owlNbear

Thank you kara! That's a huge compliment to me!

So, some things have transpired since the last time I posted, which changed my opinion on my contractor. Before I go into more of that, I'll just share some photos that I finally got around to taking today. Our sofa that has been badly ravaged by our furbabies LUCKILY, it's only $300, bought from fortytwo.sg. Will probably be changing sofas within the next few months or so. A still very bare living room. We took our time getting the rest of the furnishing because I wanted to be very sure on the look that we would be achieving. It's not clear because of the backlight but those are birdcage lights that I chose in remembrance of my Dad, who used to rear birds in beautiful intricate birdcages. Really happy with how the kitchen turned out. For he record, the workmanship by my carpenter is really quite solid. Everything is nicely flushed, no unsightly holes or badly joined seams. Cheap, pretty matte black knobs from Ikea. Bought a black metal dishwashing rack, because we don't have a dish drainer. For only the two of us, it works really well. Will be changing the track lights eventually. These ones are massive! And way too bright. My FOC model. This little missy followed me around the house the entire time while I was taking these photos Back in our bedroom. Presenting...the cat door! Little missy not allowed in the bedroom because she chews on wires "How to climb an indoor tree in 5 seconds" Really love these black frosted glass door that I eventually settled on after - I'm not kidding - weeks and weeks of searching for suitable bathroom doors. Our dark, moody bathroom. Apart from the Spanish tiles behind the toilet bowl, everything else was kept to a very strict concrete grey, dark grey, chrome-with-white-accents look. Something I discovered - for those who have installed rainshower, make sure to place your rainshower as close to the ceiling as possible. The lower it is, the more cramped your shower area will look. I mentioned in previous posts that we decided to scrap the wooden bathroom cabinet for a concrete sink support and I am so in love with it now. Best thing is, no more worries about getting the vanity wet. Our tiler's fine workmanship. We got our carpenter to install doors for the concrete sink support. I'm not entirely happy with the colour, but it's the best we could find. Anyway, because it's quite dark inside, it's not really noticeable at all so that's ok. Taken from behind the shower screen, excuse the water stains Here's the bathroom seat that I got them to rectify. Without the rounded edges, it looks SO MUCH better now. Super happy with how this has finally turned out in the end. Floor tiles and wall tiles are the same! Now here are my final thoughts on the contractor. I really had a difficult time assessing my contractor, and as much as I would love to recommend him, I can't. Honestly, at the end of the day, I'm still very pleased with the renovation. Many things that I was worried or uncertain about, turned out really well and I'm really happy with the results. Most items were delivered in a timely manner. All in all, I have little complaints on the quality of work delivered but I suspect it's because I'm quite chinchai, not because the subcons are very good. The tiler and painter were really professional and had good workmanship. However the rest - electrician, doors (they CRACKED my door frame and blamed it on Bear), were just blah. BUT, at the very least, most of the mistakes were eventually corrected. Lastly, he also got us some really good discounts at Hupfarri, lah. So I really had him on my recommendation list, and was really happy to have engaged him. But not anymore, because towards the end of the reno, quite a few things happened that have changed my mind. 1. He was dishonesty on more than one occassion. I'm sure this would be a deal breaker for many. How can you be a reliable if you're not even honest? Some of his 'little white lies' were just bull****. For example, when I asked why the grout colour that I asked for was not given, he told me that grout only came in 3 shades. I immediately went to the Mapei website and pulled out an entire color chart for him We were also shortchanged on items that we removed or didn't do, but received no deduction in cost (which our carpenter did for us, very promptly). But we wanted to cut him some slack so we overlooked these, lah. 2. Delay, delay, and more delays. Like I mentioned, most of the deliverables were completed on time. MOST, but not all. If not for these delays, our renovation could have been completed more than 1 month earlier. But more than that, because his replies were frequently vague **** like "I update you again", it was a horrible and stressful experience having to keep chasing and chasing. especially when the rest of the renovation progress hinges on those items and you don't know when the items would be delivered. 3. Unfulfilled contract. I mentioned about the sliding door - the door that I don't think will ever happen. It's been more than 1 month since our renovation is 'over'. Right from the start, the door person - or rather door PERSONS because there were 2 different subcons - came down at least 4 times to 'take measurement'. They came down to "take measurement" 4 freaking times, but after taking measurements, there was no more news from them. There were even appointments that they failed to turn up for. Bear waited at home for hours, but NOBODY turned up. Don't even mention the endless times we've chased and chased for the door to be installed. There are also numerous touchups (cracked door frame, skirting cracking open, false ceiling for a small section) that are nowhere to be seen. 4. Finally, here's the killer - a whopping 4.5K VO, with the payment addressed to the contractor, and not his company, which we bargained down to 3K eventually. Look, we're not stupid, this money is either A. Going into his own pocket or B. Used to cover his losses because he undercharged us at the start. We honestly felt that it wasn't a bad job done, and we really wanted to just get it over with, so we paid up. And also, we trusted him because he was distant friend. BIG mistake! We can kiss our rectifications and sliding door goodbye now. 5. Little to no value-add apart from taking on a project coordinating role. Honestly, much of the advice that we got came from his sub cons. He was barely around, and only appeared for brief intervals before rushing off to some other place. Most of the time, we were left to deal with the sub cons on our own. We had to figure everything out ourselves, either by research or by talking to the sub cons. Without anyone to guide us, as first-time renovators, we were really thrown into the sea to swim on our own. It was a VERY stressful experience. This is especially important for @pradaloh Even with two of us, it's already stressful enough, let alone you being on your own. Do consider a contractor who is at least more involved and willing to help out. So, this sums up my whole experience. As much as it was negative, it was also a very positive one. The sense of accomplishment, for one, is enormous, especially because we designed everything from scratch, and were there to overlook the project every step of the way. Anyway, I took a long break from posting because everything started to get overwhelming, and it took me awhile to recuperate enough to get back to 'renovation chat' again. So, I'm keeping this brief for now. But feel free to ask questions if any of you need anything. Cheers ***EDIT*** After dragging on for another 3 weeks, Contractor finally refunded the cost of the door, and quite promptly, so that's settled.

