ricepapergirl

This is very useful information on the HDB enquiry line! Good to know that response is quick!

Wow! Haha thank you thank you. My T-blog got nothing much yet, just me typing away because can't actually do much for the house yet. But glad to be reading another new T-blog!

Ooh actually the sink and the toilet bowl in the toilets look like they are in quite good nick! But you're hacking everything?

Love the exit sign, and love it even more that you effectively thrifted/are upcycling/recycling it! Amazing the kind of colours you are putting in! Haha EM also have EM woes, mostly the reno cost is so much higher (not to mention the cost of the place) but I think us EM owners still love them. Can't wait to see the rest of your place!

Nice! We also did not get an agent when we bought our EM and it's also our first house (and we're also in the West hi! *waves*). I think it's much easier to buy your first place without an agent than it is to sell one or to sell + buy at the same time! Great that you found a unit you like and at a price you were willing to pay! Looking forward to your T-blog!

Hi twinklecloud! Heh heh we wanted to get the cheapest one, the Compact. Apparently they are all the same in terms of performance, just that maybe the other two models may be "prettier" but we don't really care.

Hi Bp! Not sure specifically whether these shops would carry it, but have you tried looking on Overstock.com or Qoo10? I think Qoo10 is more expensive than Taobao but they are local so stuff might not break as easily? Another possibility is maybe to DIY? Pop over to Spotlight or neighbourhood shops and look for that sort of ornate picture frames, and swop it out with mirror backing? You can also try the art shops at Bras Brasah like Art Friend if you want to DIY it.

Hi twinklecloud! I don't have a review for Bennington but generally the consensus is that 707 is dependable, so we're going to get those instead. Not sure whether it helps.

Wow! Where did you get the Exit sign?? Loving the bits of the house I'm seeing, so bold and colourful! And to be able to keep within your budget! I'm only getting my keys in March so still some time to go for us!

Very festive!! Can't wait till we have our own place next Christmas so that we can also decorate it!

Ooh! I like the dark cupboard doors with the pale flooring in your kitchen! Nice! What's the space in between your dark subway tiles and the backsplash (?) for? Your Eubiq?

This would be what we might be getting from Ikea. This is the closest to my ideal Ikea kitchen colour scheme - Laxarby black-brown cupboard doors with the lighter oak brown countertop all around, the white subway tiles with dark grout though with darker-wood flooring. And brass handles instead. Or maybe concrete-coloured flooring. Still trying to decide whether the wood-like tiles are worth it if my kitchen floor area is small. Not much impact if so. I don't suppose many people here would have had their kitchens from Ikea, but any reviews (1st or 2nd hand) of the Ikea kitchen sinks? We'll probably get a better tap from somewhere else but a sink is a sink right? O_o.

Oh! Is Dyson going to launch a model too?? We've been looking around at all the different variants of Roombas but thought we would stick to the original since it's generally well-reviewed. So far, the prices on Lazada have been the best. We are actually probably getting a Roomba 650 and an iRobot Brava (the one that can Swiffer and mop) and then alternate them for each floor. And run them twice a week and do a proper Swiffer+handmopping maybe twice a month. I also want to get a Dyson mattress vacuum I'm the generation that grew up with my parents using a Rainbow vacuum on our beds and pillows and am feeling a bit grimy having not vacuumed our bed for months and months. The Rainbows and Delphines are too expensive though, like $3k for a unit which I would only really use on the mattress, so the Dyson one looks great for less than $1k. #vacuumtalk Oooh I love that EM unit! And actually love your unit as well, we share similar aesthetic tastes. Perhaps I should get your ID contact lol but so scared it will be beyond our budget. Could you PM me anyway (though I think, should be quite busy recently?)?

Hi dien! Hahaha yeah our faces were totally when we first found out there was no piped gas. Jurong is an old district maybe? But yeah I confirmed and double confirmed it. We knew there was no piped gas in the unit when we first bought it but the owners said their neighbours might have had it in, just that their unit they didn't do it, so it was quite disappointing when we actually did call up and find out it was not the case. Thank goodness twinklecloud mentioned to call up SP Services early or we might still be in lalaland thinking we would have piped gas. It's not a dealbreaker now that we've learnt about it and know to deal with it, and we've redesigned the kitchen a bit to fit in the tanks, maybe next time we can get the piped gas in after maybe 10 more years and it's time to redo the kitchen?

Hi nextstep! Hahaha yeah quite excited too! Though, stairs. And a lot of area to clean! We're already thinking of buying two roombas!

