Rynaed

NEARLY FINISHED UPDATE Hi all, it's been a while and our flat should be ready for handover this coming Monday. So here are some updates on how things have been going: After the plaster guy got plaster all over my shower floor, I asked my ID to please lay down flooring protection over my wood plank tiles as soon as they were laid so that they wouldn't get similarly dirty. They did not: The floor in the above picture is literally 2 days old. Newly laid and grouted, and cement dust, plaster etc everywhere. Most distressing is the pale grout lines. I had requested grout darker than the floor color to minimize the "tile look" in the rooms with wood plank tiles. Even after a cleanup, the grout was much too pale: I don't know if it's normal or if it was just our experience or what, but the tile layers at our house made a complete mess of everything. In the photos, you can see the dust tracked everywhere, but in addition to that, they also left food/drink rubbish laying around, put out cigarette butts on the new floor, etc. Just generally treated the whole house like a dump. I was so glad when they packed up and left. Anyway, after they were out, everything was done much more neatly. The plumbing and wiring went in, the bathroom fixtures were installed... and then the ID called the tile guys back to fix my pale grout. The grout is now dark, but there's sand in my new toilet bowl, dust and grout powder all over both bathroom floors and basins... just a complete mess. I know the cleaners will be in soon, but it's very depressing to look at the brand new fixtures you've bought in this condition. They also put out a few more cigarette butts on my floor for good measure. Here's the darker grout and the accompanying mess: The false ceiling was nicer than I hoped. They thoughtfully boxed up the plumbing that runs through the bedrooms for free. And I really love our partition closets-- they are exactly what we wanted! The kitchen cabinets are also done! Still need to put the pegboard and shelving up on the opposite wall, and the fridge isn't installed yet. So now we're just waiting for a final coat of paint and the cleaning. I really, really hope the cleaners are good because they have a lot of work cut out for them. Oh-- and defects. There are only a few small defects, and the absolute worst of them is that one of our shower tiles cracked when the shower screen was installed: I dread the thought of having the tile guys come back, but no other choice I suppose.

THREE WEEKS UPDATE Here is what has been done since last week. Completed: Windows and grilles installed Aircon trunking installed All screeding completed Toilet walls and floors tiled and grouted Begun: Skim plastering on ceilings Living room floor tiles I love my new windows(!) and the aircon trunking is... well, it's aircon trunking. It's about as nicely done as we could hope for given the circumstances and the men who came out from CoolServe were very polite and seemed to know what they were doing. We will be putting chests of drawers under the window to hide the aircon panel and help absorb any sound that might come from the condenser unit. What I'm not very pleased with is this: The plaster guy dripped ceiling plaster all over my brand new toilet floors. They haven't even been there a week. The grout isn't even fully cured yet! I paid $280 for floor protection, but apparently plastering the ceiling over a newly finished floor isn't enough of an occasion to bring it out? My ID assures me this will be cleaned off; however, my sister-in-law renovated last year and still has plaster stains on her tiles despite her ID sending cleaners to her place twice to try to remove it. I just don't understand. Five mins to lay down corrugated paper vs how many hours to scrub all this off? Don't let this be you. Make sure your ID starts protecting your floors immediately after they are finished. None of this drip plaster and scrape it off later nonsense. The tilers are still there this week too. How demoralizing to see your hard work treated this way.

APPLIANCES Samsung RSH7UN We need a big refrigerator because we cook a lot (and also because I hoard cheese). My husband's requirement for the kitchen was an automatic ice-maker/water dispenser. The kind that hooks up from the plumbing with an in-line filter because we are too lazy to pour filtered water into a storage tank like many new models have. The salesman tried to talk us into the tank style as he said that sometimes these plumbed models can fail and leak water EVERYWHERE. I actually know a couple of people this has happened to, and it's very bad when your floors are timber or carpet, but since ours are tile, we'll stay lazy and keep our fingers crossed Bosch SMS63L08EA Speaking of lazy, my requirement for the kitchen was a dishwasher. Again since we cook a lot, handwashing dishes takes up a significant chunk of my time each day right now. I also really like sterilizing things that touch raw meat because I'm a worrier. This Bosch model was on sale and looked like it would match the fridge. Bosch HBN331E2J So it turns out our salesman was the Bosch guy. We ended up with this oven that I see a lot of people here getting. Hopefully it's reliable. I bake a little, but I really wanted this for casseroles and roasting things. Bosch GAS PBD9331SG + Bosch SLIMLINE DHI923GSG We also got the matching Bosch hob and slimline hood. Come on German engineering, don't fail me! Electrolux EWF85743 + Electrolux EDV7051 Our washer and dryer are Electrolux. The dryer is vented and I'm planning to find a kit to vent it out the kitchen window. Rheem EH-40M Finally, after weighing the pros and cons of instant vs gas vs electric storage water heaters, we decided to get a storage water heater. I like hot water that can get very hot, and my husband wanted rain showers. We decided to get a Rheem because my in-laws have one and they've been using it for 10 years without any problems. It also heats up very quickly--only about 5 minutes before the water is hot enough to shower. We'll be stashing it away up in a kitchen cabinet.

