ricepapergirl

We didn't go check out the house over the weekend but still did loads of stuff (it feels!) for the house this weekend! Headed over to Ikea on Friday afternoon and bought our PAX wardrobe, KALLAX low shelves and relaxing chair for the MBR, and BILLY bookshelves and study table and study chair for the study! Also threw in a whole bunch of Ikea odds and ends (like the bathroom mats that we later found was being used by both my parents and my parents-in-law lol, and clocks and random kitchen stuffs and stools etc) since we were already getting the stuff delivered. The wardrobe, shelves and bookshelves are all getting delivered (with the rest of the stuff) on Tuesday afternoon and they will assemble them on Wednesday afternoon. Since my Ikea kitchen is also being installed Tuesday and Wednesday it feels like those two days are our "carpentry" days. Also got boxes from Helping Hands and packed up the rest of my books (and kimono!) at my maiden home ready for the movers to come over on 2 June, and also started to pack like mad over in our current place. Current box count: 27 boxes and much more to go! Helping Hands only passed us 20 (though they will drop another 10 on Monday cos I requested for 30) medium sized boxes but we had some big boxes leftover from our move from London and the ex-owner kindly dropped off another 15 smaller boxes from her move so we should have enough boxes! We also popped by the Warehouse Club (the NTUC wholesale place in Joo Koon), signed up for membership ($50 for 2 years) and managed to grab more than $500 worth of stuff to get free delivery, including 3 KDK standing fans! Stocked up on essentials like dishwashing liquid, handwash, swiffer, toilet paper etc and it all gets delivered to us which is great when you don't have a car. I guess only super-westies like us will enjoy the Joo Koon wholesale NTUC, most people will just think it's super far away! Finally popped by a "neighbourhood hardware store" though this one was in a shopping mall (Jurong Point) and got other essentials like a doormat, 3M hooks and grout sealant! Gearing up for the move soon!

Hi twinklecloud! Haha yeah I really love our window grilles too! The ex-owner said she spent $2k on them and designed it herself? Wrought aluminium or something. I'm just glad we got to keep them cos it saved us some money plus I can't find any nice window grilles nowadays! As for the awning, for now it looks great but we haven't tried it for when it's raining yet! Anyway the purpose is less to prevent any rain from coming into the balcony at all, but to prevent the rain from wetting any clothes we hang on the bamboo poles, and since the brackets for the bamboo poles are so near the awning it should work.

PM-ed! Heh heh yeah I really like our wall lights too. Not very artsy or flashy but simple and easy to clean, most importantly!

Day 51 - End is in sight?? Finally some pictures! We knew most if not all of our lights are up and running, and we needed to pop by to pick up one of our LED lights that was faulty and get Chan Huat to fix it, so husband and I went over after work yesterday to check out our new place at night (and check whether the lights we got were bright enough!) Excited excited, even when we opened the door the first floor was quite bright, just from the light along our corridor coming in through the frosted glass corridor windows! But the kicker was switching on our "entrance" wall light: Wah! Very bright! Good good. Love the up+downlight effect. The yellow wall in the background leads to the utility room, glass sliding door not yet fixed, the light in that room is also nice and bright! The trash on the floor is crazy! Lol ! But yay for our dining room light, the only "artsy" light we have. Also super bright, lit up the entire dining room! The living room (still missing a yellow coloured wall) with one set of track lights on, and with both sets of track lights on. Still missing my balcony doors lol. Also, loving our simple black Fanco fan. That's the utility room's sliding door chilling out at the side wall. I really adore the colour of my balcony, it's probably not super accurate in these photos but it's sort of a bold teal-green-blue thing. This is us trying out the newly installed retractable awning (we got dark blue for the fabric so that if it ever fades it sort of becomes lighter blue which, hey, is the sky) and also checking out the newly installed metal brackets (if you squint you can see both of them) for our bamboo poles for drying clothes next time. It was not easy trying to find the kind that mounts on the side instead of from the ceiling! Detour into the kitchen and into the kitchen toilet! Frosted swing door installed and light installed! Mirror, shelf, towel rack and toilet roll rack also installed! Really am quite pleased at how expanding it into an L-shaped toilet has made it much more usable and less cramped! No pictures of the kitchen right now sadly, but nothing much to see. Ikea kitchen installers (finally settled it with them, let me see the installation through before I give my review) coming next week! Cross fingers that everything will go well! Wall light at the staircase landing! This light and the one at the 2nd floor hallway (both are linked and are two-way switchable) provide so much light that we actually don't even need the additional light which is spoiled which we are bringing back to Chan Huat. Brighter still better so we're happy! The bedrooms have all been painted and their window grilles reinstalled and lights are up! Pale minty green for the nursery and pale yellow for the study! Parquet polishing to be done next week as well! Common toilet on the second floor with most of the fixtures put up! Same with the MBR toilet, with frosted glass swing door. Another favourite wall colour, really love this pale blue for our MBR! Track lights and black Fanco fan as well, almost the same as the living room layout! There's still quite some stuff that needs to be done, but it really feels like the house is coming together, especially with the painting mostly done. It's amazing how electrical wiring casings kind of fade away when they are painted lol. We're popping by Ikea on Friday to get the rest of the non-kitchen furniture and hopefully can get them to install things like the bookshelves and wardrobes next week on the same days as the kitchen installation, if not, closer to when we get to move in, so although we don't have "carpentry" in the traditional sense we are also moving into the carpentry stage of our reno! Can't wait till all the stuff is done up (parquet skirting, parquet polishing, doors for the bedrooms, painting of the big pipes, big furniture, cleaning etc) and move in soon!

