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Hi Serangoon4room, Thanks! Hope to see the pics of ur hse!! Happy Reno!! Cheers!

Hi Starbux, My contractor is Ambrose from Idept Design HP: 97451412, nice guy, he's the boss too. Happy Reno!! Cheers

That I totally agree with u..

nice reno!! cant wait for the final pics!

Hi Banned, U can give SBH a call and ask them direct and see if their explanation and what was told to you by ur contractor is true.... usually SBH will be very willing to check and provide u with a solution... Cheers!!

Hi hyacinth266, This was an item in my reno quote and for this item my contractor/ID charges $200 .... a price which I feel is reasonable and also it keeps our minds at peace... From what I know, the process to getting it done is like this - the contractor's electrician ie a licensed 3rd party will do up all the major electrical works of ur house including the major Circuit Breaker box, completes all lighting installation, all electrical points installation and will arrange with SP services a testing date ( date is decided by SP services ) and will inform u. On the day of testing, both SP services and ur contractor's electrical co's certified engineer will be present and if the testing fails or if SP services measures using equipment and find something that is not right or something that is not supposed to be installed the way it is or if there is any earth leaks, they will cancel the test and will inform ur contractor to look into the area of concern....and after which ur contractor is suppose to do the rectification and apply for another testing date... I realised that not many pple get this testing done... infact when we were sourcing for our reno ID/contractor out of the 10 ID firms that we went to, only Idept Design and The Interior place quote this additional item... Personally, I felt that this is something very important as it concerns electrical safety especially so if the whole house electricals were re-wired and the major DB box changed... "Touch Wood" if in the event that some short circuit occurs which results in a major incident, most pple will point a finger at the electrical works and most authorities will probably wants some certification to be presented during the investigation... SO.. spending the $200 to have a peace of mind especially when we are unfamilar with electrical works ... I think is a good worthy cost item...

Hi January, Saying Hi to u ... and welcome to RT... anyway ... big mirrors will create the classy look ...while smaller mirrors although arty-farty ... will not be as classy ... go stand for a good 30mins infront of the place that is intended for the mirrors and then imagine a big mirror and a small one.... and let ur heart do the talking...

Thanks January!! Hee hee u mean photos so surreal eh?? Yes, we wanted a warm, cosy and homely feel... and we loved earthy colours... Making the room appear more spacious was one of the reason y we put the mirrors there... the other reasons are for FS to signify abundance of food that is placed on the dining table and also for decoration purpose cos we thought the wall looks rather plain if we were to leave it as a wall.. For the Maintenance part, not much maintenance I would say ... din see much finger prints but just a bit of dust ... so far after moving in for almost 3mths, I have only cleaned it twice each time abt 1mth + apart... and the secret easy way to cleaning mirrors to achieve a sparkling clean mirror - use newspapers!! first wipe the mirror with a damp cloth and then squash newspaper together to a small baton roll and use a bit of force and clean the wet portion off .. whole piece of wall took me only 1/2 hr .... very effective way ...and u can use the same method to clean glass windows, kitchen back splash too... Newspapers is recommended becos the ink contains a certain kind of chemical substance that effectively cleans...

