Flare

Hahaha, that cracked me up... I've just gotten some posters, maybe I'll put them up to replace the Wall.e and Evangelion one, will post a photo when I get to doing it, a bit busy at work recently...

After shower, just bring out of the bathroom and hang outside on bamboo poles loh, or hang at the kitchen's bamboo poles during bad weather... My toilets/bathroom super empty...

No problems for me, I'm only 168cm tall and I can still reach the far side of the dish rack just by leaning without tiptoeing. So I think there's not much of an issue there. =)

coral78, if your normal top refers to laminated top, do take note of some things: - Seams - It's impossible to hide the seems between the sheets of laminates on a flat surface, so if your work top is very long, there will be bound to have seams. (edges are no prob, they can use do ABS trimmings) - Water - I don't think laminates can withstand water very well, that's why people in the past (like my dad's 20+ year old flat) build a concrete + tile wet/cooking areas - Sharp objects can easily plough a gorge through the layers of a laminate if you are not careful. Which will become susceptible to water seeping into the wood/laminate - Don't get a glossy laminate for your kitchen... Scratch galore~ There's no easy way to remove scratches on a glossy laminate. One advantage is that you can always rip out the laminate and have it changed relatively cheaply. And despite the above, my dad's laminate work top still lasted for over 20 years... despite it being a little patchy. But well, we don't do any cutting or food preparation on it, it's just a long surface where we put rice cooker, oven etc.

Well, there's a few ways to do a walk in wardrobe. You can go partition out a space or set aside a room, then you go and install a wardrobe system like this: Or if you are 'pathetic' like me, you build 3 built-in wardrobes linked together and throw out the doors. I.e. my walk in wardrobe looks like a very big built in wardrobe instead of those luxurious wardrobes you see in magazines and movies. The space is a small and my phone does not come with a wide angle lens... so terrible pictures Let's orientate ourselves, I'm standing at the door to my toilet in the MBR. Here is the pictures. Hope you understand it.

Hmmm... I believe that I got the poster at $60. Original, 2 sided, one sheet. Bought it at Popcorn Pop locally. Well, you can get them online too, but the shipping and handling may be a turn off at times, but depending on retailer, you may still be able to get some savings vs buying locally. The frame costed me $140 tho. It's a snap frame bought from the same shop, online purchase a bit hard, big and heavy = expensive shipping

Er... Perhaps it's because human brains are wired for relationships that last around 12-14 months, which is about long enough to produce a progeny/child. The fact is, we, as a species, is not monoganous like swans. Actually, new findings show that Swans are only socially monogamy, but may have extra mating pairs. And I like to quote: "Only 3 percent of mammalian species are socially monogamous, although up to 15 percent of primate species are socially monogamous." As for us Humans, acceptance of Monogamy or Polygamy are generally dependent on culture and society. I'm not an expert, but I believe that the wide spread acceptance of Monogamy by current society and law stems from the widespread of Christianity/Catholic teachings and strength of these nations in the past. Asian cultures and civilizations in the pasts generally accepts polygamy, just think: Rich/Royalty Chinese has many wifes/concubines, Indian Kings are renown to have many wives too, Malays were Hindus before the acceptance of Islam, and Islam also supports polygamy of up to 4 wives. So, getting married to a single partner is a social norm, but when our conscious and socially trained behavior breaks down and our basic instincts took over, and err from socially accepted norm, we have an 'affair'. However, this does not mean that I or you should condones extramarital relationships just because it's basic instinct (Well, it IS still socially unacceptable), but I just hope that I answered the Why part of the question. Why? It's because we are made that way.

Hmmmm... my limited experience with Microwave ovens (at my wife's place) that bakes hasn't been very good. Although it still bakes the cakes, it seems to be more runny/wet when it's done baking and the surfaces don't seems to char or brown nicely like an oven. Well, if you don't bake much, I guess it's pretty okay. Maybe newer models bakes better, but my friend's microwave baked muffins still seems a little wet near the bottom. I also have space issues in my kitchen, I use a cheapo electric oven for my occasional baking and 'grilling'. I put away/hide/keep the oven when it's not in use. Cost me a little over $100 and does my cheese cakes properly, although I have to turn my cake pan in mid cooking so that it browns nicely because the convection fan is off one side on wall.

