kooky

Yes as we will be installing the sink in the service yard/balcony.

Replacement/installation of windows and grilles permit is approved by HDB. The only pending item now is roofing in the balcony.

Congrats, your home looks lovely! The $95k is well-spent.

In the quotation, my contractor has only given me a lumpsum on Electrical Works. Total cost $4,720 I don't think it is cheap, however, I believe it is not the most expensive?

Google gives the result as follows:- No.528, Geyalang Rd, Singapore 389484 Tel: 65098528/ 65098529 Email: dposhonline@gmail.com

Electrical works has just started and in progress! We did not want to spend too much on designer's switch; just simple and does it job. The contractor has selected Schneider Electric for us and all switches in White.He mentioned that this brand does not has 4-gang switch.

We wanted to level-up the balcony/service yard but contractor informed us that due to the recent revised in HDB rules, it will not be approved. Hence, we have no choice but to leave it.

Thank you, potatoes. We will change a few steps of the staircase around so it will have a L-shape look. This orientation will give the dinning area some allowances (e.g. when we pull out the dinning chairs, they do not hit right at the edge of the staircase) to place our round dinning table.We hope to achieve a clean, bright appearance with these materials. For the railings, we will use tempered glass panel with s/s cap materials but we retained the parquet for steps, rises and landing area. A sample image of the flag of staircase is attached (to show the material we have selected).

spikedoll, the timing where I went in to ballot was right and of course thanks to the luck of draw for the queue number :-) There is an ethnicity/race ratio-filled quota requirement for those who are buying direct from HDB. In my case, theunit can only be owned by either a Malay family or Others.

As a mum to a young toddler, I especially like the environment. Thanks for the re-assurance, sherting :-) I bought it at $740k and have pm'd you the block number.

Thank you, HappyAng. The unit is actually in Mei Ling Street (not far from the Queenstown MRT station) :-)

-Ditto- ref: bleeding $$. We bought a sofa set, a fridge, a washer and 5 ceiling fans last weekend just before my husband flew out. And there are still a lot of stuff we have yet to purchase and likely to get them over the next couple of months.

Spikedoll, I like the view from your balcony!! We didn't hack the common bathroom to expand the bathroom in our master bedroom. I did think of doing it but contractor mentioned something to the husband and then he said let it remains status quo. How much bigger is your new MBR's bathroom? Does it require HDB approval and PE endorsement? We also didn't hack the wall in the MBR as we intend to build the wardrobe on that wall. We aren't very creative.......

Thanks for the encouragement, Spikedoll! After seeing so many T-blogs where owners have so many ideas and give their home a total facelift, I am feeling very 'paisei' to showcase mine. My home renovation is such a 小巫见大巫， very insignificant.

Ahh.....thank you for bringing this to my attention :-) My spouse and I are not really into FS, but like many people, I will avoid for any big taboos. I will mention this to the husband but if he doesn't want to change the laminate which we have already selected, then I will leave it be.

Demolition of the staircase starts today......*yay*

Yes, I totally agreed on the colour scheme. We have avoided Black as it will make the kitchen look dark and one of our criteria is to have a unit that gives an impression that the unit is bright and airy. However, we are caution in choosing a colour that's too light as the maid cooks 5-day a week and husband enjoys playing as a chef in his leisure time, we have selected a red shade laminate with matt-finished but with a tinge of brown in it. Most of our selected home appliances are either in silver or stainless steel) and sofas set is in ivory. spikedoll, I've seen kitchen in chilli/fiery red. Any special reason why it should not be chosen?

A question to all of you home owners who have renovated or going to renovate your place, for kitchen cabinets - what kind of material, colour (or colours) and layout do you intend to choose or done up in your kitchen? We have selected ours but I am still contemplating should I change the colour. Thanks for sharing.

Tiling work in progress - cont'd (3) Master bedroom tiles selected by me and husband also find these tiles acceptable. Only one side of the wall is featured in embossed red roses as we do not want to have a complicated-looking bathroom. We want to maintain a clean-look but yet pleasant. close-up look of the red roses tiles

Tiling work in progress - cont'd (2) We chose same coloured tiles for the 2 common toilets. In fact, they are picked by the husband, although I don't quite like it.......LOL, I respect his choice. Hey, afterall, he is the breadwinner of the family eh! :-) Common toilet - level 1. Frankly, the toilet is so small that there is nothing much to show.....haha. The toilet bowl will be installed at the red tiled wall. We will keep the window. The 2 common bathrooms will use same types of tiles

Construction/Tiling works in progress We have down-size my daughter's room slightly to create more storage cabinets/spaces. From my sweetie pie's room, she can see the master bedroom when the door is left opened This is the area (which is between the toilet and my daughter's room) where we intend to construct a cabinet for storage. You can't believe how much storage spaces we need. View from the Kitchen (L-shape) into the living area. Kitchen is very much smaller as we have created a storeroom from the kitchen space. This is the place where fridge will be placed. Next to it (on the left-hand side) is the newly created storeroom. Some tiles were being laid in the living room. We use the same floor tiles in the kitchen but we chose a darker colour (grey actually) for the common toilet

Like all the owners, we have set aside a budget for renovation. As we are currently renting a place that's fully furnished, hence, we need to take into consideration the cost that's required for purchasing new furniture, home appliances and other stuff which are required. The husband and I had discussed about having a particular theme for our home but then as we are from different cultures and backgrounds, we can't seem to come to an agreement as to what theme to choose. Of course this has created some inconveniences for my contractor and ID. As we go along, you will notice that my flat is pretty a 'rojak'; it not as well-thought out......LOL After getting a ballpark figure on the reno cost from my contractor, we have decided to do away with lots of carpentry works which we can do later and on do the ones that we need to use daily. As my mum who has gout, high blood pressure and other problems due to old age will come visit us and might at some point, likely to spend some nights with us, we have decided to redo the staircase which cost the most in the overall quote of the reno cost. Other than carpentry works, we are also delaying some stuff or reuse certain things that's in the flat. We do not change the layout of the flat much as some hacking of walls require PE endorsement (thus incurred addition cost) or HDB approval (time wasted), of course, labour cost and hacking will increase too. Basically these are the things which we will keep:- Main door and all bedroom doors (we like the solid doors and the condition was good, hence, we decided to repaint them to match the colour scheme in the flat)Keep the Study's room as husband works from home and he needs a room to store documentationKeep the parquet floor on the 2nd floor but repair those damaged ones and polish after completionWe didn't do plastering on the wall since the most visible part in the flat is the wall in the living area which eventually will be covered with the TV board/featured wall. And likelihood we are going to paint the flat with light colours which we hope that the ugly look on the wall will be less visible - we eventually plastered the flat because husband realised that it will look better with smooth walls. We dropped the idea of making a TV console and featured wall at the living area. Will buy the TV console off the shelf.Having a young toddler who is going through the terrible twos now and mum who going to visit more often after we moved, I have stressed to the contractor that I do not compromise on safety. We are going to install grilles in all the windows and floor tiles we had chosen are all matt-finished. I had mentioned to the contractor that for all carpentry works, we want to have round corners and hopefully he can remember....

Teofamily, thank you :-) My surname before married is also Teo but my dialect is cantonese.

momiji, you might be able to get some recommendations from these threads- Curtins Help and Any Curtain/blinds Makers To Recommend?

Thank you, spikedoll. We are indeed blessed