ahdon

I used Hanstone quartz when I renovated my place in 2010. Price ranged from 150 - 220 / sq ft depending on the width of the quartz (60mm or 90mm). Including 40mm front facing and 50mm backsplash. My total cost was about 5k, including labour for cutting out holes of hob & sink

Hi, I have two pieces of quartz cut outs to sell. These cut outs were from my hob & sink on my counter top. The sizes are about as follows: - 43cm x 72cm ($50) - 44 x 93cm. ($75) They have smoothened out round edges, however the smaller piece have a chip at one of the edges. The pieces are off-white and have a polished surface. The pieces would be suitable for a small countertop/table top. For photos of the cut outs, please feel free to email me at tyjong82@gmail.com. Prices open for nego if taking both pieces. Thanks!

why use plaster over silicon?

Thanks to the replies on who should silicon the electrical trunking. The main contractor has offered to do it for us. Think all should be good. Also, had been knocking on all the floor and wall tiles to make sure that there are no hollow tiles. Really a back breaking task but something that needs to be done. After the acid wash of the house, I noticed water marks along the grout lines of the kitchen floor. I think water is seeping out. Cos after 2 days from the washing, the grout lines are still wet, not the dripping wet kind, but wet enough to be visible. Anyone knows what is wrong here or is it a normal thing after the acid wash?

We also considered the pros and cons of storage vs instant heater. Then we got an rain shower, so instant heater would not be good. Ended up with gas heater. Supposed to be save $$ compared to instant heater but can deliver the water flow to sustain a rain shower. =)

Thanks for clarifying and that's right, I meant the gaps between trunking and wall. The walls are not straight.

Yes! the gaps between the trunking and the wall.

Something to ask you guys. The situation is that we have got a third party other than our contractor to paint our house. The electrical trunkings are all done and it's time for painting. So who is responsible for applying silicon to the electrical trunking? a) the electrician who is under our main contractor (basically the contractor), or b) the painter whom we sub-contracted to paint the flat (these guys are not under the main contractor) Please share your experience, particular if you have seperate contractors for painting and/or eletrical works. Thanks!!!

Hi guys, something that's bothering me and would like to get some advice on this. The situation is that we have got a third party other than our contractor to paint our house. The electrical trunkings are all done and it's time for painting, but the silicon to the electrical trunkings are not done yet. So who is responsible for applying silicon to the electrical trunking? a) the electrician who is under our main contractor (basically the contractor), or b) the painter whom we sub-contracted to paint the flat (these guys are not under the main contractor) Please share your experience, particular if you have seperate contractors for painting and/or eletrical works. Thanks!!!

Something to ask you guys. The situation is that we have got a third party other than our contractor to paint our house. The electrical trunkings are all done and it's time for painting. So who is responsible for applying silicon to the electrical trunking? a) the electrician who is under our main contractor (basically the contractor), or b) the painter whom we sub-contracted to paint the flat (these guys are not under the main contractor) Please share your experience, particular if you have seperate contractors for painting and/or eletrical works. Thanks!!!

Day 33 of Renovation - 30 October 2010 Is it me, or do some of you guys feel that as the days goes by, the renovation gets slower?? We've been told that the renovation will be done end of November. Maybe I'm just too eager, can't wait to see final product that's why I think the time passes slower. Anyways, here are some updated pics! Not much done, but we have had the walls re-plastered. The walls are soooo smooth now! We had deliberated over it for about 1 month, whether we want to plaster the house..cos there's ALOT of walls, and ceiling. It's usually a case of 'aiyah..do so nice already, might as well do all the way' vs 'huh...exceed budget liao wor..'. Decisions, decisions. Oh yar, the City Gas people came and installed the gas heater! And it's battery operated too! Which also means that we've gotta make sure there are spare batteries around the house. Imagine, shower halfway no hot water. Anyone bought the City Gas gas heater?? How is it so far? the only problem we may be having with it is the crazy amount of pipes running around. They are doing the piping this week..so should be interesting! My lime-green MBR Toilet. Wanted the whole toilet green..but think over kill =P Super smooth plastered wall. Really really smooth!! More walls to be plastered. The poor poor plasterer. Gas pipe in kitchen The carpentry guy taking measurements.

