meiz

Happy Anniversay Sweetheart! Thanks for all the love and happiness you have given me these two years. And may we build a blissful family in our love casa! Muacks P/S Hope you like this surprise gift I have prepared these few months.

The tilted door is one of the main highlights of our renovation. It was interesting to see how the door was constructed.

The tilted door is one of the main highlights of our renovation. It was interesting to see how the door was constructed.

The multi colour walls of our house - Study room (Pink colour which my dear has graciously agreed to) - New master bedroom (Dusky violet colour) - Blue wall at the living room near dining area. There will be a mirror hanging at the dining table area so "A" and his colleague are trying to find the right height to drill the holes to hang. To "A": See, I fulfilled my promise.. mentioned I would post it online if you are willing to pose for the photo... lolx.. - And not to forget the yellow wall in my cozy area where the pic was posted in my previous entry

Circles circling in our house - Cabinet beneath the master bedroom sink top - Feature laminate door covering the bomb shelter. - As the laminate covering the wall beside the bomb shelter door is quite a big area, "A" suggested putting shelves in the laminate. Can be used as a shoe cabinet or just to store other small items. If you all looked closely, you will notice th esink cabinet and bomb shelter laminates are of the same circle pattern. Hee...

Bedroom cabinets - The wardrobe sliding doors - My pull out mirror that was specially built in (suggested by "A") as we realised we did not have a full length mirror in our house - As it would cost money to shift the power points, we decided to maintain them and instead cut holes in the wardrobe to make space for them. - The behind of dear's wardrobe where we would mount our cozy area tv so as to save space. The built in hole is for the media player.

The finished products - Kitchen cabinets with my Blanco sink and Electrolux hood & hob installed - The cabinet below the sink would subsequently be lined with tiles so that in future if the pipes leak it would not be too damaging on the cabinet floor - Cabinet for which the wine chiller will be placed

Cabinets construction-in-progress Pictures which showed our cabinets being constructed. A warm and happy feeling when I see the cabinets progressing step-by-step to form part of my beautiful love casa - Top kitchen cabinets - Bottom kitchen cabinet as well as cutting the table top - My wardrobe cabinet with the "U" shape handles - Dear's wardrobe cabinet

Hi Pegasuss, I bought the TV console from Home Furniture. It is tagged at $699 but as we bought it together with the coffee table, they charge us cheaper as a whole set instead.

Our love casa came with readily installed tiles, toilet sink top and all the doors even though we did not choose any of them from HDB. Not sure if they were ordered for by the previous intended owner and we happened to purchase this balance flat or all the flats come with these. However, it saves us headache as we do not need to research and buy these items. All my doors are wooden doors which to me looked classy and have a solid feel. The only problem was with the master bedroom toilet door. As the toilet has a sink top, it left little movement space. When we open the door, the swing arc will nearly reach the toilet bowl and there is no space to stand. Hence dear and I decided to change the door to a bi-fold door. This saves space and is less likely to spoil since plastic is more resistant to water than wood. Intially we thought might as well change the kitchen toilet door too but our ID "A" advised us to save the money. We can always change it subsequently if it spoils. Good idea! Went to my love casa one day to wait for some deliveries and found my bi-fold door and serviceyard windows installed! - My bi-fold door - Like the 3 panel serviceyard windows as it opens up more to allow ventilation as compared to a 4 panel windows track.

Construction of kitchen bases Friends advised that it would be good to have bases in the kitchen for cabinets etc so that it is convenient to wash the kitchen floor in future... though I think this would only happen once a year before Chinese New Year as I am not that hardworking - Kitchen cabinet base - Pretty fridge base - Washing machine base at the serviceyard - The shi-fu had forgotten about the wine chiller cabinet base so had to come back a second time to do. This was the place where the feng-shui master initially wanted us to put our fridge. Luckily we managed to change it to wine chiller fridge as otherwise the kitchen entrance would have been very squeezy. -

Finally my air-con pipings are here - 'Old' master bedroom - 'New' master bedroom area - Piping leading out of the master bedroom toilet. Not sure if it is obvious in the photo but actually the workmanship was not done very nicely as there were some portions where the joints were too rough. - Air-con ledge area

When I puzzledly asked how the air-con piping was going to be installed in our master bedroom now that the false ceiling work commenced, "A" suddenly slapped his head. Turned out the experienced "A" also has his missed moments as he totally forgot about our air-con.. oppss... Hence the only solution was to asked the false ceiling "shi-fu" to lay the foundation in the bedroom first, and put up the ceiling after the air-con people came subsequently. - At the 'old' master bedroom - At the 'new' master bedroom area And this is my own little cozy area to rest while waiting for the "shi-fus" to complete their work... not too bad a place right? Lolx... Want to give thanks to my dear daddy for contributing the red rocking chair!

