Dwinsplace

Lessons learnt after 2 months in the house: 1. Undermounted sinks are better. We have an overmount and the tap resides behind the sink. So whenever your wet hands go to switch the tap on or off, you leave a pool of water around the tap. And being overmounted, its just that much harder to dry the area. You can't just swipe it all into the sink. You have to get a cloth and soak it up and wring it out etc etc. Tedious. 2. Kompacplus has terrible water marks. We chose the black and that might have been the reason, but the material shows of watermarks like nothing I've seen! So you always need to wipe down with a cloth. Thankfully, the marks go away easily with a damp cloth but again, tedious. 3. Soap marks on dark walls. This applies to the toilets mostly. The soap suds dry and leave a residue on the tiles that become quite visible and require a fair bit of scrubbing to remove depending on how porous your tiles are. Our tiles are textured so theres quite a bit of room for the suds to hide in. You can think you've rinsed all the suds away after a shower but somehow, streaks will still form over time. 4. Bosch products rust. We don't know if we got sub standard products (we bought from mega discount store) but there are spots of rust on our oven already as well as the hob. The only 2 items we have from bosch. Things were all brand new and so we're a bit disappointed. 5. Sliding doors do nothing for sound proofing. We loved the idea of sliding doors and had one installed for our bedroom. It works beautifully. Unfortunately, it really doesn't block out sound which is fine if you both go to bed at the same times but not when you keep very different sleeping hours like us. In retrospect, a pocketed sliding door would have been much better at sound proofing but its more space consuming and more expensive. And to be fair, the ID did warn us that sound proofing would be an issue but we thought the distance to the bedroom would already attenuate the noise to an acceptable level. Guess you always think your house is bigger than it is when you look at the floor plans alone. lol.

I liked them! I mean they weren't perfect, hiccups still happened (which I feel could have been avoided) but they were patient and understanding and did their best to rectify the situation. She threw in one or two freebies for me as the reno progressed and I made last min requests. She was also very patient in listening to us and explaining to us what was going on. So overall i found the process to be good. Workmanship, well whenever i pointed out defects, they would rectify immediately even if it meant redoing a whole section. So i would say that was good too. What I appreciate them for the most is their artistic direction. But you do pay a pretty penny for it. Definitely worth a visit in my opinion. Especially if you're looking for industrial/ loft styling. Good luck for your reno!

So sorry that I've taken so long to reply! From Dr Doors, gate was $736 w GST. Lock was 599. Workmanship is great. No complaints! The sales lady is a bit of a b**** but the actual sales rep/ workers that come to survey and install are much nicer to work with.

Awww. Thanks so much diva79! I don't know if it's the most impressive, there are many projects on this forum that are awesome and a lot of them have continued on to be featured in magazines and stuff. BUT, we really love it and we are glad that you like it too. Hope your own renos are going well?

PMed

Hi Finesse, We used Oops.com as a freight forwarder. Basically, they give you an address at their warehouse and you use that for all your TB purchases. They allow up to 30 days for you to collate your stuff in their warehouse before they start charging you for storage space. They tell you the charges on their website for each cubic metre and you will get a quotation from them when you prep to ship your stuff back as to how many cubic metres your items are. The major downside to this company is that you are unable to see how much shipping costs BEFORE you ship. So you can ask them to give you an accurate shipping quote and see if adding more would make it cheaper. They need to take all your stuff and pack and weigh it before giving you a quote and they consider that packing for shipment already. Apart from that though, I was satisfied with their service. I hear other people have had decent experiences with 65daigou.

On the 2 biggest ones, only the inner rings have flame on the lowest setting. The small one however still has flame on the large ring even on its lowest setting and so we find that it's too powerful. Usually small rings for sauces and what not and needs a lower fire but we can't get it with this one. So we have to end up using the big ring and a bigger pot so it can balance on the wider setting.

Wow thanks for dropping by and the kind words. We are loving the house! Nothing much has been done to it lately and we're just enjoying the process of finally having our own home. That first dinner we cooked together and then ate on our own dining table, with music playing. That was gold. As for photos, its really frustrating how I can't seem to capture this house nicely in shots! The angles just don't allow me to show it to its actual beauty. Will see if my friends can do better and post those instead. Hope you're enjoying your place too!

Blinds: Keagan 86869779 The Company is called Winkz.

Master room is the Veil Grey as mentioned by the wife. If you are talking about the darker grey in the study though, thats a Dulux Noble Grey. I would agree that the overall effect of the veil grey is a bit darker than on the colour swatch but it turned out really nicely. The darker grey just looks like the swatch to me. I love dark colours? But there are some considerations. 1. Dust shows up clearer. 2. Harder to do patch up work cos you can see the brush strokes and new paint will show up very clearly. 3. House feels a bit darker overall. Wouldn't have it any other way though!

Sorry for the radio silence! Thanks to the wifey for answering all the questions. I don't think i want the option to remove the safety feature on the lock. Yes it would be more secure but I kinda want the option available in case things go really wrong and I can still have one last way to get out (or in) You? is that what you're planning to do?

yeah should have done that instead of drinking coffee by the side. lol

Gas Heater review! So we've been here for the last 4 days and showering with the Macro MA-8NFL heater from citygas. Its one of the low end models that they say cannot be used for large shower heads or rainshowers. Here's my review. 1. Water pressure is great! Big handheld shower as well as rain shower has good pressure. That said, I never use both bathrooms at the same time. 2. Time to heat up is decent. It's NOT instant though. From the time I turn on the tap (must have mixer in the 'hot' region or there won't be a command for the burners to start), I hear a poof! when the burners come on (instantly) and then it takes about 15sec for the water to get warm. There is a slight variation in temp for another 30sec as the water really warms up, and then its stable. 3. If you shut off the water supply to soap up etc, the burners DO shut off. So when you turn it back on, I hear the poof again, and depending I'll get the leftover warm water in the pipes, a second or two of cool-ish water and then hot again. Overall, I'm happy with it. But if you're VERY picky about getting the water temp correct instantly, then I would say that this isn't for you. I haven't seen the electrical bill yet though so I can't say if there are savings. Shrug.

