ricepapergirl
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Everything posted by ricepapergirl
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Is that hacking with full wall tiling of the kitchen? We decided to hack but didn't retile most of the kitchen walls except for the backsplash area. That cut down costs by quite a bit.
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For things like toilet bowls, shower heads, water heaters etc, we were also quoted around that range. If you are a plumber or know one, it's possible to install it yourself I guess but it's not as simple as just drilling holes to putstuff up you also need to put copper or stainless steel water pipes in the right position and routing and mount them and have enough knowledge of plumbing to know what kind of connections is appropriate etc.
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Thank you for this wonderful review! Yeah we are definitely thinking of going with them. Any idea how long in advance we should contact them beforehand?
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Hi @althevin! I actually changed all of my big pipes (except the super long two storey one at my balcony), so those in my kitchen and all three toilets as well. I think HDB wouldn't object, we did tell them in our reno permits I think lol. It wasn't that cheap, cost us around 2k. But for many sets of pipes, so if yours is not an EM maybe half the price? Our ID did tell us that if we tried to get HDB to help us change, it would be cheaper by at least a few hundred dollars, but we wanted to just quickly settle it so we got our ID to do it.
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After talking on the phone for some time today, can give some initial thoughts: the fittings from hansgrohe seem to be fine, except that if you get the bath mixer you have to get some wall mounting brackets for them. Apparently Hansgrohe bath mixers assume you have water pipes laid inside your wall (even for those supposedly "exposed mounting") but in Singapore we tend to have our pipes on the walls so you need a separate bath mixer mounting bracket. Haven't heard anything about the rest of the stuff, will keep you updated. Wah! Yeah he's quite good with giving useful advice. Hope you find an ID you like! Now very curious about your floorplan!
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My husband convinced me to get a dryer, but we still intend to try and mount some racks for bamboo poles on our balcony. Thinking of getting something like these and mount above the head at the balcony area:
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Hahaha lol yeah I was so excited about it when I actually got to buy it that I showed it to another colleague and she's now going to buy it for her place as well. Lol.
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Just wanted to pop in to say that I love love love the same range of Hitachi made-in-japan fridges, I'm getting the one-door black version and I totally get how you would want to see it everytime you pop into an electronics store, because I totally drag my husband to do so.
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Yeah, I also think this might be the solution if you really cannot stand it. Or to look for single door which is deeper but narrower? I admit I haven't seen many fridge doors that open on the right.
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Am reminded today that not everything can be smooth-sailing, though sometimes it's about having the right attitude! I'm an optimist at heart but also a pragmatist, if got problem, just solve it! The problem we found today was that we had bought instant water heaters for all three bathrooms, together with hansgrohe shower heads and bath mixers. Our original thinking was that the instant water heater can provide heated up hot water via a stainless steel pipe to our bath mixer, which can then adjust the temperature of the water as per normal and shoot that water up to the showerhead. We didn't really think it through and never really discussed it with Andrew (lolweep) and to be honest, there's not much information on instant water heaters online. Also didn't occur to me that every other instant heater I've seen installed has the heated water go directly from the instant heater to the shower head. So yup, Andrew called today with his plumber at hand, to ask whether we are okay if the bath mixer will only push out cold water and the shower set is not connected directly to the bath mixer. After a lot of discussions to-and-fro, the plumber finally told us that although our idea is workable, there are two issues: 1. the hot water, having to travel through a pipe to the bath mixer then to the showerhead, may not be super hot anymore; and 2. There might be issues with the instant water heater in the future, since it was not built to be used like that. With that, we were given two decisions, either switch to a storage heater (we have no piped gas so gas heater is out of the question), or to connect the instant water heater to the showerhead and use the bath mixer just like a normal wall-mounted tap. After some discussion with my husband, we thought it was fine to just go with the second option. Oops to not enough industry knowledge! Lolweep. Anyway, we still get to use our instant heaters and everything we bought, just that not all of them will be functioning the way we thought they would be. Maybe in the future we might think of switching to storage heaters? Who knows.
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Oh dear about the fridge door! We are worried we will have a similar problem, our door is a sliding glass door and the fridge door when open will probably hit the glass door when the glass door is open. Will have to make some sort of cushion on the fridge door so that it doesn't accidentally shatter the glass door . I actually knew this would be the problem if we put the fridge so close to the wall so we purposely checked that our fridge's door doesn't swing too much out. Hope you solve your problem! Maybe it's just getting used to it? Love the kitchen though, those floor tiles look amazing!!
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Love your SWING! So happy for you that it's finally up!!! Isn't the space behind the swing important... for the swing to swing? Anyway I think it's a lot more secure on the walls than on the beam, I was always a bit worried that your beam wouldn't be able to withstand the weight. Perhaps you can hang a picture behind the swing. It would look very nice! Actually I like the colour scheme of your balcony! Think it goes well with the white!
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Oh! That's useful to know! I was thinking of using helping hands as well! Will take this into account (husband and I might just take a week's leave to move in and settle stuff)...
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Oh!! Thanks for the tips! I think they did show us one of those types of design for the towel rack but because it was more expensive my husband and I was like, nah, we'll just go with the old-fashioned ones haha. Hope these will do fine! They did mention that you can use metal scourers on their stuff if there was ever any sort of green/rust but I'm a bit like O_O wouldn't that make it easier to rust. Anyway, fingers crossed that our bathroom stuff will last. My parents-in-law just went to walk IMM today because their 15-year-old bath mixer and tap have started to leak and their adjustable rod for the shower head has become sliding instead of fixed. Hoping our hansgrohe stuff will hold up past the 15 year old mark.