Haven't been here in awhile! March and a good half of April was super hectic and most of our time was spent overseeing the renovation, making decisions decisions and more decisions, pushing our contractor, and finally shopping for household appliances, accessories and essentials and putting the house together. So finally, our renovation is complete. Well, almost complete. I'll leave that for later on. For now, some replies. Much apologies for being so late. I hope you guys are still checking back! Hi Stelle, I don't have any electrician contacts. Much apologies Sure, I'll send you a PM for my carpenter's contact. As for the contractor, I won't be passing out his contact anymore. More on that later. Thank you I'm a designer myself actually, but I don't think you need any sort of design/technical experience. Sketch up is quite simple and intuitive to use and with some patience, most people should be able to pick it up It basically consists of drawing squares/rectangles and 'dragging' them to form 3D shapes. Unfortunately, we're in the same position as you and are right now also looking for someone who can do a sliding door Will explain more below. Thanks for the opinions pipsqueak! See above for sliding door comment and an explanation below. As for the brick walls, I've actually painted the room white, but I left it natural in the living room and like you said, it's really quite pretty Hi pradaloh, thank you for dropping by! I'll be posting updates below on the close-to-final outcome. As for engaging the same team, I will definitely recommend my carpenter and I can pass you her contact. I really saved quite a bit on carpentry from her! But I will no longer be referring my contractor. I'll explain more below. I would recommend approaching a few of the other forum recommended contractors such as contractor J&E, and Nic from Renoguyz.For all those who have asked, I'll send over the contact for my carpenter, but not contractor. Please read on for more explanations below.

Just talked to fiance about this, and he said that older resale HDB flats (like ours) come without concealed wiring, so we need the bulky switch boxes to house all the wiring inside. But for the newer BTOs, yeah, should definitely go for those.

Hi Del8, would really like to try these. But I'm not sure if they're compatible with our switches, or if they're 'lasting'. Any ideas?

