KITTYKTY

Continued.. So having started work on the kitchen means we have to get the appliances ready... Another headache... As you can see, i kept my cabinets short... So the hob and sink cannot be too big... And i wanted a built in oven... I wanted a single bowl deep sink and S got one from his contact's shop along geylang road... It was deep juz the way i wanted, but i thought he could have chosen a slightly wider sink... My fault also coz i didnt give exact measurements... Juz told him it should fit my kwali... Haizzzz.. He also got an Ariston package of hob, hood and oven... Im not too picky on brands.. Juz told him i dun want too many burners, 2 is good and 3 will be an bonus... And ariston is a pretty reputable italian brand, so S figured that will suffice.. Got this 3 items at about $929... Wanted to get another brand, Turbo, when we went to their warehouse sale, but they dun have wat we had in mind... All their hobs are pretty wide.. At this point of our journey, i noticed S started to agree with my ideas more and more... Yippee! Finally we were both on the same page... This would get easier i prayed... After these 2 purchase, we were stuck yet again... I cant seem to find a tap that we like... S doenst want the shiny chrome ones and for practical reasons, we also didnt want the retractable kinda kitchen taps..n so the hunt for the kitchen tap continues... Did u notice the track lights in the kitchen, S got that and fixed it before he told me... I tawt it looked ok and he got it in white... To match the cabinets he said... Awwww... N i think at this point, we both juz clicked and knew that we should work on this white palette for the rest of the house, excluding the 2 common rooms... (My dad's room would have earthy neutral tones and lil S room would be colorful... To match her colorful personality) It was such a eureka moment for us and all the ideas started to flood in... I always like white furnishings but i knew S was hesitant... But now he is a convert.. Ehehe... He juz recently told me, white is so calming, clean n pure.. Hahahaha.. Extra lah he.. But we agreed that we should work on white furnishings on a cool neutral palette... And that brings me to our next purchase that i came across on carousell if i remember correctly.. It was a gold pendant lamp that i saw before on taobao but the seller was letting it go brand new at $50... I know u must be thinking... But gold leh.. I tawt u said white.... Coz it was a deal too good to resist. I whatsapp S a pic and asked him to imagine it it white... He said deal and the lamp was ours within the next hour as he was in the vicinity of the seller... So **** happy man... One man's rubbish is another man's gold... Haha... Actually thr lamp quite obiang.. Gold with a lampshade... We shed the lampshade and spray painted the skeleton white... Lucky the smaller lamp shades has white trims by default... So we got led light bulbs (from our second jb spree which i will talk about later) and it looks like that after S fixed it... Notice the goldish looking structure below the lamp.. Dats the lampshade and how the original color is...

Carpentry Story And after that shopping trip, our nest was left untouched since... S did fix the fans but that's it... We were also busy with work and thus had to time to actually sit down n work on wat we want.. However, we still do our background homework by ourselves and hope that the other will accept our proposal... Hahaha.. It became a daily pre bedtime routine for me to scour the net for design ideas, good deals for furnishings as well as wat kinda furnishings are available in the market for me to make my ideas turn to reality... Finally, we decided to get on with the carpentry works first... At least i know wat i want for the kitchen and as this is my fort, S lets me decide wat i want here... And also one common room which my dad will be occupying will have built in wardrobe and he also knows how he wants it.... So off we went to meet a few carpenters with our designs... Initially i wanted the "european" style cabinets with the grooves/panels on the sides ala pinterest.. (I know, roll eyes rite) but since i do a lotttt of cooking i settled on a more functional design that is easy to wipe down... If u notice, i have a half height wall still separating the kitchen from the service balcony, coz i've always wanted an L shaped kitchen... And my dream kitchen is timeless white... Haha... Quite impractical for someone cooks a lot but im pretty anal about cleanliness so i will be more than happy to wipe it down to keep the cabinets clean... For the common room, my dad already has a design, L shaped with lotsa hanging space and an area reinforced for his safe... N so after getting a few quotations, we decided to engage cynthia's company... She is no stranger to us as she has done up our aunt's place recently and a few of our frens, so we know her quality... But she is pretty packed on her schedule... In order to ensure that she doesnt rush thru our works, we told her we are not in a hurry to move in so that gives her ample time to work on our project... After choosing the laminates, white for the kitchen and woody earth tones for the common room (i figured wood tones should appeal to my old man so its kinda manly and warm, haha) and showing us the final design layout, cynthia starts her work on our home... Sneak peek of the kitchen midway through... We chose frosty teak and pica walnut for the common room wardrobe

