kirinshibori

I got the bin from Home-Fix at City Square Mall (Farrer Park MRT) B1. There was 10% store-wide discount, so I paid $62.90 for it. It's not the prettiest or cheapest bin around, but I think it's well designed; and since I hide it inside the cabinet most of the time, aesthetics can take a back seat.

We wanted to do a waste sorting drawer like the Faktum/Rationell depicted below: However, we figured that it'll be kinda inconvenient when we wash and throw stuff into the bin with the drawer half open and us leaning over it to reach the sink. Therefore, we will be doing a normal casement cabinet, with the Simple Human waste bin fixed on the inside of the left cabinet door similar to this. This way, we can leave the door open with the bin accessible on our left while we prepare our food or wash our dishes (hopefully not so much of that since we have a dishwasher ).

I think advice on how to select the correct kitchen counter height has been beaten to death in this forum, but it doesn't hurt to have another picture to illustrate the idea. The higher your ceiling, the taller your wall cabinet should be, else you'll probably need a ladder to even open the cabinet...

This is what we are trying to do with the kitchen drawers, but I think I didn't buy the correct drawer runners that I need to achieve the effect I want.

Oh, and I'm hooked on to "Before and After" on on LiTV every Sat at 9pm, haha... they call in "Reform" instead of renovation in the Land of the Rising Sun.

More pictures from my Idea book... This should be how the 玄関 or foyer is supposed to look. But we have a problem with achieving the look as the step up from the bare floor to the laminate floor is quite low. I've communicated all I can to the tiler and Evorich... hopefully the resultant effect would be acceptable.

Thanks adidaem. I liked your T-Blog too. It provided me with a lot of useful information, especially when we were deliberating about the hood, cos the Fujioh you're using was one of our options since it could fit the tight space we had. Yes, unfortunately, I treat the dishwasher as an essential item in the kitchen, haha... We also bought an Arc lamp, albeit a replica, at a dirt cheap price though... but I wonder how it'll fit in with the overall theme, guess I'll know when I assemble it together with the carpentry and furniture...

Hi Piknik, you're right, we're going to paint all the doors white! Including the main door, and gate, everything! But I have a nagging feeling that we'll regret it 'cos with 2 precocious kids running around the house... they will probably treat all the white walls as their canvas, haha... Yes, the kitchen is expensive, but since my friend is helping me with the renovation, he gave us a very reasonable rate for hacking and making good. We were also lucky that the PE was not required. I collected my keys about 3 weeks ago... we are actually taking our time with the renovation, but he's fast... so I just gotta keep up. Don't think it'll complete so soon though. Anyway, we have until the end of April, so there should be plenty of time. We're thinking of a Sharp one, but probably just convection plus grill... that would probably still cost us more than $350... so we're keeping our options open. As for the dishwasher... we used to have a domestic helper, but now we don't... and I used to use dishwashers while overseas. It actually saves water (uses <15L per wash) compared to hand washing, but definitely uses more electricity. At 1.05kWh, I think it'll be ok, about 2hrs usage every day... And you hit the bullseye again, I don't like washing dishes, haha!

Current progress Hacking works have been mostly completed. For now, we're waiting for the plumbing, electrical and tiling works to finish. Then we'll be bringing in our carpentry, which hopefully will happen end of next week... to be continued. Btw, what are the recommended microwaves with grill function and dishwashers at the moment?

continued... The trunking is visible in the kids' room, but there are no visible trunking in the guest room as the two FCUs are installed back to back. The trunking from the corridor to the living/dining room is quite an eyesore. We'll have to think of something creative to minimize the visual impact.