Exciting day Huiamos, congratulations!

Hi Cat! Long time no see, I missed you all Yeah, we really had to grow up very quickly with no ID holding our paw/claw. Electrical and plumbing works especially for me was really traumatic because we knew so little, and so much could go wrong Anyway, I keep telling myself "it's ok, next house confirm will be done in a better and more organized way. Maybe will have budget for a good ID too. 没事没事" Ok no prob, will PM you carpenter's contact.

Haven't been here for awhile and came over to see everything all nicely done up. It's super gorgeous!!! I feel a new surge of motivation now, haha (can you tell I'm suuuper exhausted). Btw, love the photos that you've taken. What camera are you using?

Installing of electrical wires This was done over a span of 1 week or so (IIRC) before and after the brick walls. Previously I mentioned that we had had a meeting with the electrician on planning how the wiring would be run. Even then with all the planning, many things went wrong, or were not what I expected. Probably the biggest booboo was this one particular incident. I must first mention that my initial idea was to have EVERYTHING done in pipes. I figured since we were doing an industrial sort of look, pipes would be the best way to go. However, this meant that in the living room area where the pipes run out from the circuit board, there would be 3 pipes running along the ceiling (each pipe goes into a room). The electricians even gave me a stunned like vegetable look. Still, silly me insisted that I wanted it that way. So I had the shock of my life when I went over one day, and saw the pipes - because of the width of the pipe hangers (I don't remember how much it is, too traumatized), multiply that by 3, and add the pipes width, the total width was probably almost 1 foot...and SO FUGLY! Seriously, what was I thinking. So I thickened my skin, swallowed my pride and asked for it to be redone into 1 neat trunking It looks so much better now, but it's an expensive mistake that cost us a few hundred to rectify. See image below for an illustration of the could-have-been disaster. Now, 3 pipes have been removed and in place is a single trunking. So much neater and tidier. Plus, it fits in snugly with the brick walls. Because the electrical works aren't complete yet, I'll leave the rest to be posted in a final post. In retrospect, I don't think we did a very good job with this. Being a totally visual-oriented person, I know nuts about technical stuff like these. And Bear, being new to an entire house renovation, was quite clueless as well (although less so than me). Also, unlike with the rest of the house, we didn't have a concrete plan for the electrical works and without an ID (or someone!) to sit down and plan the wiring with us, we could only rely on our own common sense, and the electrician's expertise. Of course it's not complete yet, so probably will see how it goes from here.

A bathtub!!! *swoons* Wish I had the luxury of space for one. Looking forward to seeing your progress

Picking up from where I last left off (before the carpentry post). So, after the CNY week, our contractor gave himself and his workers a "nice" 2 week long "holiday", which in turn really cost us a lot of time. Our initial plan was to have everything done by the 1st week of march, clean up by 2nd week, and move in by 3rd. But it's already the 3rd week now, and we've only just started on the carpentry. Because everything is linked together, the carpentry wasn't able to commence (carpenter didn't want to come down until after the plumbing rectifications and electrical works were complete) and so everything came to a standstill. But that's over now and things are starting to move again, so that's cool. Anyway, here's whats been going on so far. I'll start with the brick walls first. Brick Walls Our brick walls are located in the living room and bedroom, and are about 6.5m in the living, and 3m in the bedroom. Closeup of the bricks. Bear instructed the tiler to lay it as unevenly as possible to give it that raw, rustic and unpolished look. Tiler nodded his head and told Bear that he's been doing these forever, lol. I guess our tiler works really quickly, because these brick walls were done in about 2.5 days. Initially I felt like it looked weird, then I realized that the 'grout' was missing. Which resulted in a lot of 'dark' gaps around the walls. Bear liked the look, but I felt that it was really too raw, so I insisted that the grout had to be filled in. Plus, leaving it unfilled would have caused it to turn into a dust and insects haven. Total no go. And here's the bedroom brick wall, already painted white by us. Btw, why did we have to paint it on our own? Because our contractor, apparently, did not include the cost of painting brick walls into his quotation. Are brick walls not walls in the house? *Shrug* Go figure. Anyway, we really love it now. Much neater and cleaner. Right now, we're still deciding on whether to paint the living room white or not. We'll probably be waiting till the furniture is in to see how everything looks like together.

