Shah

Hi all! Sorry for the lack of updates since JULY! We delayed our renovation works for a month due to moving issues, and with work and the frequent go-arounds to find stuff for the house I have absolutely no time to blog Anyway here I am for an update to our almost complete house. I'll post some of the pics I took along the way to show how much it has changed. I'll be taking more pics tomorrow to show you the current state of our house, which I totally love heehee.. I'm sorry for the small/blur pics, blame my old iphone lol. Toilet and shower after hacking and tiling. See how small they are?? The kitchen on the right has also undergone hacking, tiling and re-plastering of walls. We have colour!! By sheer coincidence or maybe its just our family everyone chose different shades of blue. The light turquoise is for our utility room and parent's bedroom, the center blue is my bro's room while the dark blue is mine The painters had not painted the top part of the wall then though. Our accent wall that stretches from the living room to kitchen is charcoal grey. The photo on the right shows our beautiful fan too.. Our wires are up!! Following the raw/industrial look that I want, we chose the black electrical tubing and the contrast between the white walls and the piping is awesome! The second photo shows our toilet/shower plumen lights. I was scared that they wouldn't be bright enough but in such a small space they work well. Lastly, the cupboards went in too. What's the difference?? Hehe we changed all our windows too. If you look at previous photos the dark window frames did darken the house so we chose to go with white powder-coated windows to brighten up our house. Being on level 3 we need all the light we could get =) You guys could also see that part of my TV feature wall is up. I love the brick as it brings a bit of texture and colour to that plain wall. So that's it for now. I promise to have the next one up soon before my Phuket trip this weekend

Hi Sforshor, I've been reading your Tblog for a while an am interested in where you got your downlights. Can you PM me your contacts as I'm in the process of reno now lol. Thanks for your help. Regards Shah

Thanks forgot2bme That's the drawback of old flats in Marine Parade and other areas, 1 miniscule toilet. However, most of the time it'll just be my brother and I in the flat so we'll make do, and as both the WC and bathroom are separate there's lesser opportunities for any hogging of toilet during 'emergency' situations lol. And yeah old flats' kitchens are enormous. We actually wanted to get a resale 3 room flat and hack the walls to create one long open space, but this flat works too as our kitchen area will be small enough to put our dining area there as well. Haha true that.. I like how lively and bright it makes the living room feel, but personally I'll be crucified if I pick that colour for any of our rooms . Thanks for sharing with me the link. Are you talking about the dining or bedroom chair? I'm getting that bedroom chair cos I've never seen it before in any of the shops here. Hopefully it matches with my somewhat eclectic/industrial room.

Hi LHWH the link is http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=14025232958&ali_refid=a3_420434_1006:1104720608:6:%D2%CE:7b3bd883c321f8458d8e56bde22217f5&ali_trackid=1_7b3bd883c321f8458d8e56bde22217f5&spm=a230r.1.17.36.UJu61o They have it in black too! I plan to bring it to an upholsterer to create a more comfortable seat cushion so that i can sit on it the whole day Ooo I've never really thought about that. Time to think about how to ensure they don't fall then lol. I really love the colour of your living room Troublemaker