Thanks Wenx!! Middle Curtains from malaysia did our hse curtains... their website is here middle curtain U can contact Ms Janice Leong or Grace, number is at the website... Just to share... We are so far quite happy with the service rendered, curtains quality, installation work done and most importantly the price.... so its a real thumbs up for them.... infact RT also has a few forumer's hse done by them and their review is not bad too... We initially thought that getting our curtains done in malaysia will be quite troublesome and we were doubtful abt their workmanship and quality but we were pleasantly surprised. W gave Janice a call and she asked us to forward her our floor plan and she quoted us an initial price which we feel is about 60% cheaper than what we will get if we get our curtains done by our local curtains shops.. then arranged for a meetup at our place and Grace will bring in luggage bags the materials for us to choose..... (almost the same way as the famous Mr Chew) ... at that time we had our hse already painted minus the furniture.. so when Grace came, she actually recommended colours and types of materials that matches our painted walls and overall theme of our hse.. we were again surprised that the materials that she recommended are not the cheapo curtains but of a certain quality and grade ... and after confirming all curtains for the whole hse, the agreed price was even lower than what was initially quoted... paid some deposit and an installation date was also fixed which is abt 1week later... and what u see is the end product... which we were extremely happy with lor here's what we did: Living hall one 95% black out full length curtains from beam to floor ( wonder y Grace claim 95% black out ?? cos when I draw them its close to 100% ) and a day curtain 2 Bedrooms 95% black out curtains full length curtains from beam to floor MBR 95% blackout curtain with a day curtain Dinning hall roller blinds (Living hall curtain material we added money for a different material with a classy look) and this costs us abt RM3600 nett btw they charges in RM and will request that u pay them in RM lor... the best thing is they don't charge u extra for transportation or customs fee... Anyway.. u can try contacting them... and all the best to ur hse reno

Hi Nandemoii Thanks for the compliments!! We did not do much designing cos initially we thought that a simple theme will be good for us and we set our budget at something arnd 45K-ish ... actually most of the ID firms that we approach did not recommend to us much design as they all claim to be working in my budget range... only my Contractor and the ID The Interior Place suggested something different based mostly on my floor area ... and Yes, my Contractor suggested and designed much of the stuff and layout that u've seen in my pics - 1) the placement of the show cabinet at the foyer to create privacy ie pple at the door cannot really see those at home 2) the different tiles at walkway from the main entrance to our bedrooms which also separates the living and dinning hall.. someting which we thought is a fresh idea... 3) the walk in wardrobe in our master bedroom ...this one we absolutely loved .... my contractor was the only one who dared to suggest a WIW as he says our MBR space is big and y not make full use of it.... 4) repositioning of the common toilet entrance door way, MBR entrance door way... anyway .. PM sent ...

Yes edenstrauss, there is a staircase and a lift that serves my flat and neighbour's flat and its just next to our hse..

just to share.... my FSM visited us again to see how we are doing after everything has been settled in .... so I took the opportunity to ask abt the mirror at my main entrance of my door way and also asked him y some FSM says the way this is placed is no good as it blocks and reflect the flow of qi and... He tells me that ... this is because of the facing of our hse, our main door is a 白虎门 and because if we stand facing the main door from inside, the way the qi flows will be on the left hand side ...and by placing the half mirror there, the qi and wealth will flow in even more easily ... he then tells me if our walkway is on the right side like in our neighbour's hse directly opposite (ours is a door to door facing kind hdb flat), then this will be a big no no... also he has adviced us to put the statues of FU LU SHOU at the mirror ... this... he says is to create harmony, wealth and longevity ... Not too sure how true this is lah ... but since we trusted our FSM... we felt at ease and peace when we hear his explanation.. probably its also partly due to human's nature lah... when we hear something we like to hear... we will feel more comfortable.. hee hee

hmmm ....if u look at most of the hdb flats almost every room will also have a beam on top of the room walls... our masterbed rm bed's headboard being quite thick is put against one side of the wall with a big beam ontop see the pic below.. Also, because we got a false ceiling to do a cove light but the false ceiling was'nt far out enough, the edge actually "chopped off" at our legs .... What my FS master advised us to do eventually is ... get 3 "Hu Lu", 2 to hang at the side of the wall with the beam on top and 1 to be placed in the cove light area hidden and also make sure that my wife does not sleep near to the window side else her health will be affected..... also he explained that the beam will cause headaches and the false ceiling edge will cause our legs to be very "suan" tired ...

welcome... looking forward to ur reno pics!!

Whar bro u into macro ah? think its a good lens...I read that the pentax 100mm macro lens got a thin DOF ... and is sharp if u use it for non macro shots...