Story: Our Own Place

[gnipihz 1]

It's time to give back some to this forum. Had been reading and finding it useful. Hopefully some of you would find it useful and enjoyable to read as well!

The search for a contractor/ID had not been easy. I would suggest to all that simply find those that you had friends/relatives or colleagues who recommend and just skip those unknown ones. We went super big rounds. Conclusion : why do all those work when others before had already compared and decided on who are good? =P

Anyway, here's my floor plan for a start:

[gnipihz 1]

Initial plans :

Hack the dining room wall and extend our MBR.

Put Ceiling Fans in Living and MBR.

Plans do change after we engaged a Fengshui Master. Master Lim's fengshui audit told us it's not good to have our bed under the beam. (Our place simply have many beams stretching here and there. sighz...)

Here's the recommendations. By the way Master Lim is a young Fengshui Master compared to alot others. I find him more logical than superstitious. Eg. Mother was telling me to put the door step to prevent "unwanted you-know-what" to come in" Master Lim says : the door step in the past was to prevent flooding into the house. Can do and it's up to you.

Difference in thinking.

[gnipihz 1]

HDB came to do the additional main door due to the Lift Upgrading.

Quality really so-so only. Design wise don't wish to say much... They had opt to go for the standardised look which is the same for the past 26 years in this estate. Look at the fantastic work they do to the beam. Called them up to redo it properly.

Do many of you have 2 main doors? Mine will be 1 for stairs and 1 for the lift. hahaha.

[gnipihz 1]

The design idea.

After going through so many ideas: The floorplan is more or less fixed with this:

We'll shift the storeroom to cover the existing old main door.

Hack down the wall between storeroom and MBR for a dresser wardrobe area.

Build a partiton wall for the bedhead

Level up the balcony to extend the living room feel.

Edited July 22, 2011 by gnipihz

[gnipihz 1]

动土!! 19th July

Hacking starts on 20th July

My wife's beautiful "Royal Hammer"

1st day of hacking by Sun Hup. They are quite fast.

[gnipihz 1]

I guess today, 22nd July, will complete the hacking already. However our kitchen design is still not yet fixed.

I hope after my 1 week overseas, there's more confirmation. We had wanted purple color kitchen cabinets. Perlyn is trying to help us find. Got a feeling she might fail this since the purple laminates we wanted are not commonly seen.

Here's the initial 3D designs of the flat. I think will have more changes to come! Exciting yet stressful. (we started to buy our furniture and appliances!!!)

Revision 1

[gnipihz 1]

Revisions of 3D proposed by us.

[arowana 2]

interesting... looks good so far! sun hup is one of the popular contractors in this forum!

On the fengshui issue, my personal opinion is unless you are a strict taoist, you shouldn't be following Fengshui. If you are just a free thinker, design and plan according to how you like it..

[footprint 0]

love the layout of your 5i!

spacious indeed.

looking forward for more reno-in-progress photos..

so the existing main door going be hidden in the storeroom (i presume this leads to the stairs), and going to use the new door as the main door?

the existing door still accessible hor.. for safety purpose la.

[gnipihz 1]

Time for another update!

Past few days, had been the patching up of the hacked walls and also materials moving into the flat.

[Reiki 0]

Revisions of 3D proposed by us.

Just found out that we have the same house layout. My current place is undergoing the lift upgrading and, thankfully, my unit is not affected with the second main door option.

I think, with regards of having an extended housing (extended solid top) for the washing machine, probably it is not feasible. Depending on how the size and how the washing machine is placed, likely it will block (passage towards) the rubbish chute. To have the washing machine placed after the sink, the sink needs to be placed 'forward'.

Happy reno, gnipihz.

[gnipihz 1]

Reiki!!!

Your house is stunning!! I'm really inspired! 2 years on already and the look of it is even better with the interior deco you had done!

Impressive!!!

I think tonight I'll spend more time to go through your photos!

[gnipihz 1]

MBR Toilet Door relocated!!

Sun Hup has sent me new updated 3D drawings for the feature wall. (The laminate they propose is really not to my liking...)

I decided to change some parts of the 3D design. Darken the laminate, grey tone the wall and put in the actual tv mroe relative to the correct size. =) Quite happy to be able to do such changes. hahahaha.

[gnipihz 1]

It's been 3 or 4 days.... Didn't see progress of reno yet. Tomorrow will go check again. Last heard from the Malaysian (but Sg PR) guy doing the plastering that he had to beg Sg customs to let him in. (passport 1 day less than 6mths) Now don't see him liao. Guess his renewal of Malaysian passport is not fast.

So no progress at site for this few days. Hope all things will restart again.

Perlyn had managed to get several purple laminates for us!!! Cool... looks like purple kitchen is going to be a reality! Had also saw the electrical plan. Identical to what I had earlier proposed. =) Hopefully my Schneider Electric Zencelo switches (used to be Clipsal) will be chio in the house.

This weekend also bought the $49 carpet from IKEA. hahaha. looks good and it's rather value for money. Any of you also buy it? I think it's a good buy. 2m long by 1.4m wide.

[gnipihz 1]

Here's the laminates that we were choosing from!

Sun Hup gave us several purple laminates to choose for our Kitchen cabinets.

Here's the combo we want!!

Have any of you used any laminate that is similar to this??? Was wondering if TV feature wall will be cool using it.