guojiawen

Haha, maybe I not good in expressing the issues. Hard to visualise without pictures =p Mailed! PM-ed

The possibility is there, but if they are sincere to do the business, I'm sure they will find a way to quote you at a reasonable rate If they are totally not working with the brands you want and say they cannot provide that, may be better to drop the ID, unless the chemistry is really good, then some compromise could be made?

I like the sofa and bedframe Can share how much are they? Thanks!

Bomb Shelter Feature Wall Discussions Last post of the day. Just trying to capture all the decisons made before I forget. Sorry for the spam on a Saturday afternoon! Just to recap, instead of what was posted in my 3D design, my bomb shelter feature wall will be made of full mirror (as my circuit breaker doors cannot be mirrors due to FS reasons). ID highlighted the L shape at the edge of the bomb shelter wall area (circled) and asked if I want the bomb shelter feature wall to go all the way to the end (he will cut the L shape for the mirror feature wall in that case). He shared that going all the way to the end will look nicer and we agreed. So it will extend all the way, but there will be a L shape at the top to cater for the ceiling beam. Aside from that, he also highlighted to use that the bomb shelter feature wall thickness will cover the kitchen entrance area by a few inches. From the living room, there won't be an issue as the tempered glass kitchen door will be in line with the feature wall. However, when we look from the kitchen out to the living room, we will see a few inches of the laminates of the feature wall beside the tempered glass door. We noted and accepted it as we doubt there can be a way around it. As along as there's no gaps between the tempered glass door and bomb shelter feature wall, we are alright with it. Finally! There's also the issue of joining all the mirror panels together. There will be one panel placed horizontally on the top, and three panels vertically. One panel covers the bomb shelter door, and the other two are at the two sides of the door. ID assured that mirror to mirror joint lines won't be obvious. But the joint lines between the three vertical panels will be more obvious, since we need to be able to open the middle panel to access our bomb shelter. Plus the two vertical panels beside the bomb shelter door are of unequal width. There's nothing we can do about it as it's the structure of the bomb shelter. Just crossing my fingers it won't turn out weird. Okay, finally finished documenting the issues highlighted and decisions made! Hope the things shared are helpful for home owners who are looking at doing the same stuff. If you guys can think of any better solutions for the highlighted issues, especially the mirrored feature wall for bomb shelter, please do share with us! Will be really grateful

Kitchen Carpentry Discussions So apart from pictures of the lights and ceiling fan, my ID also brought up a few minor issues regarding kitchen carpentry which we ironed out yesterday. Glad he brought it up and discussed it with us and not just go ahead with what he thought was best for us. I'm starting to relate this sentence to him - "Final decision up to you". LOL. Carpentry drawing (hood, hob, fridge side) I don't understand half the scribblings on the drawing, but i figured those were just dimensions. So only paid attention to where i wanted the casement doors and drawers. This side of the kitchen cabinet was according to what I planned - casement doors below sink and hob + drawers between sink and hob + drawers between hob and fridge. Carpentry drawing (tall unit side) Issues #1 and #2 came up on this side of the kitchen carpentry. Issue #1 - I wanted the top and bottom casement doors of the tall unit to be in line with the kitchen cabinets beside it. And to insert a drawer between the bottom casement door and the built in oven. After measurement, there were only 2 to 3" left between the bottom casement door and built in oven. So the drawer idea got to be scrapped. Hence instead of having both the top and bottom doors flushed with the kitchen cabinets at the side, I will only flush the bottom doors, and the top doors will be slightly longer. Issue #2 - Number of drawers. For those who have read through my tblog, i catered for 8 drawers on this side (thinking back a little naive oops). As can be seen in the carpentry drawing, my ID suggested 4 large (3ft or 0.9m) drawers instead. I took out my measuring tape and went OMG. It's huge. I asked for 8 drawers but ID shared that the drawers will be too small to be used. So I settled for 6 (2ft or 0.6m) drawers in the end as revised below On a side note, I also catered for 3 layers on both the top and bottom cabinet (based on my parent's kitchen) but based on my kitchen dimensions, there will only be 2 layers top and bottom. Carpentry drawing side view (tall unit side) Issue #3 and #4 came up here because I wanted my t5 lights below the top kitchen cabinet. Issue #3 - Whether to seal up the dotted line and waste about 2" space so that when we open the top cabinet, we will have a flat surface to place our stuff. If we don't seal, when we open up the top cabinet, there will be an uneven shape at the back that was used to cater for the t5 lights. Our conclusion was to seal it up and have a flat surface. Otherwise it may be hard to store things all the way to the back in the future. Issue #4 - Because of the t5 lights, the built in oven switch, light switch and power sockets (originally to be placed just under the top cabinet) has to be placed lower (not flushed with the top cabinet). Another reason being there will be a tempered glass backing between the top and bottom cabinet, and the tempered glass cannot be cut too near the extreme top or bottom or it may crack easily at those points. But it will turn out pretty out of place if it's in the middle of the glass backing. So my ID came up with the solution below, to place it against the tall unit cabinet and flushed with the top kitchen cabinets which we thought will definitely look better. So all the kitchen carpentry issues were resolved over skype last night. Didn't even think of all these things at all until Jason brought it up. I guess that's why we pay for IDs. They have to figure out the asthetics + functionality issues of the designs.