Air Conditioning The aircon was the first appliance that we bought, which I bought from Gain City in Dec 2011 during their Suntec sale. The initial order was for a Panasonic inverter system 2 to keep costs down, but I ended up changing the order to a Mitsubishi inverter system 4 as we realised that the aircon is something that you install and forget until it breaks down. Furthermore, aircon installation can be quite an inconvenience after we've moved in, so we decided to do it right the first time. One constraint at Kallang Heights is that the aircon window is only 715mm tall, so that restricts our choice of aircon to Mitsubishi Electric and LG for an inverter System 4. I really wanted to get the LG Artcool mirror finish series inverter, but 18,000btu just wasn't enough for our living/dining area due to the open concept kitchen, therefore we chose the Mitsubishi Starmex inverter with a 26,000btu fan coil unit in the living/diningroom. The Outdoor Compressor. I decided to let the pipes enter the house through the top pane of the aircon window. However, this means sacrificing the window pane and if we would like to change the window in the future, it would be quite involved. For the last 8 years, I have had not much need to open the top pane of my aircon window in my current flat, so I reckon it will not be an issue, fingers crossed. The hole that remains would most likely be sealed up with partitionboard and plaster. I upgraded our piping, so we have massive 4 inch casings running throughout the flat, and in the case of the master bedroom, it's 2x4inch for the 4 FCUs, so we have this massive 8 inch trunking as shown below.Hopefully, it will blend in once we've painted over it. The trunking runs along the ceiling into the corridor before splitting between the bedrooms and the living/dining room.

HDB Rectificantion This is currently on-going. By "virtue" of our new flat being rather old (8 years old), there are a lot of corrosion on things that are metallic. Window handles, door handles, sanitary fittings, and even the screws inside the switches and sockets have signs of corrosion on them. Plastic mounts and stops on the windows are also largely cracked. There is a problem though. As the new financial year for HDB is in April, most of the contractors' contracts are coming to an end, and there will be fresh rounds of tenders. This means that I'll have to wait until the new contractors are finalized before rectification work can continue. Our technical officer has been helpful so far. Hopefully, the rectification works will not be a showstopper and she will be able to complete our rectification soon.

HDB Cement Screeding Cement screeding was provided very quickly by HDB, we got a date that was less than 2 weeks from the date of form submission. Quality-wise, it wasn't that bad but the workers splashed cement pretty high up on to the wall.

Water Fittings I wanted good water fittings as I have been replacing the HDB standard ones in my current place after 8 years. What I noticed was that the cartridges of the mixers got really stiff with age. I started researching about cartridge quality and ended up with the Grohe/Hansgrohe dilemma. We shelved the plan to get those 2 brands for a while as the cost felt prohibitive. The first piece of sanitary fitting was actually a made-in-Japan Toto thermostatic mixer that we bought in Tokyo for the common bathroom. Although it's an old model, it still serves its purpose in ensuring that the water temperature remains constant as our kids take their shower. I subsequently followed up with the purchase of a Hansgrohe kitchen mixer, Grohe thermostatic shower mixer and Grohe handshower from insani24 in Germany. There is some problem with the shipment currently, which I hope will be resolved soon. Their prices are cheaper than Iceprice though. I bought my Rubine basic mixers and Monic stainless steel kitchen sink locally, and those were at a good price thanks to a friend. As we had decided to revamp our bathrooms, we bought new WCs and basin cabinets as well. The WCs are the ubiquitous Arino Caprio. While the basin cabinets are from Genova and Ikea. I got the Godmorgon wash stand for $100 in an As-Is flatpack and will be getting Mr Teo to laminate it. All the wash stands are soft closing with water resistant wood. I just hope the wash stands can fit properly. The common toilet has an annoyingly short depth of less than 400mm for the sink. To circumvent the constraint, I decided to change the original wooden door to a PDdoor. I hope I'll not fall prey to the same issues that plagued other users. For the master bedroom toilet, the distance from the doorwall to the WC is only 780mm, so I'm cautiously hopeful that my 800mm Godmorgan can fit after shifting the WC towards the shower area slightly. Otherwise,we'll have to reverse the installation of the wash stands.

Tiles This was one area where we could have saved heaps, but we (I) simply could not stand the bathroom tiles. Also, to fit with our Japanese theme, we needed tiles for the foyer (Genkan). So, we busted our budgets and decided to overlay tiles in both bathrooms. The other option was to use Faithcoat, which costs less than 50% of the tiling charge. However, we decided that since we begin and end our days in the bathroom, and it was going to be major works that we would be hard pressed to pursue once we moved in; we'll just bite the bullet. Do it once, do it right, and so, we splurged. Tiles were chosen from Hafary (yawn), but they do have an impressive range. We managed to choose our tiles within 2 hours with 2 kids in tow. Unfortunately, the uneven tile issue still exists with current Hafary stocks. But we're not that picky, so it's still alright for us. These are the samples of the flooring we selected; the foyer tile sample is not available.