False ceiling and air-con piping Next up was the construction of our false ceiling at the living room near the dining area, as well as the master bedrooms. That morning our ID "A" was also at our new house inspecting the start work of our false ceiling. - False ceiling construction at the living room - Finished product - False ceiling at the TV console area where 3 down lights would be subsequently installed

Make good the wall and parquet flooring between the two bedrooms - Smoothening of the wall and flooring using cement first - Lining up the parquet wood blocks

Subsequent progress of our renovation: - Laying of the cardboard papers around the house flooring. The white pieces of papers sticking on the wall are actually drawings made on the house plan by our hardworking ID "A". One of them marks the paint codes for the painters to come, another indicated where the tiling works are supposed to be done etc. Laying of lighting and power points - Electrician came to do the wiring for the lights and power points prior to the false ceiling construction. Not sure why but the hanging wires reminds me of aliens.. lolx... a) Living room b) New master bedroom c) Kitchen

Our 1m diameter round table. Requested for the base to be white so as to match our house colour. We also changed the transparent table top glass to white backing type as Calvin prefers not to be able to see our legs when eating. The sales person was very nice so let us choose other chairs from the catalogue to match the table. Decided on the below design as I love the classy arch back feel. Kai called me at the end of the day and mentioned that as usual, she did not manage to get anything.

My good friend Kai (who is also doing renovation for her new house) commented that she was amazed at the speed at which Calvin and I buy our furniture. It is so much faster than her though she got her flat keys one year earlier than us. I did not think it was really so until one day when Kai and I met a group of friends for lunch. Her plan after that was to go to IMM with her fiancé to check out the furniture and hopefully start getting some stuff now that discussion for her house concept with her ID was in progress. As Calvin and I have started buying some items on and off, there was no urgency and we thought we would just do some ra-keying around. Dear suggested going to Trade 21 there to browse the shops as he saw an ad in the papers for one of the shops. Did not get anything from that shop but when we went to the next door neighbour, we got not one but three big items all at one shot. They are 1) TV console 2) Coffee table 3) Dining table set The TV console with the extension design that dear likes alot. The coffee table which is white and round (just like my tic-tac door laminate design and dining table). Part of the reason why we chose this was because of the metal base design matches that of the TV console metal base too.

Our renovation officially started on the 18 Jul 2011. First in schedule was to hack the wall joining the old master bedroom and bedroom 2. Met the contractor and Calvin (who took 2 hours time off from work) at our new house to witness the moment though thinking back we didn't really see them do the hacking. We only saw the workers lay the protective cardboards on the floor and doors, as well as mark the wall portion to be hacked before we left.. lolx From this where you can see there is a marking on the wall representing the portion to start hacking.... To this.... You can also see the flooring in-between the two rooms is bare at the moment as the parquet wood needs to be lay subsequently.

Our first piece of furniture was bought while shopping with Calvin's other "dear" - his best pal BH. It was my first time shopping at NEX when we happened to pass by a furniture shop that has branches in many neighbourhood malls too. Calvin and I have been eyeing one of their L-shaped sofa as we find it comfortable and the size is just right for our hall. It can easily accommodate 3 to 4 people. The texture is half leather which means the seat area that we sit on are real leather while the sides and back portion are synthetic leather material. Super happy when we saw that it was having a discount off $100 plus from the price we last saw! The only concern was that the sales person said the latest delivery must be 2 months from the date of purchase. But she suggested for us to call the Customer Service Centre nearer the tentative date to see if it can be delayed since our renovation might not be completed yet. Hence decided to just go ahead and buy it as it was within our budget.

"A" also let us have the 3D drawing for our kitchen cabinet as well as the shelves placement.

