althevin
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Everything posted by althevin
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Hi! So sorry about the late, late reply. I hope this reply is still helpful! We've been busy moving in, and haven't logged into renotalk for a while. I'll try to post some pictures of our place soon, but to answer your qn: Yes the hannah sofa is lovely Costwise, I paid slightly under 3k for the sofa but had to wait about 3 months for it to be delivered as each piece is made after confirmation, hence the ability to customise the different parts. You should check out their showroom, the other models are really beautiful too!
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Hi kslicious, We didn't find anything fishy with our package from Scandinavian Design Center, service and delivery was extremely prompt! Item seems genuine and we're happy with the lights. If it's a popular design you're going after, chances are you'll find tons of replicas/knock offs on other sites, especially tao bao.
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hi @trcd, the past few weeks have been filled with managing the defects, but everything is almost done now. Hits and misses all around. Will update with more pics and details soon!
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It does! Thanks for the info! It's a much more economical alternative to the menu ladder which we've been eyeing. At least now we have some other options
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sorry to hear about your bad experience, I hope the problems have been rectified by now. My friend went through a similar experience, which ended up with the contractor closing shop and disappearing. I guess they just reopened under a new name. Luckily they didn't pay the balance, and were able to use that difference to seek out other contractors to solve the problem. Can I have the name/ID as well? Thanks -
Thanks for taking all the effort to show us around your house I really like how your kitchen turned out, the colours go together really well. Love the second charm console too! Did you get that towel ladder in your MBR locally? It looks really nice! I've been looking for something similiar
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Week 11: Problem Solving Been a while since I've posted due to some hiccups which happened to our flooring So, our engineered wood flooring which we hired an external supplier to install took an extra week to install because 1) they underestimated the amount of material needed, and we had to wait 2 days for new material to arrive; 2) we removed the lights for our false ceiling and and there were days where they could not work due to the overcast skies which caused visibility in the house to be horrible. In addition to the above mentioned hiccups. upon our inspection of the completed flooring we found this: planks fit like a badly arranged jigsaw puzzle... difference of about 1mm, enough to trap the dust and dirt from the renovation works. Apparently, the planks had magically expanded in the 24 hours after they had finished the flooring (we did the inspection the day after we were notified it was done). What made this extremely upsetting for us was that the planks had been left on site 2 weeks prior to the installation for the planks to acclimatize, and such a problem should not have happened, or at least not to that degree. The uneven planks were not limited to one area, and the same problem was found across numerous planks in the living, dining and bedroom areas (which is almost my entire house lah). Upon further discussion with the boss, he concluded that it might have been because the planks were kept in a sealed plastic wrap in the boxes, so it was not able to acclimatize properly In the end, the compromised solution was for them to buffer the floor down, and to extend their workmanship warranty on the flooring. Not the most ideal solution, but we didn't want to drag it on for too long. We thought the problem was over, but we were once again surprised by their buffering team, whom did an excellent job on the flooring, but failed to not damage the newly laid skirting. After another discussion with the boss, we decided that they would replace all the damaged skirting after our carpentry is installed to avoid the scenario where the replaced skirting gets damaged for whatever reason. Hopefully once that is done there won't be any further problems! Compared to their other projects which we had personally viewed before engaging their services, the workmanship/project management for our flooring was not as ideal as we would have liked. Thankfully the boss is responsive and accountable, and responded really quickly to all of our complaints and requests and tried his best to resolve the problems for us. I can't imagine what we could have done if they denied all responsibility and refused to make the corrections without additional cost (like some other horror stories I've heard). Hopefully our decision to go for hardwood flooring vs tiles is worth it Carpentry is going up in the next couple of days, can't wait to see how that turns out. My fingers, toes and hair are crossed.