Spent a lot of this week just waiting for people to come. For movers to collect their boxes back. For electrician to rectify a light (TB pendant light, couldn't be fixed in the end and I'm changing it to a track light. It's cheap so not so pain.) Carpenters etc. I know this sounds like silly advice but we only bought things like clothes hooks and mirrors after we moved in. We went to ikea one night and spent $600!! haha but it was fun. We wanted to be able to visualise the space properly to assess our needs before making purchases. Downside to this method is that we had to call the carpenter back to help us to mount all the pegs and clocks onto the walls. I could technically do it myself with a drill? But I'm kinda scared of drilling into the brick wall. Second downside is the dust that flies everywhere after the drilling. Dirtying up our clean house. Bah.

Haha that is a HUGE piece. ID did it for you in the end? It looks great though!

Hey wishie Thanks for dropping by! Will PM you shortly.

Thanks! I screwed up the application on one of them so there are bubbles but I was surprised at how easy it was! Just that the larger ones kinda need 2 people to apply properly. Going to buy it again and redo it. And maybe get one for the kitchen wall too!

Pmed!

Small DIY projects to make the house more of a home. Spray painted the door numbers on our gate. Had the gate guys leave this space especially for me. We wanted to make the bathrooms a little special and kinda cheeky so we ordered vinyl lettering from http://www.**.sg/ for about $11 for a set. It would depend on how many letters you needed etc but we just sent them the text and the font file and they couriered it to us. This is what our doors look like now!

Aww glad that you like it! The blinds aren't black actually. Its a very deep rich brown. The tape binding it together is black though. But these are all items that you can choose. We found the the dark brown gives warmth even though with the glare it tends to look black. So just an air of sophistication from certain angles and times of day. You need lights below the fan for your balcony? You can try fanco. It has a few models that are pretty sleek and black but I believe still allows a light fixture beneath. FF6000?

PMed you! And yes its the petite relite fan. The only distributor I found was a local company called Khind. At first the balance in the living room was off so we heard this metal scratching noise after a while, but they came back and redid it no questions asked and now it works great. Thought the blades would be too small when I first saw it. But for a HDB room, the size is just nice. The breeze is fairly focused so when you're not in direct range, you don't feel the wind as much, but it stil ventilates the place very well.

Haha sorry to disappoint guys. We didn't get it from TB. We got it from a fair in Great World city but I'm sure that they have a shop there selling it. About $30 for mine if I remember correctly. They had all the avengers, wolverine, batman, gambit. Quite a few looked very good but I thought it would be overkill so I had to pick one.

Bulbs for sale! I bought tons of 7W LED, E27 type bulbs. I had originally planned to use more white light than yellow lights in the house but since we've moved in, we really prefer the warmth of the yellow light. As such I have 10 of the white colour (6500K) version to let go! http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=21820343983&spm=a1z09.2.9.161.IIGsSs&_u=l1v86i6c1129 this is the link where I got the items and 19Yuan works out to be about SGD$4 per bulb. After touring Ikea today, I found that they sell LED bulbs for about $12 a piece and philips LEDs tend to be about $10-12 also so this is REALLY cheap. I would like to let it go at $3 per bulb so a total of $30 for the 10. I'm not really keen to break up the pack as it's all brand new. PM me if you're interested!!

11. http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=35937539245&spm=a1z09.2.9.59.N6kTE5&_u=l1v86i6cf88d 12. http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=15431136216&spm=a1z09.2.9.75.KEDBD2&_u=l1v86i6c7069 13. http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=18354209237&spm=a1z09.2.9.88.KEDBD2&_u=l1v86i6c291c one lights screw thread was a little tilted so the bulb looks tilted with reference to the light but overall good. 14. http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=21820343983&spm=a1z09.2.9.161.IIGsSs&_u=l1v86i6c1129 My link for cheap LED light bulbs. Bulbs all good but feels a little hot to the touch. Not sure if LED should do that. 15. http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z09.2.9.329.N6kTE5&id=38375661054&_u=l1v86i6c9b0c My TV console. Colour of wood was off from picture and glass was slightly chipped. Not recommended.

6. http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=38865516824&spm=a1z09.2.9.201.IIGsSs&_u=l1v86i6cbf30 Looks great. Rim was a little bent but barely noticeable. 7. http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=38656111105&spm=a1z09.2.9.125.IIGsSs&_u=l1v86i6ce5db Can't get a pic for this light to work but basically its a beautiful light if you can deal with looking at a bare bulb. Again, light bulbs provided are very ugly. Get your own. 8. http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z09.2.9.143.IIGsSs&id=37245594030&_u=l1v86i6cdf9f Standing lamp that looks like its an upside down hanging bulb. Love the concept. Easy to set up and looks good. 9. http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z09.2.9.108.KEDBD2&id=20602276981&_u=l1v86i6c21ec Looks great. Just make sure that the height is ok. The light comes with 2 rods for you to adjust the length. So its either one height of the other. 10. http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=35290792361&spm=a1z09.2.9.98.KEDBD2&_u=l1v86i6cccdd Looks perfect. Expensive but well worth it. ID commented that since the lights are covered the heat can't escape though and that might shorten the lifespan of the light.