A Baker's 3 room BTO @ Skyline II

[spooky 6]

Yay! So happy for you that your keys are finally here. Awesome high floor and view of the pool! Very good location   also nice that you didn't have many defects at all! But like you mentioned, the kitchen looks tiny, tinier than mine >< also, the layout of the MBR toilet means that your shower area will be quite small, correct?

Looking forward to your reno blog starting officially!

[matchalatte 15]

On 8/13/2017 at 0:00 AM, purplegirafffe said:

Congrats on getting your keys! Attracted by your topic cos I'm a (non-professional) baker tooo. Looking forward to seeing your reno journey (:

hello fellow baker! maybe we can share baking tips in future hehe. thanks for the congrats! 

[matchalatte 15]

10 hours ago, spooky said:

Yay! So happy for you that your keys are finally here. Awesome high floor and view of the pool! Very good location   also nice that you didn't have many defects at all! But like you mentioned, the kitchen looks tiny, tinier than mine >< also, the layout of the MBR toilet means that your shower area will be quite small, correct?

Looking forward to your reno blog starting officially!

thanks for the congrats! yeah i wasnt expecting the kitchen to be so tiny, i think mine has one of the smallest 3 room BTO kitchens around, ridiculous. 

my MBR bath has a recessed portion at the shower area like this :

its small but still ok. anyway we'll be extending the shower kerb out to house 2 floor traps within the shower area

[izong 4]

Yeah! Waiting for your reno to start!

[fifteenmay 40]

Congrats on getting your keys!time to park here and wait for yr updates! Love yr kitchen tiles! 

Edited August 14, 2017 by fifteenmay

[matchalatte 15]

did some shopping over the past few days. got all my big ticket appliances from gain city sungei kadut. 

hitachi french door with bottom freezer. this fridge is huge (depth is 80cm inclusive of handles) and will protrude quite abit from my kitchen which is only 56cm in depth. fingers crossed it wouldnt look weird from the side. honestly i dont think the capacity all is that impressive, the door thickness actually took up alot of space due to the touch screen panel. but i like the color, the fact its french door and the freezer is not drawer style like my old panasonic, and also its a japanese brand. samsung & LG fridges look really nice and innovative but i dont trust "kimchi brands" when it comes to appliances. 

inside of the fridge

two bosch ovens, and both entry leveled. the other one is similar to this but is fully analog with no display panel, just 3 knobs. i didnt do research at all prior to buying and i dont care for the functions. because for the past 10 years i've baked with a 28L microwave convection and churned out difficult bakes like french macarons, opera cake, pierre herme's tarts etc with no prob at all so i'd like to think its the baker and not the oven that matters *ahem* lol i actually went for electrolux initially but read so many bad reviews about how their customer service sucked so i actually went back to change to another bosch.

bosch 78.5cm two ring burner gas hob

bosch 90cm slimline telescopic hood

hitachi 9kg front load washer

panasonic 43inch 4K smart tv for the MBR

55 inch for living room

honestly i think the guys at gain city sungei kadut are all really nice, actually nicer than salesmen from the other megastores. the prices are generally lower than the others, on top of that they also gave some discount, probably around 5-6% off shown price. they had this BTO promo going on which i didnt know when i bought the items so i went back the next day and they gave me $350 gain city vouchers. so in total it probably amounted to 10% worth of savings. guess i'll use the voucher to buy a food processor.

[matchalatte 15]

for sanitaryware, i've bought most of the things from taobao :

black bathroom faucet (tall one) 

black stone sink 

70cm round mirror with recessed light

black bidet spray

rainshower for common bath

rainshower for MBR bath. im kinda worried it wouldnt fit, and its theres only 1 wall mount for these showers whereas the default hdb one is mounted on 2 places. no idea whether it will be unsightly if i were to remove the hdb's shower bar. 

gold kitchen faucet

carysil nera big bowl granite sink from poh seng hardware. the frame is thinner hence the faucet would have to be mounted on the countertop. brand is german but made in india. couldnt decide between this and blanco naya 6 but decided on this in the end because i didnt like the round edges of blanco and also this one is almost 40% cheaper. 

