january

great thread gakuseisean. not all of us can afford things by B&B Italia but we can certainly take inspiration from them. great link. the zalf collection of living rooms is exactly what I am going for. I dig the lights too.

you can paint it to cover the wood grain.

my heart bleeds a little when i see pictures of renotalkers hacking away their beautiful terrazzo flooring, only to replace them with bland white tiles!

reisende - i did consider building a bed on the way window but later changed my mind since my window is west facing and it's going to be HOT. Plus I don't think I will gain that much storage space underneath the custom bed... it's definitely not enough to store luggage. I think i'm gonna build storage cabinets on the bay window... I was initially quite keen to transform the bay window in the dining room into a seatee. My neighbour did the same but it didn't turn out well... I might just take up the parquet idea. Or perhaps mosaic? erwin123 - thank you for the link. it's certainly helpful. JeanL - I'm glad the URA decided to change to regulations regarding bay windows. New developments are gonna be so much more spacious w/o bay windows, and w/o that annoying housing shelter in the apartment as well! I feel bad that I have to let my maid sleep in that room... she's been with us for so long she deserves better.

Went to Space recently and the sales lady gave me a tonne of catalogues! Thought it's pretty cool of her...

Wow. In that case the replicas would be in much worse condition.

I say save some money, give the floor and nice polish and go for a modern vintage look. A black and white theme probably wouldn't work well with that kind of flooring. Browns, creams and taupes would probably work quite well. If you keep the lines of your furniture clean I think you can achieve that modern look.

saw some at the window of Laura Ashley at Great World City. Look them up!

They're both on level 3. Also check out Molecule (orchard central, great world city), and also LifeStorey (great world city). And Space Furniture at Millennia Walk.

in that case I'd recommend Proof Living and XZQT at Ion Orchard, and BoConcept at Paragon.

I've seen that video before. I'm looking for a clei system for my room but I haven't managed to find a local dealer. I know molecule at Orchard Central has those coffee tables which turn into dining tables, and also a console table that flips out to become a dining table. They don't come cheap.

Not sure if u still need this, but I saw a lime green Swan chair replica at Mode Studio at Kaki Bukit. RP was $599.

The better mall is the one you will buy most of your furniture from. If you're looking for good deals you can try industrial areas like Kallang Way (Xclusive), Upper Paya Lebar (Plush, Sense and many others) and Kaki Bukit (Enterprise One Building)... Hope that helps.

the bathroom is the worst place to store perfumes and cosmetics... because of the high humidity and temperature it would make your perfumes/cosmetics degrade even faster. A cool dark and dry area would be the best... like your wardrobe. if you're super particular you can even store perfumes in the fridge.

can you ask your contractor to hack part of the wall and install some kind of casing/pipe to hold the wires in place? later he patched up the wall so once the tv and tv console it's up it just looks like a normal wall... that's what mine did...

remove window grilles, install roller or roman blinds fresh coat of white paint remove cornices (optional) grey carpet on the floor some black and white furniture get some modern lights.

Just to make it clear, I have no qualms about proper bay windows, i.e those that protrude out of the structure like this. Calling those slabs of concrete that eat into the floor space "bay windows" is a bit dishonest, but what can I do? I have bay windows in every room... and that gives me limited flexibility on how I can arrange the furniture in the room. More like, I can't even buy furniture because it wouldn't fit... I'd probably have to customise a bed and some cabinets in the lower fixed panel part of the window... probably like Umaisarah. @hammad: could you take a picture of your cousin's place and show it to me? That sounds like a really cool idea.

Keep in mind that you would want to have the sink close to the cooker... you don't want to be walking around with heavy pots. Open concept kitchen is great if you entertain often. It's good for people to prep food or cook together. If you cook most of your dishes in the oven, I say go ahead and have an open kitchen. If you're Chinese and stir fry your food all the time, I'd say a closed kitchen is way more practical. Also, I'd advise against the open shelves... anything you put there that is used only occasionally would be very dusty. hope it helps!

Hello all I had solar film (V-kool) installed in my living room maybe about 5 years back... and I'm sad to say that it hardly made any difference and the living room is still as hot as ever. My windows are pretty massive so I thought it would reduce the heat significantly, but no. I think the money can be put to better use... I'd advise everyone not to install solar film in their homes.

I hate "bay windows". I use quotes because proper bay windows are supposed to protrude out of the structure, and is meant to increase usable space in a room without taking up floor space. In Singapore, our "bay windows" are *gasp* inside the apartment! They take up valuable floor space in our already space-challenged apartment. They are part of the structure; so you can't hack them away or convert them into storage space. They completely useless in space challenged Singapore. Rant aside, I would like to ask the members of renotalk, what have you done to your bay windows to turn them into usable living space? In my case one of them would be converted into seating in the dining area, but the others just seem to be absolutely useless.

Dr Anarchy and LinDa Would you mind sharing your experiences on engaging ID consultants? I'll be moving to a new condo so I don't need major renovations since I don't really need to hack any walls, do up false ceilings, or construct built-in cabinets. So essentially the designer would plan the layout of the place and go shopping for furniture with me?

Hello everyone Thought I'd share my two cents on fuse concepts. I engaged Dan to redo the living room, dining room and kitchen. I find his design suggestions to be bold and beautiful. He certainly has a good eye for colour. It's been two, maybe three years and I'm still loving every bit of the design. However Dan has an artistic temperament and we have exchanged harsh words on occasion on certain disagreements. I find their workmanship to be quite good and I think they generally use quality materials. I did however, have a similar experience about the paint chipping off when I peeled some scotch tape off the wall (and the tape has been on the wall for maybe 5 minutes). I think Dan is a great designer... just be a bit more patient with him to ensure a pleasant reno experience.

Hello everyone I'm asking this out of curiosity. Why don't members like Mace or Ivy just publish their list of Fengshui masters on this thread instead of PM-ing everyone individually?