Jolene Heng

@fifteenmay picked my paint colours already! went with a white bomb shelter in the end! @sonsofliberty lucky i am not superstitious! Back again, because the house has had more updates over last week. Tiling works are almost done! I like it! cheap and pretty! Good choice from contractor M Wood-like floor tiles are also going up! It looks slightly darker in reality and i like that! I dont fancy too light looking tiles. So, initially we were intending to use iquartz statuario venatino for our kitchen and vanity top! However, contractor M came back telling us that the supplier told him the new batch coming in had a yellow tinge to it. Not like the iquartz statuario venatino was pure white originally, but this new batch was even less white, and this left me in a frenzy. went to search for alternative marble quartz. what do you all think of this? Its from Lianhin. Venas Blanco. I was seeing one of the blogger home using it so i decided to go down and see for myself. The Lian Hin sales person say the current batch will look like the picture above, more lines, than the older batch because customers feedback to ask for more lines! LOL! Just wondering is it too much??

Going to decide on Paint colours this weekend! Something I have always been procrastinating to decide because i fear that it will turn disastrous. I started off this research downloading the Nippon Paint App, it's helpful, but i think it captures colours differently on different walls due to the light involved and the size of the wall. I even went to encycolourpedia (Ikr, such an interesting website) to go assess all the green in its different hues and compositions - Most part of the house that is meant to be white: Sail White 1199 I guess this is a no brainer white for the most parts of the house. - Dining Area Accent wall. I think we are playing 50 shades of green here. This is the wall i have been thinking for quite some time. see on page 1 my Contractor Sketch, I was contemplating a dark green wall to match my marble quartz kitchen top, and marble wall tiles and white & dark blue 2 toned kitchen cabinets. Now, dark green is a little bit hard to pull off, and not many will choose that colour. Husband is skeptical too, and the more he is, the more hesitant i become. It doesn't help that the nippon paint app doesn't give the most accurate representation too. i see so many beautiful shades of green on pinterest and i dont know if i can pick the closest shade on Nippon Catalogue, and if it will blend in with the rest of the house. All those photos taken off pinterest. So nice right, and all different shades of green, that could be not true to real life due to lighting effects. So i am skeptical of which green, and if green matches the marble matches my overall look of the kitchen with marble quartz and the dark blue cabinets, i ended theorizing my decisions by looking at the colour wheel used in interior. It is said that you can match colours by finding colours that are adjacent/ opposite of each other / different shades of a first colour... so dark blue and dark green belong to the analogous (adjacent) theme on the colour wheel. Blue and green are actually side by side to each other. So hopefully it works?? LOL These are the green i shortlisted from Nippon Catalogue 1. Green Abyss. Picture of green taken from Nippon Paint website, and even your computer screen makes a difference to what green you are seeing. This shade of green looks slightly different from the app as well. I would describe it as muted dark green. 2. Impressions. This seems like more a in your face grass kind of green. Nice, but i realize i am not one who love love nature and its greenery. i wanted a green that is not really green? Gosh i am not making sense 3. Great Seascape. This was love at first sight actually. This looks like a mixture of green and blue to me, which i love blue btw. and hopefully blend with the kitchen more? However, when i visualised it on that dining area wall, a bigger surface area made the green more dark, and contractor M warned that it may be to dark. Any helpful comments, or has anyone done a green wall with pic to show me?? My furniture for the dining area is mixture from taobao and sg retail, not sure which green suits hahaha. - Bedroom accent wall. Another headache. wanted to put a soothing shade of gray here. but this is really 50 shades of gray. Shortlisted grays! 1. Gray Knight. This was the chosen colour by Nippon in 2016 in their colour trends. 2. Miner Gray 3. Gray Gait 4. Mystic Gray. A colleague chose this for her living room and she told me it's really gray gray, very soothing! Don't they look all the same! just different kind of gray, either its gray gray, or a tinge of blue gray The rest of the wall colour like my wardrobe room and empty common room i think will just go for different shades of white ba. hahah Oh and my bomb shelter door!! i want to paint it pink!! hahaha omg, friends, please kindly chide me if you think my house is going to be a disaster, and ask me change my mind. White upper kitchen cabinet, Dark / Royal blue lower kitchen cabinet, and a pink bomb shelter door (bomb shelter in my kitchen). But not the striking kind of pink, nor the girly kind of pink. arggh... even i dont know my own requirements now haha

what a high floor you are on!!! congrats!!! I LOVE THE LOOK!

i got the same pineapple light as you!! HAHAHA. Husband didnt understand it! Glad all your lights came out well!!

@spooky yes, its cheap and the effect on my kitchen and bathroom is so good! dont lose to those 5 dollars plus i was previously aiming for Taobao loots Some loots from my ezbuy prime came today. I really hate their delivery timing. Never punctual We had about 9 parcels. The rest still shipping to destination. I also have about 1.5k of loots waiting to be cart out tomorrow on my last day of trial prime, which God so blessed me with Agent fee during this period too!!! can save money! That's a story for another day. So this time round, i bought track lights and the tracks! All good but 1 track is bent, so that's 3 dollars wasted but no biggie. save quite a bit here. I opted for white tracks and white tracklights!! I think the tracklights are like $3 each? A soft closing bin also came!! Looks good and sleek for my kitchen. This is 7L. hope its enough for kitchen! think this is $13++ This huge *** clock that i saw a lot of people buy so i had to get it too! wrapping is really good man. Husband says ezbuy really waste a lot of paper and plastic haha. This cute ghost chair! Inspo from here!! Going to get the ikea malm dressing table (featured in photo) when it's back in stock to match my ghost chair!!!