Day 26 of renovation Current status of the kitchen View from living room: View from kitchen: View from kitchen: service balcony

oh yes, another issue that the hubby brought up was that he thought that we should maintain a 1.2m distance between each countertops so that there was enough space for two people to walk. We were at Ikea looking at their display sets, and kept measuring the space on the floor. haha. I think people were looking at us weird cos we weren't measuring the furniture but measuring floorspace! A few things we really considered when designing the kitchen was: 1) walking space - 1.2m walking space between countertops. 2) location of the fridge - we didn't want to fix a space for the fridge, and then make allowances for future change of fridges, so we placed it at one end of the kitchen 3) countertop space - I love cooking and baking, so I wanted alot of countertop space. Kitchen top cabinets only on one side of the wall, the rest of it was open countertop space. =D 4) natural light - natural light = free light! thanks to an ID who gave us the idea of breaking a hole in the wall and putting a glass panel in. that way, the whole kitchen brightened up. also allows you to see out into the living room to see what's going on. 5) open concept kitchen - more light, more wind passing through cos of additional windows. no walls to prevent everyone from hearing each other, and can talk. 6) storage space - our flat doesn't have any store room, so storage space was important. More cupboards without overcrowding. 7) tall unit vs none - i know a tall unit is very popular at present, to put in a built in oven and microwave. as mentioned, I really preferred countertop space, and had a built in oven beneath the stove, rather than in a tall unit. the microwave will be placed in a corner of the countertop, away from other appliances. speaking of appliances, I think we've got WAY too much appliances, but they've got their uses! haha. My kitchen is my territory and I gotta make sure that how it's being designed works for me. There were countless "discussions" with the hubby before we finally settled on this concept, and before he was convinced that an open concept kitchen was fine, and the hood should do the job. =P Btw, we bought the following from Bellari: Hob - Gourmet Gas Hob (love the cast iron rings!) Hood - Fabio (the glass makes ease of cleaning) And...here's the final concept. Kitchen will have black floor tiles, white wall tiles and vermillion laminates for bottom cabinets. Hob and Hood will be placed against a wall, instead of on the "island", fridge will be placed at one end of the kitchen, WM & Laundry sink will be placed at other end, near the window. So improve on the smoke & oil problem, apart from having the hood, we will have a 3-panel sliding door between the living room & dining room. Kitchen & Dining Overview Kitchen View Laundry, WM, Countertop "Island" View

Burning weekends even though we had 6 months of time to slowly take our time to look for things, we basically burnt our weekends going to expos, and especially Ikea to get ideas. And I think it was a good thing we don't own a car, so we couldn't just buy things on impulse! It actually made us go home and think really hard if we really wanted something. and finally, today we have finished buying all of our appliances over a period of time! we bought the following: 1) Fridge - Panasonic NRBY601X55G (513L) 2) Washing Machine - Hitachi SF95KJS (9.5kg) 3) Microwave / Grill - Panasonic NN-GF569M 4) Built in Oven - Brandt FE811XS1 5) TV - Panasonic Viera Plasma TH-P42X20S Not only burn weekend now, also burn a very big hole in pocket. haha. =P Okay, I've been jumping all over the place with my posts. To get back on track, let's go back to the design of our place. Firstly the kitchen. This was the initial concept we had for our kitchen. The drawings are all done using Google Sketchup. My skills still very amateurish, so do excuse me. haha =) From inside kitchen view From outside kitchen view I had wanted to use the 'island' as my cooking area, where my friends can sit around and I can cook and talk to them. Hubby was more worried about how the oil and smoke was gonna drift out as I wanted a open concept kitchen aka no doors for kitchen and dining. The glass on the countertop was a really desperate attempt at trying to keep the smoke and oil out. And hubby wasn't too keen either cos food and oil will get trapped in the oil grooves. Funny eh? And I thought women are meant to be fussier about cleaniness Spoke to one of the IDs, and he suggested getting a air cushion. -_-"" For those who don't know, an air cushion is the kind where you go NTUC or some shopping centre and when you step past the door and there's a blast of wind blowing from above. That's an air cushion. Abit kua zhang to install air cushion in HDB flat right....? We actually were quite bothered about the whole cooking on the 'island' bit for a few months before we finally changed the design. Have to compromise lah. The cost of an island hood was an issue also (1.5k!!). We had heard that Bellari, a shop in Jalan Besar, could solve a problem of allowing the customer to buy a wall-mounted hood, and then fix an aluminium panel behind to cover the wiring, and viola, you get a cheap island hood! We went down to have a chat, and found out that they had stopped doing it as it was not profitable for them. It was a great idea, and I wished they could do it, but also understand where they were coming from too. Oh wells. Thanks to another ID, we ended up changing the location of the stove and oven, and well, actually changing a fair bit of the design.

