An Experiement In Designing My New Home

[jaykr 0]

HI Project H,

That would be my thinking too, but when I showed it to him, he said nothing can be done unless I want to use lacquer. That would make the craft brick glossy and definitely not what I wanted to do.

Hi Jay,

Sorry cant provide technical assistance liked Mr E. Based on visual, i wld say it is a little too 'red'...

Alan should have fixed it for u rather having you to seek solutions...

[tessina 9]

Actually why is he even proposing shalex or laquer (which don't work well on brick surface by the way), since it will also serve to further seal in the look. I thought the point should be to remove the excess cement on the bricks?

[jaykr 0]

Hi Tessina,

Care to tell me more about whitewashing? Would it make the bricks all white? or what would the look be like?

Thank you for the suggestion.

Ah I see what you mean. I'm not sure if it's industry practice to smear the cement all over the brick and 'wipe up after' 'cos In my case, using craftstone, we don't have this issue (we use grey 'bricks').

Not sure how the overall theme is, but you can also consider whitewashing the entire brick wall, though it would significantly change the look you obviously initially had in mind

[jaykr 0]

That is a great question especially when I was asking for solution to remove the cement. Laquer is also glossy and that is not want I wanted.

Actually why is he even proposing shalex or laquer (which don't work well on brick surface by the way), since it will also serve to further seal in the look. I thought the point should be to remove the excess cement on the bricks?

[tessina 9]

The Before:

The after:

Pics from here: http://www.wivesunscripted.com/2012/04/18/distressing-a-brick-wall/

Some instructions:

http://voices.yahoo.com/tips-whitewashing-walls-paint-recipes-for-1585093.html?cat=30

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aesQguipgW4

If you intend to go ahead with this - suggest you get Alan to do this FOC, as a form of rectification. Agree with ProjectH, Alan should be fixing this for you.

[retchlow 7]

i don't know how accurate it is but i was reading from online sources that muriatic acid might do the trick

[retchlow 7]

hi again..u might really want to consider some DIY...here are some ideas:

http://www.allthingsthrifty.com/2012/03/tutorial-how-to-paint-brick-to-make-it.html

alternatively, change the concept & paint the entire brickwall with 1 color...

sorry..not of much help here...

[RnJ 0]

can you protect your marble flooring with canvas and just acid wash the walls? is that possible?

[Makanology 29]

Mr E here,

white-washing would be another solution, as there are various tones but the entire red brick effect will be gone, I believe this is similar to wood staining the white-wash materials which I think it may contain certain acidic properties like limestone that may damage or harm his marble flooring. May want to make sure there's no such ingredient or use watered down white acrylic.

[jaykr 0]

Hi Retch,

Thank You for the suggestion.

Any suggestion is a good suggestion. Appreciate you taking time to search and provide a solution.

Much appreciated.

Regards,

hi again..u might really want to consider some DIY...here are some ideas:

http://www.allthingsthrifty.com/2012/03/tutorial-how-to-paint-brick-to-make-it.html

alternatively, change the concept & paint the entire brickwall with 1 color...

sorry..not of much help here...

[jaykr 0]

HI Rnj,

The problem with this is that you need to 1st apply the acid and brush very hard over and over again to remove it . Next you will need to wash the brick with water , lots of water. I saw when they were washing other areas , the smoke and fumes coming out.

I feel along the process, if anything goes wrong, the marble flooring is gone.

So didn't want to attempt it .

can you protect your marble flooring with canvas and just acid wash the walls? is that possible?

[jaykr 0]

Hi Everyone,

So we finally decided to just continue painting. We are currently reducing the intensity of paint color until it is near to the original brick and then try to give that weathered look.

Lets see how it turns out.

Thanx to everyone for your comments, opinions and advice. Much appreciated.

[ProjectH 0]

Am sure ur red brick wall will turn out beautiful!! Jiayou jay!

[jaykr 0]

Hi Project H,

Thank you for the vote of confidence! =)

Am sure ur red brick wall will turn out beautiful!! Jiayou jay!

[jaykr 0]

Hi everyone,

I will post photos of my completed renovation bit by bit as these are amateur photos taken by me and my wife.

About the renovation :

We didn't do any fancy design for the house. ;P The house was designed by us taking in consideration the large extended family I have and the type of people who will be visiting my house regularly especially my cousins notti kids who will be running all over the house as well the elderly and other folks. We made sure that with people visiting and staying in our place , our work office, bedrooms etc have privacy of the walls, doors etc...

The major area where most of the cost went too was the kitchen as we and our extended family would be cooking, baking etc in the kitchen, plus it would heavily used by lots of people. So all the items the kitchen area need to be durable.

We tried to keep our design clean and simple. During the decoration phase, we will be adding a lot of things in terms of furniture, decorative art pieces from asian countries like Indonesia, India, China, Thailand etc... a bit of greenery by creating our own D.I.Y. greenwall etc...etc... We will be mixing and matching to get the feel we want.

Another goal was to reduce the energy cost of the home, so all the appliances, lighting , services were bought making sure they are not energy hogs. Lighting were mostly T5 and we made sure the cove lighting design allows to turn all lights or just a couple of lights so that most of the time we will only be using at max 30 - 42 watts.

The final goal of the renovation was to make sure we are able to do renovation at the lowest cost possible but with quality product and materials. Our benchmark was the ID's & contractors who quote us. An example was Mr K. who quoted us 85K for the entire house renovation. I still need to calculate what is final cost but I think I was able to reach this successfully.

If you are still reading this, wow! thank you for been so patient.... .

Please find the 1st set of photos below :

The Kitchen :

Entrance from Dining into Kitchen :

Second entrance from service balcony :

Looking from the front of the kitchen with the Deco Light on.

Looking from the front with T8 lights on.

Looking from the back to the front of kitchen

Edited August 2, 2013 by jaykr