dxhan

Hey! The link for the starter kit: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-Ambiance-Wireless-Lighting-Starter/dp/B01K1WP7Z4/ref=dp_ob_title_light The link for the Lightstrip Plus Kit (2m): https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0148NMVQA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 And the 1m extension: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0148NMVJW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 You can add up to 10m of lightstrips with the Kit and Extension combined.

Hello and welcome to the home theatre experience! Viewing on a 80 inch screen is great, I am seated about 2 to 2.5m away from the screen and there is no strain. I can also lie down flat on the sofa (lengthwise) and watch, so height of the person is not an issue from this distance. Anything less than 2m for 80 inches will be like sitting in the front row at the cinema, a lot of eyeball or head movement, which can get tiring after a while. Sofa is good because of the storage underneath the seats. We usually keep our pillows and blanket there. When watching a movie, the aircon is always on and then the blanket comes out. We got a sofa because it accommodates more people, especially when we have guests over, or when you watch soccer on the big screen - you want to sit up straight. Of course if you want to stretch your legs the sofa extends to a bed. Sadly because I am 1.8m my feet always end up hanging in the air. But if you are only using it for movies, I would recommend a lounge chair, like those in the gold class cinema. Much more comfortable.

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Hello! Yes. As long as you purchase from Amazon UK and NOT US, it will work properly in Singapore. At the time of purchase, Amazon UK does not ship the product directly to Singapore, so I had to use an intermediate forwarder like Borderlinx. There is nothing else you need to make it work. The lightstrips are powered by a 3 pin plug. So if you are thinking of using the strips as a cove light like me, do inform your contractor to install 3 pin plugs in the ceiling, not light holders. Show the contractors what is inside the box and what you plan to do, and they should understand. I am not sure if the new models are available in Singapore, so please do check before making your purchase online. I have not had any issues with the lights so far. I think users of the lights in Renotalk can attest to this. Haha. But if you buy from Amazon UK, be prepared that the warranty is from the UK and no Singapore. I am not sure if Philips Singapore will honour the warranty. Oh, there's a new Hue app out which is quite user friendly as well. Have fun!

I saw this on the HDB website, and it says that pipes can be concealed within floor finishes, just not installed in the floor slab. I think floor finishes means the floor tiles until the 'bottom' of the floor, so it should be fine.

Hello! Yes, the drainage pipe is concealed within the cement, and then floor tiles are laid above. I checked with my ID and it's actually okay to do so. However, the main original floor trap location does not change. There are different drainage pipes in the house, so for vertical pipes linking upstairs and downstairs, then yes, those are not allowed to be concealed for access reasons. But for sink relocation and placing the pipes with the cement, I think it should be okay since it doesn't affect the neighbours. Hope this helps!

Okay! On to bathroom fittings and furniture! One of the very first things we bought was the living room sofa. There are many home furniture shows at Singapore Expo, so we just went to one of them while shopping for home stuff at the Robinsons sale in the next expo hall. Equipping a home is very expensive, so can save or got discount, we sure go for it. My wife always complains that I have an 'expensive eye' for stuff. So my eye caught this sofa, and we both sat on it and it was like, okay this is it. Don't want to get up already. I tell you why. The stuffing for the sofa is 100% duck down. Sit on it won't get warm even without fan. With air-con even more shiok. The beauty of the sofa is also that the depth is around 10cm deeper, which means that when you sit down and lean against the back, your knees are on the sofa itself, so it's already 'reclining'. It is manufactured by mavis in Malaysia, and distributed by mix & match furniture, a subsidiary of the silver river group. I read online that there are not so good reviews about silver river, and some of it is true. Make sure everything is in black and white. Materials, colours, freebies, etc. Otherwise may be shortchanged. We got 6 free throw cushions. We went for the same colour as the showpiece, but in a smaller dimensions to fit our living room. The length is 2.8m. We needed a sofa as well for our entertainment room, and we blew much on the sofa budget on the one above, so we got a sofa bed from IKEA. Offers storage underneath, so pretty good to keep pillows and blankets to use while watching movies. TV console also from IKEA to match the flooring, as you see in the picture above. The Besta range allows us to choose whatever colour we wanted, and so we did, and got 1 in white frame, wood drawers. Dining table is from Mountain Teak at Tan Boon Liat building. Many of you would know where that is. It is THE place to get great teak furniture. Prices are competitive and pieces are very beautiful. Table is reasonably priced. Chairs are quite expensive, so the chairs you see above are from IKEA. Haha. We got our kitchen sink and mixer from Kohler because I liked their pull out mixers the best, out of the other popular brands like Grohe and Hansgrohe. All bathroom faucets, mixers, and rain shower systems are from Kohler. But we purchased the mixers, sinks and taps from Bathroom Warehouse because their prices were cheaper than KHK, the official Kohler distributor. July and Aleo series. Rain shower is Kohler's flagship Katalyst Air. Rain shower system was purchased from KHK because Bathroom Warehouse didn't stock them. Toilet Bowl is from TOTO! We had a hard time deciding on the toilet bowls because of the P and S trap issue. Basically there is a hole in the floor, and the measurement is made from the wall to the hole in inches. So ours was around 6 inches. S trap toilets, picture below, are usually covered at the back, and we liked it because dirt will not get stuck at the back, and hence less cleaning up to do. However, Toto toilets for S trap is above 10 inches, so we couldn't buy it because the hole wouldn't fit nicely into the floor. P trap on the other hand, could match our requirements, but the back of the toilet bowl is not concealed, so dirt might get stuck and we would have to do some cleaning up from time to time. So no choice, we got the Toto CT940PK, with soft closing toilet seat and cover. W Atelier was having a 30% Toto sale, so HENG AH! Bed frame and mattress are from Ikea, because I had a Sealy before and didn't like it. HAHAHA. Ikea ones are quite economical and comfortable too. We went a little off the beaten track for a study room table. We got a dining table from scanteak so both of us could use it at the same time. Work Chair is from Herman Miller. The Aeron needs no introduction. Haha.

