Final paint touch ups

Recently, a friend suggested that patching up the joining lines of our pre-cast walls will make the house look nicer thus increasing its value. His comment came only after we had finished our paint and threw away all our brushes..darn. So a reminder for those who are doing renovation to make sure your contractors patch up those "gutters" and smoothen the walls before painting. Ugly looking lines below, some photos with patch work in progress:

We had to get some different type of wall putty to fill those deep gaps. Had to plaster 3 times before we could sand the walls to smoothen it. Quite xiong to plaster and after sanding, the whole place was full of fine white particles and we had to clean up the whole house again! To tell the truth, I was cursing and swearing (in my heart) about this friend who commented on it..ha ha. After everything was done, it really looks much better. Take a look at the before/after photos:

There were many more join lines in the house. Shall not post so many photos so that no one will come and point out that they can still see the join lines when they come over...keke. Finally we can retire our paint and brushes to the corner again.

Kitchen is operational...finally!

Finally, after a whole weekend (plus one day holiday) of cleaning, our efforts to show. Our kitchen is now operational as fengping declare. Below are some photos of the transformation of our kitchen. I'm sure there are more things to be added slowly once we really use it. For now, we're just glad that we can walk in and out while maintaining clean feets.

After tiles, wiring, gas pipes were done...

Rubbish cleared, cabinet base and sink support up..

Fridge, washing m/c and capentary in...

Solid surface, sink, hood & hob installed...

Finishing touches...

With simple bar stools, air tight containers, lots of cleaning solution, mopping, gas turned on etc etc. Our kitchen is operational...finally!

Decorations

Take a look at the photos above and you'll see why we wanted to use WINK www.winkplay.com to decorate the house. Those above were done by professionals and its looks neat and nice. We had to settle for the CIRCAS theme as there were not many that suited our home theme. The main purpose was also to give our clear glass door to the kitchen some visible design to prevent anyone from knocking into it, it could hurt (our glass door) you know..

And so, the planning stage started with cutting up a big piece and the use of masking tape to preview how things will turn out:

As you can see, we failed badly on our first attempt and we decided to postpone the completion and stopped at that. Need to crack our brains for our next attempts. Will post pictures when its done!

We did manage to get our first set of ornaments. Smiling Jap Cats from Daiso, we love them so much and it'll sure bring us lotsa smiles around the house. Total cost: $6 ONLY! Worth it..worth it.. =)

First look at some of our IKEA stuff.

Got to thank my cousins, Lavin and Tina for their contribution to my storeroom...Racks!! They had wanted to sell them but gave it to us FOC. Not easy to keep it so well maintained with every screws still available.

Best of all, the rack is expandable so I can get another portion to join up to a longer one to fit all the stuff we're going to put in the storeroom, our bomb shelter. Can't find any new house without them nowdays. Some people spend lots of money to cover them up but for us, we went for the simple painted door look to blend into our walls.

Picture above shows our new panel curtain rails. We intend to hack off the wall for another window so we'll install the curtain there first. After doing that, we'll have to pray hard HDB guys do not come up to do any inspection as its illegal to add any windows in govt. flats (unless, maybe, approved by HDB and a Pro. Engineer, which should cost a lot)

Well, now the truth and only half the truth (picture below). Instead of windows, we have in place bookshelves, BILLY series. Only $99 each for the white coloured one. And instead of doors, we'll use panel curtains as doors/ covers. Yet to be put up..stay tuned for that.

Please note that it is almost impossible to cash and carry these damn bookshelves by yourself. Due to its weight, it takes at least two person to carry them long flat packs. So buy lotsa stuff at one go and have them all delivered to your doorstep for only $40.

Shoe storage below also from same place. Whacked, drilled, hammered and installed by yours truly. **Lesson: When drilling walls, please use the correct masionary bit with a hammer function drill. And when drilling, just WHACK it! Much faster that way.**

It also is table top to place keys, coins, letters etc. We're considering getting another one. Heng my wife does not have any shoe fetish or collect shoes.

Kitchen almost done..

Took some of these photos quite long ago but did not post them up as there were some rectification works to be done and I wanted to show the whole kitchen in one post.

Stainless Steel double sink c/w tap, supplied by Ah Low, one big one small. Nowadays, small kitchens cannot afford to fit too big of a sink and with a solid surface, its not neccessary. All chopping and cutting can be done on the solid surface.

Gourmet Hob and Hood from Bellari (www.bellari.net). We got a sliding hood so that it will be flush with the rest of the capentary when not in use. Some houses nowadays would rather do away with it as most working couples will not be cooking anyway. Ah Low installed our tempered glass

According to feng shui, the position of hob in the kitchen is critical. For more info, pls consult your own feng shui master. Shall not elaborate on it as each have their own style.

The breakfast counter we wanted and we got it! Wine "cellar" done up to make full use of the space as that space would have been lost as it's at a corner (from the inside)

We've yet to purchase our high bar stools but have already found a source.

We settled for a U-shaped design but gave up some walking space for more capentary and our breakfast counter. Stainless steel pull-out racks is a good storage idea for canned food as shown above. Another good idea is those used for corners. Can get a look of those at hoe kee or ikea, I did not take any photos of it..paiseh.

Lastly, I regret not asking IKEA for a quote for the kitchen. Their quality is rather good and they've got lotsa ideas, plus it comes with 25 years guarantee. My cost saving friends may want to do that in future.

Nothing is perfect..

Yeah it's yet another month less for count down...

By the way, we should be moving in soon after CNY 2008 so stay tuned for the house warming date.