1st day of demolition: living room view. so much rubbish!! kitchen & dining BDRM 2

okay, it's been a while since I last update. sorry! renovation works have started, and travelling from west to east was not easy. uber tired. and by the time we view our flat, it's always almost in the dark, if not still using the old lights from the previous owner. really really happy to see the whole flat taking shape! =) here are some photos of the earlier renovation works: hacking of a small wall to insert a window and allow more light into the kitchen: hacking of wall between MBR and BDRM 2 (for WIW) + small window for MBR toilet the door frame on the left will be hacked away, doors for BDRM 2 + 3 will be flushed in line.

Sourcing of Materials This was the most tedious process. We started off knowing nothing, and ended up knowing WAY too many things. We attended so many Expos that some of the suppliers actually recognised us. One of the supplier was also kind enough to recommend us to another supplier as his friends and get a really decent discount. Talk about awesome service! =P We checked out expos for lifestyle furnishing, expos for electrical appliances, expos for air conditioning units. Countertops: Solid Surface / Granite / Quartz We chose quartz because it was partially manmade, and still had stone qualities to it. Manmade meant that it could be strengthened, durable, made less porous (won't be stained so easily) and it was scratch resistant. Having stone qualities also meant that, like granite, it could be chipped off and there would be joint lines. Wood Furniture: Teak / Mahogany / Hevea / Nyatoh / Rosewood Teak, Mahogany, Rosewood and Nyatoh we've heard before. But Hevea? When I saw my dream dining table, that was what the tag said it was made off. According to the salesperson, it belonged to the Maple Tree family, but our research showed that it was the wood from a rubber tree. Apart from that, we didn't get much more information about it. Nyatoh. Good old Nyatoh doors. We also selected this wood for our bed. We bought those beds with hydraulic pumps to lift the plank up and store things underneath it. We chose a bed from Maxcoil, which was highly recommended by a few suppliers. Hubby was a bit fussy about not being able to clean the floor beneath the bed..and actually got a price reduction for not wanting the nyatoh base. Less material used, should be lesser price right? Will include more things that we considered in the next post!

actually that's what we thought when we saw the house, can save money cos the flooring still looked good. In the end..we hacked everything. new house, must new everything mah hehe