Hello LoCo! We were in Paris and came across a shop called Colette along rue Saint-Honoré. It's basically a hipster store selling everything from clothes to makeup to vinyl albums to quirky electronics. It was recommended to us by our airbnb host because he's quite hipster also. Haha. They also distribute qlocktwo and the price is the same as the online price, at EUR 985. We managed to get a tax rebate so it's cheaper to lug it home than to buy online and ship it to Singapore. However the shipping fees at the qlocktwo online store is not expensive too, I think it was EUR 79. I actually saw it when it was first launched a few years back? But the price was too much for a clock.. Then when I couldn't find a comparable cheaper alternative, I gave up. It was by chance that we were dining in the basement (there's a Doraemon themed cafe), that we saw the qlocktwo hanging on the wall (they had 4 of them in different languages), that we decided to just buy it on impulse. I think they change the theme from season to season. Haha. But it was Doraemon when we were there last week.

Hello teegz! I think teak and oak have similar hardness and properties, but teak seems to be easier to maintain and hardier for the long run too. We chose oak because of the lighter colour. Teak usually is like the normal parquet floors, where the wood tones are darker. I read somewhere that this is due to the mineral oil already present inside teak, so it attributes to the darker colour, but because of the oil, it is longer lasting? Some downsides to having a lighter wood tone such as oak is that we cannot make the floor too wet. The water stains will be very obvious. Same goes for teak, but because it is a darker tone the water stains are not as obvious? No matter whether you choose oak or teak, you should let the floor 'sit' for at least 2 weeks before sanding. My recommendation is 4 weeks if time allows. Now there are some bumps on the floor due to the setting in, and the contractor will be coming back to do some light sanding to make it even again. This is 3 - 4 months after installation. Budget about $160 to $240 per m2 for oak flooring, price is subjective due to the different widths (bigger widths are more expensive). This equates to about $16 to $24 per square ft? Choose widths based on contractors advice! Smaller homes should go for smaller widths, and larger homes go for bigger widths. Yep, WOW floors is closed on weekends. Look for Mr Ong. PM me if you need his mobile. Have fun!

Hi Ando, Sorry for the late update! We just returned from our honeymoon yesterday! I tried to match the green on the bulbs versus the strips and I think you are right. It is lime green. So don't upgrade, stick to your 1.0. I think the only difference is brightness. 48 KDK Fans are very quiet. But because we installed a false ceiling, there is wind echo which makes a low humming sound. Because of this, our contractor added more backbone into the false ceiling to reduce the echo. If you take down the fan and just test the sound, the motor has no noise at all. KDK after sales service also very good. They came by our place free of charge to check out the echo problem, and then found out it was actually due to false ceiling, which my contractor rectified the next day. Wind power good enough for a 3m x 3m room, and I turn it on at low speed setting. And we bought a new clock from overseas.. Don't know whether to hang it or just leave it on the floor.. I will post more on our reno journey tomorrow! Now need to catch up on jet lag..

Hello! Thank you for your kind words! Home Theatre guys are KEC Sound System at Adelphi. Look for Jack. I was recommended to them by a close friend who has a bigger space than I do, but uses the same equipment. I love the HD on it.

