Rasp

Hi Skymars, I noticed that your kitchen stove is facing the washing machine. Do you have a divider or something inbetween them? Because the wall behind the cooker is usually very oil and sticky after each cook so I guess your washing machine might get it if there is no divider. Another thing is.. i am not sure if you are a believer of fengshui. Because for fengshui wise, they usually advise the stove to be against a sturdy wall etc.. The last thing that I noticed is.. you hacked the wall of the rm next to the mbr to give more spaces to the mbr and then seal up the other room. Are you going to use partition wall or hollow block wall for the new wall? Personally I think the space in the new area is too narrow for the furniture placing. Its going to be quite difficult for any future changes e.g. to change into a bedrm, it will very narrow to just take a single bed space. My suggestion is, if you need more space in the mbr currently, I would prefer that you hack the wall and combine both room as 1 big one. It will be more spacious and ease of future changes. Just my personal views.

Ooops.. sorry.. don't meant to make you sad. Its good to plan early, at least you are aware of what you want and won't get tempted easily when you come across new stuff. Read that your father's a contractor... wow.. so good... at least you skip the one of the most headache part of the reno (renovator search & confirmation).

close to amk sec? I guess your blk should start with 2xx? My parents' place is just next to amk sec.

Hi iluvmybeans, I noticed that you intend to have your stove on the island. Did you check with your fengshui master on this? Because for fengshui, they usually advise that the stove have a sturdy backing/support as stove is one of the important area in the house. Good to see your kitchen layout and don't worry about being early. I also change my layout several times when I re-think about the concept again.

Hi Skyblue, I agreed with the rest that the older generation are like that. Sometime, they just insist their ways, though later they see that its nicer if they have communicate with us earlier. I think those stuffs that your mum put up are still ok. Because they are mostly stuff that can be remove / retify easily. The bathroom rod and curtain rod are those which can just twist and turn and off they go. The 2 chairs... I concur with nexus to paint them to another colour and it can easily turn into another modern piece of art. My mil have shifted in to my bil place recently to take care of the newborn and similarly.. she put up alot of stuffs which was ermmm... pretty unique.. just to quote afew example... installing a rod and putting up some cloth-lookalike curtain which she sew at the common bathrm, although bil have a showerscreen to enclose the shower area already (meaning the curtain is right after the shower screen). Putting up the curtains (something that look like your common bathroon curtain with the buttons) on all the roman roller bind along the whole dining and living area (using the binds as the rod for her curtains). Hee.. I think you will feel better after reading these.

I see. I think clear one might look nicer as you won't see a piece of metal at the bottom of the gate. Ummm... i see if I can try to stealthy take a picture of the neighbour downstair. But they always open their door, so paiseh to take picture. No promise, okie?

Oops... I just read under your signature that you had the rinnai hood. Care to share your experience on the power and maintenance? We didnt see any hood from Rinnai. Just saw 1 hood from fujioh, which I thought is quite difficult to maintenance (thou the sale guy insisted that its easy). Just to share.. The metal plate at the bottom of the fujioh hood had a holder to contain the 'oil' suck in by the hood (meaning you see this transparent plastic holder protruding out from your hood when you stand infront of your hob without opening anything, initially i thought its a lamp.. hee..). And to 'open' the hood, its just sliding the metal plate and the thing will drop of as like 90 degree from the hood (notice the 'oil' holder is attached to this metal plate with no cover), so I wonder how to open the metal plate with out spiling the oil onto the whole metal plate when i open it. That asides.... the blower is at the centre portion of the hood where you can see it after opening the metal plate. To clean the blower, need to unscrew 4 screw holding the blower cover and the whole thing will be on your hands where you can see the fan inside. Note, the blower cover is the part just on top that metal plate, so I think its going to be super oily since in contact with the 'oily' air constantly. Ermmm... you think its going to be easy maintanence for this hood?

Hi Fondue & Demiglace, Thanks for the sharing. You guys are great. And the picture look great. Definitely worth my effort spent to locate this blog. We went to jln besar over the wkends trying to look at the real thing. Managed to saw it at 1 shop, but all sealed up with transparent wrapper and very dusty outside. Cant meddle with it but still look nice to me. I also saw the fujioh one. But I think the fujioh one seems pretty difficult to clean. The inner flame burner for Rinnai, I understand is.. if any spilt inside the 'burner area', there is a dish-lookalike thing which I can lift up and clean/wash it. Is it right? For the Fujioh one, the inner flame burner cleaning seems to be like those normal burner where I need to take out the parts, turn here and there, then can see the innerflame 'holes'... not that simple as the rinnai's dish-lookalike thingy. Price-wise: Fujioh one is 1/2 price of the rinnai one. We went 2 shop to ask about the rinnai and the price quote is like 70dollars difference. I wonder if the lower price shop have quote wrongly. If you don't mind, can pm me the price you bought the burner? And the hood, did you get the rinnai one or you got another brand?