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Thanks kslicious! Thank you for your kind words! We're reaching the end of the reno process, and we feel the most important qualities the ID should have are; 1) responsiveness 2) accountability. I believe no renovation will be 100% smooth, so it's important the ID reacts quickly and helps to solve any potential problems. Glad our experience helped with your choice
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Week 9: Board of Waiting, Finally the Wood Floor is Here! Our biggest investment of our entire house is being installed this week, and it's so exciting For a consistent look, we opted for engineered oak planks to be laid in a herringbone pattern throughout the entire house (sans toilets and kitchen). It was half done when we visited last Sunday, and we can't wait to see the finished product the coming weekend. Flooring guy hard at work. After watching him work for 5 minutes, I understand why laying anything in herringbone costs extra. It's a lot of work! Also note the exposed air con trunking, which is where the fan coil unit will be for the dining area. I'm very pleased with both the air con and false ceiling works, you can hardly notice the trunking. a grainy picture of the almost completed flooring in bedroom 3. Tv console wall, with the ugly L shape trunking, of which we have decided to box up! Master Bedroom partition wall, doubles up as a headboard/pigeon hole for us to place hand phones and other miscellaneous stuff, as well as to create a space for a walk-in wardrobe. Unfortunately there was some miscom, and the wall went up before the flooring was done. We're unlikely to ever remove this wall, but if we do there will be an exposed gap in the flooring Everything is finally coming together, now we just need to finalize all our purchases and get them in time for installation. It's gonna be a busy weekend... shopping
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Brand new beginning
althevin replied to trcd's topic in Reno t-Blog Chat - HDB Resale Renovation & Interior Design
Congrats on starting your reno! Might have missed out some parts of the prior discussion, but you might want to think about what you'll use each area for, and how much light are you used to having. E.g, if you plan to double up your dining area as a work/laptop area, you might want to consider an additional lighting source via a floor lamp, to be used when working. Personally I do not need my living area to be lit up, so in my existing place we only turn on 2 down lights. Floor/desk lamps give you the flexibility lacking from other light fixtures Before my aircon trunking forced me into having a false ceiling, I was considering track lights as it would minimize the exposed conduits. It gives you the flexibility of adjusting the light throw, and at the ceiling distance the current LEDs should cover a decent amount of area. I would recommend testing out the bulbs too, to see how it lights up the space in the shop before you decide. Hope this helps! -
Hihi! Yeah we've come to terms with the exposed trunking in our toilet and the other corner of the room, but this one irritates us too much. Well our ID says we still have time to consider the box-up, so we'll stare at it somemore and see if we can accept it Didn't have much choice on the false ceiling though, we had to run the trunking around the entire living room due to our room placement and it looked like the ceiling of some shopping centre capark. Doesn't help that the better quality trunking we opted for is also much thicker than normal haha. Thanks for the advice! Looking forward to more pictures of your place!
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Week 8: Decisions, decisions, decisions (and delays) Not much updates the past couple of weeks due to an unexpected crack on the exterior of the flat. The good news: our responsive ID made a quick appointment with HDB, and the HDB officer confirmed that it was just the plaster cracking off, and that there was no structural damage. The damage was repaired quickly by the tiler, who had to get a harness to access the exterior wall. The bad news: all works had to be halted and this pushed everything back by a full week. In other news, the air-con trunking is finally done. Due to the layout of the flat, it was a challenge to run the trunking across the entire flat to reach the 3rd bedroom, something which we didn't even consider until much later. We engaged a separate air-con contractor who was recommended by my parents, and I guess it does pay off to engage someone who specializes mainly in HDB installations - he came up with a couple of brilliant ideas which allowed us to hide most of the trunking, albeit with a false ceiling. However, there was a little delay due to a miscommunication between my ID's electrician and the air-con guy and some of the electrical wiring had to be re-done to make way for the trunking. What we did not expect was just how...ugly the remaining exposed trunking would be. So we're still considering doing more box ups to make it look less...ugly. Exposed trunking in the corner of our living room. On a positive note, it's the only one which really bugs us. As we mull over the trunking, the carpenter has been briefed and the carpentry should be done in the next couple of weeks. Laminate selection took us a good 3 weeks and countless visits to the site to see how it would look like in the areas to be applied. And we learnt to always, always choose more laminates that you think you need: sometimes what looks good in the booklet may look drastically different on a bigger sample piece. We picked only 3 samples as we were confident one of those would suffice, but ended up choosing another laminate which our ID ordered to make up the numbers. Over the weekend we headed back to GR Link and ended up confirming our order for: 1) Baron W888 WC for the master bedroom toilet. Even though we both love the Toto WCs, it's hard to beat the Baron W888 for value as it hits the sweet spot in terms of comfort, price and design. 2) The cheapest Inspire brand WC for the common toilet. Figured we wouldn't be using this one that often, so it didn't make sense to spend too much. 3) Joven 25L storage heater - to supply water to 2 toilets. May upgrade to the 35L in the future if we have kids, but 25L should serve for 2 of us given that we do not take long showers. We chose Joven as the dimensions fit the allocated space - we're hiding the heater in the false ceiling, and creating a cut out trap door (for the lack of a better word) to allow access. Glad we chose a storage heater; it makes the shower spaces look neater without the instant heaters and additional pipes. Our wooden floors are being installed this week, can't wait for that to be done. Will try to get more pics of the place when we visit this weekend, so far we're glad with the progress and quality of work done, not so much with the inevitable delays!
