dukebluedevil

PICTURES OF SHINY STUFF So just to summarise, the theme is (was?) frenchie/european/rojak white/gold/grey/marble/wood look. So our contractor and us separately hunted down some gold accessories: Gold knobs for our wardrobe doors. Handle for the gate. Handles for the toilet and room divider doors. Hinges for all the doors. Door knobs. Main door handle. Hope we haven't gone overboard with the gold stuff!

HALF TIME UPDATE Well I reckon that my renovation is about halfway done. Sorry for the recent lack of updates as nothing much happens during wetwork. Walls got plastered and some tiles went up. As we are intending to overlay the whole house with tiles, we had to hack my kitchen floor and screed it as there was a substantial height difference between the kitchen floor and the living area. Just means more cost So what they say is true, budget at least 10-20% over and above your renovation quote for incidentals like these. Anyway, like i mentioned earlier, we went with a contractor to save money. We haven't regretted a single moment, but it has been a super tiring process. To get the look that we wanted, we had to source many things ourselves or keep bugging our contractor to meet more suppliers and get more samples. Every (little) chance we got, we went down to our flat to make sure everything was going to plan (which was never 100% the case). We are very lucky that our contractor has been very, very patient, responsive to our queries and very hardworking. He will meet us once or twice a week to go through the progress of the renovation and take stock of what needs to be done. He chases us when he needs our input so not to delay our renovation. So far he's on track to meet the 6 week deadline he set himself. Anyway, enough talk and more pictures! See this?? This caused our flooring budget to balloon over 50% which made it worse cos our preferred herringbone pattern already cost a premium (regardless of brand). Fortunately, this brand is able to do a 4sided click AND came in smaller planks to give a more pleasing visual effect. Other brands were either loose lay (with glue, a big no-no) or you needed some (creative) hacks which would have voided the warranty. Made in Belgium and lifetime warranty. Hope we get our money's worth. To keep with the french/european wannabe theme, some louvred doors for the shoe cabinet and 3 panel room divider/door thingy. This will be sprayed white with gold touches (more on this later). See that white/grey wall? Broke my bedroom wall and shifted it forward for more space. This made the living room slightly smaller but not a biggie because the living /dining area is huge. The rectangular hole will house the shelves for the AV/internet stuff. The picture makes it seem that the shelves would be too close to the TV. Will discuss this with my contractor when i meet him this Saturday. Cornice work is up. Had reminded my contractor to instruct the electrician to move the electrical point back as the fan would be too close to the feature wall. Will bang tables on Saturday if its not done by then. Oooh, love the tree-lined view out the balcony. Biggest headache so far. Fibre termination point is in no-man's land. Option 1 was to relocate this somewhere else but requires OpenNet to do it and I'm afraid they will any-o-how do and run casings everywhere and God knows when they will be able to come down to my place to do it. Plus it will cost $200plus at the minimum. I went with option 2 i.e. buy a super, super long patch cord to connect the TP to the Optical Network Terminal at the feature wall. Fingers crossed this will work and the electrician had ensured no kinks in the patch cord. Once it works, the cord will be cased up. Still will look ugly, mind. Just not as ugly as Option 1. That's about it I guess. Toilets' all tiled and boxed up, just waiting for stuff to be fixed and bolted on. Will show more pics after Saturday. Next post is just gonna be showing off the gold bits.

i'm fixing up cornice this week or the next so it will probably be on my t-blog. if you're talking about moving the OpenNet termination point (TP) or the cabling, I believe must go through OpenNet (even if you go through Singtel they will book OpenNet on your behalf). For me, i may not move my TP but just install a longer fibre optic patch cord from the TP to my Optical Network Terminal. This route you don't have to engage OpenNet. I'm trying to get Singtel on the phone/email for more ideas.