Hi all! I've been away for so long. As always, hectic week, made even more so with the introduction of our new little furbaby! More on that later. So, this is a backlog post on carpentry from almost 4 weeks ago. It feels like the entire renovation comprises of various 'arcs' (like y'know, story arcs). This is the second arc, and takes up probably 40% of the entire chunk. We thought it would be simple, but we were sooo wrong. In brief, here is our carpentry process. 1st meeting. Ms C, our carpentry contractor, brought along material catalogues in book form to show us, to confirm the materials to be used (laminate and maybe coloured PVC). If you can't make up your mind, request to bring the laminate catalogue home and go through on your own. It was easy for us because we're only choosing 2 different laminates. 2nd meeting. Ms C. passed us large pieces of laminate samples that we shortlisted from the catalogue book. She also came with the carpenter himself to our house to take measurements, give suggestions and take down notes. The carpenter adviced on things that seem 'out of the norm', and pointed out some problem areas. We also provided the dimensions of all our kitchen appliance (fridge, oven, washer, dryer, kitchen sink). Here are the laminates that we finally selected. I don't think you'll even believe me if I told you what an excruciating process this was. I must have carried around the few pieces of shortlisted laminates everywhere I went for one whole week. I placed them this way and that, trying to see them in different angles and under different lightings, comparing them against other materials and objects etc. It took me a herculean effort to finally just say 'OK, this is my finally decision'. Bear says that I'm super indecisive but honestly, cut my some slack. This is a 10-11k purchase we're talking about, horkay At home, I used the IKEA catalogue as reference, and searched for many cabinet / wardrobe images to use as reference. After getting a clearer picture of what to do, I sketched out the design on paper first, then used sketchup to do a very precise layout with measurements of all the carpentry. (For us, directly liaising with our carpenter is different from engaging an ID, who will shoulder the designing responsibility. But good thing is, Ms C. does provide us with 3D drawings.) 3rd meeting. Brought along laptop with sketchup and went through every single detail with carpenter. Carpenter took down every single measurement that we gave her. This meeting took us more than 2 hours. Along the way, the carpenter also will advise what can and cannot be done. We started sourcing for materials, namely - cabinet knobs and a pull out storage drawer for the kitchen. So, prior to meeting the carpenter at his factory (4 weeks ago!), we spent 3-4 nights sitting in front of the computer and finalizing all the details. We had our eyes set on the Ikea PAX system wardrobes, and here are some of the images that we really like. After gathering inspiration, we had to come up with a sketchup model of a wardrobe that would be the perfect fit for just the two of us. Here are some points that we had to discuss and plan for, before designing the wardrobe. It can only be a maximum length (or width) of 2850cm due to space constraints in the room. All the space in the wardrobe has to be maximized. There should be enough space to comfortably house all our clothing, so that we won't have to use any external hanging racks. Apart from clothing, decide on the items that will go into the wardrobe. Eg. will there enough space for all my bags? Should we store our suitcases inside? etc. It has to cater for the height difference between me and Bear (20cm), so that both of us are able to reach comfortably for our individual items. The rounded corner of the room meant that a section of the wardrobe has to be shallower than the rest. There should be enough space for all my clothing (quite a lot!), without compromising on the hanging height space (eg. for longer dresses, they shouldn't have to be 'crumpled' at the bottom). Finally, after hours of discussion, this is what we came up with. Once our designs were up, we were finally ready to meet the carpenter himself, whom we call just 'Uncle'. Ms C was also there to guide us, and clear the air on whatever lame layman questions we had. When we got there, we really didn't know what to expect. And to be honest, it was one of the most overwhelming (but fruitful) meetings that we had to date. Because there are so many finer points of carpentry that we, as laymen, don't have a full grasp on, the entire meeting took nearly 4 hours. Uncle is a slightly eccentric, but very energetic and enthusiastic China uncle who has been living in Singapore for decades, and has been working as a carpenter for just as long. Throughout the meeting, he very conscientiously went through every detail with us. Even after our (so we though) meticulous planning, there were many things that we had neglected. Measurements had to be re-calculated, other minute details had to be considered, and a few new ideas were incorporated. All in all though, we still managed to keep as closely to our original vision as possible, which I'm super relieved about. Here's our very chirpy, happy-looking (but he's also very fierce, don't pray pray) carpenter going through the laminates with us. We changed our minds many times about the laminates and coloured PVC. We initially planned for black wood grain laminates for the bathroom cabinet, but decided to use concrete ones instead because I wanted a uniform look in the bathroom (all concrete look). Uncle very swiftly cut out a few pieces of wood to demonstrate to us how our sliding door would turn out. Uncle demonstrated and planed out the sliding door configuration for the wardrobe. The problem with our wardrobe is that because of certain factors (too complicated, I shan't bore you with them), we were not able to get 4 segments (or carcasses) of equal width. So that meant that when the doors were open, certain segments would not be fully accessible. We managed to solve this by adjusting the widths of the segments, and placing the sliding doors in a certain way (I think you can tell that I reeeeaally don't wanna go there again LOL). And I must very proudly mention that this was suggested by Bear, and Uncle agreed that it was the best way to do it. These are plywood boards that will be used for our sliding partition doors in the study room (to section off the storage area, since we don't have a storeroom). Ms C. very kindly persuaded Uncle to give us plywood boards instead of MDF boards, which we initially requested for (because they are cheaper), because MDF boards are way too flimsy to be used as partition. These are the rollers to be used at the top hung track for our sliding partition doors in the study room, that we're using to section off the storage area. Uncle showed us the different kinds of rollers, and told us we would be getting the bigger, better ones, so yay for that. Here's the roller, that will be concealed with a board. The sliding mechanism for our cabinet drawers. We didn't go for soft closing because, stingy lah. And we've been living with normal closing drawers for all our life, and we're doing fine with them

