Carmella

Very nice! I love the laminates that you have chose for your carpentry!

Yes bed is definitely most important! Remember to pack early and don't procrastinate! Keep spare newspaper to cushion your fragile items too! I get what you mean Labuns This renovation drained my savings too. Initially planed to use 50k on the renovation and 10k on furniture. Currently its hitting 58k . But having a well renovated home is more important than furniture. Furniture can always be bought later. Whereas major works in renovation only can be done when no one is staying in the home or it will be very dusty. When we overshot our budget, we regretted not taking a loan too but after some thoughts, having no additional loan is better. Like I said, furniture can always be bought later. Baby steps first.

Haha! Long way more to furniture, after we have moved in comfortably and packed our stuff, then we'll go look for the right size furniture. In no rush cause we hardly watch TV and eat at the dining table so all those are just for show items Approximately only 70% done. If we can't pack finish before moving date, we'll just bring the leftovers ourselves. Packing is so tiring. Even more than the renovation process.

I hope so too! Couldn't find them in the boxes or anything but I very clearly remembered seeing it in the box when I checked the lights. Very nice flooring tile! I like it a lot. Yes we have a silver framed clear glass door for the kitchen, will take a picture of the door when I go over soon.

Only managed to capture the lights during the day, wanted to drop by night time but was too tired. Had to make 2 trips down to Heritage to exchange our mirror cabinet and towel handle bar. Kitchen wiring has not been connected I think as the power points in the kitchen are not done. My dalen lights came with 2 controllers (1 for each room) but I can't seem to find it anywhere Hopefully the workers did not throw it away but kept it instead. Have to ask my electrician what happened to it and if it was thrown away they should get us a replacement. Living Room Bedrooms Moving date has been changed to 19 October but kitchen counter tops can only be installed on Friday as it takes 5 working days to cut the Caesarstone. So exciting! After I move in, I will definitely take pictures of the lights during night.

Yes! Glad to be back as well. I don't think my windows has any problem but have to wait for heavy rain in TPY before I can tell. My ceiling fan is okay for a person to stand under but they can't raise their hands if not they can touch it. My aircon was installed today. Tested it and omg my bedroom was cold in minutes. Didn't even feel like going back. I'm not sure what colour it is. I remember A showing me this small flip template. Then I just picked a semi dark colour.

This one week before my renovation ends has been crazy. Didn't even have time to update due to how tired I was. Sadly, the valve that I have bought is wasted as my contractor bought an exact same looking one as mine Now we have a spare I guess.. Kind of regret buying a ceiling fan as now it is super low on our heads.. Kind of a safety issue if someone tall walks under it. Will see how it goes and decide from there for the ceiling fan. I have decided to do all the same doors for the kitchen cabinets. My kitchen laminate that I wanted went out of stock and now I have to settle for my second choice. Hopefully it matches.. so nervous. Everyone who sees my cornice went "Why are you still using cornice?" BECAUSE I LIKE IT. Even my electrician said cornice was out and people now either do a l box/false ceiling to cover the electrical casings or they just leave it exposed. But I really like my cornice I think it makes look more... put together for my home. Also, they have been saying that it looks as though they are colour blind because all they see is grey and white. Tested all my lights while I was there and love it so much! So glad we went for warm cove lights and cool downlights. Didn't get to test dalen lights with the remote as I think they kept the remote in the box and I was too lazy to search for it. But I turned it on and they look so pretty and simple Can't wait to move in! Just 8 more days till we're moving in. Our air con is going to be installed tomorrow~ Final touch ups of electrical work is also on Monday. Defects will be pointed out after all parties have completed their work. Will be holding out on paying until defects are done fixing. What is a "no no must confirm plus chop change" defect and what is a "can close one eye" defect? Living Room Shoe Cabinet There won't be any lights for the shoe cabinet as we found it pointless for us. Can't wait to put a bowl there for keys and never ever have to search for my keys again. The shoe cabinet design was stolen from a Pinterest picture I saw and dimensions were done by my A. Only downside of the design is the wasted area that could have been used to store my shoes. Time to stop buying shoes I have a Nike shoe obsession and will basically wear them out in 6 months or less. But I will keep the worn out ones cause it's so precious to me Bedrooms Wardrobe Can I just say, I am in love with my wardrobe? When I saw it, I literally had to hold my breath in for a few seconds. The laminate was perfect. Plenty of space for my clothes, yay! Cornice above the wardrobe has not yet been installed. Kitchen I'm heading down again tomorrow and if the shoe cabinet/kitchen cabinets are completed, will definitely be updating! Just praying that my kitchen cabinet laminate is ok.