Flooring We wanted laminates, we wanted it cheap, and we wanted it good. But there's no free lunch. I went to countless Expo furniture fairs and compared the different brands. We were looking at light coloured flooring to keep with our theme. I was considering Supreme, but found it expensive and the designs also didn't suit our taste. We looked at the German brands and found that they were pretty much the same, save for design. What we really wanted wasthe Quickstep Go at $3.50/sqf, but we ended up with Parador ($3.50/sqf) from Evorich due to the availability of 12 months IPP. Just before we signed with Parador, I was seriously considering Kronotex. However, Shaun told me to get the cheapest possible product that I was comfortable with, so Parador it was. If money was no issue, I would either go from Quickstep Largo/Eligna or Allure Trafficmaster. I'm a Consumer Research magazine fan, and in their comparison of flooring, Quickstep and Pergo stood out. Allure was well rated too. But when is money not an issue, haha! Design-wise, v-grooves are nice and give the impression that one is using real wood, but they cost an impressive amount too... We actually supplemented our Parador laminate flooring order with Allure vinyl flooring for the kitchen. The need for the floor to be waterproof is the primary concern here. There are tiles that mimic wood, but they are still more expensive to lay psf when compared to vinyl tiles, so vinyl tiles it was. Matching the colours of both floorings as well as thekitchen cabinet skirting was tricky, but I reckon we got it pretty **** close. So, we'll be having laminates for the living/dining, all 3 bedrooms and the home shelter, vinyl for the kitchen and tiles for the foyer and bathrooms.

continued... And for the hood, we'll be going for the EF Power Slim 90 SS due to space constraints. There are pipes above the position where we will place our hob, so we had to shelve our plan for an Electrolux chimney hood. The Electrolux wowed us by its low noise and powerful suction, but we've read here that there are issues with its finishing. Anyway, it's a moot point since we can't fit one in, so we hope that the EF's advertised 1000 cubic m per hr flow rate will be enough to keep our living/dining area from smelling of smoke and oil.

continued... LG, Brandt and Electrolux were shortlisted when we were searching for our 7-8kg washer. I liked the LG F1422TD as it is similar to my WD-14331AD, which has been very quiet and reliable for the past 4 years; but I like the OptiA45 function of the Brandt; while it seems that the Electrolux 10741/10751 is well recommended in the forums. Interestingly, we bought none of the above. The final choice was a Samsung, the WF9904CWE, which is a 9kg front loader. We got the display set at the Gain City Expo sale at a good price as the model is discontinued. Time will tell whether this is superior to my LG Tromm. We will be getting a dishwasher as well, and it is down to Bosch and Brandt. Again, we'll see which one is cheaper during the sales in the coming weeks. These are the ones we're aiming for.