@twinklecloud I see the seat that you mentioned! So pretty! Could you post a close up pic so I can show them how it's done? Also, do you have any pipes below the seat? Fiance said that he doesn't want to close up the front cos we would have to hack it if we run into plumbing issues

Just a note to those who have gotten my contractor's contact. I have passed out his contact because quite a few have mentioned that their renos are about to commence, and time is critical. But on hindsight, because my reno isn't over yet, I am unable to give a completely fair assessment of him. So please keep an eye on my thread for more updates. And also, please also use your own discretion to decide whether or not you would like to engage him. Thanks!

@OceanEleven thanks for the comments. I'll be sure to keep them in mind.

@twinklecloud i did show pictures. I even did a sketchup model which i showed to my contractor, not the head tiler. I also had a very long discussion with head tiler about the dimensions the placement, everything! I think i did everything i could, short of doing it myself hahaha. Anyway, enough of that seat Lets talk about happier things @matchalatte wow 2000... You must have been a really young homeowner then Really can't blame you for not being firm enough, but lesson learnt! Always stand your ground. I keep telling myself I refuse to be bullied into submission. After all this is my **** freaking house and I'll be the one living with your mistakes for the next 7-8 yrs (I see where you're coming from!) Okok getting emotional *breathe deeply* Anyway, I'm seldom at the kitchen, but Bear, who will be doing the dishes, also specifically requested for a higher kitchen cabinet. Our carpenter was the one who asked, actually. So yeah, I know how you feel. I'm so not-chin-chai that I think my contractor and subcons all hate me

Thanks for the moral support babe! It actually means a lot. Especially when it comes to something as serious as a renovation. A lot of courage is needed We will be getting them to rectify. One way or another.. Lol.

Thanks for the tips! Most of them made me either nod in agreement or breathe with a sigh of relief. A few are worrying haha but still, good to know. And wow 2013, you really have been researching for 2 years! Kudos!

But based on your floorplan, looks like it can be done eh!