It definitely doesn't look like it needs any varnish or paint. I love that color of wood; it's just so warm. I was originally hunting for wood tiles in that exact tone, but unfortunately, all the ones we found were way out of budget or just not quite right.

This is the same layout my inlaws have--it's very spacious! I like the sound of your theme. Interested to see how things turn out

I so love your library! What a great use of the recessed wall too.

Hi Luxexplorer! I'm so excited to see someone with a no-gate door since we have also decided to do away with ours. Your door looks gorgeous, so it's really encouraging

TWO WEEKS UPDATE We are now about 2 weeks into our renovation and tiling has begun. Here are some photos I took this morning: Our subway tile backsplash is nearly complete! Unfortunately, several of the ceramic tiles in one box were damaged (I snooped), so they couldn't finish it just yet. Our new wooden doorframes (replacing the original metal ones) have been put in, and the new entrance to the common toilet has been created. Also, the wall tiles are up in both toilets except the areas around the windows, which still need to be replaced. You can kind of see the wall tiles in the master bathroom here. The tiles seem straight and nice so far, although I'm feeling a little anxious as we're almost halfway through our tiling schedule and still no floor tiles. Not that I want rushed work of course. I'm just kan cheong because my mother & stepfather are coming from out of the country to stay with us middle of next month (2 weeks after planned handover).

Your flat is looking really nice! I especially like your photo ledge and kitchen island

Hi EmilyChong, thanks for the compliment and best of luck to you with your upcoming renovation! We're still quite early in our project so I can't really give a fair recommendation on our ID until after work completes, hope you understand! iluvfff - it's true that someone could enter your house with your stolen phone if they know your address; however, if you lose your phone you can log into your Kevo account online and disable your lost device. We like that we can give out and revoke temporary 24-hour access keys to people for when we have guests staying with us or family house-sitting etc.

Wow, we really do have similar tastes! I love your tub and your cornices and your painted door and your bedroom and, and, and! I also considered white tiles for skirting until my ID said it would cost extra, so I went the cheaper route with mdf. But yours turned out gorgeous and will last forever so now I wonder if I should have just gone for it. You've also got a lot of beautiful art and decor. To me that sort of thing really makes a place feel "home-y", and yours is well done! That and the cozy mantle -- definitely a home and not just a flat.

bykaraanne - Oh great! I'll have to check yours out! Thanks for the kind words homesweethome & ricepapergirl

POST-HACKING UPDATE Hacking finished today so I went down to the flat and got some photos before they start tiling. Lots and lots of premix screed stacked up inside. These sections of thick walls had been curved so we asked to have them squared off. Here is the stripped kitchen: Our tiles were also delivered

AMAZON SHOPPING We only bought a handful of things for the house from amazon: Corelle dining ware because it was free international shipping and much cheaper than buying locally: Blackout curtains to block some heat and noise since our window glass will be clear and un-tinted: Pull-out kitchen faucet: A Kwikset Kevo because my husband really wanted a smart lock and we couldn't find any here for less than $350: And finally, a pegboard because I really wanted a pegboard in my kitchen: Re: the pegboard, I searched high and low locally for one of these but I could only find the metal kind with the small holes, and I wanted a hardboard/masonite one so that I could paint it. Like this: I'm also almost positive that these can be found in JB, but didn't want to go through the trouble of searching some more, so we just ordered it and shipped via vPost in the end.