The Kitchen The kitchen gave us the greatest headache. As I mentioned earlier, we decided to give up on the service balcony. In fact, we went to the other extreme and gave up on hanging our laundry out. Therefore, our L-shaped kitchen is built against our window wall. One of the main reasons we chose the flat despite its price was the potential to have an open kitchen and expand the space in a contiguous manner from the kitchen to the living/dining area. And so we went against the tenet of saving money and hacked our kitchen wall. We also added an island to the open kitchen with an integrated shoe cabinet on the foyer side. The kitchen design is based on the Toto Crassosystem kitchen and aesthetics-wise, we decided not to use laminates, but instead use finished plywood. In fact, you'll see that plywood and lines are a recurrent theme in all our rooms. For hardware, we decided to use Hettich Quadro V6 drawer runners and Hettich Sensys hinges. And again, this was where we sort of blew our budget as we have 11 drawers in the kitchen. I went to Kranji one too many times to get the hardware, but I think it'll be worth it. The shortlist for the self-closing with dampening hardware included Blum, Hettich, Hafele, Ikea and DTC. Using Blum as the benchmark, only Hettich exceeded in performance. In terms of price, Hettich drawer runners were priced similarly to Hafele; DTC is significantly cheaper but I can't vouch for its performance. That being said, I still bought 4 pairs of DTC for my bedroom wardrobe due to the low price. Our sink, at 850mm wide, is huge and true to our Japanese Contemporary theme, is single-bowl and in stainless steel. It's a Monic (supposedly made in Korea), has a huge 6 inch waste trap, dish basket, as well as a sponge basket. I have been using a 70/30 integrated double bowl for 8 years and found that it is not big enough for our pots and that the smaller bowl is a white elephant most of the time. My in-laws' place has a large single-bowl sink and there is more flexibility when it comes to washing. I decided that there should be ventilation in the sink cabinet to reduce the effects of humidity under the sink, so Mr Teo will be extending my "line" design to the sink cabinet. We also bought a Simple Human grocery bag can with bag holder, to be fixed behind our sink cabinet door. I hope it'll be worth the cost! To make sure that he understands our requirements fully, we gave Mr Teo plenty of Ikea drawer insets so that the drawers will have enough space to accommodate all these accessories. With the wall gone, space planning in the kitchen was pretty tricky. We realise that we cannot have any wall cabinets, which despite reducing the amount of storage space available, enabled us to save cost! Wehave 2 tall cabinets though, to house the fridge and the washer/dryer stack. The latter was desired as the open concept meant everything is in plain view, and frankly, washers and dryers aren't the most beautiful things around. Although our fridge is pretty slim, we decided to give it more space so that we will not be constrained when we change our fridge downstream. The main requirement for our fridge was that it has to havea bottom drawer freezer. That limited the choice greatly. In the end, we decided that we are able to compromise and get a "three ticks" fridge and identified the Mitsubishi MR-BF43B as our fridge of choice. I bought the stainless steel version online from someone who won the fridge in a lucky draw. It was such a coincidence that I actually knew the seller's husband way back. Even including a $50 delivery charge from Mitsubishi, the fridge is still cheaper than an Expo display set. So it was a win-win situation for both the seller and I.

continued... It's simple, open, and white with lots of wood, some dashes of grey here and there and possibly, some green plants to add a touch of nature. After meeting all the IDs/contractors, we had a better idea of what we wanted and we started space planning and interior design on our own. All my 3Ds are hand-drawn, so I'll not post them here. As my vision comes into reality, I'll post the pictures and let them do the talking. J

Settling on a Design These are what we wanted our home to look like…

Carpentry & Furniture We found our own carpenter unintentionally. Mr Teo (hp: 83497084, speaks Mandarin and dialects only, and not sms-friendly, so you have been warned) was recommended to us by a relative. He had used Mr Teo for the custom-made sofa in his van. We contacted Mr Teo with the intent to request a quote for refurbishing the queen sized "zen" solid wood bedframe that we have used for the past 8 years. The price included collection, sanding down the existing paint, applying shellac and lacquer, refurbishing any loose components and delivery. It was not cheap, but reasonable considering the amount of work required and the price of a brand new bed. Since he was around, we decided to ask him to quote for the kitchen cabinets, wardrobe, bathroom cabinets, TV console and some other items. He got back to us quite promptly and we found that the price was better than my existing quotes. The only drawback was that the handwritten order was priced in bulk, so don't expect itemized costing. I had an inkling of the market rates for the items I wanted, so it was ok for me since I could work out the rough price if I got the items elsewhere. Suffice to say, I found his quote value-for-money. The other distinguishing feature about Mr Teo is the pride he has in his work. I am happy with what he has built for me so far, but since they are not finished, I cannot give a definitive assessment of his workmanship. But, so far, I am happy. Another positive aspect is that he doesn't rein in my creative inputs. He will give objective comments on whether they are feasible, but even if they are labour-intensive, he is willing to accommodate my requests. As the pictures of the completed carpentry come later on, you'll discover that I am a "line" person, and my designs reflect that. Anyway, we took the plunge and engaged Mr Teo for our carpentry works.