One of the first thing we got done when we got our keys was to put up the window grilles and also window for the service yard... Coz no need to think too much for this rite... We thought we got a pretty good deal for a 4 room unit... Window grilles for whole unit including service yard plus sliding window for service yard and also a bi fold door for the common toilet at $1300... Anyway with these 2 things out of the way, we were kinda jammed... N we couldnt agree on an outcome that we want.. One of the first shopping that we did was for simple lights for the bathrooms, bomb shelter and service yard... So like any well informed singaporean, haha, we went to jb, Tampoi Lightings, to shop.. So many choices there but most are like what we already saw in other ppl's homes... That added on to the stress of wanting a "different" home... Haizzzzz.... We ended up making hasty decisions here because i was so overwhelmed and a little tired.. After going back and forth, we left the shop with 2 Elmark 52 inch ceiling fans with lights, one in black and one in white,for the 2 common rooms and a the few simple led lights for the above mentioned locations... I have a huge phobia of ceiling fans and refused to give in to having one in the master... I dunno how my dad and S managed to talk me into the other 2 rooms' ceiling fan at that huge *** size when i told them it was too big for the rooms ...well later on in our journey, which was recently, we took those fans down... One (the white one) ended up in the living room and we fixed the black one at my Mil's older and bigger flat..

Continued.... So besides the carpentry, the hacking and tiling works and the doors... Most of the other things were done DIY by my very own handyman Mr S... We wanted something different... I always told S that i want our home to have a timeless feel as much as possible so that our home is not "stuck" in an era, think cornices and rockstone wall... So i was adamant on having no brickwalls or craftstone wall.. No false ceiling(ceiling **** low already), cove lights etc etc... Furnishings are not too bad... Can just change them to move along with times rite.. So i spend countless hours going thru pinterest, instagram for a look that i want... And then months of shopping amd online shopping for the rite furniture to complete our simple home... And that was the start of the house being neglected for a while while we source out for ideas.... But one argument i was glad that i actually won and a good decision was actually made hastily at the hdb office was the choice to take up the floor tiles... Can u believe the insane prices for laying floor tiles now???!! Glad we did take up that offer and thankfully we got "shiny" homogenous tiles, unlike the matt ones hdb uses at one time which absorbed watever spills like a sponge and get stained so easily like nobody's business.. We actually were quite set to overlay them with vinyl tiles ( i know, waste money rite)... We decided against it because of lil S and the amount of spills that may happen... Even though vinyl is "waterproof", it will eventually warp...

The beginning.... It's been almost 10 mths since we collected our keys to our first home.. We were so excited that when the time came, n after all the drama hdb made us go thru, the excitement of moving in eventually waned.. I guess i am also reluctant to move out of my comfort zone which is not far from my office.. Oh well... Finally we get our butt moving, n we are moving in to our new abode next mth!!! After months of careful planning (more like indecisiveness actually), S the hubs n me, we finally agreed on the direction that we are heading towards, which is a mostly white home... We decided to go with mostly white furnishings... Dunno whether can maintain anot with lil S creating havoc everyday... First up which we did months ago, n which we had longggg agreed was to hack off the windows n bifold door to the service balcony.. While we were at it we went ahead with overlaying the ugly kitchen floor tiles n went with wood inspired ceramic tiles from white horse... As u guys can see, the once dark n gloomy kitchen is much brighter after the door and windows r gone...

Hi looking to hack my service yard... Any recommendations for direct hackers?

zio,so what price shld we be looking at here? sliding windows and grills

dunno wat u mean by refacing, but my mum place juz revarnish the kitchen cabinet doors, replace handles and change a few doors.. she say cheaper than doing up the whole kitchen as its still in good condition.

my sil place juz lay crafstone wall. Cost her ard $1150 for 2m wall. ex?

I got quoted $3500 for sq area of ard 145 sq feet. can someone enlighten me the market rate for sliding window and grilles.Price is just crazy different from what i saw here n what my mum was quoted

And sorry, im just very observant..Boxer r u working for Home Master Enterprise? Coz u seem to be very free to post such a lengthy post both here and in mummysg that i saw just now. If ur a mummy of a 2 yr old, u r very very free..n if u r a daddy, u r too free.. peace out

My mum place need to replace windows and grilles. Bronze/brown color sliding windows n grilles. I think last contractor measured 145 sq feet and quoted $3500++ if im not wrong. Is this reasonable?

My mum place wanna replace window and grilles. I think last contractor measured 145 sq feet. Can someone tell me the market price for this. Mum just wants bronze/brown sliding windows and grilles.