PM sent!

Hi! Yes, Dalen lights are plain yet something different! Can't wait to try them!

Yes haha, have to be quick No time already, just get the well known items for built in can already. Confirm won't go wrong. I got it from Ezze Galleria.

Today we went to Goh Ah Bee to purchase our built in oven and cooking hood. I did a research on renotalk for ~1h before deciding on the items. I think that Bosch is a good brand and since my hob is Bosch, why not a Bosch oven too? But the hood is of course, Fujioh. It is so highly raved here in renotalk and everywhere! It was actually quite cheap at GAB as I remember Hoe Kee selling the oven for slightly more when I was there buying my kitchen sink. Bosch HBN331E1K Fujioh SLM 900 After GAB, we UBER-ed down to Geylang Road and looked for lights. We were considering Balestier but I heard everything there is priced up. I was tempted to just buy everything online on Taobao but we are already rushing to meet our deadline of 16 October so no chance Definitely after moving in, I will be ordering some Taobao lights. Bought a pendant light and simple plain lights along Geylang Road. We wanted to check the lighting shop recommended by slashmylove but we didn't have time as we had something on at 4pm. We basically had 3 hours to decide on lights and everything. Such a stressful moment! If you have time, definitely don't do what we did because we ended up spending 1k+++ on lights. Oh the heartbreak. My pocket still burning even after 3 hours leaving the shops. I never knew lights could be this expensive in Singapore! I thought 1 simple light at max $80 but APPARENTLY NOT?! Sorry, I abit suaku. Bought my bedroom lights from lightings.com.sg (a physical store which made me confused). Bedroom 1 and Bedroom 2 will be equipped with the Dalen LED Ceiling DL-S28T. Was impressed by it as it was the only remote controlled ceiling light that we came across. Here is what the Dalen LED lights are able to do: Only downside is it is expensive The shop didn't want to give any additional discount as the light was already 10% off. Bedroom 3 will be having a Phillips light. Apparently, if it blows, we have to replace the entire light so I'm praying that this light will not blow that fast. One thing I've note is that the sales person always pushes the "LED does not blow that easily, so you don't have to worry". Erm.. YES I DO. LED does not blow easily, yes. But over the years? It will definitely blow and we will have to replace it. No light can last forever so I don't know what they are trying to sell. Bedroom 1 and 2 Lights Bedroom 3 Lights We continued walking the Geylang stretch and entered a shop called Premier Lighting Centre. Got a small pendant light for our dining area, 2 black framed square lights for our toilet and 2 rectangular white framed light for the kitchen. We didn't take a picture of any of the lights bought. When it is installed, i'll take a picture! We came across 2 beautiful light fixture in here for our bedroom. However, we didn't get it as it appeared that it would only look good in warm light. We can't get a bedroom light that is only warm as we like a well lit room to do reading etc in. While walking at Geylang, we remembered to buy a open close valve for the toilet bidet. It looks so . Open close valve Our living room tiles has completed except the entrance as we had tell them our kerb height. 95% of the living room tiles are being covered with the cardboard but at the corners, some were exposed. We went with white grout with out living room tiles as the tiler said something about colored grout becoming off color over the years? Hope it looks ok.. What do you guys think, personally, when I saw it in real life, I couldn't really give any opinion. It was just oh ok. No reaction. Living room tiles Our bathroom is 80% Completed as it still lacks a door, a mirror cabinet that we have to bring down to Heritage to exchange as we got a size too big and a towel bar. I still can't believe we were stupid enough to forget the size limitation in our bathroom. Now we have to personally carry it down and back to exchange. I'm most excited about bathing here after moving in! Hopefully water pressure is ok with the rain shower. Bathroom Bedroom 3 has aircon trunking that was supposed to be on the skirting. However, after laying bedroom 3 tiles along with checking skirting, found out the trunking is slightly too high up! So now bedroom 3 will have a higher skirting compared to the other rooms. Not by a lot but still.. my OCD in me knows of the height difference. But what to do Too late for us. Bedroom 3 tiles progress My kitchen cabinet laminates are OOS. I'm so sad about it Have to go down tomorrow to select another laminate.. Hopefully am able to find something that matches it. Or maybe i'll just use the same laminate I used for my wardrobe. Also, tomorrow have to remember to pass them the toilet paper holder that I bought from Amazon for them to install along with the valve. Starting to feel so rushed in this renovation.

