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Hello! Your reno very nice also! Can see some similarities with mine in terms of the bathrooms (box up with wall shelves and step down) and the cement screed wall in the kitchen (that's what I wanted before they boo-boo ). Did your contractor put any kind of sealer over the cement screed? Please post the final photos of your place, ok? Want to feast my eyes

Thanks @mamit! Unfortunately this sealer is just paint sealer so it's whitish and can see the brush marks so doesn't look good up close at all!! I bought a Polyurethane Varnish and was planning to paint it over the bare cement screed to make it more water repellent but then read somewhere that it will yellow over time. Now trying to research on cement screed sealer that won't impart a shiny surface and yet can resist water... Anyone got any lobang?

Piping Box-up and Concealed Shower Even before we got our keys, we wanted a concealed shower set for the master bathroom for a condo-like feel. Since there is no way we can embed the concealed parts into the wall for a HDB unit, our ID suggested a box up. At the same time, boxing up can create those little niches in the wall to put shampoo etc – they are called wall shelves. Buying a concealed shower set is super expensive though! We’ve got our eyes set on Grohe and visited Interior Affairs at Jalan Besar to have a look and the salesperson there told us to be prepared to pay 3x more for a concealed set, especially since Grohe was having promotion for their non-concealed rainshower sets. Luckily I read about insani24.de from RT (super big THANK YOU) and the website even sells all the necessary components together as a bundle – no need to be confused about which parts to buy! I think the most important component is the Rapido E Universal which you will never ever see in showrooms (because it’s the concealed part, duh) and this baby alone retails locally for $350! Throw in the lever plate ($150 onwards) and you are already $500 poorer and still haven’t gotten the hand shower and rain shower components! But on insani, you can buy a full concealed shower set for around $650! But truth be told, I did a calculation and turns out it may be cheaper to buy each components separately! So why am I talking about this Rapido thingy? Because installing it requires co-ordinating the box-up people, the plumber and the tiler! It’s times like these that I’m grateful we have an ID to manage this! Box-up with steel frames and calcium silicate (waterproof) boards. Plumber then will dismantle the boards to install the concealed components before reassembling the boards. Tiler will then come in to stick on the tiles. The blue plastic thingy protrudes out now but will be cut off to flush with the tiles, then the lever plate will be stuck over it. Remember the ginormous pipes in the common bathroom? At first we had no plans to box up, but the pipes necessitated that decision, but at least we got some wall shelves too! Common bathroom box-up. Cement screed looks very dark because it was freshly laid on.

Plumbing & Citygas Remember Uncle X? My FIL’s friend who is a subcontractor? He did the plumbing for the in-laws’ house (where I'm still squatting at) and comes highly recommended by FIL. After the painting boo-boo, I approach this arrangement with some trepidation. The head plumber Mr N seems quite confident with his work but we think he is probably not too familiar with HDB regulations. There were some instances when he said stuff which didn’t make any sense at all! Prime example after Citygas came and installed the gas pipes. Because of the low beams we have, the gas pipe has to be bent in a U-shape to enter the service yard where the water heater and gas hob is at. Citygas people installing the gas pipe, with a U-bend because they cannot drill through the stupid fat beam. Mr N who came after Citygas people has left said “Cannot have U-shape la!! Later got water condensation and they never put any drainage, will leak ok?” He claims the gas pipe carries both gas and liquid nitrogen. This is my first time hearing such a thing - isn’t the thin gas pipe just that, something which carries gas? He says the liquid nitrogen will cause condensation water to pool at the bottom of the U, so by right need to have a drainage tray there. My ID was also confused and said he will call Citygas to check. Guess what? Citygas said the U-shape is no problem at all! Don’t know if anyone got hear such a thing before?? Any opinions? Mr N also wanted to help us by installing separate valves for water inlets to separate parts of the house so that in case any water leakage, we can turn off the affected area and still have water elsewhere, rather than turning of the main valve situated outside of the unit. Sounds like a good idea right? But this is what it looked like in our common bathroom: My husband was stunned speechless when he saw this. I just laughed out loud. After painting the taps black, will look super industrial! Can even buy these kind of hooks for the bathroom to match: But the boss really didn’t like having too many pipes like that. And the more I look at it, the more confused I got… I’ve looked at so many photos on Q**** and RT, never seen pipes like this before! When I expressed my concerns to Mr N, he just brushed it off and refused to do anything about it. My FIL also say it’s too much and he promptly called Uncle X. Hierarchy of authority: FIL > Uncle X > Mr N. Mr N and his team came the next day with super black faces and reduced the number of pipes: Looks better now right?

Thanks for sharing your experience though! Certainly helped us! I think you can paint over grout lines with normal paint, just need a small artist's brush and must wipe off any paint that runs onto the tile. You know those laminate planks which simulate wooden planks? The black line in between them are all hand-painted anyway. So grout would be the same concept. You can read about that here:

DIY 3: More Painting!! @matchalatte, I do think that painting yourself is very doable but need to dedicate quite some time to do it. And you have to time it such that you’re not in the way of the workers (I prefer to do it when there aren’t any workers around, feel very pai seh) and that it won’t affect the progress of the renovation. In my case, I decided to paint some parts of my walls because I want to see the effect and have the option to change my mind if the colour doesn’t turn out well. Also, I had a situation where I wanted to change one part of the wall colour just 2 days before the gas pipes were to be installed on the very same wall, as elaborated below… Service Yard Beam: We had gotten it painted to a light grey colour but I felt that it needed a different colour as a contrast. So I flexed my Photoshop muscles and tweaked the 3D render (no point asking the ID because it takes AGES for the 3D artist to make changes, and even then will have errors). I overlaid 3 different colour options and asked the husband/boss: Boss chose blue, obviously, because that’s his favourite colour. But since it was kind of last minute and the painter definitely won’t come down on a Sunday, so I decided to paint it myself using some left over Denim Drift paint, because Citygas was coming the very next day! I felt very accomplished seeing the result. Great feeling! Citygas people at work Kitchen Backsplash: So the previous sponging effect wasn’t that great and even though I managed to create another effect with the damp roller technique, we decided to paint the walls between the top and bottom cabinets a very dark blue-grey colour (because the boss is cheapo and don’t want to top-up for glass backsplash). We bought a small can of Darkened Puddle and painted last Sunday. Handsome husband at work again. Mainly cause he don't want to pay for glass backsplash hahaha As you can see, our carpentry is currently being installed. Will talk more about the carpentry soon... will be a long post!