january

If you're doing your reno work now but your area will not get OpenNet until next year, here's what you can do for them so as to preserve the clean look of your house (no external trunking when they finally install fibre!). I got this information from an OpenNet cust service officer.

Aw. There's no need to be frustrated. Decorating for me is a creative outlet so it's always something I enjoy doing, although I understand the pressure that comes with it! I read your tblog... I wish you'd taken more pictures of your place in the daytime. But it does look warm and inviting at night. I think the scariest part about renovating is when you sign up with a new ID/Contractor and after spending all the time, effort and money into the reno, the result isn't quite what you had in mind. I remember the very first ID we hired about 10 years ago. His drawings looked fine on paper but when it built it everything looked so massive, it made the place look very full. So much for an ID! After that I've always paid attention to the dimensions of things... perhaps to the point of micromanaging *guilty* Do you know that until today I still don't know how much the contractor is going to charge for the reno works? I hired a design consultant instead of those id + contractor companies because those companies tend to ask you to build everything. Even the beds. I personally prefer to buy furniture and only build the things which I cannot buy, so the process of deciding which to buy and build has taken quite a while. I'll be getting the final quote today... Let's hope it doesn't give me a heart attack.

I used to walk to Aljunied MRT, took about 10mins. But that figure may not be accurate since I moved 10 years ago...

Hello wind30, it's nice to see an inter terrace blog! Wow, the reno looks fantastic. The new MBR toilet looks almost 3 times the size of the old one... love the his and hers sinks. That picture of the home theatre room looks like a 3D actually. Congrats on your new home!

I see what you mean now. I think you may be able to find some suitable pieces at Manhattan Collection. They're at 116 Lavender St, #01-02. I'm not too sure about this, I think you can ask them to paint the furniture blue. Just bring your pictures along to the shop.

I used to live at Blk 40 too! It's a nice quiet neighbourhood. For workmanship issues you can refer to this thread... But for carpentry generally you should look at the edges... it should be neat. If using laminate there should be ABS trimming for the joints to be neat. Also make sure things are not wobbly. Check that cupboard doors are level... things like that.

Eh. The sales lady at BoConcept insisted that their furniture is made in Denmark. I find that a little hard to believe really...

What do you mean by urban style? Care to share some pictures?

Thanks SamTheMan, I'll add it to the original post.

Hey there... welcome to RT. Congrats on your new place! It looks decently spacious... what's the floor area? I used to live in Sims Drive... love that hawker centre. You can definitely ask your ID to make revisions to the 3D or layout plan of the house... I think 2 - 3 revisions (1 major change in design, 1 to fine tune) seems fair to me. The dining area seems really small compared to the rest of the house! I'm guessing you don't eat in often? Colours looks very warm and inviting... good choice. Anyway, since you're on a tight budget, I think you shouldn't do the TV feature wall + console in the living room. Cuz that will set you back about $5K to $7K, and from the looks of it now the feature wall doesn't do anything much but to conceal the cables and to provide some display space. If you buy a TV console you'll have more flexibility in changing your players, cables etc. Plus the workmanship and finishing of bought furniture is likely to be better than custom carpentry work. If you think the wall at the back might be too bare, you can either wallpaper it, or stick wall decals. This way you have more budget to select better tiles, fittings and furniture for the house. Oh. Remember to ask your ID/contractor if they can show you ex-client's houses so you can inspect their workmanship before you commit! Happy reno... Just some thoughts.

Try Bruno Menzi. If you have deep pockets, Barbara Barry has amaaaazing furniture.

Met up with the main contractor today, and guess what, we spent like 1 hour just trying to decide where the false ceiling is going to be (#$%*&^#$% aircon units!) We don't wanna do too much cuz the existing ceiling is not that high, only 2.75m. I would say this is on the low end for a condo.

Thanks for your comments patsy... you seem to know a lot about reno works! I definitely agree with you, but this evaluation part is not easy. Sometimes you evaluate things to be one way and it turns out to on the contrary. Only an experienced eye would know! Lol. I was just thinking the other day when I bought it, wow this TV console has so many steel rods, very solid! But I see what you mean! Oh well. I'll get by.

