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I paid $9 for the 20W and $8.5 for the 14W. You can negotiate with them to absorb GST if you buy more. They are all E27 Tornado type bulbs.

Hi! The GE Cool White bulbs I bought from i-light are 4000K. It is a little pricier than the normal Cool Daylight and Warm White ones from other brands. I can't seem to buy them off the shelf, so I may have to stock some up for future replacements.

Here are a few 3Ds to share ... 1) Dining area 2) Kitchen Island 3) Living hall 4) Foyer

Lighting For lighting, we chose to mix it up with downlights, tracklights, pendants, ceiling and wall lights. Here is the proposed lighting plan. After spending a bomb on the renovations, we had limited budget for everything else. So for the main feature lights we turned to TB for signature copies; we even got tracks and E27 track lights from there. For the downlights, we got simple ones from Choo Chiang. For pendant/ceiling lights, we are buying from IKEA; and for wall lights, we got vintage looking ones from i-light.

Congrats Retchlow! You are at your journeys end and the beautiful pad is the result of your vision and labor. All the best to new beginnings!

Lots of progress this week. The air-con installers came down on Monday. We spent a wee bit of time discussing the routing of the pipes and trunking. The installation itself took the whole day and by the time we tested the blowers, it was well past 8pm. There were also a fair bit of deliveries that day, for lights, sanitary and kitchen ware and electricals (hob/hood/oven). Then on Tuesday, the walls of Jericho finally came down. With that final part of resistance hacked away, we could finally proceed with the rest of the masonry on the lower floor. For the rest of the week, work continued on the toilet tiles, false ceiling went up, and hollow brick walls were erected around the new utility room. Bought a bunch of GE cool white (4000k) E27 bulbs for my downlights and tracklights. They were comparatively more expensive ($9 for 20W, $8.5 for 14W) than the normal E27 bulbs. Anybody knows where I can find cheaper cool white bulbs?

Nice! It is like a house without walls (almost!).

Yes, laminates are important. I also went down to Sungei Kadut to visit EDL and Lam Chuan. Got them to show me the large laminate sheets in their warehouse. Found that those which look nice in the catalogues might be too messy (too many dark grain lines) or might look too fake on the big piece. In the end, I decided to go with only one brown and one off-white wood-grain combi for most of my built-in furniture.

Hi Summer, the balcony divider is there just to separate the living hall from the balcony area. It will look something like the 3D below, but with a lower wall. The balcony can be accessed from the air-well area.

Here are the pics after the 3rd week of reno.

Your reno is looking good. Love your wardrobe doors. DO you know how the carpenter achieve that pattern? Was it carved out of wood, or did they add a thin piece of wood on top of the other? Mind me asking also where you got the unit numbers? The usual fonts are not so interesting.

Was away for a week. Reno progress has been slow as lots of masonry and tiling work could not proceed without the approval of the wall hacking permit. But finally, yes finally , we were given the green light yesterday. We can't hack right away yet as we have to apply for the days of hacking. Seems like HDB like to take their own sweet time for each step of the approval process. One of their common response is "No, not this week. Have to wait one to two weeks. It has to go to HQ and do you know how many cases goes up for approval every week? See lah, in the first place why you want to hack.....blah blah ..." Ok, hope there are no more speed bumps ahead. Will post some reno pics tonight.

Hi. You can easily find white Alu PD Doors with lourve design. Most contractors should be able to get them for you or you find it at pddoor.com.sg

Not sure if I should challenge their assessment and insist on hacking it all off. That might mean more delays ...

Thanks. I enjoy your t-blog too. Hope you find a good ID/contractor soon who can fuse all your wonderful ideas together.

Of Stiffeners and Lintols ... I learnt this week that these two words are among many others that you do not want to hear from the HDB technical officer. The other is QP or PE. Our wall hacking approval has been delayed pending a slight change in our hacking plan and PE endorsement. We had a talk with the branch technical officer on Tuesday, and there was another meeting on Firday to point out the exact locations of these annoying structural elements. Our initial plan was to hack away the t-wall at the utility room/old entrance to create a long utility room. But now it turns out that part of the wall (encircled) cannot be hacked, so we will have to leave about a feet of protruding wall there. The other part of the t-wall can be hacked but will require PE supervision. That will mean delay of about a week or two for the hacking of the walls and will make us poorer in the process ($600 for PE endorsement and standing supervision). Pray that the approval will be quick after this.

Renovation commenced on 26 Feb'13 and what a week it has been. With only hacking permits for the floor and toilets, we forged ahead. Here are some before pics Here are pics after hacking of floor tiles, carpentry and fittings. The roof for the balcony is also under construction

Hi Jerome, Can you quote me the following : 1. Brandt Oven - FE1011X 2. Brandt Hob - TG1293X 3. Brandt Hood - AD990XC 4. Brandt Washing Machine WFK-1248 5. Panasonic Fridge NR-BY602XSSG Thanks!

If anyone plans to get the relite fans, get it from the shops (eg. i-lite in Jln Besar). I paid $149 + GST for a black Relite Petite there. Khind is quoting $179 for the same model although they are also the suppliers to the shops.

Hi spikedoll, Can you PM me the contact of your PE? Looks like I will need one for my hacking approval...sigh ... Thanks.

Dark Wood Flooring would have gone well with the white cabinets. However as we were already using dark wood HERF vinyls for the rest of the house, we decided to go with something lighter for the kitchen. In the end, we chose this. Won't be able to tell how it turns out until after the reno. We are not doing scandi, so we can afford to try something different. We are laying HERF vinyls over 28 year old tiles. We had inspected the original flooring to ensure the tiles are even and in okay condition. If any of the tiles pop out later on, we need only repair the damaged section and HERF tiles can relayed. Better check if you can do the same for laminates.

Reno starts in less than a week but it seems that we still have 101 things undone. 1) Carpentry - Will be having a session with our ID this Friday to finalise (cross fingers) some of the designs and storage ideas. 2) Color scheme - Sail white on all walls? Or should I venture beyond the white .... 3) False ceiling - Need to see the layout and lighting plan 4) Sanitary/Kitchen accessories - Got a rough idea of what we want, just have to find time to shop 5) Lights/Fan - Our taobao purchases are on the way and we got a few from IKEA. Have to buy the rest soon - vintage wall/hanging lights, downlights, halogen track lights, fans, etc. 6) Furniture - Sofa, dining table/chairs, beds for us and the girls ... sigh ... more weekends spent in shops... etc ...

Hi. We love the IKEA kitchens too. Each has a different feel and I am comfortable having any of those in my home. In the end we decided on the a design close to the one in the top pic (off-white w grooves). We had a choice of using IKEA cabinet doors/hinges or getting the carpenter to just carve the grooves into his cabinet doors. Finally we decided to let the carpenter to do it. It will not be exactly the same effect since the grooves must be cut from one end to the other, not in the middle. The IKEA option is slightly more expensive and has some size limitations. All the best in your reno!

Hi Spikedoll, How much did you pay for the PE endorsement? The HDB officer is holding up approval of our hacking as he has to check if the utility room wall (the one where the room door is) has stiffeners.

Ordered a Mitsubishi Starmex Sys 4 Inverter for $3929 at Gain City. Free $200 GC voucher. Is this a good deal? System consist of 1 x 28k btu Compressor (Rated is only 24k btu according to salesman) 3 x 9k btu blower for rooms 1 x 24k btu for living room