dukebluedevil

Hi guys, For those need contact details and quotes, please PM the other members earlier in the thread whom I have given the info to.

PMed. @vieracmx too.

Wood Culture. http://www.woodculture.com.sg/

My vinyl cost 8++ for normal lay and 10++ for herringbone pattern. Will PM you my contractor details.

LAST FEW PHOTOS aaaaaand i'm done! Thanks for the memories everyone!

All very exciting! Blank canvas for your dream house!

Thanks. Its a solid top by Evershine (MV-100).

Yes, my full-height shoe cabinet has louvered doors, seems we have similar ideas! It does add a little character/feel to the home but best used sparingly. My wife looked at me in horror when I suggested using louvered PD doors for the toilets to save money Yes, because of budget and not wanting to overwhelm the design, we decided not to have louvered doors for our MBR cupboard and toilet vanity cabinets. So our toilet doors/guest room sliding and shoe cabinet use the louvred doors. Thanks! Yes, same exact model. But if you're doing large formats, may have issue as I told @bykaraanne above. Hmm, the flooring's been in for a couple of weeks, so far it has taken construction abuse no problem. My flooring is rated for commercial use too so that gives me some comfort. Its plastic really, so using in the kitchen should not present a problem. As mentioned earlier, i have some hollow spots because of the uneven flooring (not because of the laying method or the vinyl itself). If I had more $$ the choice would be to hack and/or screed the whole flooring to achieve a truly flat floor. I have part screed/part tile/part wooden planks for the entire house - not the most ideal choice really. Will try take more pics tonight.

FINALLY DONE! Other than a plumber's visit to fix a ponding issue with my master room toilet sink, its done. 7 weeks instead of 6 promised by the contractor but not a big issue. Not gonna show all views of my house as some are just run of the mill rooms but will post some lived-in/messy pics of my living room / kitchen. Loved how the house turned out! Very happy due to the fact that we came very close to our design theme e.g. see this apartment which was one of our "model" apartments. Am pretty pleased with the vinyl herringbone - cost a bit more but the look was what we wanted and am enjoying (so far) the hardiness and low maintenance. However as the floor is not perfectly flat throughout, there are some hollow spots. We did it without an ID to save costs. Would we do that again? Most probably not. The legwork my wife and I had to do was exhausting (especially with two young kids in tow) - from site visits to hunting for the perfect piece. Such work did not include our regular stuff like furniture and electrical appliances. It was totally unfair for the kids to spend their time at furniture shops or at their grandma's while we searched for the missing pieces of our jigsaw puzzle. Our many painted matt white surfaces, although so pretty set against the gold pieces, are quite hard to maintain. Have found myself reaching for the magic sponge many times. Although the painter recommended turpentine, I wouldn't go there yet! The kids seem to be enjoying the bigger space. Our four year old son enjoys sitting at the island eating his meals. We didn't have a dining table at our old place as it was really that small. It already seems to be a happy and comfortable place for them to grow up and to me and wife, that's all that really matters.

Thanks! But there's a catch. Well you might know that one "advantage" of solid top is that there are no joint lines unlike quartz or natural stone. However, while there are no joint lines in the backsplash BUT because of the manufacturing process i think, you can see where the design "stops" and resets to the "start' of the pattern... leading to a slightly faint visual joint line rather than a physical joint line. This line was blocked from view by my island hood but it is quite irksome to look at initially.

So much love for this dark theme and design! Would have been my choice if I was still a swinging single haha.

FINISHING LINE Touch-up work - painting, carpentry.. ready to move in next Tuesday! A couple of sneak peeks, plastic wrappings still on haha:

Congrats!!!

Hilarious yet informative read haha. Thanks. Disappointed to read about the Teka sink because I just got one! Lets see how it performs.