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Day 27: Tiling 100%, Plastering 60% Popped in after lunch today just to walk around a bit with my parents-in-law and sister-in-law, think we all like to kaypoh kaypoh. Everyone seems happy with the quality of the work done so far, think Andrew's tilers are great workers! All tiling skirting done, all tiling in the bathrooms are done, including finally our long rectangular shelf across the entire wall of our MBR toilet! Our sink will be on the left side of the picture, under the shelf, and the shower area is on the right side of the picture, on the other wall, so the long shelf will have dual function as the shelf for shower stuff as well as for toothbrushes and the like. Glad Andrew managed to do it! Plastering has also started, most of the plastering on the second floor of the walls and ceiling are already done and some of the first floor plastering has started! I am so suaku, think all the places I've lived in so far have had the same standard of slightly-shoddy plastering, so when we asked Andrew to help plaster over our rockstone texture ceilings he mentioned our walls are pretty cui as well and do we want to plaster those, I was like, actually the walls look okay but anyway might as well. WOW. There's quite a lot of difference between the new plastering (and how weirdly unnaturally smooth plastered walls are) and the old-style plastering I'm used to lol. Particularly amused at how they even used these plastic edges to smooth out the rounded wall edges. Feel very suaku but very happy about it. Not much other updates, tomorrow the aircon people will come in to install, and then in short succession the electrical wiring and plumbing and installation of big bathroom stuff will happen through the week. In other fast-hand-fast-leg news, we popped over to Castlery again over the weekend to buy two more pieces for the house, though because we ordered so late they will only deliver late June haha. This wooden shelf (it's smaller than it looks) which will be put near the existing OpenNet point for our ONT + toaster lol. And this lovely sideboard with rounded corners! For now, it will reside on the second floor hallway for our router, cordless phone and maybe even electric kettle lol. In the future we might move it down to the dining room as a proper sideboard and customise a wraparound table for the second floor. Excited about both pieces! Also, because my husband's colleague's girlfriend works at Phillips we managed to score some stuff at 50% off! We got two 1.7L electric kettles and a steam iron for only $120! Love it!
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Thank you!! It is also our favourite area so far hahaha
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We wanted to do half half, hack the first floor and the toilets and kitchen walls, but overlay upstairs. But when we went to the unit with our ID, he showed us that the second floor had a lot of "hollow" areas and was scared that the tiles will "pop" after a few years, which will really destroy overlay. So really up to the condition of your flat and how comfortable you are with possible issues down the road. Our tiles were 30 years old as well.
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Hi xiang38! PM-ed you! Hope it helps!
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Hi twinklecloud!! Haha thank you so much for your lovely comments! Yesh, we love the view from our balcony as well, tree-top view. Outside is actually a very small exercise park so we're thinking of getting tall furniture for a mini-dining area and have al fresco meals once in a while. The gate and all our window grilles (and the grilles at the balcony) all match! It's one of my favourite parts of the original home and I'm really glad we could keep all of the grilles. Nowadays don't know whether can even find the same design. We like the retro feel of it. It is probably actually pretty retro, we suspect it's like 15 years old lol. Aww thank you for the comment for the corner shelf, actually I'm pretty sure I got the idea from someone else on renotalk. But never mind, getting a shelf may be useful too! The corner shelves are just for the shower area so we got shelves for near the washbasin actually. Hopefully the MBR shelving will turn out well, it's supposed to be both the washbasin shelf as well as the shower area shelf...
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Day 20 - Tiling 80% done! This time the photos are from our phone cameras, and sadly taken at around 5.30PM so the lighting was not great! But we popped in during Sunday before dinner just to check things out! Nice to know most of the tiling is done, left with just the tiling in the living and dining room left! We actually didn't buy the recess area but our ID didn't seem to care so much and helped us tile over this area as well lol. Oops. Same tiles as our living and dining room! We really like the look! I don't have a good picture of the tiling being done at the living and dining area but it looks good so far! Tiling at the balcony complete with tile skirting done. Photo taken with flash so the colour is not exactly accurate, but my wood-like tiles + skirting done in the kitchen! Tiling for the first floor kitchen toilet done! Grey floor tiles, shower drop-down area and our triangular double shelves in the corner! Similarly tiling all done for the second floor common toilet, also with shower step-down area and the triangular shelves! MBR toilet all done up, except for the tile shelf. We think maybe our ID has some issues fulfilling our vision of having one long rectangular shelf across the whole of one wall (he mentioned previously the length of it might mean it would have structural issues) so we will check with him when he's back from his short holiday over the weekend and perhaps suggest a different idea for the shelving! This week they should be finishing the tiles, and maybe starting on plastering the walls and ceilings, because according to the schedule they are supposed to start on plumbing and electrical wiring this week. Big bathroom accessories are also due to be installed this week, and aircon installation is next week!
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Aww! Thank you, we really love our toilet tiles as well! Currently our favourite rooms of the house so far! Plumber will be installing our hansgrohe stuff next week, I'll check and let you know! Crossing my own fingers that they should be fine as well.
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A Different 3 Rm Flat
ricepapergirl replied to Changbp's topic in Reno t-Blog Chat - HDB BTO Interior Design and Renovation
Wow!! Loving the DIY on this! Wish I had my sewing stuff back from my maiden home so I can plan out more DIY stuff!!! -
Wow!!! This is a very unique looking floorplan! Can't wait to see what you do with it!
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Ouch! That seems higher even than the quotes I got for my EM. EA so expensive?? O_O.
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They were an afterthought for me but can you imagine a wall full of them? They are a really lovely colour!
