ricepapergirl
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Everything posted by ricepapergirl
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Oh I didn't go for the wooden butcher block countertop (sorry I realise that all my photos have suddenly disappeared, will be working on getting them up again), I actually got a laminate worktop (IKEA Saljan in wood effect) so it looks like a butcher block but none of the issues with actual wood (cannot let water stand etc). So far I have had zero problems with the laminate worktop and I do stuff like leave water puddles around the sink area and put super hot and super cold stuff on it and drop curry on it and it looks new still.
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Haha I don't really know why there's such a bad opinion of IKEA products. I did so based on experience: my own maiden home room and house had IKEA furniture interspersed, so I knew about the longevity of certain pieces and the weakness of other pieces. For example, I know that PAX tends to be pretty hardy if you treat it well, and the Expedit/KALLAX shelves are super super hardy. But I have had BILLY shelves fail on me so I only get the 40cm wide ones (the 80 cm wide ones don't get enough support in the middle), and I wouldn't put the black powder-coated metal shelves in my toilet if I regularly wash the feet of it (ours rusted and then disintegrated). It's about looking at the structural integrity of the piece, take into account how easy it is to take care of it properly, compare the prices, and make the right risk assessment. My own opinion of carpentry isn't great either, I've had built-in wardrobes and bookshelves which failed on me as well, so I didn't see carpentry as necessarily always better than IKEA. We actually assembled quite a lot of the IKEA stuff ourselves (including part of the kitchen!) but for the big stuff like the wardrobes we just paid for it. I love to assemble IKEA furniture but my husband is not so hot on it, and at that time I was quite heavily pregnant so he didn't really allow me to do too much of it haha.
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Haha yeah we didn't have any built-ins as well, because we are a young family and the number one advice by others to us is to not do any built-ins, because as the kids grow the requirements for the rooms will definitely change. The 75k doesn't include any IKEA furniture costs, it's just hacking, tiles, parquet, doors, windows, installations of stuff, pipes and electrical, painting and some other odds and ends. I paid around $5.5k for the kitchen + another $1.1k for all of the installation. Other than that I got my PAX wardrobe and BILLY shelves, some other smaller storage bits, from IKEA. Cost about $4k including installation. We didn't buy everything from IKEA though so not sure whether that sum is useful for comparison. Ah, if you look at my photos you will realise I have no curtains at all except in my nursery, because the balcony + Master Bedroom windows face the park. We originally wanted to get curtains but when we moved in we realised we didn't need to, so we got lazy and never did it. The nursery had curtains because those windows face the opposite block and we had a confinement nanny stay in that room for a bit so better give her some privacy. On the other hand, if you're asking about the awning and whether it blocks the light, yes it does, to a certain extent. The living room will get darker by a bit but not by much, definitely nowhere near what a day curtain would do.
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Hi @lightningbolt! Another EM + metod kitchen! Wow! Yeah ours was complete overhaul but not much technically done. We paid around $75k to our contractor, including $1800 for the awning (not sure how much it actually costed, sorry, he coordinated it all so we didn't have a proper contact), but then because we had no carpentry done by our contractor, to get a full idea of our costs, you should include furniture as well. I don't really have a breakdown for that ready but I know we spent around $112k in total (that includes renovation, furniture, lights, moving costs, electrical appliances, even things like clocks and crockery - so literally everything we needed to buy to make the house completely liveable). Even though I don't have the contact for the actual awning we had installed, I actually checked around by myself for quotes for retractable awnings before I got my contractor to quote for it. This is about 1.5 years ago, but I got a price of around $1.9k from Perfect Decor and about $1.7k from Elite Deco, includes installation. So that pricing seems around there. Hope that helps!
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Hi @Blooie ! Sorry for the delay in replying, wanted to get some photos! Generally? The doors and the kitchen itself are holding up well! I just popped in to take some photos: Personally I got the grey ones because I was worried the white ones (any white ones) would be very obvious when there's grime or water stains or oil stains, so I can't really comment on how the white bobyn doors would hold up, but the grey ones are really nice. The only problem I've had is the ones near my stove (the two drawers and the door on the right have this slight peeling effect: I have a very strong suspicion this happened because I was using some really strong heavy-duty "kitchen cleaner" spray on them once, and the doors are just not meant to handle that kind of chemical on them. So I would highly recommend you just wipe down with a damp cloth if you need to. They didn't need the kitchen cleaner spray, I was just kiasu + lazy (spray everywhere and wipe). This is after a full year of daily use, I do my fair share of stir-frying, oil splattering, occasional deep frying, so I think both the counter-top and the doors have really held up well! No complaints there.