Yay~ Neighbour~ Neighbour~ The settee thingy in the MBR was custom built. I've had a friend did something similar it by having a sit 'platform' built cheaply, then got a custom shaped cushion separately on his own to fit the sit perfectly . Mine is the corridor unit, so it should have a similar layout as your flat. You're welcome to come over to take a look~ Although I don't really stay there yet I do spend quite a bit of time at the place cleaning, watching movies or play games. I'll PM you my mobile number.

I'm one of the 678D-sters... Haha, can take a look at my t-blog at my sig for some ideas.

My bomb shelter feature wall cost me S$2240 for 16 feet @ "friend-friend price", i.e. $140 per feet... got some design lah, combination of matt and glossy laminates

What's your budget? Hahaha, this sofa has a listed price of over 2k, but I got it below that. Just wanna inform you that Cellini is having a GSS promotion, Calypso sofa without the ottoman (just like mine) + free accompanying side table (listed price $380) at $1688 I want the side table

Can't answer most of your question too, but I can tell you the reason my wife did not want the gas heater even though it was free due to a promotion and the guy had brought it along for the appointment for the gas connection: The Gas heater cannot be installed inside your bath room at the heater points provided by HDB. Due to safety reasons, it cannot be installed in enclosed areas, it can only be installed indoor inside the kitchen or the yard. You have have to get your plumber to run the hot and cold water pipes from where ever you installed it back into your toilet. So eventually you will have 3 pipes running to the heater, Cold water inlet, Hot water inlet and Gas inlet. You can cover it up with a cabinet but there are some specifications. I can't remember it, but I think the bottom cannot be covered and 1 of the wall/door must be fully louvre. But better check cause I cannot remember if the top need to be open as well and how many of the cabinet walls must be louvre...

Haha, my dad's place at Bukit Batok. NiVleK, I got idea, maybe can get your mother or mother-in law to have a chat with them, maybe the elders can communicate easier... Well, I'm fortunate that my half of my storey are all occupied by youngsters. I'm more worried about the volume of my games, TV and movies disturbing my neighbours... Volume too soft, can't hear the dialogs, turn up the volume to hear the dialogs, then the explosions sound like it's going off next to you (Well, they are suppose to sound like they are going off next to you in the first place ...) Then, in the heat of gaming, I could overlook how loud my games are... So if my next door neighbour is reading this, please come and yell at me a bit if it gets too loud okay? Hope the sound of subs don't reach the unit below me...

Haha, you are not the only one who suggested changing my doors. I've to agree that all my doors don't really match my theme, but I'm out of budget... Maybe I'll change them some time down the road And yeah, I tio Od3xed sometime back, still thinking if I should frame the letter that cost me 3K and deprived me of Anime for the past year+

Haha, my unit is also diagonal from the staircase landing. But if you ask me, I thought it's safer for you to have the staircase landing door open. At least you can see that no one/crook is hiding behind the door when you leave or enter the house. Better than having someone rush you from the stairs just when you open the door right? Well, some blocks in our cluster, like mine, are still very quiet at night Hee, I thought fire proof doors like our main doors are to hinder spreading of fire from inside the house to adjacent units. Personally, I think the staircase landing door don't contribute much protective purpose during a fire. But well, of course there's personal preference, well, i think there's no harm asking your neighbors for their reason of keeping the door open. Just ask politely and convey your concerns politely. Okay, I should add myself 675A : samluvbliss, toothytooth, apprye 675B : Spotkev, Alexter, greenskyiv 676A : ilovecoffee, kiki2004, TinyEyes, mysotic, sengkt, thomnjan 676B : crazygirl48, roseberry, shutiao06, popeye gal, ed12, helenteepl, Gemini06 677A : cyanide, bpheng 677B : shootmie, piggiedearz 677C : inuya5ha, junxian, norah, baby_ayumi 678A : teodami, Commando, bubbletan, jogal, baby_whyme, jjcian 678B : rav3n, GraCieGaL 678C : missyling, adathong, reds79 678D : dar80, NiVleK, Flare Yay, my floor can be considered 'Fully' occupied. Just saw the missus of the other corridor 5 rm unit past weekend cleaning up/checking for defects. Anyway, for the corridor usage issues, it'll never end, My dad had been having that problem since 3 years ago when the neighbor moved in. Police visits, town council cutting and confiscating their items, all did not help, only made our relationship worse. My neighbor would even put unwanted furniture and unused cloth hanger at the corridor to intentionally block my family and then chain the items to the pipes with a broom on the hanger facing our door, also chained. Then threaten to call police to report us for stealing if we touch the stuff. Haha, I think it was like complaints for 2 years before town council finally gave up and cut the chains and confiscated the items (at least twice). My neighbor had stopped after the recent confiscation, maybe she ran out of trash.