Hi Spidy! Hah, sorry there has been a misunderstanding. I use the lightstrips plus for the cove lighting, and the bulbs for normal pendant lights. Both the lightstrip and bulb gives out the same hues of green light. If you are looking to create a similar effect, do compare prices if you use lightstrip plus versus the quote that your ID gave you. For my cove light, my perimeter is around 12m. So I needed to buy 2 x kit (S$140 each), and 8 x extension (S$40 each). Total cost excluding shipping and installation added up to around S$600 for the lights alone. Add in shipping, maybe around S$750 max? I didn't pay for installation as my contractor did it for me as part of the electrical works. Then you have the added plus of using your phone to control the lights. Most of the lighting shops I visited before deciding to import myself had various LED systems, but the system to control the light doesn't look very professional. I saw one that is a dial with different colours on a wheel, and that was one of the more impressive one already. Those retail type also cannot do extension to link up to 10m, so I decided to go for the Philips Hue system. About the hood, yes, I also thought it was enough. You know when you go eat Korean BBQ or similar Hotpot restaurants, when they put the 'sucker' hood above the pan, you can really see the steam and smoke being sucked up into the ceiling. But for the Bosch, even when we boil water and it is steam, which is quite light, you don't see the steam 'accelerate' into the hood. Maybe I could have misunderstood how much suction power I am supposed to see for our home use hoods. But we also don't have ventilation ducts for the exhaust to escape, so probably that's why the suction power doesn't look so strong. Any pros can advise?

So another week passed and all the masonry works were almost completing. Staircase had been screeded on a Sunday morning because of the absence of other workers, and wall tiling was completed to this stage of renovation. The remaining tiles would be done after the ceiling and pipes are done. Staircase screed is one of the most difficult to do because of the smaller surface area, so the price for doing such work is also higher. We have to keep making sure the finished level is always straight and sharp, and so we would have to use a level, or a good eye. Haha. Unlike bigger floor areas where bigger tools can be used to ensure the whole floor is flat, this relies very much on the workmanship of the worker. The dry kitchen is coming into place, and the kitchen toilet is also done tiling for the walls. We will be hiding the top pipes with a false ceiling. The good thing about hacking the floor is that we can place drainage pipes anywhere we need. We planned to place a washing machine in the dry kitchen and so a drainage pipe would have to be erected for the waste water discharge. Also, as we are changing the position of the sink, we used the floor cement screed to hide away the floor drainage. We love watching movies at home, so this would be a projector room with the sound system. We got the home theatre people to come in and lay the speaker cables and hdmi cables in the ceiling first, then we will get the plaster people to erect the false ceiling to hide these cables. There is a lot of planning involved in this stage of the renovation so we had to be absolutely sure what we wanted and where to place items such as consoles, computers, etc. We also got the air con people to come in and run pipes, as well as the plumber to run the water systems. Always plan with the air con people where to run the piping and drainage system. We sat down thinking of all the possible ways to run the water pipes in a descending way so the water can flow smoothly out without causing any potential blockage in the future. Otherwise if there is a kink, build up or leak in the system it would be very difficult to correct in the future. Usually the drainage will end up in the bathroom, so do plan before hand! We wanted to have a rain shower system, so the plumber installed the pipes into the ceiling for this. The green pipes are actually plastic and last up to 100 years according to the plumber. Visible copper pipes only last around 10 years. So since we were building an alcove to hide the mixer system, he used the more expensive plastic water tubings instead. This is where we would be placing a bathtub, so the mixer is placed a little lower. A lot of planning went into pipe placement as well. Our sink was going to be on the right hand side. The above picture shows the electrical wires, air con piping, water pipes in the bathroom, and bathtub in the foreground waiting to be installed. For any renovation to carry on smoothly without much home owner supervision, planning in the initial stage is extremely important. Jay sent us 5 floor plans. Yes, 5 base plans covering: Flooring, Lighting / Ceiling, Electrical, Masonry and Carpentry. Each base plan had intricate details of where we would be: - doing different types of flooring, - what kind of lights go where, - what type of ceiling such as cove, pelmet, downlights, pendant lights, going into which room, - how many electrical sockets placed where, data points, telephone points, single or double sockets, light switches, fans, - walls to be built, walls to be hacked, - cupboards to be build, size of the cupboards, dimensional drawings for carpentry works, size of drawers, depth and height of drawers, number of shelves, etc. Everything was planned beforehand. And that's why I said he exceeded my expectations. I was impressed at the drawings. Those who have engaged Jay before would know what I mean. The attention to detail is amazing. By this time we would be shopping for our bathroom fixtures and furniture which I would share next!

The hub is 100-240V, 50-60Hz then convert to 5V 2A. I don't have to use a step down transformer. Good thing with importing from UK is that the power plug is the same type of 3 pin plug. Hue bulb is 220V, so you cannot use USA one, must use UK or HK one. Yes, can plug into any E27 socket. I don't know if the colours are more, this one have to check and compare specifications on their website. Singapore website still showing the 1st generation one. This is my green: Quite creepy to turn this on at night. Haha. The philips hue app can do GPS location. It's under the geofencing tab. Then from there you need to create a philips account so you can control it from anywhere in the world as long as you have internet connection. Haha, I will do that when I am reaching home one day. You are very creative.