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A quick update: 10 months on... I don't check this forum much now, life gets a bit hectic with a 5.5 month-old baby! But just checking in to say, mostly everything we bought and are using are still going strong and work very well! The house is understandably more cluttered with baby stuff now that she's here, but the layout we've created works well with additions needed for the baby. I also effectively spent my 16 weeks of maternity leave testing the heck out of this house, by staying at home everyday for 16 weeks whilst taking care of my baby! The place I love most continues to be my living room with its lovely fan, our master bedroom with the comfy bed (and fan!), and also my kitchen. I cooked everyday when I was on maternity leave (and now still cooks on Mon, Tue, Wed, Sat and Sun) and this IKEA kitchen still functions perfectly. No regrets there at all!
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Hi @hellobello ! The wardrobe is good! We've been using it for about 10 months now and no complaints about its quality. The internal compartments and drawers etc work well too, smooth-running and everything. The only thing is that we have the sliding door version and it makes a bit of noise when we slide it, though I suspect it's because we might have gotten something caught in the track but we can't find it. Anyway it doesn't affect the use, it's just slightly noisier when we use it. I would say though, get the professionals from IKEA to install it, we got the shorter one and even that looked difficult to self-install. Personally, I've also had PAX wardrobes in my maiden home (and my parents and brother still use theirs) and those are coming to around close to 10 years now, and they are still going strong. So from my old home and my current home, so far we can vouch for the quality and long-lastingness.
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Hi @Mannequin! Sorry it's been a while so I've lost the documentation, but from my monthly expenses it says that I paid S$1398.20 in total for the stuff on 20 Feb (so I purchased on 20 Feb), and I paid $82.04 in GST and permit fee on 9 March (when the stuff arrived + we picked it up). So roughly it takes a month or less to arrive in Singapore, and the GST is likely levied on the actual cost of the items not including shipping, though I don't know whether it's only levied on a portion of the items' cost or the full amount. Hope that helps!
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Well, let me see whether I can take a photo of my under-sink pipes. Four-months-on. It's not super dingy, but it could be nicer. Maybe one day I'll paint them myself. Hope your light holds out then! Do note that if it's LED the bulb is likely to be fine but the electrical housing (I forgot what it is called) is probably likely to give out faster than the bulb, so either way you should be prepared for the day you have to reach and repair it!
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I have ss water pipes in all of my toilets, I just leave as is. Whenever they start to look a little bit dingy (not often) I run a melamine sponge on it and it looks new again. Something to consider. I regret not painting the under-sink pipes though, but that's because I have wall hung basins. Those are white plastic and starting to look dingy but cannot be solved by melamine sponge lol. Actually for my staircase, I purposely didn't get a ceiling lamp at all because it will be 1. very hard to clean and 2. very hard to replace the light if anything breaks. Not sure whether it's too late if you've already bought your ceiling lamp. Instead, I have a light at the top of my staircase along the second-floor corridor, and another one at the half-way staircase landing, both on the walls instead. That way it lights up the void + it's easy to clean and change if need be. Something to think about. If they need $400 for scaffolding to install now, what happens in the future when you need to reach your light for any reason? Pay again to get scaffolding in? Presumably it's far too tall for a normal ladder to reach?
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For us (but keeping in mind mine was a resale and we redid everything including plastering walls and tiling floors) We had plumbing works (pipes) before electrical wiring work and then installing toilet accessories (including some of the taps, sinks, toilet bowls etc) much later after the painting and the doors, together with the lights. Yours might be different.
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Wow!!! I was actually toying with the idea of doing proper wood block countertop for the dry section and either Kompactplus or the non-wood wood-like countertop on the sink side. In the end I went for all non-wood wood-like Saljan countertop on both sides (still no regrets though) but it's nice to see someone else trying out this method!! Good luck with it!