MORE PURCHASES AND DECISIONS Bought our WCs. Finally decided on a couple of Johnson Suisse from Adamas. Initially wanted an s-trap Toto but no longer in production . Flooring picked! Waiting for contractor to confirm whether herringbone pattern is possible with this. Laminates picked from EDL. Wanted the 1.2mm polar white for the kitchen cabinetry but contractor says its gonna cost extra. So trying to nego the 1.0mm one without any up charge. The toilet cabinets and master bed room cupboard are gonna get the matt laminates and be done up shaker style. Sorry its just gonna be whites for the carpentry works!

RENO UPDATE The wet works have been continuing, making good the hacked walls and the rockstone walls. Some tiling work has also started and its a mixed bag so far. The contractor wanted us to confirm with the tiler which tiles to use and their location. But when we arrived (early), the tiles were already up See that big tiled wall? It was supposed to be the tiles below. My contractor to be fair, asked us whether we wanted to re-tile the whole thing. But when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade eh. Although we were feeling a bit mehhhhh, my wife and I decided to tweak the concept a little bit instead. We decided to use those vintage tiles for flooring only and to have the access balcony below to be tiled the same. Initially the access balcony were supposed to be floored using vinyl! I think its looking good so far. A full height louvred-door shoe cabinet is gonna be built on that wall and to box up that pipe as well. Oh found another error, the workers covered up the louvred section above the room doors. These were supposed to be sealed with clear acrylic for aircon purposes yet still let the light through. Contractor promised to rectify it. I guess these issues will crop up now and then which is usual. Just need to be alive to these at all times.

Hope so! Its been a big headache so far!

you have a lovely home. Congrats!

deleted. double post.

MOODBOARD Just two photos two give an idea of what's in my head right now. So the white island (and the backsplash) is going to be covered with a marble lookalike solid surface. We've used solid surface for many years without any real complaint so we decided to go for that. Major savings plus we will not have the joint lines. This exact look is impossible to achieve given that herring bone flooring looks way better with small pieces of wood (rather than the large vinyl planks). But we're hoping to come close.

SOFA & ARMCHAIR We bought a sofa and armchair from Habitat at Big Box in Jurong East. They were having some kinda sale so we grabbed!! They are both the same denim-blue and I hope it matches nicely with our flooring (as per the example below).

My wife and I have bought most things for the house. Had to balance the "look" with practicality. So we couldn't get some stuff we really wanted. KITCHEN \ Had a look at the specs of the hob/oven and Mayer seems to be a real bang for buck purchase. Enthusiastically recommended by this Gain City dude who we later found out was the Mayer/Ariston rep So check next time guys. But even at that point (I was furiously researching on my phone while the guy was going through all the appliances) these two seemed like a good deal. This is our island hood. The extraction rate is 1000m3/hr (which was the minimum we felt given our open concept kitchen). We didn't really like the glass but decided we could live with it. But I got pretty upset later that we didn't wait as Teka held a very good sale later. Built-in microwave. Wasn't planning to have a microwave at all as the helper doesn't use the current one. But bought this just because it seemed cheap. Hahaha. So Teka had this great sale last week and we grabbed these three items for a steal. One of the things we wanted was to have all our kitchen appliances to be from the same brand. Teka was one of our preferred brands and we could have pulled it off. Sigh. Only if we were not in a rush :(. Now I will have a kitchen full of mixed brands and it will bug a little. Finally, our fridge from Best Denki. Didn't want the side by side door fridge as we don't really have much stuff to store on a regular basis. Decided to save some money on the fridge and electricity bills. We got it in gloss white to match our cabinetry.

It has already started rojak. Trying to keep it French-ish with the doors/flooring/cornice but with 21st century modern/scandi furnishings. The high skirtings are definitely not french. But i'm skipping the traditional French panels. I think it needs big spaces and high ceilings for that to work. I think it will look too "busy" in a small space.

Yes, the layout/space was a big draw. Am following your t-blog closely, my sister is American and I see a lot of similarities between your proposed designs and her house!

the thing is with this new system of last transacted prices, you'll never know. Part of valuation process will also include last transacted prices. Go with the last transacted for similar flats (floor, age, location) - that's your best bet I feel. It is a buyers' market, I got my flat at 70k below valuation. Which only means that the valuation was based on previously sky high HDB resale prices. So even if i could have the valuation before hand, it wouldn't have helped me much. All the best.