with a waiting time of about 6 months (4 mths for HDB and then 2 mths for the seller), we decided to start doing our homework. and alot of homework we did. Weekends were spent at Changi Expo. First time we went, we were clueless about everything. Just talked to the first ID that we were approached by at a furniture/lifestyle living expo. We had a design in mind, but some areas we couldn't work around (i.e., hubby not keen on an open kitchen, and i don't want to have a door to keep the smell/oil from drift out of the kitchen cos i wanted an island hood..etc). So basically we knew what we want, and were hoping for an ID to go with our design and then make improvements on it, and tell us what is feasible and not. We were looking for storage space solutions, practical and modern design, and heaps of natural light. In total, we met up with 6 IDs and 2 contractors (all not going to be named till end of renovation). IDs were sourced by ourselves, with heaps of help from the Renotalk forum, and the 2 contractors were recommended by friends. Of the 6 IDs, 2 were immediate write-offs, 1 never got back to us. 1 ID we were really keen on and he was **** patient with us, meeting us 4-5 times and making amendments. But with each amendments, it became more towards what he wants for us, and not what we want for us, and the price also kept going up ($72k after the 5 amendment!) 1 ID took a while to get back to us (which was fine cos we had the time), but didn't come up with anything that made us go "wow", and nothing constructive. I guess it also didn't help that I couldn't click with her. 1 ID came up with a really good idea, but again, hard to click with the fella. Overall, my opinion of IDs: really have to find those that you can click with. of cos the pricing and design play a part in the selection. sometimes what the IDs design for you looks really gorgeous..but really boils down to what you want, and have to stand firm for it. 3D drawings are only drawings afterall. =P Contractors. By the time we met them, we were so loaded up with information from meeting with IDs, that we knew what we wanted to do, and had more or less finalised the designs. We basically handed them some drawings done on Google Sketchup, and told them what we wanted. At that point in time, it boiled down to prices. We had to break down all the quotations into one standard template. IDs seemed to have a tendency to itemize alot of things, whereas Contractors consolidated a few things together and gave us a lump sum. Both Contractors were kind enough to use our itemised template, and that really gave us an idea of what was costing us, and where we could compromise on in terms of design. 5 quotations. ranging from 36k to 72k. Madness right? We were also budgeting for other items. Our renovation costs did not include accessories and sanitary ware, electrical installation, furnishings, lights..etc. That was to be a separate budget. So we had to make sure that the cost of our renovation & other purchases would not exceed the budget. It also didn't help that we were seeing quotations ranging from 20 - 30k on the forum. So which exactly was the correct price range?? Surprisingly, both Contractors actually gave us similar quotations. A difference of about 1-2k (slightly varying designs). For that, we were slightly assured that we were in the right price range. In the end, we chose the Contractor that we were most comfortable with. I mean, both of them we were just as comfortable, just that we felt that the chosen Contractor could better project manage the entire renovation. =) For people who are going to source for Contractors or IDs, if you've got some spare time, don't be afraid to source for direct suppliers for some of your renovation. It may turn out to be cheaper. However, this is only if your Contractor is willing to help you liase with the supplier during the renovation. We went to the direct supplier for the following items: 1) Walk-in-wardrobe 2) Quartz Kitchen Countertop 3) Air Conditioning System 4 4) Soft closing hinges for doors (Blum system designed for Ikea, we saw the logo on the system!) 5) Soft closing system for drawers (Ikea brand) Both hubby and I had a lot of time (6 months!) to look at suppliers and get pricing and take our time to decide what we really want for our place. It is our first home and we really wanted it to be our dream home, just like everyone here. We took our time to understand what materials we wanted to use (e.g., quartz for durability and scratch resistant, less porous), look through heaps of magazines to see how we can increase storage space. So, soon-to-be new homeowners, do your homework!

@headstomp thanks! I like the layout too! No odd corners, just squares/rectangles. haha =P @kaijia enjoy your journey! it's exciting to keep watching the whole progress day by day. now i can't wait for the end result! hehe

Last bit of photos: BEDROOMS MBR (ensuite toilet on left of photo) BDRM 2 BDRM 3

More photos: Dining Room Kitchen

@yuene thanks!! =) @Banned 4 months to finalise all paperwork with HDB, plus seller wanted to stay extra 2 mths after completion of transaction. we weren't in much of a hurry, so used the extra waiting time to do our research and start sourcing for things. -------------------------------------------- So finally we got the keys on 25 September, and the whole flat was emptied. Had this whole wide, white and spacious feeling to it! Here are some photos: Living Room View 1 with Balcony Living Room View 2 leading to Dining Room

Just like everyone else, floorplan! I bought the floorplan the moment we got the call saying we got the house back in late March 2010. =P No time should be wasted when it comes to planning for our first home! Thanks to the forum, I learned about Google SketchUp and spent 8 hours one Saturday drawing the entire floorplan out on it. but it definitely came to good use! At that time we weren't sure if we wanted to consult an ID or a contractor. We already knew what we wanted for the flat, but don't know if what we wanted was feasible (i.e., HDB allows this?, is it safe to do so..?, where piping must run..etc). It was a steep learning curve but that's what make the entire process so enjoyable. Just keep going back to the drawing board. Next, photos of the flat in its original condition.

Hi JadeShrimp, I am interested in the film as well. can PM me the details? Thanks.