We are getting Caesarstone Quartz in Oyster! Oh yes, I recall not being able to smell anything even though I was frying bacon. I was actually quite sad that I couldn't smell my bacon We are thinking of getting the Fujioh hood that everyone seems to be raving about.

Yes we do not know if a hood is useful too The only difference I have noticed when cooking at a friend's place with a hood was it was not hot at all in the kitchen. We will just get one and if it does not work, we won't use it. If it does, great! Wow, that will save you a lot of money actually just from polishing. Hacking everything blew our budget off the roof. My sink is located next to the cabinet on the extreme left. Its at the far end of the kitchen. We were thinking of the timber cabinet doors but we're scared that it gets bloated over the years from water splashing

Exciting and stressful day! Living room is currently being tiled and a lot of screeding work that the tilers had to do because our ground was totally off level! We had to cross widely on tiles to avoid stepping on the freshly installed living room tiles. I nearly slipped because our tiles was so slippery! It's so glossy I LOVE IT. Living Room Tiles Today was the designing of our kitchen cabinets. We forgot to buy a built in oven and have to hurry and get one tomorrow. Was advised to get a hood too for when we cook. Being exhausted from renovation, we just agreed and will be getting one tomorrow along with the built in oven. One error though on the sketch, the length for the fridge area is not 1950 but 1800. Thinking of getting either a Turbo or Fujioh hood. But not very sure with the built in oven. Tomorrow is another shopping day So tiring! Have to get built in oven, cooking hood, microwave, and lights. Electrical guy (J) gave me a evil glance when I told him there was changes to his electrical work again. It's like the 4th to 5th time changing. Feel kinda guilty but what to do I'm fickle and can't foresee the future. Oven, microwave, hood and hob will all have outside switches to control them as we do not want to see their wiring etc. Dilemma: Should I do the same kitchen cabinet doors on the concrete sink supporter? Or go with aluminium doors? Kitchen cabinets sketch Hopefully tomorrow when I drop by to drop some things off, I will remember to take new pictures of the kitchen and toilet as the sink supporter is done! And the toilet has transformed and become cramped

That sofa is really pretty! Nice choice! We have to change the doors as it is too difficult to lock it Very hard to close it shut and stuff. Especially the gate. HATE IT. The gate slammed shut on my hand once and there was a red clot for days. We did consider Nippon but found Dulux to be more of our tastes. Yes! They weren't even wearing gloves! I'll take a look at both their sites but so far mydigitallock gates are looking more towards our tastes. If I were to want a gate from them, do I ask them to install or do I ask my contractor to get it for us?

Tiling works will take the longest. Coming to 2 weeks and my tiling works are still not done. Hate it especially when I have to hear the loud sound of the cutting of tiles. Poor workers who have to hear it directly and constantly Oh really? Why is it better to have the sofa against a wall? Sadly we can't have it against the wall because the wall on the side of our main door will be our full length shoe cabinet. Yes the rockstone effect is not to my tastes too. Luckily, my flat did not have any of it which is surprising because it is a super old flat. I don't think we can fit the 2m sofa in our living room haha! Have to see after we move in. Don't want to commit to any long term furniture without knowing the exact measurements. We can't seem to find a gate design which we like too All either seems too messy or old fashioned. Dulux Grey Star for bedroom, Dulux Moonlight Sonata for living room and Lilac white for ceilings.