I'm currently using a contractor, just for costs reasons. But I want to share a little bit on the many (many) IDs that we encountered. Most left much to be desired but there were a few pleasant surprises. I encountered some creative design work and an ID with really reasonable prices. Unfortunately, I couldn't go with the creative folk as I just didn’t have the budget for their design fees or overall quote. I received quotes of well over 100k. One firm suggested that I budget $100 psf which would mean an overall bill of over 130k!!!! Look, I think you really get what you pay for when it comes to design. If I had a limitless budget for my 100% overhaul, I would go for architects or architecture-trained designers. I feel that for whatever reason, their sense of aesthetic is markedly different and more appealing to me. But in the end (lack of) money talked the loudest and we decided to use a contractor. He seemed really keen for our business and made several trips to my place and a flooring supplier without any guarantee of the job being awarded to him. We clicked and he seems like a genuinely nice guy, so we’ll see. No recommendations (if any) until the renovation is complete though. But if you want recommendations on other people mentioned above, please feel free to PM me.

Pre-hacking Post-hacking Love the brightness of the flat! That pink wall in the middle of the picture has also gone.

Actually, renovation for our flat has already started. But I decided to start this to give back to this community and add to the rich pool of ideas here. So here's how it looks now: The total area is 1367 sq ft. The kitchen and access balcony wall have gone down. I have hacked the master bedroom wall to enlarge the room and allow for a bookshelf cum TV wall. The pictures in my next post gonna be illustrative. The Look We wanted something timeless/classic. We plan to stay in our home for a long time and don’t want something that will get tired very fast or turn out to be very impractical for our family living. We are inspired by the works of French architect Joseph Dirand – see an apartment he did here: https://www.yatzer.com/joseph-dirand-saint-germain-paris. So if you were to put a gun to my head and force me to describe the theme of our flat, it should be modern french/european (??). But its even gonna have mid-century inspired furnishing. In short, I don’t have a clue. Hahaha. But here are some must-have features: Intricate skirting and cornices (hope it doesn't turn out dated). Louvre and shaker style doors. As little built-in furniture as possible. Herringbone/chevron style vinyl flooring (to extend to the kitchen thanks to waterproof flooring). White windows (of course). White/marble modern/open-concept kitchen (think kitchen culture etc.). Kitchen island (yessss, finally get to have one). Black and white toilets (dunno, just like black and white). Just gonna post some pre-post hacking pictures next. I hope I keep this blog up!

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Malaxo, all the best for your reno! what material are you planning to use for your herringbone floor? My wife and I want such a design with vinyl but it would look awful given how large the vinyl planks are. Parquet is out of the question as its quite restrictive (high maintenance, low durability and non-water resistant).

Thanks for the PM. Somehow couldn't reply your message. Same layout as my sis. She broke down bedroom 2 and had an open concept kitchen.

hey looking forward to your renovation progress! Sounds like something that i'm thinking of doing for my place. As for posting pictures, i think you can upload them up on the usual photo sites like flickr/photobucket and embed the correct links here.

I have a family of 5 with 2 bathrooms. For good water pressure and quick heating, what would you recommend. A big storage or two small storages. I don't mind installign it in the bathroom.

Have not seen this done much so I am looking forward to your experience! The IDs I spoke to are split, some say possible, some say not recommended.

I would add: Tolix replica chairs Cage-style pendant lights Eames replica chairsI used to think that having all these "common" items would be a no-no for my own renovation. But I realised its more how a home owner or designer pulls everything together for that "look" rather than what the individual feature items are. This is where most go wrong with buying lock, stock and barrel from Taobao. Yes its cheap, but that doesn't mean you have to buy it. There is no cohesion. That being said, I am considering Blum (or alternatives) and Hansgrohe (or alternatives) from a functional perspective. Not interested in everything else on the list.