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You don't have any work to be done to your toilets? Usually there will be time set aside for things like installing taps, running water piping, shower heads, shower stall/screen/door, toilet bowl, then also toilet fixtures (lights, heater, towel rack, mirror, toilet roll holder etc)? That will have to fit in together with the tiling at the toilet? Or all encapsulated under "plumbing works"?
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Aww so glad for you that this worked out! It's so pretty!
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Aww! Thank you! Hope it works well for you! We actually picked this fan out more for the look than anything but when we went to Chan Huat we got them to switch on each of their fans and stood far away and checked which one had better wind coverage. You've already chosen your fan but that's still a great way of knowing beforehand whether the fan would be any good.
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Hahaha no no lah just curious. Actually we can probably claim to have started him on his smartbox thing cos originally we wanted to have a smartplug for our retractable awning (imagine, can retract and extend awning when at work! So when it's going to rain you quickly extend the retractable awning even if you're outside the house!) and we talked to him at length about how the switch for the retractable awning needs to be a certain way so we can use a smartplug (but in the end we gave up the idea cos will need a weather-proof smartplug) but because of all our talking he went to go research into it and then this smartbox thing happened. He told us about it! I just forgot the brand and when I saw the TV ads we were like, wait, is this the one he was talking about?
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The wind flow is pretty good, we leave it on 1 most of the time. We purposely have our sofa where it is now (away from the wall) because that's where the most wind created by the fan + most cooling, but that is also because my living room is very wide (5m wide) so if you have a smaller space I think the wind coverage should be great. We have the same fan upstairs in the MBR (almost same size as our living room) and sometimes when it's very very warm at night it might need to be put in speed 2 (but we're too lazy lol) but most of the time speed 1 is sufficient for us.
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5I Resale
ricepapergirl replied to evo's topic in Reno t-Blog Chat - HDB Resale Renovation & Interior Design
Although I'm not the t-blog owner, I also had all of my toilet windows changed from louvre to top-hung and just double checked. We got HDB approval to do it (I think all changes to windows for HDB need approval generally). Should not be difficult, just need to file a reno permit request. -
So in love with your navy blue kitchen cabinets right now! It was my mini dream to have a navy kitchen (I still live in hope of repainting my ikea doors many years in the future that colour) and it looks really good!!! And the black trim really makes it pop! Is the SMARTBOX the one that Andrew is doing now? We saw the ads on TV and was wondering whether its his product.
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That amazing blue navy colour kitchen cabinets!!! DROOL! Carpentry by Andrew?
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For your fan, have you considered Fanco? We have two Fanco FFM7000 in black, no light kit, simple, relatively cheap (I recall not more than $300 a piece) and easy to maintain. No remote though, we just switch it on like a light switch. Got a photo of it in motion here: Been working well with zero problems for 4 months now.
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This is great advice! We ended up mostly getting our bathroom doors in clear glass but with frosted sticker (it works quite well right now) but we have some frosted glass for the corridor-facing windows and have had to deal with streaks as well!
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Star Wars in the East
ricepapergirl replied to rae's topic in Reno t-Blog Chat - HDB Resale Renovation & Interior Design
I love my Fanco fans as well! My mother-in-law also has Fanco fan and it has been working well for her place for many years. We got those without light-kits though so not sure whether your mileage would be the same. -
Update on pests and bugs Very randomly, if anyone was following my trials and tribulations (not much lah)... 1. Ant gel (from NTUC) works a charm, at least, I haven't seen any ants since I put it out. I just re-used the cap of a milk bottle (washed), squeezed some ant gel on it, left it at a spot near where I see them, and then after that no more ants anywhere! 2. Bio X (also can find from NTUC!) also very good, we use it on other bugs, haven't seen another cockroach yet but nice to know I can use this spray if husband is not around. My latest issue is with birds... flying into my balcony, leaving droppings on my balcony parapet, and eating my mimosa plants! ;_; Fortunately the distance between the extended awning and my bamboo clothing poles is too narrow so they haven't landed on my laundry hung out to dry yet, but anyone have any amazing tips for keeping birds away from your balcony?? ;_;
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Hi! Sorry for the late reply. I also purchased from xTWOstore for the first time when I did it, seemed quite safe. There's even a Singaporean (living in Germany) who was working with them when I bought from them. Think they are quite reputable. Taxes will be charged when the goods enter Singapore, so I think there was a permit fee and a GST fee. They will call/email you when it arrives in Singapore.
