Rasp

It's very neat. It kinda 'merges' into the wall after painting it. I think this is nicer than using a laminated box-up. Because the laminated box-up is very likely to attract unnecessary attention to it and this is supposed to be hidden. Hee.. Hardware shop = Wu Jin shop? Is the back of this trunk nailed to the wall (just like normal electrical casing)? Or is it taped?

Updates on Kitchen Cabinet: Continue from above.. Hee.. the granite top have been installed already. After the installation of the granite top, they put the sink into the hole to confirm the measurement. They have installed our hood already. But the hob is still in the box, guess they kept it to be the last to prevent dirting it. hee.. The stand-alone cabinet with the granite top on it. Hee.. look lonely without its companion, ie. the fridge. This is the view of our simple kitchen from the entrance/living area. The window grills are also installed already. Close-up of the black galaxy top. Quite plenty of the gold flakes. hee..

Hi Reiki, May I check with you, what is that grey casing inbetween your tv and console? Is it 'fixed' or can be 'open' up? We didnt have any feature wall for our mbr tv. So I am looking for some stuff to make the wire look neater. Can share where to find this 'casing'? Thanks!

Hi natgw, Nice wall tiles for the kitchen! Hee..

Updates on Kitchen Cabinet: Continue from above.. Hee.. this is the side view of my dish rack. Instead of using the usual frosted glass panel, we went for laminated door as we wanted a consistent look for the whole stretch. However, using laminated door does bring up another issue, that is, water. We might run the risk of warping laminates due to constant contact with water, because the hands are usually wet after washing the dishes. Hence, we have to be really careful on this. These are our simple drawers. Hee.. We didnt go for any pull-out sauce rack. Forgo those nice pull-out racks as I was concerned about those 'drips' (those single drop of sauce that run down the bottle side after each use) and the dust/dirt that can settle on the insides/underneath those metal rack (through those gaps of the metal rack). I think it might be difficult to reach/wipe the underneath/insides, esp. if the width of the rack is very small. Another concern that I had was, whether the metal would tarnish/rust as it might not be easy to change them. Hence, we just built bigger drawers that can hold the bottles height. I think I'll just put those flora disposable paper at the bottom to catch those drips and change them every few weeks/months. Hee.. This is the 'stand-alone' cabinet beside my fridge. Hee.. it had a depth of 90cm instead of the common 60cm. We didnt really plan for it, just planned for my fridge position and its only during the discussion of the wet works that dawned on us that this stand-alone is going to be this deep. Our initial plan was to put all the electrical applicances on it, so that the 'main' stretch will be keep clean and free of cluster. And now that its bigger and 'deeper', we prolly going to have more worktop to use even after placing those applicances. Hee.. I am starting to love it. This is the distance between the kitchen cabinets. Hee.. its kinda spacious. I was joking with hb that we can play mahjong in the kitchen. Here's the cabinet for the straight stretch. Hee.. simple simple look only.

Hi AJ, Read that you looking around for review on FP fridge. My bil had a FP fridge for sometime already. I am not sure about the electricity consumption but my mil who had moved in with him last yr, commented that the rubber tube is quite lousy. According to her, the rubber tube is quite loose now and unable to 'seal' up the air properly. So she kept telling us not to get this brand. I am not sure if its due to wear and tear as the fridge is few years old already.

Thanks New. Aiyo.. hope everything will go smoothly for you. Good to see that you're still very positive. Keep the spirits up! Im looking forward to seeing your island. Hee..

Hi dsman, Sorry, we don't have the code. We are brought around by Henry's assistant during our selection. He will take down our selections and liaise with Henry's tiler directly for the order. The last time that I went, they are out of stock for this kitchen wall tile. So Im not sure if the new stock had came in. I think you might want to check with the Hafary staff.

Thanks TB. Hee.. We always get to take those work-in-progress pics cause Hb told our contractor to let him know in advance, what job will be done on which day. So we can pop by or be around to look see look see. My hb does most of the monitoring. Hee.. so the credits goes to him.

Hi AJ, Nice views with the 'invisible' grills. Hee.. By the way, are the invisible grills fixed? 'Fixed' as in cannot open them like normal grills by sliding them to 1 side. I thought of doing it previously but the pics from the site seems to suggest that they are 'fixed'. Hence, I didnt go for it.