Oh! I had a great experience with Xtwostore, but glad you had a good experience with insani24! Same for us, my husband looked at the prices of the supposedly cheaper brands and was like, eh they are not that much cheaper anyway (really love the series that people are advertising as made in Italy and we're like.... made in Italy doesn't mean much...) so we decided to get all Hansgrohe for our bathrooms as well!

PM-ed you! Hope it helps!

Oh dear! Hope both get resolved soon!! Looking forward to your move-in-state pictures!

Welcome back!! Haha yeah there are actually more updates on the toilets but need to go back and take some proper pictures. Maybe wait until the pipes are painted or something :P. Actually should go back and take pictures of all the new stuff but have been very distracted because of this Ikea kitchen installation thing, still chasing them for an installation date! Oh! When I said I can list down things for Andrew to do I meant that the full list of things he needs to do is now so short that I can list it down. Literally it's just like "Polish and varnish parquet floor, install dining room light, install balcony door" etc etc etc. We tick them off when we visit and see that it's done, since by now the old timeline is kind of outdated. I find the moving in the most busy period. Because Andrew isn't doing our carpentry I'm doing a lot of coordination to figure out when to buy the Ikea cupboards etc and when is a good time to get them to come down and install (has to be after Andrew is done with most of the flooring but hopefully before I get to move in) so these few days I've been doing loads of calling and arranging of deliveries etc.

I did a quick check for you, since my own toilets and kitchen have had no issues with a diversion of pipes under the floor tiles. http://www.hdb.gov.sg/cs/infoweb/residential/living-in-an-hdb-flat/renovation/sanitary-and-plumbing/-gas-works If you click on "Pipes" you get Diversion of sink waste pipe - Pipe must not be embedded in floor slab, Pipe can be embedded within floor finishes Think you can show this page to your contractor. What usually happens is that the contractor will redo your waterproofing etc, and then embed the pipe after the waterproofing but before the tiling is done. So the pipe is embedded within the floor finishes, but not all the way within the "floor slab". Does that help? Effectively there is a difference between "floor slab" and "floor finishes" and you're not allowed to touch the first but can embed stuff in the second.