Super cute drawings of the IDs! Will we get to see more? Maybe one of you in your reno-ed house Anyway, excited reading the discussion on furniture brands with ricepapergirl. Would have loved to join in but I'm taobao-ing everything, haha.

@matchalatte I'm so glad you agree with me. I hate it so much, and I was starting to feel abnormal when everyone else around me (mainly Bear) is saying there's nothing wrong with it Wow sounds like you have a story to tell. Share share what happened? I think it really boils down to luck. I very specifically told them rectangle seat. How to go wrong with that?

Thanks chang. Hmm.. Yes those are the hot cold pipes. Down from the ceiling, up to the rainshower, then continue to the sink. I don't think there's any other way to run

Chang and OceanEleven, thanks for your consolation, haha. For the seat edge, I don't think I'll do the 45 degree cut as it does seem dangerous. I'll probably get them to tile as closely, and then add a thin pvc or silver trimming? As for the round corner, I'm not going to budge on this. To me it just looks awful and dated. I can barely tolerate the round wall corner, not to mention a seat corner that's out in the open for me to see Also, if we were to slip and fall, the glass panel beside it would be shattered first before we even hit that corner. In any case, if all planning goes well and our contractor agrees to it, I'll be adding a running concrete 'wall' that will connect to a concrete sink/cabinet, so the round corner won't be an issue anymore. That aside, chang, how would you have run the pipes? I'll see if I can get it rectified. Please advise

Since there's just way too much backlog to catch up on, I've decided to change my posting format and do shorter, more bite-sized updates. So today, Bear went down to the house and finally managed to catch our dear friend, the head tiler. The last time we saw him was 2 weeks, just before CNY. Because of the lack of contact, I had been feeling SO jittery these past two weeks. Honestly, after reading so many horror stories, I couldn't help but imagine tha the same would happen to us (ok lah, I'm also a kanchiong spider). So I was SO RELIEVED today to find out that most of the craftstone bricks in our living room has been laid (I hesitate to phrase is like this, but have no other way of saying it LOL). However, we found out today that our ceiling is slanted *horrors*. The difference from one end to another is actually 30cm! We would either have to stick the wire trunking on to the ceiling, or have a row of gradually widening brick. Fortunately, our clever head tiler came up with a solution - to tile and do the trunking as per usual, then use plaster to seal up the gaps above the trunking. Just brilliant and I effing love him! Anyways, two main issues cropped up over the past few weeks. Or rather, two issues that we had been unable to tell head tiler about. Issue 1 This bathroom shower seat. In fact I was really quite unhappy, even though he probably had our best intentions at heart. So this was what happened. As much as I don't want to be a nitpicky homeowner, this seat really got me quite depressed. My inital request was for a simple, rectangular block of seat. And when I say rectangular, I mean rectangular! Not odd shaped, with some parts sticking out, or a rounded corner. Even the rounded edge, that he must have done with our safety in mind. And I appreciate that, but it just looks....:( So after communicating all this to head tiler today, I'm still not satisfied with his suggestion of (merely) adding on a square corner so that it isn't rounded anymore. I have already given Bear instructions and we will see how it goes tomorrow. Meanwhile, off-topic a little. All of this sparked a new idea in me...a concrete bathroom vanity! See images below: (taken from pinterest) (taken from pinterest) Don't ask me how I managed to link a bathroom seat to a concrete sink. Anyway, I'm super excited about this new idea. But also very nervous because I don't know if it can be done or not. Keeping fingers crossed! Issue 2 The grout colour. Notice how WHITE it is in the picture...I actually asked for dark grey - black grout that would blend in with the tiles. And head tiler agreed with me. So I was REALLY VERY upset when I saw how the grout had turned out. I actually asked Bear many times if the grout was already in or not, hoping against hope that MAYBE the grout wasn't in yet. But of course, it was lah. Sigh Knowing how difficult it is to change grout colour, I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this as well.