Hi dsman, Thanks. We loved them too. I was around balastier few weeks ago and pop by my tile shop to re-look at some of my tiles. Noticed that my kitchen wall tiles are out of stock that time. Hee.. think its quite a popular choice.

Hihi Newnyew, Yah, so far still ok. Think our reno finishing soon. Hee.. how's your side? Everything done up?

Good Morning Beany, Sorry, I missed this message earlier. Yes, electrical work, carpentry, painting all done. They polished the marble yesterday. I popped by after work and they still polishing. We thought of waiting for them to finish. Who knows they polish until 11pm still not yet done. We left around 11.30pm last night... so sleepy now. The condition of my marble is not that good. Alot of staining as its 3rd hand already. And the 2nd owner is an Indian family, guess they might have stained some area with the spices etc as the dining area is quite badly stained. We had converted the dining into a bedroom, so still not that bad. Hee.. Hopefully the stains wouldn't look too obvious after placing the furnitures. Hee.. We're left with the retifications that is scheduled on this coming friday. My contractor said he had arranged for all the relevant parties to come already. If everything goes ok, think can handover by next week. Hb had arranged for our applicances (e.g. fridge, tv, washer) to come next week. We signed up for the Mio plan during the recent comex. Hb had also arranged for the connection next week. Hee.. can watch new shows when we moved in. *excited* I hasn't sort out my pics..... will post more later.

Updates on Kitchen Cabinet: Our Kitchen cabinet is almost completed, left with the installation of the hob and oven only. We didnt went for the popular L-shape as I didn't like corners which I think its very hard to reach/use. With that, we decided to go for a straight stretch of cabinet. And for straight stretch, there'll be lesser worktop so planning is slightly more challenging. And we made the worktop planning even more challenging with our 80cm single bowl kitchen sink purchase. Hee.. Our initial concept/plan was to do a designer 'frame-up' kitchen cabinet using different colour laminates (black/white, where the black laminates are used for the frame and white for the inside). However, we later realised that there is alot of issues trying to achieve this 'frame-up' effects. E.g. We need to go for white solid top inorder to achieve the clean effect on the 'insides', but we thought its going to difficult to maintain a white solid. And inorder for the frame-up to work, the top cabinet need to have the same depth as the bottom ones. In the end, we gave up on this concept. Decided to go for a simple kitchen look. Hee.. The next headache was to decide on the colour of laminates. We picked several laminates from the catalog and went to the factory to get bigger sample. From there, we realised that some of the designs that look pretty nice in the catalog, actually look pretty messy and complex on the bigger piece. Hence, we didnt went for any 'special' designs for the laminate. Keeping to the simple concept, we went for simple colour tone kind. We browsed through alot of kitchen pics and noticed that most of the designers' kitchen uses white glossy laminates. Very nice and sleek. We liked them very much and wanted to go for white laminates. But the maintenance part of white laminates is a big concern to us as our motto is easy maintenance. Having that in mind, we decided to skip it. And between glossy and matt, we think glossy is really nice. The reflective surface does seems to make the cabinet look sleeker. But we thought the glossy laminates need slightly more tender-loving-care during cleaning as its quite prone to scratch (when we tries on the small samples). Hence, we decided on matt ones to play safe. Hee.. Here's the pics of our simple kitchen cabinets.. The installer trying to assemble the bottom cabinets. Top cabinets have been installed and the holes for the sink and hob are being cut out from the top. The cross-section of the wood for the worktop. (sorry for the dark pic as its near evening when I popped by) The pipings around the sink area that will be boxed up by the cabinet.

Hee.. yah yah.. We went back yesterday evening to clean up the place. Now much cleaner. Hee.. think can handover soon after polishing next week. Hee.. *excited*

Hi dsman, I think that there are several people who used black clear glass for the tv console. Forkie's console seems to be having black clear glass cause it seems slightly visible from the picture. But need to confirm with him. Mirrors definitely look sleeker. You might want to consider the mechanism that luckable use for her console instead of flap-out if you want mirror (see earlier page of my blog).