Someone on the forums bought a brass overhead pots and pans hanger mesh thingy from them before! They are great, I've been checking them out. Was eyeing these because they are so cute and half-contemplating them for tiny bedside tables at one point (husband has vetoed and we're getting Muji cardboard shelves instead lol but even husband likes the stools). Belfast 24 Inch Saddle Stools

Speaking of Ikea, we went down to Ikea (again!?) over the weekend! For my kitchen, I was really inspired by Ikea's new METOD kitchen range, with their Blum fittings and also their door fronts and selection of countertops. I've never been very fond of the granite/natural stone type of countertop (nothing against them, I just don't particularly like them) and as my mood board photo of the kitchen shows, I'm quite interested in butcher-block style countertops (which is surprisingly really difficult to cater for outside of Ikea??). But of course, as it is with Ikea, loads of people came up with protests and more-subtle side-eye incredulous looks when I mentioned I intended to have an Ikea kitchen. Everything from the fact that kitchens will be wet and particleboards will not stand up to it, to Asian cooking being greasy and not in line with western homes' requirements, to I'm-sure-your-ID-will-not-be-much-more-expensive etc. I've been doing a lot of internet research/digging and asking around, and basically 1. there are really good reviews of Ikea kitchen cabinets in western countries, and most of the complaints come from bad installation or bad service, 2. there have been next to no bad reviews of the new METOD range but that's because it's so new, even in "Asian cooking countries", and even so, there does not seem to have proportionately higher bad reviews for Ikea kitchen cabinets than there are for ID/contractor kitchen cabinets (basically I figured the risk is about the same) 3. despite what people have been telling me, the average quote for a kitchen with my requirements (I have my kitchen layout planned out down to where the drawers will be and what each drawer will contain, and there are a lot of drawers) by IDs/contractors and by a specialized kitchen-carpenter are on average around $3-5k more expensive than the Ikea kitchen with the Ikea site visit and installation fees included, and 4. The best wood-like counter-top surface that non-Ikea kitchens have is Kompactplus, which is not like butcher-block wood countertop at all, much slimmer and much more expensive. I don't intend to get real wood countertop given how "wet" the prep work is for Asian cooking but Ikea also has wood-like acrylic tops which look like thick butcher block. This option does not seem to be available at all when I ask the IDs/contractors/carpenters. Plus I've already decided to get an air-fryer and a strong oil-sucking hood. Anyway the long and short of it was that I was half-decided to get an Ikea kitchen, until we called up SP services and found out that there was no piped gas to our block at all, so we were either going to have to use LPG gas cylinders, or electric plate/induction. I am not a fan of electric plate/induction type cookers because of their flat surfaces (you don't get the same heat coverage at the bottom of a round wok or pan as a proper flame) so it was LPG tanks for us. For a month or so we thought the Ikea kitchen was not possible then because we weren't sure that the base of the Ikea cabinet could hold the weight of LPG cylinders, but! Over the weekend we asked an ID about it (our original idea was actually to build concrete cabinet bases and mount the Ikea kitchen cabinets over it) and he said the Ikea cabinets should be able to sustain the tanks (as he had a previous customer who did something similar) and also we checked with Ikea kitchen department as well and they said it should be more than fine, since their cabinetry is supposed to sustain the weight of much more than the cylinders... So... it looks like an Ikea kitchen is back on the cards for us! Hope that it will go smoothly, and hope to contribute a review some years on so that others who are wondering about an Ikea kitchen can have more information than I do right now.

Really enjoyed reading about and seeing your home! The design is very classy and it feels very cozy for a home! Thank you for writing it up!

Oh my the colours pop so much!! Loving it!!

Haha thanks for everyone explaining! I figured concealed wiring would be more expensive than conduit wiring but I got confused because Lazyfatcat007's ID seemed to be offering concealed wiring as an alternative to conduit wiring because conduit wiring was considered too expensive. Anyway yes, concealed wiring is against the rules . We will probably also end up with conduit lighting and no false ceiling for ours. I've been noticing that my parents' house has all conduit lighting and so does my parents-in-law's house but prior to thinking about renovation, I have never noticed it or thought it ugly! I think sometimes we think too much about perfection during the reno period and perhaps spend more money on things we might not have noticed at all a few months later. Sometimes just have to let it go!

So is conduit piping cheaper or more expensive than concealed wiring? O_o.

Hi dien, Thanks for the compliments! Haha actually I think I just am impatient to get the place and since cannot, must find other things that "work towards" getting the place. Otherwise feel very antsy. If we spend our time shortlisting furniture at least we feel like we are doing something instead of waiting around counting down to the key-collection date haha. Space!! Haha actually my office is quite nearby so I walked down some time ago to check it out myself, but cannot lah, the price tags are all too scary!! Can only look, cannot even imagine buying!

Hi Lazyfatcat007, The TV console was a love at first sight for us!! We originally set aside a much lower budget for TV consoles but when we saw this in real life we both agreed the "upgrade" in budget was worth it. Second Charm uses teak planks, not plywood or fibreboard etc so we thought it was worth it, plus the handiwork is really nice. We're probably getting something that's been stained a bit darker though. Can't wait till my key-collection date nears so that I can email them to ask them to start fabricating! Hi twinklecloud, I think my husband and I are doing it the wrong sequence. We pick all our colours and tiles and furniture and fittings first, then we go look for ID/contractor lol. We even asked Castlery back in November on how long they can hold our purchases for us and they said max 3 months! So we have to wait.

Wow wow! hacking done! So exciting! So you still don't have permission to hack your two bathrooms? How would you start tiling if so? That kitchen flooring! It would look spectacular! So excited to see the result!

Loving the plastering! Looks really nice and tidy! My parent's place had that rockstone wall previously and it was so difficult to get anything to stick to it, like you can't even use those 3M command hooks!