Hi Ivy, Your gate is quite far from your main door. If this is the case, you might want to keep the current door frame colour. It look ok with the main door colour. As for the plastic sheet, is it a clear piece of aryclic? If it is, then you don't have to worry about its look with the gate. Because after washup, it will look 'invisible' on the gate. I met up with 1 ID who suggest having this piece of clear aryclic on my future gate if worry about water seepage to my recess area. Only then I started looking at those gates around my neighbourhood (as in pay more notice when I passby.. not go around to look at them.. ), and I realised its quite common for those ground floor unit to have such arylic on their gates. Hardly noticeable. And yes, quite effective on keeping the cats out as the cats usually don't want to climb over the sheet (although they probably can) because doing that also sort-of 'inconvenient' them compared to just slide into the gates without these sheet.

Hi fondue, I was looking high and low this morning for this hob of yours. I can remember the look of your kitchen (white top with wood-lookalike cabinet) and your innerflame hob. But I just cant remember whose blog was it. I spend the whole morning going in and out so many blog with only the clue "white top + nice woody cabinet". I really want to give up liao.. Phew! finally find your blog. Think your kitchen is so nice that it made such deep impression on me. Actually I wanted to ask you about your hob. I am looking for a gas hob and I remember your innerflame one. Is it good to use and clean? Care to share your experience? If you don't mind, can help me take a picture of the hob with the flames? Thanks!!!

I have the same vertical toilet roll holder for around 1yr+ already. This design can only be place vertical as there is no hook at the end so the toilet roll will definitely roll off. About the usage, the pull out is not as smooth as the horizontal type as the whole roll actually sit on the holder and when you pull, the roll will sort of 'jump' up abit and its weight is the resistance to the smooth pulling. Sometime if the roll is a new one, the paper get torn before you get to the right 'length' you need to use. Hee.. just to share.

Hi Ivy, Nice progress on your reno. Is that a fire-rated door? What colour will you be using for your gate? You might want to have the frame painted that same colour as the gate so that the frame won't stand out 'framing the gates'. Just a suggestion.

Your place look very clean and neat with the white colour. The only thing I notice is the hob and oven seems not 'centralize' on the stretch. Abit too left. If centralize, then it will look perfect. Is it due to making space for the right bottom cabinet?

Its just school holiday. Cool it, folks.

back against the wall..? Im not too sure which wall you referring to. Is the glass wall, full height all glass or its a half height glass wall? Assuming its a half height glass wall, what I meant previously is to have the desk along the stretch of the half height glass wall.. meaning you face the glass wall. Just a suggestion to make the room more spacious.

Hi kcsek, Congrat on your new place. You seems like surrounded by all the good food. Hee.. I notice that your stove seems to be facing the bathroom door, not sure if you are a believer of fengshui. But its not that good for the stove to face the bathroom door. Just to share.

I see. I agree with you. If not for the price difference, I think its better to go with the contractor so that its hassle-free. But the price difference for us was 1k and its a big difference to us. Wrought iron gate, we didnt confirm with him. But its also cheaper than contractor's price by around 100.

Hi, I read that you guys mention wellmax. We also just place a deposit with Wellmax for our windows and grills last week. Their price is very attractive compared to all the quotation from the renovators. Our contact from Wellmax is Eric. Hb called him in the morning to ask for the pricing, he came in the evening with the material samples and catalogs. Very experience in the field and offer alot of advises. By the way, Wellmax is the company that went on the 'shen qian wang' saver's variety show.

Hi Nekorin, For your study, I notice that you put the 2 desk in the middle of the room. You might want to consider the stretch along the glass partition facing the living room to make the room more spacious.

Hi Mrspiglet, We also encounter the same thing with the g.s.t. thing but with a bank. We asked for the waiver of the annual fee and its approved. But when the bill come, the g.s.t. was there for the cards and added to around 20+. $20+ for just the g.s.t. on the annual fee which was waived. I don't understand why we need to pay g.s.t when we weren't charge for the annual fee. Its really a silly-looking bill to me.

Hi Gaku, Read about your reno woes. I really feel for you especially on the rental part. I might be renting a place during the reno too and definitely want the HO to be firm too. And about the tiles which are hollow, I think you should still retify them. I heard that these tiles are quite dangerous as you never know when they are going to 'explode' after days of expansion/contraction during our hot and cold months. I won't want to take a chance on that esp. at the expense of my family. Beside, its gonna be even more troublesome if they 'pop' in future and you need to redo that area. However, on the other hand, I understand that time is not on your side. Do consider the retifications. And please do not edit / delete your posts. They are real experiences. These are very useful for people like me who might have to rent a place for the reno and definitely cant afford the repeats delay in the HO. Wishing you best of luck!!

Hi Familyof4, I just saw your lock. Is that Samsung SHS-5120? What a coincidence, we also bought the same one at the PC show yesterday. How much did it cost you? And how many rfid / chain key does it come with for yours? We hasn't install ours, was told that the allowance between the door and gate must be around 8cm. If you don't mind, can help me to take a pic of your gate with the main door? Thanks!!

Hi Payretep, Your house really match the theme very well. And yes, very picture-perfect.... hee.. i cant imagine the cleaning too. By the way, what the yellow 'wall' before the book shelf ? Is it a cupboard or the wall?

Hi skyblue, Your place look good. I just noticed in the pic above, the tube light is near the cloth hanger. You might want to relocate the light as its high risk of the bamboo poles poking right into it when the pole get heavy with the clothes and the person might not hold the poles steady. Just a thought that flash through when I saw this.

Hi mitlancer, Thats' good tactics that you shared. Can pm me the 5 store that you email/fax to? Will try it during my reno.