I've replied, check your PM~ Hee, I'm the movie and anime lover. But my wife enjoys movies as well. I used to live off anime until I got OD3Xed Hee, but my kitchen cabinets still expensive due to the extension... but well, it could have been more expensive. Well, my 5 rm flat is just 110 sq ft, I've got a large living room and really decent rooms, so the kitchen had to suffer... Haha, my friends tell me that my house reminds them of the old Nokia phones like the 7260

Hee, actually I'm really happy with the reno, my designer manage to give me something quite amazing at the tiny budget i have. So we try to incorporate everything HDB has done and thus we did not change the layout much. Well, I just vacuum it at least once a week at the moment... It's a 'cheap' machine made carpet, not very thick and the individual elements are quite fine, I think vacuuming it would be quite okay. Haha, Cellini having a GSS promotion, they are throwing in the side table now, sad. But I ordered the sofa when it's still new and the very nice sales person already gave me a huge discount off the listed price... Hahaha, this IS a 5 room flat. But, yes the corner units has a larger kitchen, but the rooms are smaller, especially the MBR and I preferred the wider living room vs the long one for the corner unit, easier to work round the slanted wall. Well, as I said, the biggest problem is actually the kitchen as it's really tiny, the Living room is very large so there's many things one can do to rectify the problem of the slanted wall.

Fast forward 5 weeks of renovation works and another few weeks of shopping, my home is almost done. I do have some pictures, but they are all taken in the dark with a camera phone, so can't really see anything. I'll skip the 3D drawings, why look at 3D drawings when you can see the complete product, further more, they looked almost identical. Well, you can see how tiny the kitchen is here. The extended arm is not so long that I have to make detour round it to get to the fridge and it provides me more of the much demanded cabinet space and work surface My dining area. I don't intend to decorate heavily, just hang up a framed movie poster and some framed movie chirashi (Japanese movie promotional flyers). The living room is large enough that I can use grey without worry of making it look really tiny. On the contrary, I thought that the grey makes my living room looks less empty and more cozy. Here's the poster for the dining area. A Food area needs a poster of a great food related movie. We were debating over Ratatouille and No Reservations and we decided to go with Ratatouille. The view across my living room from the dining area. It don't look as empty as the floor plan suggests. I guess that the grey walls helped. More posters to decorate the walls with. I picked movie posters over artwork as movies are something that I really enjoy compared to art work which I may not truly know how to appreciates. These 3 are actually more or less randomly picked out from my tiny collection, I thought that they don't really go well as a series and I'm intending to change them, still running through some choices. Opposite the posters is the feature wall hiding my safety shelter. My ID came up with this design and I must say I love it. My TV area. I love glossy laminates, but they are really a dust magnet... There's no coffee table, I'm intending to get the side table which accompanying the Calypso sofa and perhaps a tea trolley to use as a side table when guests are around. Sadly I've burst my budget long ago... Another view from my TV area to the posters in the activity area/gallery (what I call my activity area, Gallery as in the meaning of "Hallway", not as in"Art Gallery") The view from my TV area through the gallery to my dining area. As you see from these pictures, the odd angles are not obvious at all with this layout and I get every single square feet of the flat. Well, my rug may look like it's maroon coloured, but actually it's black and red like everything in the TV area. My study area behind the sofa. It's a table from the Galant series at Ikea, it's cheaper than having one fabricated.... Budget... Budget... My master bedroom with a bed from Cellini as well. I've not put on the sheets etc yet, just placed the quilt cover over the bed to get an idea how the bedding looks with the room's reno. The cozy corner. Think I should get some cushions to go along? And yes, Roller blinds all the way due to ease of maintenance. And finally, my walk in wardrobe with a string curtain across the entrance. And that more or less sums up my apartment. A few things to share. If you intent to mount your speakers on your false ceiling, decide on the position early and make sure you relay the information to your ID and/or contractors clearly. Other than the obvious need to run wires to the surround speakers and have them add wood to the mounting locations in your false ceiling so that you can mount the speakers easily. If it's too late to reinforce the false ceiling, don't sweat, you still can get special nylon plugs that will allow you to mount them to the fragile gypsum boards, but wood reinforcements are much better. There's also a specification on where to place your speakers. Check it out here. Of course it depends on personal preference and priorities of whether you want to stick to the specs or neatness of the placement especially in odd shaped rooms like mine.

