nurikonagano

Hey! Thanks alot for the suggestion! It's been some time since I last check back on the forum. We did something similar, but only hide the part of the pipe at the entrance of the bathroom. For those parts along the wall we left it as it is. Looks like this is the only solution so far.

Need help from the experts here. The tiling of my bathrooms are done. When the aircon guys came down to lay the piping and stuff, they say the only way to run the drainage pipe from the compressor, is to line along the base of the walls in the MBR bathroom as HDB rules doesn't allow hiding the pipes under the tiles. (Btw our compressor is located outside the MBR wall below the window.) Is there anything that can be done to hide these ugly pipes? I've attached a pic of it for reference. As u can see, the pipe came in from the left wall, go along the entrance to the bathroom, then to the right wall. Unsightly isn't it?

After all the tearing down, now it's time to put things up! Putting up the new windows~~~ New bathroom windows installed! We took measurements of floor to ceiling again after all the hacking and realise that the cement below the tiles was around 5cm thick!!! So with the hacking, now our ceiling is 5cm taller. Hahahaha.....Better than nothing. Cos I was quite bothered about the low ceiling we have. Last Sunday night I went down to take a look with a torchlight and saw that they have start with the plastering of the wall. Last but not least, the latest update yesterday when my FH went down to "spot check" They have started laying the marble tiles for the living room! Finally it won't be a house of just bricks and cement. LOL~

After more hacking in the 2nd week and clearing of all the scraps.... MBR view from WIW (wall hacked) Common room 1 from MBR (we hacked down the whole store room) Living room with the delivered cement! Kitchen cabinets taken down, and wall hacked for a more "open kitchen" Common Bathroom wall hacked to re-position the door

Can't believe my last post was in April...so little progress in the last 2 months. End up FH's cousin din do a good job on the 3D drawings, so we make do with the 2D drawings we have (trying to save every cent here!). Haiz...family problems. Anyway, we finally started the hacking of walls and floor on 6th of June! Look at the big heap of thrash torn down on the first day! Wall to be hacked for our WIW It din go well that week cos we had neighbours coming by to complain about the noise level of the drilling and hacking. We haven move in they already so unfriendly... The workers say that there's this Indian lady who came to complain, went into our house (trespassing!!!) and took photos around saying she will use those pics to complain. Hello??? We got permit from HDB to do the hacking~~~ In the end, an officer really came down, and in order to pacify that lady, ask the workers to use one driller instead of 2 to cut down the noise level. OMG! What an idiot. U drag our progress, then the noise will prolong right? In the end we couldn't finish the hacking within the 3 days and had to apply for another permit to continue hacking the next week.

Been 2 weeks since I last update. But there isn't much to update actually. End up my meeting with the ID was postponed till last Tuesday (It almost get postponed to Wednesday again if not that I show blackface to my FH) But FH just told me that his cousin is helping us with the design for free. U can't demand much when things come free rite? And he have another cousin studying design at Raffles, doing internship now, who will help us with the 3D drawings (yeah~ for free again) During the meeting we basically talked about the basic layout thru some sketches, and we printed out some pictures of what we would like to have to show them. Most of the layout stuff settled except for: 1) TV Console - FH just ordered a set of 5.1 home theatre system from his bro's fren (they buy average system otr and modify them to better specs for u) and there's some problem with the placement of the woofers and speakers in front if we use the previous suggested design. So ID will think about it and redraw for us. 2) Kitchen layout - Previous design was meant for placing only a washing machine behind. Now that FH wants a dryer too, design needs modification. Place against wall on the left and stack on washing machine, it'll block ventilation and sunlight. Place against wall on right side where the high cabinets and fridge will be, I find it ugly. So.....we still cannot decide. Now we are considering to get a washer cum dryer to solve the problem. Need to do some research on whether such 2-in-1 machine is inferior to the separate ones before we decide. 3) Blank wall on left of living area - As we don have a store room, was thinking of making use of this wall to add some storage spaces that acts as some design display as well. Quite like a particular design from Acerbis International but ID says it's high maintenance. Hmmmm......so we shall wait for internship cousin to come up with the design for us (New blood got more creative ideas mah) It'll probably take some time, but I can't wait to see the 3D drawings!

Hi there! Just found your T-blog link from jeffcraze's blog. Herher....somehow I'm more interested to read the blogs of my Simei neighbours to be. LOL~ Leave a msg first so that it's easier for me to find the blog again from home. Hurhur...