One of the things that I found to be most fun when coming up with our love casa design was the ability for us to create our own wardrobes since they are customised. In the past when I looked at IKEA catalogues, I always find the bedroom wardrobe section very interesting as there are so many things we can put inside, be it the basket trays, tie holders or trousers rack. So I spent an afternoon measuring my own wardrobe and dresses (and even my daddy's shirts so that I know how high dear needs for his hanging rack), trying to find the optimum shelves length and how I would place them. Here are my initial drawings: My wardrobe - There will be a full length mirror pull out at the left hand side as our room does not have any full length mirror. Calvin's wardrobe The net trays in my drawings were meant to be IKEA pullout trays as I felt that such trays allow my clothes to be aired and less dust will collect compared to if I use whole solid trays. I also checked with dear whether he would like to install trousers rack but as he felt that it would restrict the type of clothes he could hang, hence we used back the normal clothes rack instead. During the discussion with our designer "A", he mentioned that we could actually have some design for our trays, such as on the drawer handle. This would make the trays more special. This made me consider twice on the IKEA trays as practically it would meant less cost for us since the wardrobe cost already include the drawers workmanship. So in the end I decided to go for the drawers, but to make it special, I requested for the drawers handle opening to be lower. Calvin preferred a normal tray design though so both our wardrobes would be slightly different. One thing I was very happy with "A" was that I told him I would like one of the drawer to be for me to put my cosmetics and other stuff. Hence he came up with the idea of a pullout tray so that I could place my cosmetic basket on top. Loved the idea! My finalised wardrobe Calvin's finalised wardrobe

Renovation was scheduled to commence in July before the lunar seventh month. This would allow us to continue renovation works during the seventh month. If we miss the period, we would only be able to start in September which would be too rushed to meet our wedding date. We met our ID guy "A" several times prior to the commencement to discuss on our home concept, colour theme and tic tac door laminate etc. Finally the following were decided: 1) Kitchen - Glossy white and lime green cabinets with tempered glass backing. The lime green colour gives the kitchen a refreshing feel, and is in line with the Feng Shui shi-fu's pointer of using green more generously in our house. I also requested for the cabinet shelves to be made thicker (25mm) so that it could support the weight of the pots and pans. Another interesting thing is that the Feng Shui shi-fu recommended our fridge to be placed near the wall entrance of the kitchen. However, this meant that the entrance walk way would be narrower and we need to extend a partition to cover the fridge back. Hence dear dear "negotiated" with the shi-fu. Instead of a fridge, we would put a wine chiller at that same position. The fridge could then be placed in line with the kitchen cabinets to maximise space usage. However I don't really drink wine so now that we have a wine chiller, I tease Calvin that we would become drunkards in future. [Calvin and me!] 2) Living room TV area - The Joo Chiat designer suggested to use wallpaper instead of feature wall console for the TV area which we thought was quite special. Cost-wise, if we managed to get a wallpaper at $500 plus and a TV console at $500-$600, it should be around the same as that of a feature wall console. Plus point was its uniqueness as we could choose from a great variety of wallpaper designs. Little did we know that the variety would be a source of headache for us... but that's another story for later. 3) Feature wall with tic-tac door to cover bomb shelter door - Initially we decided on a white square-ish block line design that leans towards a modern feel. However along the way when selecting our wallpaper, we realised that the square-ish design might be more appropriate for the TV area since it has to be something that is soothing to look at without drawing our attention away from the TV. Hence we changed the feature wall laminate to a white circle design instead. This would match our round dining table also. Wall colour: Blue 4) New master bedroom - To hack a partition to join the two bedrooms together so that the new master bedroom would now be more spacious. Wall colour: Dusky violet 5) Old master bedroom - Since it is not advisable for us to sleep in the old master bedroom, we decided to use the space to have two full height wardrobes. It would be abit like a walk-in wardrobe area, except it won't be an open concept. We prefer to have sliding doors to prevent dust from going in and also to save us embarrassment if guests happened to see our messy wardrobe. Lolx The other area of the room would be converted as a cosy area. Dear and I could settle down on the sofa to watch TV or read a book. Wall colour: Cherry yellow 6) Bedroom 1 - Would be used as a study room for the moment. Had to convince dear to use a pretty pink for the wall colour though which up to now he is still abit regretting... lolx Below is my finalised home casa floor plan together with my furniture and lights layout for all my blog friends to have a look. Pardon the ugly drawing though... lolx

Thanks Errandz! I also think that it is important to be able to communicate with the ID person as renovation is a process that last at least 1 month.. more importantly, we have to live with the results for at least 5 years!