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herringbone floors! that's my favourite pattern Did you get your tiler to cut the hexagon tiles in half for your toilet to get the half colour hexagons? If so, that's a really cool idea, never did cross my mind that such an option was possible. Love the effect!
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Hi Chewie91, missed out your post, pls see my earlier reply to kamitani7 & d3n
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thanks! It looks great, we'll probably be going with the same option as well. We were considering toto but...the price! Yeah the "made in" tag doesn't mean that much nowadays, it just indicates the final location where the item was finished. I would rather go for a established brand with good quality control and a proven reputation. It was actually your post on Hansgrohe that made me consider getting a better brand, so I have you to thank for my beautiful taps hi kamitani7 & d3n, I won't be sharing my quote as it will differ greatly depending on the requirements of your renovation and I believe it won't be as useful as a comparison tool. I would suggest meeting the different IDs with the same requirements, and from there you can do a direct comparison. That's what I did anyway. We're about 50% done with the renovation and so far the experience has been positive. Our ID is responsive and gets things done (with a little delay sometimes), and offers good suggestions and opinions. Price wise, I would say that Artistroom are priced above average and tend to favour the better (and more expensive) contractors/suppliers, but they aren't the most expensive ID around. You do get what you pay for, so far the work done has been great and I've no complaints about the wet works. Can't comment on carpentry as that isn't done yet! Hope this helps! Alvin
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All That Shines Is Not Gold Another week of renovations done, and our wetworks are finally completed. Took a total of 4 weeks, but we're happy with what we see so far. All the tiles have been covered up for protection, so no new photos of the house! But what really got me excited today was...the arrival of our sanitary wares! Both our toilets will be fitted with lovely, sparkling, shiny Hansgrohe The initial plan was to outfit our master bedroom toilet with nice, sparkling Hansgrohe and buy cheaper alternatives for the common toilet. After trawling the shops along Jalan Besar, we realised that the "cheaper" alternatives weren't that cheap after all, and for a small top up we could purchase Hansgrohe online. We had 2 options for our online purchases: xtwostore and insani24. xtwostore - Pros: easier to navigate, larger selection of items. Cons: most of the items were not in stock, and needed 1-2 weeks to be shipped out, expensive shipping insani24 - Pros: cheaper shipping, items we wanted were all in stock. Cons: items are slightly more expensive, additional surcharge for using PayPal As both sites deduct VAT off the prices, we ordered form insani24 as they had he items we wanted in stock, and shipping was a whole EUR100 cheaper. I've heard bad reviews for xtwostore where delivery was delayed for months due to backorders, and we didn't want to take that risk of having to delay the handover for sanitary fixtures. Insani24 is really efficient, my items were shipped the next working day and it took just 10 days for the items to be delivered! Only drawback was that the items were not packaged very well, and by that I mean my items were sent in a normal cardboard box with older cardboard fillers was used to package the items. Despite the box almost falling apart when it arrived, all my items arrived in great condition, save for some of the external packaging which was dented. But who cares about packaging! I'm just glad I got my Hansgrohe at a discount Common Bathroom Items: Logis Basin Tap - https://insani24.de/Hansgrohe-Logis-70-Waschtischmischer-mit-Ablaufgarnitur-chrom Logis Bath Mixer - https://insani24.de/Hansgrohe-Logis-Einhebel-Wannenmischer-Aufputz-chrom Crometta 100 Shower - https://insani24.de/Hansgrohe-Crometta-100-Vario-Unica-650mm-Brausenset-weiss-chrom Master Bathroom Items: Rainshower 120 S - https://insani24.de/Hansgrohe-Brausenset-Raindance-Select-S-120-UnicaS-Puro-900mm-chrom Metris Basin Tap - https://insani24.de/Hansgrohe-Metris-Waschtischmischer-260-Highriser-ohne-Ablaufgarnitur-chrom Metris Shower Mixer - https://insani24.de/Hansgrohe-Metris-Brausenmischer-Aufputz-chrom Now, all that's left is to get our WCs. We're still undecided, but does anyone have any review for the Baron 888 Model? That's the #1 pick for us right now in terms of design and price. We really love the Toto WCs but our budget may not allow for it, not after all that Hansgrohe hahaha!
