look pretty hahaha. But it's functional and meets our needs. My study table in the corner. And husband's study table in the other corner. Next to it we have some Ikea Besta shelves (with doors again) for our files and folders (and some of my photography stuff) and on top we have our cordless phone, kettle and water container so we don't have to keep running downstairs for water. I originally wanted to put the two study tables side by side but that means that we would block off access to the windows, so this was our compromise. Finally, my kimono tansu chest on the other wall. Complete with KDK fan! OMG no more space in the study liao. ;_; Common bathroom on level 2 The step down shower area of the common bathroom and triangular shelving. We try to actually use all of our toilets regularly to shower etc every day so that they get constant use, so we've begun to buy extra shampoo and body foam and using the other bathrooms as "storage" space for them, which makes life easier when we shower there instead! View from the shower area: the sink, shelf, towel holder, toilet bowl and the frosted glass swing door.