Hi guys I just updated our ID search in the post above. Wow eastlovin I can't wait to read your blog and see what you guys did to a similar apartment too! I hope everything is going smoothly on your side . Songz the terrazzo flooring is nice and retro but it totally didn't fit in with our theme, and my parents weren't feeling the floor as well hahaha. Design Ideas & Our Plans Living room My family really likes the industrial look for our living space so we decided to look through multiples magazines for inspiration for our living room. We didn't want to go all out as we believed the place will look cold so we decided on some industrial accents instead. Our floors will use homogenous tiles that look like concrete screed as we believe it will be easier to maintain when compared to a completely concrete floor. A white brick wall is also a must for us as we love the textured look it will bring to the space. Instead of doing a full wall, we're going for a brick tv feature wall as it will reduce costs and future cleaning chores (mostly done by me ). We will also use black trunking to conceal our wires because we love the look too. We were somewhat inspired by the pics below, but we want to create a nicer brick look using craftbricks and will have a suspended console as well. Kitchen Due to the large size of old flat's kitchens we decided to divide the space into a kitchen and dining area. We will have a small 11 feet L-shaped kitchen with wooden laminate base and glossy white laminate top. Our ID managed to get us granite countertops at an affordable price and we will be putting a white tempered glass backsplash. Hopefully it will look something like the pic below (without the pull-out table). WC/Bathroom The most problematic part of the reno process is the 2 ultra small bathrooms. As it's an old flat it comes with a separate WC and shower area. Firstly we wanted to break down the walls between two, but when that was impossible we decided to leave it as is and renovate it to look as nice as humanly possible lol. In the WC we'll be installing a small wash basin as it allows a person to complete his 'business' there (icluding washing his hands) while the bathroom will be seperated into a shower area and a wash basin area using a small glass panel. Another problem of the bathroom is the unsightly pipes that run through on one side of the wall which we wanted to box up, but this was rejected by our ID as it was not possible to box it up using anything other than glass, so painting the pipes is all we can do . Bedrooms As written before, we already have our beds from our current place which we bought 3 years ago. We also wanted to inject our own personalities into our own rooms, so the only reno we're doing in the rooms would be to change the flooring to laminate floors and to have built-in cabinets for all rooms. Does anyone have any reviews on Supreme Floors? Cos that's the brand our ID is gonna use. I can't speak for my brother and my parents as to what the wanna do to their rooms but I can share what I want with mine . After reading greglhc's blog I was really enamoured with a dark turquoise wall for my room while the other walls will be painted white. After searching the net I decided to have a similar looking wall like those below. Don't they look amazing? As my bed doesn't have a headboard i plan to create a visual headboard like the pic on the left using framed pictures, artwork, clocks and mirrors too i think. I also plan to put a hanging industrial lamp beside my bed to create a reading area. I'll be purchasing the chair on the right from taobao to use either as my desk chair or a reading chair beside my bed. Can't wait to start reno!

Hi songz and eastlovin thanks for all your words of support. Sorry I've been mia the past week, had a close friend's wedding in vietnam and was away. Updates will come soon! Eastlovin I can't wait to see your tblog. Is yours a 3/4 or 5 room flat? I don't really see many resale MPers here lol..

Home Furnishings As we have some items in our current home that is still relatively new such as TVs, washing machines, fridge and beds, we can cut down on our already growing costs. Still, many items have to be purchased such as lights, sofa and dining furniture so here's a list of items we're planning to buy. Sofa: Still looking!! We need a sofa that's 3-seater, fabric, and somewhat fits our theme. Any lobangs? Dining table: Its either The right one will have a white table top instead of black. Left table is from nookandcranny.sg while right is from Comfort Design. Dining chairs: We're getting Eames chairs. Was supposed to buy from taobao but we found the chairs being sold at $50 at Star Living and Lorenzo so that's settled. Hob/Hood: After looking at multiple stores in Geylang and Jalan Besar, we found a treasure at Heritage Bathroom Gallery. They're very helpful and knowledgeable, and give humungous discounts that make them cheaper than their competitors by a lot. Highly recommended. As our kitchen is small, we decided to get a 60cm Teka hob and EF hood. Fans: Getting from Heritage too. Fanco FFM-4000 with LED lightkit and Elmark Aeratron fan Taobao Wishlist Thanks to all the renotalkers for sharing their experiences on how to shop and ship products from taobao, and giving credibility to this avenue for getting our home products. I've spent countless hours going through multiple shops and links to find items that will cost double or even more if I purchased it here. One more thing, as you can see from my nick, I don't speak or read mandarin at all so without the help of people here and google translate, we would have missed out on such amazing deals. Armchair and coffee table: Translating armchair into mandarin and trying to find what we want was exhausting. Thank goodness we found this cool armchair. The coffee table will inject warmth into our raw space too http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?spm=a1z10.3.w4011-5565104318.108.4msZbC&id=37256938959&rn=b2ad257cfabf24fcacbb949e596e1dd5 http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.375.BI7pRq&id=37935717999 Lights: Almost all our lights will be from taobao. 1. Bedroom light http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?spm=a1z10.3.w4011-3444722181.290.VC7YE7&id=25026048957&rn=a2a5a9393d394f660bf06e3474f0b09e 2. Kitchen LED ceiling light http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?spm=a1z10.3.w4011-3326574204.106.W7c8km&id=35305091261&rn=05744c7a5ff7ea2d525740abc436cec0 3. Dining pendant light http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?spm=a1z10.3.w4011-3444722181.111.0k20Bx&id=20780763724&rn=53deacee8cc3b5f0ea83e0203d16ade7 There's still more but I'll leave it for another day