Went over to my place and was pleasantly surprised. For some reason, painting works are being done despite tile work not being completed. Strange, but whatever, it gives us a visualization of how it looks like painted. Sink supporter was supposed to be completed today but for some reason tilers said it can only be completed tomorrow. So now carpenter can only come and measure on Wednesday Ah.. the delays. The place really transformed over the weekends. Grouting in my kitchen are done and OMG it looked so different compared to when it didn't have the grout. It was even better looking! Going to take a picture of it when I head down on tomorrow or Wednesday. My toilets too, floor tiles were completed. Have to say, despite the tilers being cold, their work quality is spot on. Windows were all up and the green doesn't look ugly as what we initially thought (yes we regretted for a brief moment and screamed WHY OH WHY GREEN, but now we love it ). Everything bought from Hoe Kee and Heritage Bathroom Gallery was delivered. Silly us forgot that our bathroom sink and mirror had to be less than 19 inches. We bought a mirror cabinet which is 500mm from Heritage. Just a few cm bigger than 19 inch but now we have to either exchange or get a new one cause it can't fit. One problem, we have not even gone looking for our lights and the electrician is asking us to go buy it soon as he needs to install it. If any of you are willing to recommend where to buy our LED lights it would help us a lot Bedroom 1 Painted Bedroom 2 Painted Bedroom 3 Painted Living room Painted I'm sure they will be patching up the paint later on after we fully install everything. Our living room paint was a bit of a let down. Was expecting it to have a cooler tone but can hardly see the difference. But it's ok I'm sure we can bring colours in with the furniture.

Hi! We didn't do any plastering work except on 1 wall in the living room where there was tiles. My original tiles didn't fit our tastes so we hacked it all out Cost a lot of money to redo everything. Kind of wasted cause the toilet just underwent HIP but we still hacked it anyways. How are you arranging your furnitures in the living room? The living room is causing us headaches with the placement of the TV Not only that, choosing the size of couch is also a headache. Tried looking around for inspiration but there wasn't any pictures with the same layout as ours. Would be great if you created a T blog too

Time passes so fast during renovation and its such a tiring process of going down to inspect and choosing everCornice and windows are in the process of being installed. A quick update on the progress of our home. Tiling works are still in progress but kitchen tiling is done! When I went down on 30 September, they were constructing the cabinet and fridge kerb. Monday is an exciting day as our kitchen cabinets can finally be measured and begin fabricating. Not only that, our bathroom accessories are all going to be installed. Can't wait to see how that looks like. But our kitchen had a minor set back The tilers tiled our beam even though we told them not to. So now they have to hack it away. For a nice contractor, the tilers are pretty **** rude. Perhaps its because we do not know how to speak Mandarin well despite being Chinese so they try to take advantage of the situation. Previously, I told them on the side of the kitchen that kitchen cabinets are going to be installed, all exposed wall should be the backsplash tile. Whereas the tiles that are covered by cabinets can be the other kitchen tile. But they proceeded to tile it wrongly at the fridge area. Told them to correct it and ensure that the tile is the backsplash until the kitchen kerb ends. Then they showed me their black face But its ok, we are the ones who are going to be paying and living there at the end of the day, not them. So I don't care whatever excuse they give, if we do not like it, change it. The one trouble we had was to decide the placement of our TV. With our odd walls, its hard to decide where the tv point and power points for it should be Also, painting works to be started soon! Can't wait! Kitchen tiles completed Bathroom wall tiles completed (forgot to take the WC, but it's exactly the same) Bedroom 2 cornice being installed Bedroom 3 cornice fully installed Chosen main door design and colour Chosen bedrooms door design and colour Our windows

Hacking works started on Thursday. When I visited on Saturday, it looked as though a tornado came and ripped through everything. Luckily, I wore shoes and could traverse the place. Here are some pictures when I visited on Saturday. Living Room Kitchen Bedroom 1 Bedroom 2 Bedroom 3 Wardrobes in Bedroom 1 and 2 were dismantled and cleared but couldn't get a good picture of it. Hacking works will continue till tomorrow, Tuesday, 20 September. Can't wait till all hacking is done and ready to lay tiles etc Air-con contractor is coming tomorrow to lay the pipes in the morning, so hopefully all goes well!