If anyone's still reading, sorry for the lack of updates! Pictures will have to wait till the place cleans up good because lots going on. Updates: Kitchen cabinetry 90% up. 6m of tall cabinets plus 8 ft island will take a while. Waiting for solid top to come in before finishing up. Shoe cabinet up waiting for doors. Fitting of the louvre room separators and toilet doors done. Master bedroom cupboards done pending doors. Super unhappy of the dead space caused by my AV shelving. Pending: Monday-Tuesday - spray-painting of louvre doors on-site. Contractor said too expensive to ship them to the factory to be spray painted. Monday - Tuesday - painting of skirting Wednesday - solid top to be in / plumbing (sinks etc) Thursday - plumbing complete Friday - L-shaped shower screens. Was unable to source for a trackless top-hung version in white. So had to make do with a top-hung bottom track version. Friday - Installation of wrought iron gate / shower screen/ finishing of paint Weekend and early next week for clean up/touch-ups Tuesday move in!! Had wanted to move in this Thursday but after some thought decided not to as too many items incomplete.

Looks like the bright hill maisonettes

OK Tks! Gonna check with him later.

Hi Malaxo, did the cabinet doors arrive already "shaker style" or was that fabricated on site? I'm supposed to have that too but the cabinet doors that arrived are "flat" getting worried that the contractor didn't get the memo

Love the tone and colours in this photo. Was this taken with a camera phone?

Nice layout and great open concept! That long kitchen island is gonna look grand!

Flooring is complete! Now cabinets should have started today. Will have more updates tomorrow. As some of you would have experienced, no renovation journey is perfect. Here are some boo-boos! Top left: Tile skirting was upside down and didn't match the flooring! Wonder what was the thought process. 2nd, apparently now HDB does not allow water outlets to run externally so the aircon people ran the pipe that way The contractor said he had a solution, we're still waiting for it hahaha. Either our toilet door would have a cut-out or they will box that up and make the toilet entrance smaller Finally, the piece de resistance - my halfway boxed up balcony pipe. Its so hilariously bad my wife and I decided to keep it that way

5TH WEEK UPDATE Flooring has started and should be done by tomorrow. Strangely the vinyl planks turned out darker collectively although it looked much lighter in Hafary and in the pic (somewhere above). I guess the lighting at Hafary made a huge difference. So bedrooms are in straight lay (to save cost) and herringbone for the living, dining, kitchen and balcony. Plumbing is almost complete too, except for the vanity mixer and sink which will be installed after the cabinets are in. Got two 15l storage heaters, one for each toilet as unlike most HDBs, the toilets are really far apart. It says on the box its made in Italy, not sure about how's that gonna affect the performance. But it does look better than most if not all of the storage heaters out there. We got the standard issue made in Thailand Grohe at one of their sales - don't expect any problems from them. Toilets are from Johnson Suisse as are most of the other toilet accessories. The plywood boards are to level the balcony as opposed to some other method using light weight cement which needs PE approval. We were afraid of water ingress as the plywood could rot. So using a combination of cement and silicon to keep moisture out. Really hope that will work. If not, luckily our flooring is plastic and easily removable. Lights and fans are up except for a few pieces which need cabinetry to be in first. Ok. So Friday onwards cabinetry will be in. Monday the flooring and cornice guy will commence working. Paint should also be completed by next week. Really excited. I'll leave you with some photos my contractor claims are our cabinets sitting at the factory haha.

Hello, Very interesting theme! We have a similarity in that I'm going for a marble-esque counter top as well. Right now our choice is the Evershine solid-top version which was what Bykaraanne chose. What are you considering at the moment?

Hi Kara, Realised that some features (to be) of my flat (undergoing renovation) are very very similar to yours (gold/white/marble/cornice etc). In fact, my wife and I chose the same solid top!! I understand that preoccupation with the gold knobs and handles and how they add to the "look", my wife spent weeks hunting down the same!! Thanks for this blog. It has been very useful and a source of many an inspiration.

Phew. Got news that the purchase of this flat was finally completed today. We had taken some risk in renovating the flat when it hadn't been legally ours yet. We didn't really have a choice as we didn't have the luxury of time. So we had to give HDB and the ex Owners indemnities before they would let us hack and smash the house. I guess it turned out OK in the end. Certainly was a nerve racking few weeks for us with 40k spent (to date) potentially going down the drain. Didn't want to mention this earlier as not to jinx it!