Updates on Carpentry: Our carpentry is almost 95% completed, just left with some cleaning and installation of applicances. We are quite glad that all of the carpentry turn out well. Hee.. We are waiting for the installation to be done before posting their pics. Earlier we were quite concerned for our carpentry because during the carpentry discussion, we had to make several last min changes to our own drawings/thinkings. Hence, we are worried that they will not turn out well. The reason for those last min changes was, when we drew on our own, we didnt consider the wood thickness, frame, hinges, knobs etc.. So when we discuss with the carpenter, he brought up several issues which had never crossed our minds. To be honest, we were kinda shocked. Luckily the carpenter was able to give us some good suggestions, esp. for our kitchen cabinet and Tv console. For our kitchen cabinet: We divided the doors of the bottom cabinets into different widths as we are trying to keep at least 60cm btw the sink & hob. The carpenter highlighted to us that the cabinet might look very untidy if all the doors are of different sizes. So he checked with us on our main 'criteria' for our kitchen cabinet (ie. minimum 60cm btw sink and hob). Afterwhich, he re-calculated the measurement and proposed another set of dimension to us which can met our criteria as well as distribute the doors width more evenly. So we took his suggestion and the cabinet turned out quite nice. Our TV console was our biggest fear after the confirmation of the carpentry design. We wanted black mirror initially for the whole flap-down. But its only during the discussion that we learnt that the remote control would not be able to go through the mirror and for better support, the mirror need to be support with wood behind for flap down, aluminium frame up support for mirror etc.. etc... so last min, we had to change our design, forgo the mirror and change to use black clear glass. The carpenter suggested black clear glass as the remote control can go through it, however it will be 'transparent' looking as its not mirror. We have not read much about black clear glass so quite worried that it will look ugly. But we still went for it as we didnt want to flap down the doors whenever we want to access those gadgets and it might be quite dangerous to keep the doors 'flap-down' all the time. Our console had been installed already and luckily, it looked quite ok. Phew!! On the whole, the workmanship is quite ok. The quality of the wood look pretty ok. hee.. but we aren't expert with wood, just know that we don't want to see any chipboard for the carpentry as our previous coffee table from ikea that was made of chipwood, grew circlesss of mold underneath the table. Speaking of it (those scary circles) still make my hair stands... Back to the carpentry, most of the holes are also drilled correctly except for 1 hinges at the kitchen cabinet which was rectified already. Here's the pics~ These are the 'parts' for my carpentry in the mbr. My kitchen cabinet. Hee.. just a section of it. The others 'parts' wrapped in plastic during the delivery. These are the feature walls for my tv console. Close-up of the wood for the feature wall.

Hihi Tuababy, My pole system is from ceiling to floor, so it doesn't matter whether the back is real wall/ false partition. Hee.. Actually, doing a real wardrobe is more useful than pole system cause the wood panels can give support from the sides but the poles cant. For us, we went for pole system mainly cause its next to our bathroom so we had concerns for moisture and moldings for wood + we can recycle some of our old poles. hee.. Bronze tinted mirror for the sliding door... sounds interesting. Any handles? Post more pics of it in your blog.

Updates on Main door: During the installation, my main door knocked into the water pipes and caused a slight leakage. Hence, we were looking around for a stopper kinda thing to prevent it. However, the distance between the main door and the wall behind is around 6-7inches, so we are not sure if there is such a 'long' stopper. On our contractor side, he had helped us to install a small metal thing that will prevert the door from swinging backwards. Kinda of interesting but I thought we might need a stronger one incase anyone doesn't know and forcefully push the door backward. Here's the pics~ The main door can open 90 degree angle before touching the 'stopper' which will kinda bounce it back gentle if the door happened to swing back. Here's my bedroom doors dismantled and placed in the bedrooms, waiting for the rectifications. The 'doorless' bedrooms again... hee..

Hi Tuababy, Thanks. I saw yours. Also quite big, around 10fts. My old one is only 5fts where half were taken up by 4 drawers and top shelving obstructed by a beam on top. Think yours is very good already. By the way, I cant make out what is the door for ur wiw on your pic. Is it a sliding glass door? Mine look spacious cause all hanging bars.

Good Morning Trev, Below is the one for my tiling. You might want to check your permit if there is anything similar. Don't sigh. Cheer up!! 1. Replacement of existing floor finishes with (a) HOMOGENEOUS, (b) HOMOGENEOUS, © HOMOGENEOUS and (d) HOMOGENEOUS floor finishes at (a) COMMON BATHROOM CUM TOILET, (b) KITCHEN, © MASTER BATHROOM CUM TOILET and (d) PRIVATE BALCONY. a. Maximum thickness including the tiles and screed must not exceed 50mm. b. To use the prepack mortar/waterproof screed and waterproofing membrane for wet areas such as bathroom/toilets before laying of new floor tiles. Membrane should be upturned (up to 150 mm) against the walls, kerbs and pipes.