Hi Thank you! I have read your T-blog and I too, loved your tile choices! We were too lazy to head back down to Hoe Kee or search for other options for the accessories so we just went with the flow and bought everything in a go. But we are still left with some things to buy Thinking of amazon but not sure whether it can make it in time.

Works to be done! We are hacking of everything; tiles, electrical wires, power points, toilet accessories, sinks, cornices, Basically ripping everything out. There is nothing that we want of the old house to be there. It may sound little but the majority of budget went to hacking and replacing works. We are doing a cove lighting with down lights and a pendant light in our living room while the other rooms are just getting the normal lighting point. For carpentry, we are looking at doing a 1 meter full length shoe cabinet (wish it was 1.5m, but you can't get everything you want on a budget right?), 2 full length wardrobes and top and bottom kitchen cabinets. However, my dreams of hacking the toilet tiles are on hold as HDB is insisting to come down for a check before they allow any hacking works to be done in the toilet. If it is not approved, overlay it is... Keeping my fingers crossed on it. There is one thing I would like to say, even if it is out of your renovation budget now, you can always add on when you do have the money! It's more important to have the skeleton of your home up and going first. Furniture and carpentry can always be added later. We are looking at adding a TV console when the money comes as we love the look of it. Slow and steady as this is your house, there is no need to rush to complete everything. One thing we agreed on was to have as many power point as we can afford as we hate the look of extension cords. We are probably going to be having 4-6 power points in each room (except the toilet) if it is possible! Besides, no harm having more power points. Never know when you need them. Tiles We only visited 1 shop and that was Hafary. We were lazy and couldn't really be bothered as the selection of tiles there was enough for us. After spending 1.5 hours there, all tiles began to look the same and our head was spinning so we decided to just go with the flow. The person who attended to us was super helpful as he helped us with the choices of the tiles. We went there without our contractor as it was a impromtu visit. We really went with the flow and there was no particular theme in our heads except: easy to clean and maintain. When the tile samples were placed together in the end, it flowed well and that was all we needed. Here are the selection of our tiles! Living room Bedroom 1,2,3 The top is our first choice but in the event if it is OOS, the below will be our second choice. Kitchen Top is our kitchen wall tiles and below is our flooring Our backsplash which spans the entire wall where the kitchen cabinet and sink will be. Our sink tiles as our sink is going to be a concrete sink not timber. Caesarstone Oyster as our countertop. Bath & WC Top is the toilet wall tiles and below is our toilet floor tiles. Overall tiles put together Part 3: Hoe Kee After looking at our tiles, we went to Hoe Kee to look at the stuff there. We are basically lazy donkeys who hardly leave the house, hence, we wanted to complete buying everything when we were there. Here are our buys! We have not gotten our dish rack and towel rack as we may want to order that from Amazon. Water Heater Rubine water heater with booster pump Bath 2 way tap Bath sink tap Grohe 32809000 Toilet Bowl Roz 8368 Bidet Spray KrisRoz Hob Bosch 7231SG Kitchen Sink Blanco Naya 6 Kitchen Tap Blanco Mida L Ceiling Fan KDK T60AW Didn't find or take a picture of my Bath sink But it's just a normal rectangular sink.