Been a bit quiet recently, things are moving for the reno but starting to gear up to move in soon! Andrew says we can move stuff in from 1 June onwards so we've scheduled Helping Hands to help move our stuff (from my maiden home and from our current home to our new home!) on 2 June and scheduled some deliveries of furniture to come in on 1 June evening. Signed up for Starhub over the weekend as well for them to come install on 1 June. Starting to keep a list of stuff Andrew still has to do (it's got to the point when we can list them down now!) and a list of what we have to do (defect checklist + buy Ikea stuff etc) and it looks like the next two weeks are going to be slightly crazy! But really looking forward to our own place come June! Meanwhile most of the painting is done, lights and fans have been 80% installed, glass doors are in, all the bathroom accessories are installed. A major piece that's hanging is really the Ikea kitchen installation, I'm having some issues with the installation people but hoping to resolve it soon (even filed a complaint with Ikea already), hopefully get some sort of resolution today or at least this week! >_<

Just wondering, because I'm faced with the same situation as well. You mentioned you don't mind the lowered shelf capacity because you can't carry more than 30kg at any one time, but isn't the problem when you put 30kg one day, and then add another 30kg another day which goes beyond the 50kg load limit? Ikea's IVAR shelves were never meant to be loaded too much so just be careful. I have a wonderful history of overloading Ikea shelves and having them curve, bend and collapse on me before.

Wow! Your rhombus tiles are so cool! If you're worried about grout you can try and find grout sealant in the DIY shops. I intend to seal my backsplash with grout sealant as well. Dunno what other brands are being carried in Singapore but I saw a HG brand super protector for wall and floor grout at a Home DIY shop before.

Wow! I just realised, no tiles in your bathrooms??

Sorry to jump in but I've had the same Malm chest-of-drawers for about 4 years now in my maiden home. They are actually quite nice but make sure you don't overload them. I used to keep cloth for crafting and sewing in mine and over time the bottom layer of the drawer has warped from the weight and makes the drawers harder to close. Kids' clothes should be fine though, I was loading far too much cloth in mine!

Hi Changbp! Haha no worries actually the piece in black and open shelving is a movable trolley. The cabinets at the corner at the bottom are meant to hold only the LPG tanks so when I need to access that corner I will move the trolley away (you can't really see it from the picture but it's actually two 40cm swing door cabinets in the corner hidden by the trolley). Anyway we haven't bought the trolley yet so let's see how it goes (I wanted it for extra counter space but may not need it?). I find corner cabinets too fiddly and not very useful, especially for heavy objects like LPG tanks, so I designed it this way instead. Good catch though!

Day 40: Parquet floors and partition walls! Things have been moving a bit slower than previously, or maybe it's just because electrical wiring doesn't really show up as "progress" much. Though! I think all of our electrical wiring is mostly there! On Saturday we camped out for Chan Huat to deliver the lights and fans, as well as Song Cho to deliver the bathroom accessories, and walked through the house a bit with Andrew to confirm the electrical wiring and plumbing for the kitchen! Parquet floorings also started about a week back and some pictures of it starting was sent to us by Andrew! We got to see the full effect when we were there on Saturday! Also got to speak to the master layer who was there who shared with us some tips about how he purposely picked the lighter colours and darker colours for the herringbone pattern, and how each room needed to be separated from the hallway via dividing straight lines (the herringbone pattern cannot extend outside of the room to the hallway) because otherwise the effect is not as nice. Firstly, the hallway on the second floor! Too little space to do the light and dark herringbone pattern but it's still very nice! Our future nursery! Study! And the MBR! We really enjoyed talking to the master, really felt he was very proud of his work and he is indeed a master craftsman! Nowadays more and more people are opting for overlay, so not sure whether these parquet craftsmen get to show off their skills as often. Now the parquet floors need to sit for another 10 days before polishing and varnishing (too soon and there would be problems in the long run apparently!). Our partition walls for the beam-created spaces at the staircase are also done! Last wednesday we also went down to Ikea to confirm our kitchen after the site measurement. I must say the Ikea kitchen planning department are really helpful and give really good customer service! The contractors that are in charge of installation though... hmm. Slightly less friendly and having some email to-and-fro with them right now because their quotation seems odd in some ways. Crossing fingers that it would work out in the end. A preview of the planned Ikea kitchen layout! We switched to a grey cabinet front look in the end! Next week things will be moving along a lot faster, hopefully. Monday will be the changes to the kitchen pipes and wiring, plus that pesky bad plastering job at the kitchen pipes, because tuesday will be painting! Then the retractable awning will be installed on Thursday, glass doors will also be in by the end of the week. Hopefully the rest of the WCs and sinks and the fans and lights will be up by the weekend too!