Thanks all for the warm welcome Getting a lil bored at work, so come in here to take a peek.... As mentioned earlier, suppose to meet ID on 9th April. Ytd FH called and say she wanna change to 6th April night. Ok....since I'm free, of cos will be good to discuss earlier. Then just now, FH called again and say can meet this Sat if she finish drawing out the design. U free I not free lor....Don like to keep changing the appointment....Well but at least I think I will have more updates about my reno by end of next week. In the meantime, have to think of how I wanna plan the space of my WIW. More hanging space? More shelves? Hmmm....A drawer to hide away the intimate wear and socks is a must.....Thinking of having a glass top drawer to put the watches and some accessories....and I'll need some shelves to put my loads of skincare products. What else??

Hi! I've just bookmarked your "http://diva79.blogspot.com/" to read at home. Opened the blog and took a quick look just now. Seems very informative! Not convenient to read in office now....

Yar....actually I've kinda lost the excitement as time goes compared to the day I got the keys. Guess I'll need to get some things moving to "spark" that flame in me again. LOL~ Actually it's not completely no progression....last weekend did go down to my FH's contractor friend's factory to take a look at their marble samples for our living and bathroom tiling. But seriously, I'm not able to visualise how it'll look when completed. So we just picked a few, grabbed some samples, and shall wait for our ID to take a look and give some opinions on which are the better choices to go with her suggested designs. Realised that it's not so easy to pick the right marble for our new house. Saw this white base, dark grey veins marble which I really like, but was told by the "experts" that they'll get stained easily. Then we saw this big slab of dark brown marble which we're considering for our bathrooms. But the slab itself is divided into the light tone (orangy) and the dark tone (dark brown near to black). Asked FH's fren what if we only like the dark tone part? He say they'll try their best to match the colour but the final results might be slightly different from what we visualise (HUH??). Then we were discouraged from taking another kind of marble which looks nice with very defined veins for our bathroom cos the cracks at the underside of the marble is very deep and won't be as "durable". haiz.... So the best thing I learnt from this marble tile selection is - “原來不是美就好了”

Emailed a few IDs but not all get back so far... Getting abit tired of all the liaising work (cos I'm also trying to order a custom made bathtub from Taiwan. So lotsa emails ding donging here and there....)and decided to make things easier for myself. FH's cousin is an ID herself. Had spoken to her before but din want to restrict myself to only one person's opinion. That's why I'm still looking around. But upon reading the different T-blogs and comments in the forum, seems like even the most recommended ID/renovator can give problems in the most unexpected way. So I guess I'll just save myself from the trouble and use FH's cousin as our ID, and hope everything goes well. *fingers crossed* Well....the good thing about getting someone u know is that u don have to be so "ke qi" for your requirements. The bad thing is, she won't be that "ke qi" to u either.....haiz... somehow feel that we are at the lowest of her priority list.....suppose to be meeting her for a more detailed discussion this week, but it's postponed to next Saturday cos she's not free. I can't wait to see something more concrete for our new house siah.....

Ohhh....my FH was telling me the ceiling is too low for false ceiling and ceiling fan is a big NONO cos its too dangerous. He's about 1.79m. Hmmm....for my height of cos I don feel the danger. Hahaha...and having a ceiling fan is definitely better than having a standing one. It just looks soooo messy to me when u have more things standing around. Btw, roughly how much did you spend on your renovation for the whole unit? Need a benchmark to work out our budget.

Oooh....will go check out jeffcraze now. My wedding is early Dec. So I guess we should have sufficient time for the reno bah... Actually my FH is in the construction line himself. So I think hacking and tiling works will be done by his own workers. Will let him know that he can't take his own sweet time to apply for the permit then. Definitely gonna hack down a wall or 2 for our new house.... I've been reading up on IDs recommendations in the forum but still seem to be getting nowhere....maybe I should just get a few contacts and start emailing them for quotations.

Yoyo~ Finally finish reading your blog. Nice reno! The process might be tiring, but I'm sure u are enjoying the fruits of it now. ^^ Do you still remember the height of your ceiling? Feel that my new home to be's ceiling is very low and won't be able to hang a ceiling fan in the living room, but see that you have one installed, so just wanna check for reference.

Hmm....the link is not working. But I've heard of Nan Wah. Its somewhere at Changi area rite? Will check it out soon. I saw your blog~ Really very very similar layout! And my house is next to the PIE too~ LOL Now your blog becomes a very good reference for us on our space planning. ^^