ID/Contractor Search As we were looking for budget friendly options to renovate our flat, and as we already knew what we wanted for the look of our place, we focused our search on contractors at the beginning. I have done a lot of reading in this forum and came up with my own rough quote as to the costs of the renovation. This really helped with choosing the right person to help us with the renovation. Contractor 1- Marie. She arranged a meetup with me after seeing my post on another website. During the meetup I laid out the thorough plans for the apartment, however I sensed that she was mainly a coordinator and not the one who will be totally overseeing the whole reno. After the meetup I hounded her for a quote after 1 week of silence, only to receive naught, so next contender please.. Contractor 2- The famous Alan! It took awhile to arrange an appointment as he is eternally busy but we managed to meet up on one of the days he was free. He told me that he set up TEN appointments for the day so I started being a little wary after that. Alan is a very good listener though, and he gave very good recommendations to the ideas that we have, no outright saying that can't be done or it will not look good. He promised us a quote in 3 days, and when that passed I messaged him to remind him of his promise, which he did fulfill the night itself. His quote is very thorough, and included all costs such as electrical and plumbing. However, his quote was 10K above our budget, with some parts of the reno not included, so we shelved him in view of other IDs/contractors. ID/Contractor 3- Joey. I found them through one of the popular threads here in rt. Arranged for an appointment at their showroom in Balestier which looked very good and professional. The boss handed me to Joey who discussed with me our plans for the flat, and they were very attentive and detailed, even showing me one part of the reno that could be left out as we were using the utility room for storage and didn't need anything to be done. Their quote came on time which was good but it was 12K above our budget which was hard to justify so we were sad to let them go. ID 4- Getty. Looking through reno companies online brought out this company which offered affordable packages for their reno so we decided to arrange an appointment even tho their showroom is in Sembawang. When I was there I was handed over to Getty who is very nice and laidback, much to my liking. After laying out all that's needed for the flat, he was the only one who asked for our budget and told us outright that we can't get what we want for the amount we wanted to pay. Even so, he promised us a quote in a few days. The first quote came out to be under our budget which surprised us, but some parts of the reno was missing so we arranged for another meetup to discuss our plans again, and when the 2nd quote was received we were fine with the increase in budget. My brother and I who are in charge of the reno process also felt a bit of chemistry with Getty that we didn't get from the others, so we decided to go all in with Getty for our reno Sometimes I wonder whether we didn't go through enough contractors or IDs to get a more informed choice but I believe if you can click with the person you're working with, and the budget is right, go for it. I won't be giving out his company and contact details until the end of the reno as I can only recommend a person if he has showed himself to be highly capable so let's hope for the best ok!

Hi everyone!! I've been lurking around this forum ever since my family and I started looking for a new place at the start of 2014. After numerous house viewings and disappointments when our offers were rejected, we finally found an apartment in a neighborhood we love, Marine Parade! This blog will hopefully chronicle the experiences we have throughout the renovation process, as well as offer any tips and lobangs that will help make the journey easier and more affordable. Firstly, the floor plan! Typical 4-room layout no?? The flat is in original condition, i.e. ugly green terazzo flooring in the living room and even worse beat-up parquet flooring in the bedrooms. At least there's a utility room for our storage needs. Another problem about this flat is the ultra tiny toilets, whose walls in between can't be hacked as there's multiple pipes along one side in the shower room. Seeing that there are many areas to renovate, we decided to overhaul everything, walls, floors, doors, windows, nothing old will still be left after we're done lol.. Our theme will be rojak . This is because my mom and dad, bro and I have differing styles and tastes, so we decided that we will handle our rooms individually, while the living room and kitchen will be done up in a 'light' industrial style. The living room will have a white brick tv feature wall and black electric trunking, while our kitchen will house a small L-shaped kitchen and our dining area. Here is an amateur preview done using Autodesk Homestyler This program is a lifesaver as it helped me visualize and play with the layout of the flat. It also helped the IDs/contractors we met see what we actually wanted, which was a practical and simple house, with a hint of design. As we knew what we wanted, we focused on finding contractors to do up the place. The search (we didn't engage a contractor in the end) will be elaborated in a later post, and I hope we made the right choice! So that's it for the first post! Our 1st appt was in the morning today, and we hope to start renovations in two weeks. Wish us luck!!