Wow!! I love the hexagonal tiles in the bathrooms! We have very similar hexagonal tiles for our bathrooms too except for ours our ID incorporated other colours as well! Can't wait to see your backsplash!

It's not as cheap as the Daiso one, but I know that places like Tokyu Hands carry the original melamine sponges in different sizes (and also new stuff like liquid sprays which work similarly). The original brand (or I think it's the original brand) is called Gekiochi kun and it's easily identifiable by the iconic face design on the front. Daiso IS a lot cheaper though since their's is basically OEM version of Gekiochi.

I know what you mean! Before we bought our place we were living in student accommodation in London for a year and our attached bathroom had a shower screen, and over there the water is extra hard so the water stains you mentioned are even more obvious. I like to keep the toilet clean so I spent some time cleaning off the hard water stains every week! For our new place we decided to go without shower screen and without shower curtain for now, and see how bad things get, and install shower curtain later then. My mother-in-law soaks her shower curtains in bleach occasionally and all the stains go away! So we might just end up with shower curtains in the long run.

Oooh thanks for the info, it's useful! Currently planning our packing process as well. Probably will use the moving company on a weekday then, since it's cheaper.

Wow!! Love the really dark almost black wood floors! And the repolished parquet looks really nice!

Day 31: My cute tiny sink! We popped by because we both got off work early yesterday, and we're pleasantly surprised to see that they put up most of the stuff in our kitchen toilet! The instant heater and our hansgrohe shower and bath mixer! Our Johnson Suisse WC. Missing the toilet bowl seat but we tried out the flush and it was quite nice and strong! Now my favourite bit of the toilet!! Haha we had to get a small sink because I wanted a proper glass swing door instead of a bifold, and had to keep the depth of the sink to a minimum. I was a bit worried about it but look how cute it looks! My cute little sink hahaha. The hansgrohe basin tap actually looks a bit too big for it but I love it already lol. The toilets upstairs also had some work done on them, mostly just the water pipes and the shower and instant heaters done up.  In the 2nd floor common bathroom. And in the mbr toilet! Walking around and checking on the quality of the plastered walls, we found that the plaster near the kitchen big pipes were bubbly and peeling! Scary! We thought there might be some sort of leak and took some pictures. Whatsapped them to Andrew and immediately got a response that he's already seen it and already scolded his plastering people!  Kudos to Andrew! Now to hope it gets solved!

Haha nah its only halfway through I should think... But nice to see things moving! Think actually that's the best position for aircon for our EM layout I think. Hoping it's good in the long run as well!

Day 30: Aircon installed, wiring starts Wow, already past day 30! Hardly can imagine that renovation has been ongoing for one month already. The other day my husband notes that we had a few more weeks before we could think about moving in! This whole week has seen Andrew going down to Emma almost everyday, poor thing. Monday was plumbing and aircon installation, where the plumbing hit a snag because of my instant heater woes and because I didn't get the mounting brackets for the bath mixers (apparently they are supposed to look like this, Andrew has kindly offered to help me buy them since we didn't have time to run down to buy them) Tuesday was rushing to finish the rest of the plastering. Wednesday saw the Ikea kitchen contractors coming down to measure our kitchen (apparently the Ikea people and Andrew had a spat. Lolweep) and electrical wiring started. Some pictures from Andrew! The prettiest aircon installation lol in our nursery I think. The pipes are in the other room (back to back installation) The pipes in the study. The narrower ducts right on top are the electrical wiring ones I think. Pipes from study and nursery under the beam along the second floor hallway towards the mbr and popping into the mbr toilet as well. This must be our electrician hard at work! Piping in the mbr toilet. Not actually sure what we are doing with it lol, shall ask Andrew. Quite happy with this very neat pipe popping out and emptying at our drainage hole. Andrew illustrating how our frosted glass swing door would adopt to the new doorway at the mbr toilet. Finally the aircon installation in our mbr. The small window below would be sealed up. We like the location because it is not too near the mbr toilet door (too much condensation potentially), and it would blow towards the long side of our rectangular mbr. Think the box up is also quite okay. Maybe we are too chinchai lol.

That is a really cool toilet bowl! Wow! Think your toilets are going to be super cool looking!!