ID Home Plus (http://www.idhomeplus.com/) They specialize in private property, and have a niche in constructing outdoor swimming pools. Not much relevance so far… but I know the boss, Shaun (hp: 97640504), as we used to be co-workers in our previous careers and I know him to be a dependable chap and that's half the decision made. Before we got our keys in early Mar 2012, we have narrowed down our list of ID/contractors to Yonder and Shaun. Yonder was still in the race because they seemed to have good ideas for space planning and having carpentry (Ikea) paid interest free over 36 months just seemed so attractive, haha! Anyway, after a few meetings with Shaun, the deal was sealed. My spouse and I were comfortable with him. He listened to our needs and gave honest opinions of feasibility and what was and wasn't necessary. He worked within our budget and the quotation was clear with no hidden charges. I visited one of his on-going worksites and things looked well managed. And most importantly, Shaun was going to oversee my renovation. Unfortunately, we had to forgo his carpenter as it was beyond what we felt we could afford. To be fair, the rates were reasonable and the workmanship is supposedly good, but we are on a shoestring budget, so we wanted to explore more economical alternatives.

Less than 10 IDs came back to us (I'm pretty sure it's the $10k budget, haha… And we started earnest discussions with them. There was also the wildcard entry of using Ikea's kitchen contractor. The following were IDs/contractors that we met: Rezt n Relax (met over 3 months, first met at Expo fair and the patient designer went through countless design iterations after hearing our input; unfortunately we had to drop him due to cost)Chew Interior (met thrice in Dec 2012, the sales designer had innovative ideas for the kitchen space but looking back, it was really wishful thinking that the service balcony and galley kitchen concept would actually work; the quote was also on the high side)Home Fabric Design (met once, but reply to request for quote was the most comprehensive, with space planning and detailed quotation; experienced-sounding contractor, quite pushy in asking me to buy their 3D perspectives; never followed up after our first meeting)E home concepts (met once, felt more like talking to a contractor, never followed up)D'Trenzo (met once, designer inspired confidence, but never followed up)Yonder (Ikea's kitchen contractor, was tempted to furnish the entire house with Ikea stuff, can pay by instalments, lol, and engage Yonder for design and project management; however, dropped the idea as we all know about quality issues with Ikea and the thought of having fibreboards all over our kitchen cabinets did not sit well with us; furthermore, Yonder's service is not cheap but it did feel like an ID… apparently all their designers are graduates)ID Home Plus (our final choice, more of why we went with them to follow…)

The Search for a Renovator With the selection of our flat done in Nov 2011, we started our search for an ID/contractor and kick-started the process by visiting Expo fairs and sending the following to almost 20 IDs in Dec 2011. We are looking at a Japanese Contemporary theme, which has a bright, airy and spacious feel as the flat is not very big, has dark external corridors and is facing other flats, thus may not get that much natural light.I have attached some images to illustrate the idea. The confirmed works are flooring, window grilles, electrical, plumbing, kitchen cabinets, storage racks in the home shelter and full height shoe cabinet at the foyer, with a budget of <$10000 for the aforementioned items. Optional items are walk-in wardrobe in the master bedroom, wardrobes in bedrooms 2 and 3, shower screens for both toilets and exhaust fans for both toilets. I will be requiring laminate flooring for living, dining andthe 3 bedrooms. Window grilles are required for all windows with only the kitchen requiring sliding grilles. For the kitchen, we are considering the possibility of incorporating a service balcony so that clothes can be hung indoors during rainy days while cooking goes on. The family cooks every day, but mainly Japanese and Continental style cooking, so no Asian big flame cooking. I am open to the idea of hacking the kitchen walls to facilitate the flow and planning of the kitchen and service balcony. With regard to the living/dining room, we have an existing table for 6, but have no need for a TV feature wall, just a sofa for 3-4 people to sit and chat. I have an existing queen-sized bed for the master bedroom measuring (2.1x1.7)m and the walk-in wardrobe, if proposed, should be designed such that it minimises disturbance to the sleeping spouse when transiting between the wardrobe and master bedroom toilet. Bedroom 2 is for 2 children aged, 4 and 2. Space should be maximised to cater for their active play and they will be sleeping on mattresses on the floor that will be rolled and stored away during the day. Bedroom 3 is for the maid. There are no special requirements for the toilets, except for mirrors with storage.