[matchalatte 15]

got tim wong of hong huat electrical to come over to do a free site consultation after i got my keys. hes really famous on renotalk and is super duper nice! 

he explained in detail where the trunking would run and drew everything in pencil, all the fan coils, trunkings etc. many charge for 2nd trip but tim's is FOC. his price is also cheaper than quotes i got from many others. going for the mitsubishi MXY-4A38VA compressor with a 24K BTU for my island counter in the dining and 9K BTU each for 2 bedrooms. 

theres also this funny incident i need to share. i actually contacted tim way before my key collection. then after i found a contractor i casually asked him whether his aircon guy is any good and he said he wouldnt recommend his aircon guy but will recommend me someone good instead. then he gave me tim wong's number lol. i guess tim's the guy then! 

[matchalatte 15]

hacking started today, exactly 11 days after key collection. 

hacked the common BR to form a bigger living area. way brighter after hacking! i think they also did a rather neat job. patching, tiling and concrete sink support will start soon!

Edited August 22, 2017 by matchalatte

[spooky 6]

5 hours ago, matchalatte said:

black stone sink 

carysil nera big bowl granite sink from poh seng hardware. the frame is thinner hence the faucet would have to be mounted on the countertop. brand is german but made in india. couldnt decide between this and blanco naya 6 but decided on this in the end because i didnt like the round edges of blanco and also this one is almost 40% cheaper. 

I like the black stone sink in particular! And I see you didn't decide to go with TB granite sink in the end

Are you planning on expanding the kitchen? I see that you bought 'standard' size kitchen appliances. I could hardly fit my 60cm hood, hob and sink in the kitchen and still have enough counter top space hopefully you'll have a lot more!

[matchalatte 15]

56 minutes ago, spooky said:

I like the black stone sink in particular! And I see you didn't decide to go with TB granite sink in the end

Are you planning on expanding the kitchen? I see that you bought 'standard' size kitchen appliances. I could hardly fit my 60cm hood, hob and sink in the kitchen and still have enough counter top space hopefully you'll have a lot more!

actually my contractor wanted my sink ASAP for the concrete sink support, so had to buy it so he could start work. the taobao one i read some reviews saying that the seller promised to drill a hole for the faucet but didnt in the end, i was abit worried. because if it happened to me i had to ask the plumber to do it, no idea if he'll charge for drilling? im hesitant like that. i ended up seeing these granite sinks when i went for toilet bowl shopping the other day, and tiong yeong had a nice one for $200 odd, and poh seng gave it to me at $195. i dont know what the quality is like though, and the underside of the sink looked very unpolished. it was whitish, almost like a geode, with stone crystals all around. really ugly. but mr seah told me "its like that one" so i didnt probe further. 

yeah, i got regular sized appliances, the 60cm sink was probably the only "compromise" lol. i hardly have any counter space with both side by side, maybe 20-30cm left? but i wasnt planning on using the counter space actually since the kitchen was so small to begin with even if i were to buy smallish appliances. so i will be doing pull out countertop (like a drawer) under the hob, and one in my service yard bottom cabinet. i can also do prep work on my island counter 

[casperlai 1]

20 hours ago, matchalatte said:

black bidet spray

1

I bought all my sanitary wares from Taobao too. But didn't manage to find a black bidet spray! Bummer! Not sure how difficult to get it replaced now if I get it.
Did you purchase through EzBuy Prime btw?

[matchalatte 15]

40 minutes ago, casperlai said:

I bought all my sanitary wares from Taobao too. But didn't manage to find a black bidet spray! Bummer! Not sure how difficult to get it replaced now if I get it.
Did you purchase through EzBuy Prime btw?

yeah not easy and this seems like this is the only black design! i dont use ezbuy, hear bad reviews about them. so far do all the taobao sanitaryware work? no issues with compatibility right? for the spray i bought the one with 2 outlets, one will connect to the WC the other to the spray. no idea whether it will work. hopefully it does?

 

[Clarence Lye 10]

can ship the mirror from taobao? didu buy direct and ship via forwarder or via ezbuy?
i tried ezbuy to buy a similar mirror but didn't went through.. 

[matchalatte 15]

2 hours ago, Clarence Lye said:

can ship the mirror from taobao? didu buy direct and ship via forwarder or via ezbuy?
i tried ezbuy to buy a similar mirror but didn't went through.. 

i bought direct and shipped via 3rd party forwarder. the forwarder didnt say anything so i presume it shd be ok? why didnt it go through for ezbuy? 

Edited August 23, 2017 by matchalatte