Hee.. didnt know we can get soft copies from the hdb portal. I just log in to play with it. Thanks for sharing beany! Here's a sample of mine for building and hacking: 7. To create NEW STORE by erecting full height wall with 63mm hollow blocks and entrance (900mm width x 2100mm height) see C-C and marked blue on plan 01/07/2009 SE: (1) All existing reinforced concrete structures are not allowed to be tampered with in the course of the works. (2) The lessee shall be responsible for the proper installation, stability and safety of the proposed works. (3) Only one layer of 63mm hollow blocks is allowed to be erected for the proposed works. (4) For proposed opening of width up to 1200mm, a 150mm deep RC lintol reinforced with 2 no. of 10mm diameter high yield steel bars with R6 - 150 links should be provided above the proposed opening. This can be omitted if the opening abuts the soffit of the existing RC slab/beam.. 8. COMMON TOILET: To reposition entrance by hacking new entrance (900mm width x 2100mm height) see F-F marked red on plan). To seal up existing entrance with 63mm hollow blocks (see E-E marked blue on plan) 01/07/2009 SE: (1) All existing reinforced concrete structures are not allowed to be tampered with in the course of the works. (2) The lessee shall be responsible for the proper installation, stability and safety of the proposed works. (3) Demolition of internal brick/internal block wall is allowable up to the underside of the RC BEAM only. (4) Hacking of block/brick wall should commence from top down. (5) For the removal of block/brick wall, waterproofing membrane must be applied to the affected area. (6) Lessee shall be responsible for any subsequent leakage or seepage which may arise due to the proposed work. (7) For proposed opening of width up to 1200mm, a 150mm deep RC lintol reinforced with 2 no. of 10mm diameter high yield steel bars with R6 - 150 links should be provided above the proposed opening. This can be omitted if the opening abuts the soffit of the existing RC slab/beam. (8) Only one layer of 63mm hollow blocks is allowed to be erected for the proposed works. (9) Any encounter of steel bar during the course of the demolition work, the lessee is not allowed to proceed with the renovation work and should immediately inform the Branch Office for advice..

Hi Elane1311, I also think that if you customise your tv console to fit your subwoofer, it will look weird if you intend to change the sound system later. And personally, I think the design look weird to see the subwoofer sticking out of the middle of the tv console. My personally preference la.. For me, I think if really no choice, I will still go for the original plan and then maybe placed the subwoofer just infront of the console next to the window. By the way, what is the height of the subwoofer? From your drawing, it seems like that is 2 rows of drawers in your tv console. Do you think you can remove the bottom row to make the subwoofer go under the console? Or if it possible to mount the console slightly higher to fit the subwoofer underneath? Another option to explore will be to hide your subwoofer next to your sofa (near the window). But will have to explore the wiring route.

Hi Trev, Our reno includes both hacking of walls as well as building several walls (hollow block kind). Just to share, before the reno start, my contractor applied the HDB permit indicating all the work that will be executed.. especially for those hacking and building of walls (need to submit drawing). Afterwhich, when the permit is approved, both the contractor and owners will received a stack of papers from HDB indicating every single items that my contractor had applied for and whether they are approved (by post). The reason for the HDB permit is to hold the contractor responsible in the event of any mishap after the reno is completed (e.g. the new wall come down, floor leakage etc). About the constructing of walls, we learnt from several contractors during our id search that wall building is subjected to HDB approval as they are heavy to the building structure. In addition, HDB will also check on the distance from the furthest point to entrance etc. Several Ids suggested that we used glysum board but we didnt want to. Luckily, we managed to get the permit for the walls. By the way, the windows also need permit. We got outsourced our windows and our contractor reminded us to get the window installer to apply for the permit. When we check with the installer, they are awared of the permit stuff. They told us that because of the permit thingy, alot of windows companies are taking the installation more seriously as if the window drops, they will be held liable for it. Do check with your contractors.

Thanks. We thought of just keeping the look simple. Glad that it turns out ok. Yes, the bathroom door is a glass door. But its a clear glass door so not sure if it's matching.