beany0811

we were @ helping hands last friday - they were having a sale, and there were lots of furniture on display under a set-up tentage. there are stools of varying designs - round/square/rectangular ones....price range starts fm $68 onwards for the stools. nice array

hi jayden, workmanship and quality of materials used/laminates used OK? possible to post some pics of ur place? still have some nagging doubts on certain areas of the design, and so far not able to get a satisfactory response on some of the questions we have posed from them

thanks man, i think i'll stick to glass too saw ur new pics of reno progress, hope it goes well and smooth.... will try to post some pics when reno starts next week (hopefully); let's see how our houses are transformed (we have the same house layout)

is stainless steel or glass better for the backing behind the cooker in the kitchen? could those who have installed either provide some advice? so far, i've heard: stainless steel - prone to scratches and marks glass - prone to dirt and oil seepage how about cleaning and maintenance? thanks!

many shops selling teakwood furniture do customization, you could go and see the designs they have, then ask them to fabricate according to what you like. barang barang, natural living are some of the bigger shops in singapore. u can also take a look @ echoes of the east, widharja, teakland gallery (but dunno bout quality, cos i have not bot fm these shops) i think what ur parents want are those chinese rosewood furniture kind, haha. for teak, most people like to stain it in dark walnut colour for a more contemporary look... hmm, at least, i do. custom-made all the furniture in my house... delivery round mid-end aug

ordered a large wall mirror fm them last weekend - custom-made to 2m; the price for customizing wasn't too high, which we were quite happy; but they were a little sticky on the installation and delivery charges. The mirror on display had a distorted image; the lady assured us she would get the mirror fm singapore, and image would be fine. my mirror will only be delivered 2 months later as the frame has to be imported fm indonesia....hope it will come nice and perfect

the plants give a nice touch to the bathrooms.....makes it look very nice.... congrats to u

fm what i understand, the ID who liases with us comes up with the layout and space planning, conceptualization of the theme, etc. only the 3d drawings are done by their in-house guys. many other firms practice this too, so i guess its a common thing. 2 other firms which we approached initially also told us the same. ur ID will go thru stuff with u, come up with the 3d drawings; if they aren't satisfactory, revise them... i guess @ the end of the day, it all boils down to the design, space planning and workmanship of the place. for us, design and space planning stage has been satisfactory. now we're waiting for the finalization of drawings based on the chosen colours, and some revisions here and there. once that's done....hopefully reno will be smooth, and the end result, great

3d drawings wise..... it is done based on the ID's input and the in-house designer's visualization, so to be fair to ideal design, and all other ID firms out there, could variate from what we have in mind the first round thru... but after sitting down with the ID and going thru the choice of laminates/paint colours/concept, it should be more in line with what we want (cbearai, hope its the case for you, and for us!)

hi cbearai, where is ur place? is it a 4 or 5 roomer? we'll be meeting up our id later... hope can iron out and make changes to some details on the house design, then get the revised drawings... and hope things can really go smoothly. *cross fingers* hope ur revised 3d drawings will turn out great too.... after all, all of us here r just hoping for our new places to turn out nice and to our liking after having placed our faith (& financials) with ideal design

yup, we have chosen our tiles Picked some which are higher than the limit set in the quotation, so waiting for the cost of the revised tiling. we chose ours from balestier. how about you? have u signed up with ideal design studio? who is ur id? has he brought u light shopping? haha. would be good if we could all share our experiences here

what kind of furniture r u looking for? modern? wooden? country?

we're now waiting for the 3D drawings from ideal design. hoping that it will turn out nice, and be able to bring out the flavour of the theme we want. we did go to the lights n toilet accessories shop which our id brought us to, but didn't buy anything, as we found the prices too high for comfort. we had gone looking around before, and the lights which were sold @ that shop could go up to 3 or 4 times tt of what we saw in other shops. sourced for the same items elsewhere, and got them for much more reasonable pricing.

hi shuseido, we didn't sign them because there were 'stronger contenders' for the 'tender' the person who attended to us tried to map the quotation to our budget. unfortunately, the materials used wasn't really appealing to us. E.g. gypsum boards were used instead of plywood for most feature walls. if we insisted on using plywood, the pricing would've been pretty similar to other IDs we've met with better design elements. of course, the ID actually did tell us outright that cheaper materials will be used on those less important components so as to keep our cost low. So a plus point to them for their honesty.

hi happy, thanks for raising the question on my behalf. Dark corners: For kitchen, we're also at the same time discussing with our designer to play around with the material of one of the walls, e.g. glass, so that at least some light from the living room's windows can reach the dark corner of the kitchen during the day. but the design isn't perfect because the opened main entrance door will block the path of the light. For our walk-in-waredrobe area, no windows near it that can allow sunlight in. But we'll be installing 2 brighter downlights to luminate the place Beams: Man... I hate those beams... Wanted to hack walls here and there for better space planning but the beams spoil the designs... A question regarding the beams. Is it a taboo to sit under a beam at dining area or have a beam run across the dining table? We have a 2m dining table, so the position where we place the dining table is limited. Thanks for all the help rendered cheers, beany

we considered using them too, as they were recommended by the housing agent. got a quotation fm them, but in the end, din sign up with them. OK vibes, but not much design element; pricing was OK, but electrical works veered towards the high side.

hi sohck, i can understand your pain on the beams. we have the same problem our layout is 90% similar to yours. except that our's is a 5rm point block in Bishan. so our living and dining area is slightly longer than yours. the layout the designer gave us is very appealing, but the beams spoil it. so we're very upset about it.

hi happy, thanks for suggestion. unfortunately, i think false ceiling quite unlikely for our kitchen in this sense as it may reduce the cabinets space that we're intending to build around the beams area i think we may also have a couple of dark corners in the house no matter how we play around with the layout

i see. thank you for your reply my place has too many beams around, restricting the designer's layout ideas the affected areas are mainly the proposed kitchen, entrance walkway and dining area. beams will be hanging above the stove, dining table and a beam hanging horizontally across the walkway... do you have any suggestions over beams problems? thanks again

Hi GPP, please forgive my ignorance. is there any way which i identify as the area that need fire? we're intending to change the layout of our kitchen with hackings and rebuilding of walls with hollow blocks and glass panels. thank you very much

hello, sohck, our pt block resale @ bishan has almost the same layout as yours. having a headache on how to do up the place, esp the long and narrow kitchen - wanna get rid of the narrow space, but limited by the beams around the house. the previous owners also hacked down the storeroom our ID came up with a layout tt we really liked, but realised it could be flawed cos of all the beams running around the house. could you pm me ur ID's proposed diagrams, so we could maybe have some ideas on how to work with the space in the house, esp with those beams? thanks!

I've been sourcing for wood furniture too, and have enquired with some shops in Singapore and Malaysia. Both of them have their factories in Indonesia, and the furniture is shipped from Indonesia. Have just placed my orders with a shop in Malaysia, KL. The couple who runs it used to have a showroom in Singapore, but they have since relocated to KL. Compared the prices, and it is cheaper than those which we have seen in Singapore. Saw some pieces of furniture they have too, and seems to be of good quality. It's so far been a good experience - went down to their place in KL as we happened to be there, agreed on the items, and they have been emailing us drawings of the furniture and dimensions. Work will only commence when we have agreed on dimensions and design; and the stock will ship from their factory in Indonesia to our doorstep in Singapore.

oh okok thanks thanks for the explanation

Hi, can anyone enlighten me what '廁所裡不可以當門立鏡' means? very much appreciated