LIVING ROOM/DINING ROOM I wanted a warm/earth-toned living area. Since the floors are dark, we're doing a light taupe wall and white trim/accents. We're getting all of our furniture from IKEA because this reno is stretching our budget quite a bit, and besides, Americans shop at IKEA too Since my husband and I already had all of our design ideas before we signed with our ID, I had been toying around making my own 3D drawings with RoomStyler. This is roughly how we're hoping the living room reno will go: We will be removing the glass balcony doors and levelling up the floor to combine the space. The sliding kitchen door will be wooden with tempered glass panels. The Kivik is the only couch in our budget and we wanted a machine washable cover in a color that wouldn't show dirt too readily (kids again), so we're getting gray even though it doesn't exactly work with the colors. IKEA also has a gray-ish beige-ish area rug that I'm hoping will help tie things together and brighten up the room a bit. From the other side: My husband wanted to make sure the kids can't push buttons or yank at cords around the television, so we're doing a suspended BESTA console above the TV. We'll have the electrical points wired up high so none of the cords will be in reach. They'll still be able to reach the TV so hopefully, a combination of super strong mounting and behavior reinforcement will do the trick there. KITCHEN To save a little money, we are only doing a subway tile backsplash for the kitchen and the other walls will be plaster and paint. I would love love love the shaker style cabinet doors that I see some of you doing, but it's not in the budget for us. Instead, we'll just have dark wood grain laminate. We ended up choosing a beige, flecked worktop to help hide the inevitable (in our house) stains. This time, the 3D rendering is from my ID. Much more professional looking TOILETS We are shifting the entrance to the common toilet so that we can put a glass panel on one wall for the shower. We opted out of having a door for this shower since we still have to help the kids shower and it would just be an obstacle for that. The master toilet will have a full shower panel with a door. BEDROOMS Instead of wardrobes, we're doing American style closets. It's basically just a gypsum partition with sliding doors but no built in shelving/drawers etc. We will put up a bar for hanging clothes, and a high shelf for storage, and then customize the space as we need to. One benefit of doing this is that we can dismantle and store our guest bed in the guest bedroom/playroom closet when it's not in use. Here's an example of the type of closet we want: MAIN DOOR The main door is also original and needs to be replaced. I've always wanted a pretty, colorful door. Especially since it's the only part of our exterior that we can customize. Our new door will be inspired by this one: The plan is to do away with the main gate completely and paint the door a dark navy blue. I've already ordered white vinyl stickers for our address to put on the door from here. I liked that they had so many fonts to choose from. If anyone knows of a local place that does custom die-cut vinyl numbers/letters, please do share it! I order things internationally as a last resort.

FLOORING We wanted wood-looking floors for the living and bedroom areas. Since our existing floors weren't in nice enough condition to overlay, HREF wasn't going to be any cheaper after hacking & screeding the floors, so we chose wood grain style tiles from Hafary. They are 15 x 90 cm tiles from China, so I'm a little worried about lippage. Fingers crossed! In keeping with the American look, we requested white laminate skirting boards instead of using tile skirting. We will have to be careful to keep these dry since mdf warps horribly. Perhaps in a few years when we're less broke we can upgrade to timber skirting. WINDOWS The windows in the flat are old, scratched, and have peeling tint stickers on them so we'll be replacing them all. As much as it pains me, we also need grilles for the whole house for the sake of the kids. We asked for big squares/rectangles style grilles in powder-coated white so we can sort of imagine they're colonial style windows DOORS Our doors are the ventilated/louvred style, and as you can see they don't even have proper lintels. We need better privacy and sound-proofing, so we're replacing them with solid doors and hoping the kids stay in bed, asleep.

FLOOR PLAN Hi all! I've been reading along and waiting for my renovation to start for the last few months, and finally the day has come! We bought our 5rm resale flat in December, got the keys in January, and had to wait until after CNY to begin work. Our theme is American-inspired, with a heavy emphasis on child-friendliness and ease of maintenance since we have two little boys and no maid (except me ). Here is our floor plan: Our flat is about 30 years old and most of the fixtures and finishes appear to be "original condition". In other words, we'll be doing a complete overhaul. We've had lots of time between December and now to contemplate our renovation, and met with 13 IDs and one contractor. The first ID we met was at the recommendation of our real estate agent neighbor. Their quote was much too high. Then we spent 4 weeks collecting incomplete quotes, meeting with IDs who didn't like our ideas, and meeting with IDs who were adamant about keeping and overlaying our icky 30-year-old tiles (this isn't a BTO!). The process really was helpful in solidifying the details of what we wanted, but it was tedious pouring over all of the differently formatted quotes and comparing them in a spreadsheet. Meanwhile, that first ID we met had been repeatedly asking for a second meet-up. We had been blowing them off, but since we had only shortlisted one company at that point, we sent our revised list of works to them to re-quote and they sent back the first and only complete quote we'd gotten-- and it was competitive. Since they seemed to want the job more than anyone else (trying to keep in touch and preparing a well-thought-out quote) it was a no-brainer.

QUICK LINKS 1. Floor plan 2. Floors, doors, and windows 3. Plans, drawings, and inspiration 4. Amazon shopping 5. Post hacking photos 6. Two weeks into reno photos 7. Appliances 8. Three weeks update 9. Nearly finished update

Hi Syafia, Your home is beautiful! What a homey, cozy place for the children to grow up I am also wanting to stray from the industrial/scandinavian styles that are so popular. Would you mind sharing your ID details please? Thanks.