Hi all! This home is called the contentment home as we are happy with where we are at right now. Regarding the theme of the home, it is ''You like, can already''. Hahaha, initially we were fussing about what theme we wanted in the home. We bounced between a Nordic-Scandinavian theme to a resort feeling theme to a modern theme to a minimalist theme. In the end, we just went with what feels right because that is the most important! Doesn't matter what theme the home is as long as the people who are living in it are happy with it's state. This home has initially caused us a lot of headaches when we did not know what we want due to us being fickle. But we made it through! And I'm here to share the next part of the journey which is renovation with you all House Hunting This was the worst part to the renovation journey as we could not find what we wanted We were looking for a 4 room flat that was not too big and was located near where we were previously staying (TPY). As everyone knows, TPY flats don't come cheap especially when it's nearer to TPY Central. Our only options were the outskirts of TPY as we wanted to have a 4 room while having it well renovated. We were very hesitant about living in the 'outskirt' as there was no MRT nearby but.... there are a lot of buses for us to take! So why not? A new change of pace and lifestyle for us to try. If we had gotten closer to Central, there would have been no way we could renovate our home to a level which was comfortable for us all and there's no point in buying a home where you're unhappy right? PS: We did look at other 4 room resale flats in AMK, YCK and Hougang area. But our heart was fated and contented with only our beloved old town, TPY. This is our floor plan and as you can tell, It is a very old flat. There's only 1 Bath and WC which is located in the Kitchen and theres no connecting Master bedroom toilet etc. Many might hate the separated toilet but.. we LOVE it. We have an issue with touching wet floors with our bare feet. Unless the area is meant for bathing, it CANNOT be wet. Even the WC area cannot be wet. We are adamant to having the bathing and WC area be separated if we had gotten a combined bathroom. To which the house agent shook his head as more work for him Contractors Search This is the part where we all sighed in disappointment. A contractor whom we thought was reliable turned out to be a irresponsible baboon. He quoted us unreasonably and forgot a lot of things in the quotation. Initially we trusted him and gave him the benefit of the doubt. However, all he gave us was crap. His quotes were reasonable for some but for others, it was completely overpriced. Seeing his quote was too over budget, we decided to source out other options to replace his electrical and carpentry. However, we wanted him to do our main works like tiling etc. He decided to not reply any of our messages and even left to go 'overseas'. Funny how when we called him, the tone could get through normally as though he was in Singapore. Not only that, he proceeded to message us and tell us that he was busy overseas. Hence, his colleague would takeover. Fair enough, colleague says yes, yes she can do it. Fast forward 9 hrs, at 1am in the morning. She dropped a Whatsapp messaging telling us she is also too busy. Gave them a good 'talk', if you know what I mean, before I deleted their contact completely. Never going to recommend that company. Main Contractor: Our next contractor (M) felt right the moment he talked to us. He was able to remember most of the things we wanted except he missed out ~3 things from the quotation? However, his colleague (C) was quick to help and communicate for us as there was a slight language barrier. M could speak Mandarin brilliantly, but his English was only on a ok-ok standard. But its ok, we were able to understand him and he was super nice in helping us try to keep to our budget. AND he understands when we wanted to use another company for their carpentry, electrical and air-con. So big thumbs up for his positive mindset! C too, super helpful. However, I do not know if they would do a good job, and frankly, I do not have time to be picky as we are rushing for time, having to move out by mid next month I will see whether they do a good job and if they do, I'll definitely update later after the completion! Carpentry & Electrical & Air-con As I said above, we sourced out a different contractor for carpentry, electrical and air-con. Carpentry guy (A) is a jovial bubble who listens and tries to help in whatever way he can. We know nuts about designing so we asked him to do the designs for us and we would tweak it as we see necessary. Just earlier today, he came down to discuss the design of the wardrobes and he bothered to listen to what we needed more. We will also see how his workmanship is as the progress moves on! J is our electrical guy and is friendly but he doesn't talk much unless necessary. At least, he has good responsibility when it comes to informing us that he is going overseas. Lastly, for Air-con, T is helping us. Nothing much to say about her as we never met before but she handled my current home aircon too. And it works fine, so yay? Before Renovation Pictures Yes, I am horrible at choosing the angles to take the pictures but I will improve! I hope.. Living Room Bedroom 1 Bedroom 2 Bedroom 3 Kitchen Bath WC Hopefully the pictures are okay as I do not know how to upload pictures here properly (edit: okay they are fine)

Hi, I'm currently doing reno for my resale flat and my toilet is also pending approval Everything else was given a ok to hack except the toilet. HDB insists on checking the toilet before hacking works. EDIT: HDB has approved of my toilet tiles to be hacked away. Not sure why it was pending approval.

Hi, may I have the contact for the LED downlights too? Thanks