Great thread! I know this is a renovation forum and many people do built in furniture, but from experience the finishing of built-in furniture can never be as good as those you buy... (unless your contractor has superb workmanship!) Plus if you move you'll not be able to take them away, and the next owner is likely to hack them off. I prefer to buy furniture and will only use built-in furniture as a last resort due to space constraints. Unfortunately, space constraint is a very real problem in Singapore, especially for developments with bay windows, planter boxes etc. The other thing. As much as plenty of storage space is awesome, you also end up storing a lot of useless rubbish which should be thrown away years ago. During my first reno we asked the contractor to build many many many storage cabinets in the living room. It made the room look really cramped and most of the cabinets ended up quite empty. If you start with a bit first, you can always add more later. Lastly, always always always request to look at the workmanship of your ID/contractor before you commit. We made this mistake when we chose an ID with ambitious design, but didn't have the workmanship to execute the designs well. No amount of rectification could solve that problem.

For me I like to leave some space for "further development", so things may look a bit plain when the family first moves in about a year things will start to fill up nicely. Anyway blank walls in my house never stay blank for long cuz we love buying artwork and putting up photographs. I didn't know the mirror also had a fengshui function... I'm now more inclined to have the mirror just cuz the whole family are big foodies. My grandmother used to do this! I just love how the older generation improvise new uses from common things yeah? But yeah this method needs to be revived!

Thanks for emailing the pictures Webbit. I'm not lucky like you to have 2 bay windows in the MBR, so that option is out for me! Glad it worked out well for you though.

Hippobb, your photos look so unreal, I thought it was 3D renderings at first! Congrats on your reno, I think your place looks really warm and homey. Oh, I'd like to ask about the huge wall of tinted glass in your dining room. I'm assuming that you installed the mirror to make the dining room appear more spacious. Did it achieve the desired effect? I'd also like to know if you are constantly wiping fingerprints off the mirror. My ID suggested the same thing for me and I'm a bit hesitant...

Lucano is at the furniture mall at beach road... level 2 i think? Koda has a lot of wooden tables. The white one i saw was wood with several coats of glossy white paint. metal (not sure if it's chrome or stainless steel) legs. But unfortunately it's got corners so it might not be so good for your little one.

They're lots of white dining tables around... What's your definition of reasonably priced? I saw some at mode studio (kaki bukit) I think Mondi (furniture mall) has them too. Lucano is their sister company and I think they have white tables too. They should be around $800-$2000 depending on size. I remember seeing a white dining table at the Koda warehouse some weeks back. Don't know if someone has bought it already. They're at Defu Lane 4. Furniture is really cheap (under $600) and looks very solid.

One good thing about west facing units....

I bought a Calligaris dining table from Christine at ION as well. I think she's a great salesperson, prompt with emails, gives good information and she seems eager to get a good deal for her customers. The Calligaris range of dining tables is actually very good deal. Their designs are clean and not too trendy, and their furniture is solidly built (at least from what I've seen at the showroom). When my table comes in mid November I'll update with more details.

Thanks March and Nayugi @March: Got the bed from Le Mercier's at Mohammed Sultan Rd. Let's just say that the listed price was a 5 figure sum though I got it for a more bearable price since my ID is their regular customer. Good furniture doesn't come cheap! We definitely went wayy over budget got the bed so we're gonna have to tighten our purse strings for the rest of the furniture/appliances we get. In other news, TV console was delivered last Friday. It's from Lucano (Furniture Mall). Great furniture there, and prompt delivery. I'd highly recommend. There's a bit of problem with one of the closures and some men from Lucano are coming to look at it tomorrow.

you're lucky it's just some plants and not some expensive koi that you killed! my uncle was overenthusiastic with his first koi pond and threw a bunch of fish into the pond before the water was settled (heard it needs about a 2 week settling period...) it was pretty heartbreaking seeing all the dead fish. are you intending to have fish in that water feature? or is it more for air flow?

actually, have you gone to a light shop with your floor plan? the sales guy should be able to tell you where exactly to place the lights.

Shall I bring everyone's attention to this bed? This is actually from Bika, a furniture store in Jakarta. They have really beautiful items and the workmanship is top notch. We were initially going to ship it over to Singapore until we realised that we would have to assemble it ourselves! Judging from my previous experience with an IKEA wardrobe, I'd rather not assemble large pieces of furniture by myself... because what if one of the parts break! Looking for a similar styled bed in Singapore proved to be a challenge. The few that I saw were either too frilly or too raw (like John Erdos). Actually, looking for a nice looking bed in general is a challenge. The furniture shops here all seem to sell sofas... and dining tables, and armchairs, and sofas... (In spite of the above observation, strangely, we bought our sofa from an Indonesian furniture company. We're currently waiting on whether to get more stuff from Indo before shipping it here.) But we finally found a bed. ^what's with the 80s styling?! Okay, the bed looks much better in real life. Ours will have grey suede headrests and white leather (okay metal wrapped in leather) frame. No more modern American styled room... so it's back to the drawing board.