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Thank you! I think that's where most of our tiling budget went to haha.That's the warning our parents gave us, but I guess you can put our decision down to the naivety of the first time home owners. We might just regret it in a couple of years Thanks! We love it so much, we ended up choosing all the other tiles to match the backsplash. We used mapei grouting for the backsplash, which hopefully should negate the need for a grout sealant. Maybe I'll just check with my ID again, thanks for the heads up!
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Congrats on the reno! Your place looks awesome, I like how you've styled the place. My wife and I are fans of nordic design too, I can only hope my place turns out as well as yours Enjoy your new home!
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Much Ado Agrout Nothing We're into the 4th week of renovations, and so far everything has been relatively smooth. Our ID has been really flexible and has accommodated all our last minute changes/requests to the design plan, we can't really complain about his level of service Wet works are almost done, most of the cement screed has bee completed and tiles in the kitchen and toilets are almost done. common toilet wall: subway tiles, the plan is to finish it white grouting should be done by this weekend floor: grey tiles (my mum commented it looks like dirty concrete) Kitchen Backsplash: my favourite tiled area We chose textured rhombus tiles, to give a 3d effect. I must say it looks better than we imagined. We're only tiling the backsplash, the rest of the kitchen walls will be painted. The kitchen floor tiles will be the same as the common toilet floor tiles. Here's a close up of the tiles, each comes in a random shade of grey, with a random pattern. Yes, it's probably not the best choice for a kitchen backsplash and we are prepared for grease and oil to be trapped in the tiles Hexagon tiles for the masterbedroom toilet, which should be completed this weekend as well. The tiling decisions we made were definitely based more on aesthetics, and I would dare say not suitable for most families. We're a new couple who do not cook often, and even when we do it's simple and not oil/frying intensive. Basically, love for beautiful tiles > functionality haha. We only choose tiles for the kitchen and toilets as the rest of the floor will be covered in wood. Advice for all who are planning their renovations, try to get your ID to go tile shopping with you. Most of the time a 2nd opinion always comes in handy. When choosing tiles take as many samples as you can, and take your time to decide. Do place the wall and floor tiles together to see how it will look, and do factor in the type of light you plan to use for the tiled area, tiles look different when placed under different lights (warm vs cool lights). And always ask the sales person if there are additional discounts or tiles going on sale, some of the discounted tiles may just be what you want. We were cheapo and asked to see tiles on discount, that's how we scored our floor tiles for 50% off We purchased our tiles from the following shops: Rice Fields: kitchen backsplash, kitchen and common toilet floor (great place for tiles, look for Jessica if you visit. Her service and recommendations are top notch) Hafary: subway tile for common and master bedroom walls An Huat: Hexagon tiles for the master bedroom toilet Next: How I spent more money (on sanitary ware)
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that sounds like a great idea for small spaces. Yeah, I have a small kitchen too which will force us to be neat (i hope) Yep definitely! The only problem is, there are so many beautiful copper lamps...gotta have them all haha
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Hi there! I really hope you're still going with the dark blue kitchen cabinets, we almost went with that but opted out of that as we have a tiny kitchen and didn't want it to be too dark. I'm excited to see your end product! And I totally understand the light situation, I went through the same situation with my wife lol. We eventually agreed on a copper light too I love the Tom Dixon pendant! It's beautiful!