Actually my renovation work is done and the furnishing is almost complete too, but I thought I'll share some of my thinking process and information I've gained through this experience. Although not really a blog from the start, I thought this section is the best place to share. First section, the floor plans: This is the floor plan and orientation of my apartment provided by HDB once I completed my option to purchase. And this is the floor plan we found in the apartment, with the architect's planned layout. (Okay, it's the flipped orientation from my actual apartment) Just like almost everyone who got similar layout, they would zoom into the odd shaped living room and think that it's the greatest problem in planning the layout for their home, which actually isn't true, the biggest problem is actually the tiny kitchen. Back to the living room, I decided to use round or curved shaped furniture to solve the problem of the odd angles in the living room, so I'll get a circular dining table which cleared up the problem in the dining corner. But what about the TV area? Well, I can straighten the wall for the TV console, but I'm totally against that. Firstly, I'll be wasting floor space of the area behind the straightened wall/tv console. Why pay for the floor space only to box it up later? Secondly, The long living room is already dimly lit during daylight, with only 3 windows at one end. I'm not taking the corridor window into consideration as it would probably be covered by a curtain or blind most of the time. If I straightened the wall, I would definitely end up blocking 1 window or 2 windows. The dining area will end up even darker in the day. So initially I thought of building a platform type console, all the way on the floor with a as small as possible 'pillar' to straighten only the TV. But even this way, 1 window would be blocked. (See above) But then, while window shopping for furniture with my wife, I came across my solution at Cellini: Cellini Calypso Modular Sofa. It's nice and it's curved, it'll not look out of place even if it's not placed perpendicular, it'll counter the effects of the odd angle in the TV corner~ As for the master bedroom, one will notice the large space between the bed to the wardrobe in the Architect's drawing (2nd floor plan above). Having no idea what we can do with the area, My wife and I agreed with the ID's idea of a walk in wardrobe. The Desk will be replaced by a cozy corner. Now back to the greatest problem, the tiny kitchen. It is really too tiny, and the architect's proposed placement of the fridge seems really out of place. Placing it elsewhere would result in a kitchen with next to no worktop. How are we gonna do our food preparation? How am I going to bake my cheese cake? Well my ID proposed to us a C-shaped kitchen. Which you'll see below: Fast forward past sharing my idea with the ID, he came up with this floor plan: As for the study area behind the TV corner, it's my requirement as I intend to use the other 2 rooms for other purposes. If anyone likes to have a bar counter, I thought that the area where my study is would make a perfect bar counter. It'll be close to the TV area where you and your guests will probably be. Further more you can even run pipes from the Master Bed Room's toilet, hidden behind the wardrobe and have runing taps and sink at your bar. But well, I don't drink, and I'll prefer my study. With this layout, I have a huge activity area between the TV and Dining areas where we can set up Mahjong tables, dance or just have some friends sit around and play guitars or games. ( Wow, Wall of Text! )

Bin Bin, you know who I am lah, bring me go buy switches ley... hahaha