Quite a lot has happened over the last few weeks, and given how busy I am right now, it seems almost impossible to catch up on everything! However, since this has been the most problematic area of our house, so I wanted to go into more detail on this. I also hope that other 3-roomers who have the same layout, and are facing the same problem as I am, might be able to find something to take home from this post. So here goes nothing. Our bathroom was initially a split one, with the WC on one side, and shower on the other side. See floorplan above for a clearer picture. Restrictions Our first priority was to hack down the middle wall and combine both the toilets. However, the problems we faced seemed to pile on one after another. The middle wall could not be hacked entirely because of the two pipes running down the middle. That meant there is a 1 ft deep wall protruding out from the center. One of the corners in the allocated shower area is curved, so we can only have our rainshower on one side of the wall. This has restricted the spots where our sink could be located. We want to have a sink inside the bathroom (previously the sink was located outside, like all old 3 room flat designs), and also a decently sized vanity table. But because of the lack of space, there can only be one spot for the sink. Non-negotiables Before starting, we had already set in place my non-negotiables - things that we (or rather mostly I, Owl. Haha) would not be willing to do without or compromise. These are: A 'combined' bathroom with sink, shower and WC A vanity table with storage space A separate dry and wet area A rainshower Comfortable walking and standing space Options Because of all these restrictions, the entire space is quite severely constricted. We spent (and are still spending) long, tiring hours planning and replanning. At one point, we even visited an interior designer friend of mine for (free :D) help. Being the awesome person and even awesomer ID that she is (I would have totally engaged her if I could afford it), she explored other options with us. Shifting our vanity and sink into the bedroom, which we eventually decided not to do, because we just felt uncomfortable with having a wet area inside the bedroom. We would also have to expand the bedroom so that the sink can be fit in, which would cost more money. Getting a semi-recessed sink to free up more space. But because I've never fancied semi-recessed sinks, I very quickly rejected this option. Same goes for sink without a vanity table. which is a non-negotiable. Leaving the sink in the kitchen. Probably the most practical. After all, the sink was originally designed to be in the kitchen, and not the bathroom. But this would mean that our (master) bathroom would be without a sink. This was also very unsettling because we would have to make our way to the kitchen every morning to wash up, which would be too much of a hassle for us. Shifting the sink to the front of the WC. But then the WC would be just...1-2 steps behind us *SCREAMS* Bear didn't seem to find this a problem (and I can't for the life of me, fathom why!), but it was totally a no-go for me. I don't want to accidentally slip, fall backwards, and into the toilet bowl, HORKAY??? Shifting the sink to the left side of the pipes, under window 1. But this would mean that the rainshower would have to be in line with it, which isn't possible because there of window 1 being there. We could plaster and straighten the rounded corner, but that would place the rainshower diagonally, and there's no space for that either. Shifting the sink right to the far top-left corner. A very very close viable option. But that would make it inaccessible and a long walk from the WC / bedroom. Imagine using the loo, then walking all the way to the end to wash your hands. Every single time (ok, to be honest, at home, I don't wash my hands EVERY single time lah...but still...). Again, a hassle, so no. Finally, after many days of discussion, the above is the bathroom layout that we settled on. It's as close to scale as possible (except for the vanity table, which is actually much smaller than this). Initially done in sketchup, it looked fine. But it was only after stepping into the bathroom did we realize how cramped everything would be. Number one thing we decided to compromise on was the vanity table size. Any wider, and there would be no way to enter the shower area from the dry area. We whittled it down to a very small 2.5ft wide by 1.5ft deep one. 1.5ft (or appx 45cm) is as deep as we can go while still allowing walking space between the vanity and the middle wall. It's a really tight squeeze, but that's really the best that we can do. We also had to do without a sliding glass shower door, in order to have a wider entrance to the shower. Even though it seems like a very simple solution, it took us a really long time to come to this conclusion. Being new to renovation, we didn't want to miss out on a single option that we could explore. Of course there might have been something even better, but I'm willing to bet it would cost a whole lot more, and we aren't willing to do so. And while it isn't perfect, I'm proud to say that we had put in a huge ton of effort brainstorming and problem solving, when we could have haphazardly left it to our contractor, or compromise on our non-negotiables