Yukinorei

Some more pics of the 1st floor with the dining set. Comments on which color for the sofa works best welcomed!

Ok so me and the wife have been shopping for furnitures for close to a year while waiting for the house to be built. And we've seen alooooooot of furniture. We went to JB and even Guangzhou to shop for furniture and finally ended up deciding to buy most of our stuff locally. We wanted something unique for our dining table apart from the usual wood/glass options. And after endless hours of browsing on facebook, we chanced upon an ad by martlewood which specializes in concrete furniture brought in from Vietnam. A little bit of research revealed that Vietnam is a paradise for concrete furniture lovers offering huge selections at really good prices. Enough of the long lead-in and on with the pics!

Hi the appasier sinks are made from reclaimed marble and are matte in finish. What's interesting is that they are also able to clad the exterior in wood/seashells while retaining the marble interior: http://selector.com/au/news/apaiser-launches-stone-and-timber-clad-haven-bath The price also vary according to the size and color. The pebble stone basin (which is one of the larger models) shown in my pic above cost around $850 in all the whitish colors. If you want it in black or walnut it's around $1100. For smaller basin models such as orbit, it's around $600.

Bathroom fittings! What a headache, totally overwhelmed by the choices. In the end, we decided against chrome fittings (cos who likes water stains!) and chose stainless steel fittings with a satin/matt finish and a black sprout for our master bath.

Ahh that's very useful advice, will be taking note! Some updates on the display and storage options for my toys. Any advice/comments welcomed!

Thanks! The fireman's pole was a childhood wishlist haha. I really liked the green wall that you did for your place:) We tried really hard to work it into the budget but decided that it was better left as an add-on in the future.

Front view of the slide:

And we finally decided on the sofas! Living room sofa and armchair: 3rd floor master living area sofa: And some more renders on the updated façade:

Exterior of the Attic: Various elevations of the house:

Some update pictures on the project Front façade: 1st floor (with ACMV system installed): View of the void area above the 1st floor (viewed from the kitchen): Back view of the staircase with Slide: Master bedroom with outdoor Jacuzzi: Toy room: View of the living area outside the master bedroom (with the beginnings of a spiral staircase): Attic floor progress:

To save abit on cost and to match our modern/industrial/minimalist look, we decided to go with cement for the living room and dining room floor. However, we really dislike the metal strip that runs on cement floors and the cracks that might happen over time. The architect suggested that we go with micro-cement - no strip and no cracks, (see: Monju - http://www.monjupartners.com/flooring) whats more interesting is that they are able to make cement look metallic, even rusty! They can also replicate the wood grain look, which we really really loved! So much so that we decided it would form the entire feature wall from the 1st to 3rd floor!

And a few more update pictures on the structure! Pic of the house facade: Pic of the pool-to-be: back of the staircase with slide: front of of the staircase:

Thanks for kind words! We started the project shortly before the relaxed rules kicked in. And although it was open to us to redesign the house we didn't, as the new rules prescribed a lower permitted overall height for the house. Here's a few more pictures showing the internal layout of the house: Elevation plan (really excited about the fireman's pole): Ground floor layout: 2nd floor layout (Slide!!!!!) 3rd floor master bedroom + toy room Attic - media room with pantry and hobby area

Architect vs D&B vs Contractor We knew early on what we wanted for the new house: lift pool more GFA no more leaking roofs, And we hate to spend money...so we were hoping that a simple A&A would suffice. Unfortunately, after consulting with a few architects, D&B specialists and friends, many suggested that a reconstruction is what we needed to get the increase in GFA we wanted as a new foundation was likely needed to support all the new weight. There's a few options when it comes to rebuilding. Most costly will be the architect route, followed by engaging a D&B specialist and finally opting for a straight to builder house. In the end we opted for an architect built home as we decided this was going to be the family home for a long time and so we decided to splurge in this aspect. For the architect firms we approached, we were typically quoted 10% of the total project cost. Obviously, we can't agree to an open number and finally managed to negotiate a lump sum fee for our architect. When choosing our architect, we combed through their portfolio to make sure their style matched our sense of aesthetics. And after a few rounds of interview, we decided on a husband & wife team with a great energy and enthusiasm for our project!

Finally decided to start a t-blog to chronicle the construction of our new home! As the project nears the end of the structure phase, we've decided to chronicle our experience here:) It's a long and tedious process that's still ongoing and will hopefully end by 1st quarter 2017:) Enough talk for the 1st post and on with some pictures of demo day, 3D designs and ongoing construction pics! 3D designs of the house Foundation!