Renovation Day 28 - 16 May (Part 2) Night shots for my living room downlights and ceiling fan (in love w our dream house.... ) Angle 1 Angle 2 All my lights are in bright white "daylight" as hubby prefers our house to be bright and somehow feels that "warm lightings" can spoil our eyes if we need to use our computer or read (which is pretty often). Chose "warmlight" for my ceiling fan when theres a need for ambience. Haha. Checked with my ID if the lights are all bright enough and he said our living room is super bright. Understand there's readers who asked me how many downlights and how many watts to put in 5 room BTO living room before. So 10x 12W LED daylight downlights should be more than sufficient. My ceiling fan light is only on when needed in the future.. From the pictures at the moment, i can only conclude that the house is super duper white. Love how the ceiling fan looks with all the lights too! When the carpentry comes in, grey will come into picture....

Renovation Day 28 - 16 May (Part 1) My simple lights are up in all rooms! Except for my chandelier (which is still somewhere in China but making its way over real soon). Down lights for my main door and kitchen entrance Rooms + kitchen are using the same lights Both toilets using the same lights

Haha, I am not around to play with the lights. But my ID did capture 2 night shots for my living room!

More Updates Lights and ceiling fan are up today! Discussed some kitchen carpentry decisions and feature wall decisions with my ID over Skype earlier as well. Pictures coming up tomorrow

Haha, eventually all parts will look good.. So you can take pictures of the entire home!

No problem at all. This forum is meant for sharing info afterall Just glad that my reviews were helpful!

I started off with an excel too when I first started comparing quotes. But gave up after 5 companies. Haha. They basically jack up different areas to earn their money. There's no way we can compare apple to apple line by line. Will suggest instead to comparing them line by line, tell the companies exactly what you want (including how many fts for carpentry, full height or half height, brand of hinges to be used, what type of paint etc), and den compare the overall quote that came back. Choose those that falls within your budget, or at least not too far off (can still bargain when ready to finalise), check for feedback on forums, then meet up with those shortlisted IDs to assess the chemistry you have with them. Along the way, you may have already stuck off many IDs who were not responsive, don't bother about ur budget etc. Through this method, hubby and I ended up meeting just 6 ID firms, out of the many who quoted us from the forum quotation requests. Hope this will help ease some of the headache u face when choosing your ID!

Updates on Lighting This is our original plan for downlights in the house After our lights arrived on Wednesday, my ID contacted me today as we bought extra lights (15 instead of 13 required). Plus I changed another downlight for the dining area to my chandelier. So it turns out that we have 3 extra downlights! Kiasu us (me actually) decided to buy more downlights in case we need to change. But our ID shared that we don't have to do that. So in the end, he proposed the below to use up all the downlights purchased so we don't have to waste them. 2 downlights (highlighted in pink) added along the window side of our L Box, which is also longer, and one downlight added to the passageway (not indicated in the picture). Those will be added for us at no additional charge. It was really nice of him to think of how to utilise the remaining downlights and adding them on FOC for us. Truthfully, we didn't even really think through what we wanted to do with the extras at all. Haha! Have I mentioned how lucky we are to have found our ID already?

Welcome to RT Looking forward to ur 3Ds and progress of the reno! btw just curious, ur ID left the remaining cardboard to u? Thought they usually lay the floor and keep the rest?

Congrats on key collection & nice 3Ds. Now the renovation can start full force! Ps. The baron set at royal fanco is really a steal, glad you got it too

Looking good!

Thanks neighbour! It should be all done by mid June if theres not hiccups along the way for carpentry! But will lack the essential furnitures as I haven yet to purchase them Kudos to your ID for ensuring everything looks great for ur house. He/she must really take pride in her work!

Omg. It's so tempting looking at the items bought haha. How much are the kitchen towel holder and rice dispenser?

Hi Gloria, PM-ed you Yup for the big pipes side, they will all be covered with a cabinet. Built one in the service yard to hide the unsightly pipes + to keep my brooms / mops / detergent etc. For the rest of the space where the city gas piping cannot be hidden, I requested my ID to paint them all white to camouflage it Will post when it is done so we can see if they can really be camouflaged or not (i hope it is well hidden!).

Renovation Day 26 - 14 May Citygas up in service yard! Ugly pipings but will be boxed up by a cabinet. More piping to my hob. Will be covered by kitchen cabinets. Things for renovation delivered today! No pictures of the delivered goods though. Guess will only see when they are all installed!

Deliveries arrived + citygas installed! Pictures tonight!

Will keep a lookout for ur tblog! I shld either move in in July or sept.. depends on auspiscious dates

Nicely renovated!

Yes, 2 and counting is definitely right. Already shortlisted 30 over items that I will buy nearer the date of moving in! Will you be sharing your beautifully renovated house too? Hi xiang, As my ID quotes have increased since I signed with him, I am no longer sharing the detailed quotes to be fair to him. Would you still like to know his contact details? Let me know, thanks!

Renovation Day 23 - 11 May Painting of house all completed with the colour "Snowflakes". All the skirting (originally brown from HDB) are also painted white with glossy paint to match my door frames. Protection cardboards are also removed. I know it doesn't seem like much, but I simply love the whiteness and simplicity of it all! Next up Window grills measurements were taken earlier and should be up soon All renovation related items will be delivered this Wed and Thurs Citygas installation coming up this Thursday Carpentry measurements to be taken on Thursday when all the required items for renovation arrive Next payment will be made on Thursday to start carpentry work The renovation so far has been really smooth. Kudos to my ID! Really can't wait to see the end product