Like every project, there's bound to be cock ups and our house reno is not spared. So far there are a few and here's some photos of them. Of cos, those done wrongly got to be rectified, else don't pay contractor the balance loh! hahaha..*evil smile*

Thought Ah Low was joking with me when he gave me this black solid surface (SS) with my white SS. Somemore it had a non-drip all round..wah biang eh..Pls note how ugly it is. Anyway, it was the SS guy's mistake and was quickly removed and replaced with the correct one.

Next, see the masking tape "X"? Those were put by me and fp to denote problem for Ah Low to headache over. Direction of pattern on laminate not uniform ie. wrong direction. Best was an oversight on my part. Notice how close the sub woofer is to the base of the hanging tv console? Thanks to the wonderful engineers from LG who put in their catalog the dimensions WxHxD as DxHxW and I had to remove the original legs to a much shorter one. Hope it doesn't cause any damage to the sub-woofer. REMINDER: Always take the things of out package to measure!!

IKEA's Billy bookcase - cheap and nice. However, they giam on the laminate. Only one side is laminated. During assembly I didn't notice and by the time I flipped it over, I already nailed it in. Bo bian liao loh. Fun to assemble but rather cheap to let them assemble it for you too! Pls be careful when assembling IKEA stuff, I got to know that I'm not the only one who assembled the same things wrongly. Another one of my friend kana same thing...you know who you are. =)

More damages..

Photos of more "damages" to our bank account but I'm sure we'll find it worth it. To spend time together to go all over town looking for THE piece of furniture we both like. To put our nest together piece by piece like a never-ending and ever-changing jig saw puzzle.


Our dining set is from The Furniture Club. We went direct to their Sungei Kadut showroom and got a whopping $400 offer better than the price quoted from the IMM branch. Therefore, always go around to check on the best offer.

Notice how nicely the low bench fits in with the dinning table and chairs. Gives additional space around the table and if I had placed chairs against the wall, it would be a hassle to get off the seat.

To have fixed benches around the dining table, one thing to take note is that the table legs should be in the centre of the table and not the usual 4 poles at each corner type. This is to prevent people hitting their legs and damaging the table legs you've paid so much for.. =)

Our 3 seater leather sofa set is from NOVA furnishing. Got it during their opening sale in June...and their sale is still on-going. See it everytime I pass by that place!! When you see furniture sale in newspapers (especially on weekends), note the prices offered as they are forever having sale. We've tried and tested numerous sofa sets, decided and undecided on several occasions before finally settling for this one.

Back to the sofa, NOVA actually does customizing of furnitures. This was originally an L-shaped sofa but we got them to part out a portion to get an ottoman. This way, we can have more arrangement of space around our IKEA coffee table, which only cost $148.

Additional but we want!

As typical S'pore house owners, we naturally went to Ikea (Tampines branch FREE parking) for ideas, cheap & quality small items. At the kitchen section, we saw this and we knew we had to get Ah Low to install one of it.


A few days back, we bought packet food up after the cabinet (w/o solid surface) was done. We realised that our current setup of the breakfast counter would make eating difficult as we had no place to put our legs for us to be near the table. The idea creates space and makes our seating position less awkward. Only thing is that we will require high chairs, which we already knew where to get for a bargain.

Carpentary Part II

Main structures were up the next day with some laminates done on-site to make wardrobes and cabinet built-in, giving it a non-ikea look. More photos!



Here's the kitchen with doors. Top surface is not laminated to leave it for our solid surface. Last minute, Ah Low told us that we had to change our solid surface colour as the one we chose was much more expensive. In the end, we decided to save the $$ and went for a simliar looking one.

TV console, low bench (cum storage) and feature wall up next. We went for dark coloured laminate for most of our capentary as we felt that it would give a more modern look and not have the whole house look so woody.
A lot of friends have asked what the red piece is for. The 2nd picture should answer the question. We wanted a house that would have a modern feel so there's a number of bright red patches around the house. The red contrasts rather well with the wall, ceiling, flooring etc yet maintains the earth look of the place. ie. modern contemporary..


Low bench was done for a purposeto give more storage in the living room and gives a quiet corner to do work or read a book. Picture would be more complete with our dining table in.

Carpentary Part I

After a long wait, finally the carpentary got on the way at the workshop and they should take only a few days to fix it all up. After measurement by the experts, they'll be cutting up pieces of solid plywood and sticking laminats we've choosen on the outside and formica on the inside. The outcome when delivered looks like this:

When we saw it, we were guessing which pieces go where. We managed to get the photos above when we went at night to put some stuff and was pleasantly suprised that we would have our woody up soon. The result?

her side

my side

vanity cabinet

kitchen

to be continued...

Lights up!

Lights came as ordered from Strass Lightings located at Balestier Rd. It's one of the largest shop along the road and the sales guy gave us a good price which we're happy with. Total damage = $720. The lights came in many boxes as above.

Storeroom/ Toilets Light...cute eh?

We got 3 of these for our 3 bedrooms.

6 x PLC lights for the living area

Forks &..Spoons for our kitchen lights


Warm cove lights

Bright PLC Day light

As seen, we have 2 different effects for the living/ dining area. Cove lights for a cosy feeling while watching TV and PLC lights to brighten up the place for reading, gathering etc. Our PLC lights come with a 2-way switch meaning we do not have to go all the way to the main switch to turn off the lights. There's another switch just outside our master bedroom which allow easy switching on/off at night. It's a feature which comes with new HDB flats.