Renovation is really a big and continuous learning process. From the cabinet laminate to the solid surface top to the drawer pulley system to the lighting and bathroom accessories etc, each topic requires some researching into. And not to forget the most important factor which will assist to oversees and pull everything together into a beautiful new house: a good ID firm We chance upon our first shortlisted ID firm while strolling along Joo Chiat road. It was a newly opened shop and in fact the company name was not even up yet. Calvin's friend Chris was the one who talked us into going in as we were both abit apprehensive since ID firms can be abit overwhelming. Chris had just finished renovating his new house and was of the opinion that it won't hurt to hear opinions/ideas from different ID firms. The young lady who attended to us was the designer cum co-partner, and she mentioned she had just left one of the well known ID firms to set up her own company. She was indeed very creative, giving us ideas on how she could design the tic-tac laminate door for the bomb shelter, the master bedroom wardrobe etc. We got excited hearing her ideas but as it was an impromptu visit, we did not have our floor plan and the Feng Shui shi-fu had not given us his suggestions yet. Hence it was more of a general discussion and we subsequently went back again another day to discuss our feng-shui requirements. The second ID firm we went to was via recommendation from Calvin's friend. Two of his friends had their renovation done up by him and their reviews were pretty positive. As it was good to have friends who have personal experience with the ID firm, we hence decided to take a look. The ID guy whom was referred was a pretty down-to-earth person who asked for our requirements and ideas. There were alot of things we did not know and he patiently explained each component to us. However, he also mentioned honestly he did not have any experience in doing a tilt door and hence was not confident of getting approval from HDB or how to go about doing it. The third ID firm we went to was one that Calvin happened to chance upon on Renotalk.com website. I also could not remember why Calvin shortlisted this ID firm but the impression given was that the person who responded to Calvin's enquiries was pretty keen on following up to fix an appointment. Hence we went down to his office to have a further discussion. Equipped with our previous experience, we were now able to ask in greater details on all the components such as the ABS trimming, pros and cons of a suspended kitchen cabinet, tic-tac door etc. The person in charge who is a partner of the company was friendly and seemed knowledgeable on the various aspects of the renovation. He also did tilting of door before. The only thing was that I was abit uneasy by the cabinet workmanship as I felt the alignments were abit out and the gaps between the cabinet doors were slightly wide. However, he assured me that the actual house renovation workmanship is much better and we could always go onsite to take a look at the projects he is currently doing. The discussion went on for 4 hours from evening till 11 plus at night. We also went back another time for a more detailed discussion (also lasted till near 12 midnight) as well as an onsite visit to his current renovation project. My good friend Kai had just gotten her new house and settled on an ID firm which her future father-in-law recommended. Calvin called up the company and felt quite at ease talking to the boss. However as he was currently tied up with work and could not take on more projects, he recommended another designer to us. Perhaps the person we spoke to was not feeling well the evening we went to the ID firm and hence abit distracted, not giving us much design ideas. She also did not follow up and gave us her quotation a week later than when she had promised. The last ID firm that we went to was upon recommendation from another of Calvin's friend. They made an appointment to come for an onsite at our new house and even invited us to view their latest project that very night. Upon reaching their client's house though, Calvin and I were not very impressed with their carpentry work as there were places where the cabinet laminates were not pasted inline. In addition, the raw home concept that comes with concrete flooring and rough stone laminate cabinets were not really our style though I knew every house owner had his/her preferred home concept and the ID firm was carrying out the owner's wishes. It took us about a month for us to select and sign with our ID firm. Along the way we also went to IMM to talk to several well established ID firms but to us they lacked abit of personal touch as they were more interested in promoting a package deal to us. The first three ID firms that I mentioned here were those that we were keener on due to the design they could give and their renovation experience. However at the end of the day, we also had to realistically consider our budget (which was pretty tight due to our wedding dinner to be held at the end of this year) as well as whether we could communicate comfortably with the ID coordinator. We settled on the third ID firm because the person in charge "A" followed up regularly in asking us to meet and discuss the renovation design. He was willing to spend a few hours talking to us till midnight when he would be the last one to leave the office and even on weekends. He was also confident about doing the tilted door which is important to Calvin. Although his quotation was not the cheapest and slightly out of our initial budget, the cabinet workmanship of the project he went to was quite nicely done and it was the deciding factor for dear and I to both agree on choosing him.