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Reno Progress: Week 3 The following have been done: Week 1: hacking and clearing of debris Week 2: wetworks started / electrical points laid Currently we're onto our 3rd week of renovations, hollow brick walls are up and hacked walls have been made good, but other wise there's nothing much to show. Will visit this weekend and take some shots of what has been done so far. We've been shopping for furnishings since we received the keys, and it's tough to make decisions with the vast number of choices out there. Sometimes it gets so overwhelming, we wonder if we (and when I saw we, I mean it's mostly me as my wife doesn't seem to be as particular) are overthinking things. Anyway here are some of the purchases we've made so far: Kitchen Sink and Faucet: Blanco Silgrant Naya 6 sink In Anthracite & Blanco Linus-S faucet in Anthracite. Initially we wanted a SS sink & faucet, but decided on this after deciding to incorporate black into our house. It's a 60cm single bowl, which should give us a little bit more counter-top space. When you have a small kitchen, every bit counts! Purchased from Hoe Kee. This sink seems to be really popular, it's sold out and stocks are only expected in mid-June, which thankfully fits into our reno schedule. Sofa: Hannah Sofa from Bolia.com Yep, we got ourselves a pink sofa. Time will tell if the colour choice is a good decision! Decided on an open ended sofa as it adds to the length of our living room, allows us to lie down for post meal naps, and acts as an additional seat when we have guests over. Purchased from Kuhl Home, they bring in furniture from Bolia.com. Only down side is each piece is made to order, and it takes 3-4 months time from the order for the item to be delivered. Lights: VP1 Flowerpot in Copper See that cute looking lamp in copper? It was love as first sight: my wife loves copper, and I love the whimsical design of the lamp. We spotted it at Grafunkt where it was retailing for...A LOT. The price tag may have halted our dreams of owning it, but we were relentless; we called upon our online shopping expertise and put our googling skills to the test. Ultimately, we were rewarded and managing to find it online on Scandinavian Design Center for much lesser. That got us really excited...and that's how we ended up buying the most expensive light in our entire home I highly recommend everyone to check out Scandinavian Design Center if you're a fan of Nordic design and brands - they offer free shipping to Singapore for purchases above USD100, and prices are usually cheaper than what it retails for locally. Next up: Some Tiling works (hopefully!)
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sent you a PM yeah! can't wait for our ideas to materialise
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Bye-Bye-Bye (to old walls and floors) Pre-renovation Pictures! Left out bedroom 2 & 3, as there's nothing much to see there. Just...empty rooms The place is in a decent condition, save the kitchen which has definitely seen better days. Doesn't matter that much to us since the plan was to do a full renovation and replace everything! Only items we are not changing are the windows and main door, everything else has to go! Living Room squarish living room and full height windows entrance to bedroom 2 & 3 kitchen entrance and site of our shoe closet Kitchen future yard area common toilet Master Bedroom future site of walk in wardrobe entrance of MBR And now, some pictures of our lovely hacked home bye bye bedroom 2 wall, hello new dining area! kitchen entrance gone! Clearing the kitchen cabinets for our yard area. Luckily the pipes will all be covered by the yard door Next up, the new walls go up, and tiling begins!
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Time to Say Goodbye (to old layouts) Here's my crappy photograph of our final floor plan Doesn't seem like we made that many changes to the original, but this must be the 100,000 iteration of our floor plan. Thankfully we have a patient and understanding ID who entertains all our suggestions. On hindsight, it was probably a good thing we met so many IDs as each gave as different ideas, some of which we incorporated into the final (hopefully!) plan. I guess all that traveling to Paya Lebar paid off somewhat. Makes me glad my current ID's office is centrally located, we ate so many times at Kay Lee that we got sick of it. Going off topic, does anyone else find the standard of Kay Lee's meats has dropped tremendously after they sold off the business and expanded? I miss the old Kay Lee. Living area - build a hollow brick wall to form a shoe cabinet, the plan is to get cheap shelving to fit 90 pairs of shoes/sneakers - cabinets will be added to the recess formed by the new wall and the kitchen sliding door for some storage space Dining area (formerly bedroom 2) - to cater for a bigger dining area, to entertain friends, and a small study desk in the corner Kitchen - added a sliding door to the kitchen entrance to keep the air conditioned area to the living room - created a new spot for our fridge with the hollow brick wall (previous owner had the fridge in the kitchen corner) - added a sliding door to create a seperate yard area - counter top to run along length of wall, with half height tile backsplash. Other walls to be left untiled. Master Bedroom - build a partition to create a space for a walk in wardrobe - changed the toilet entrance away from the bed - extending the wall to ensure it is in line with the new partition wall (something which I would never have thought of on my own, which now makes so much sense)