@mamit yes, i noticed that too when i was reading your blog! your reno is almost completed!! @sonsofliberty nope i didnt tile my whole wall! only kitchen backsplash area, the toilet shower area, and a half height kitchen wall on the outside @spooky the floor woodlike tiles are 4.60 excl GST. Brick walls is 4.90 excl GST. and the marble print is 2.60 excl GST @Whisperer yess i saw! want to say i loveee your bathroom subway marble print tiles? Are they from SBH? i was considering them too, but i didnt want to have cleaning issues too scaredy cat!

Tiling is going to start tomorrow!! the tiles and 2-1 mix were delivered to the home today! There is really a lot of 2-1 mix, neatly stacked in the kitchen, living and service yard. I peeped at the invoice contractor M got from his supplier, doesn't come cheap too its like $850 if i didn't see wrong. so actually taking into account the tiles price, the labour and this 2-1 mix, he really didn't earn much Mock laying my wood like tiles, cannot wait for this to be up, but i heard it's going to be the last. Kitchen and Bathroom tiling will start first so that it will not delay the carpentry work that is dependent on the tiles! My faux brick wall tiles!! picked this so that it is easy to clean and more safe for future children as compared to the real bricks My kitchen backsplash and bathroom wall tiles! so glossy hahaha, hope the marble prints turn out good! Next task is to pick my paints! another headache!

nice! are they all under prime!?i am looking for a nice dressing table? do you have the link for pic 1?

@matchalatte My contractor slightly more traditional so he doesn't really recommend lights and sinks from taobao. But i went ahead to buy lights from taobao already. Decided to listen to him for the sinks because i think if i place an order now, it can only come 1 month later and the timeline will probably be too late for my contractor! i Kinda liked hoe kee, and i bought it at the branch whereby he's been dealing with for like many years already, even the staff knows him well, so i feel assured, that i can trust him to handle everything! He always like to say, with one phone call, the person from hoe kee will come and repair / serve us etc. $1128 incl gst for fujioh 3 hood slm 900R, and the 3 glass hob FG 3773SV, and an ariston built in oven! It's one of the promotions they are running!

Spent 2k at Hoe kee today! I personally find their stuff relatively price competitive after comparing prices with like GAB or Tiong Yeong Hardware and some other Jalan Besar shops. In addition, they are the sole distributor of Blanco, so i decided to get the big purchases at Hoe Kee! 1. Blanco Naya 6 in alu-Metallic with the Blanco mixer. Yes, pricey, branded, but it looks so sleek and pretty. I don't really fancy stainless steel kind of sinks. 2. Hob and Hood from Fujioh! We got a package with a Ariston Oven. I just need a basic oven because i am no masterchef so we went ahead with a bundle promotion that look pretty reasonable 3. 2 bathroom sinks! Going to reuse the HDB taps 4. 1 25 Liter Joven storage heater! Does this sound reasonable?

@matchalatte i think trunking and hacking is independent as long as your trunking pipes are not going on the wall you want to hack! my beam is in the middle of 2 walls, hence the length of the aircon is restricted! @Viv14344 hehehe i love them too, hope they look as nice on my home too! A small peeve. saw some cigarette butts on my home on several occasions. Must be the hackers and aircon people. Told contractor M about that and he said he will put up a no smoking sign and remind workers not to smoke in the home.Look at what he drew for me! so cute! I guess i am just being anal, i don't want my floor tiles to be laid with the cigarette butts underneath forever, not being able to see the daylight forever. Let's hope i don't see this again! Laminates Galore i practically koped back all the catalogues that contractor M has from his office. He uses EDL and Jennings. Didn't really hear of them before. Guess i am only exposed to Lamitak that is like widely used in renotalk. But i am quite impressed with EDL. I get to order sample laminates from their website (See below) and they do a door delivery the next working day free of charge! YAY. Don't really have to make my way to Sungei Kadut their office to see the laminates, though i think the sample size will be in bigger pieces there. Settled this for my Kitchen! Upper cabinet (style white), and lower cabinet (bleu vif) Both in matte. I know, kill me right now, matt laminate in kitchen, especially the blue one is face palm. I did a greasy fingerprint test on the sample, and yes, as expected, there's a greasy mark. Never mind, going close 1 eye because i love blue and i love this colour combination for my kitchen. Not going to be so anal about this. At most i shall just wipe it after every cookout session. In fact i was contemplating over lamitak nautical laminate but contractor M advised against it, as he said it's too dark, and will look like almost black at different angles and time of the day. Praying this blue will be perfect. I seriously only have a few shades of blue in my brain that i can accept. For style white, it's an off-white laminate that he recommended. he says that off-white laminate will not turn yellow over time. Yes, this colour combination will go super well with shaker cabinets, but i guess i am not going for it for 2 reasons. 1. the kind of shaker i want - wood trimmings is quite pricey. 2. trap more oil within the shaker style cabinets Now just need to crack my brain over my bathroom vanity and wardrobe laminates. probably going for some woody laminates. The husband, shared a concern with me, which i found valid (and the concern is in my title). He feels hard to imagine how our house will look like, because he is someone who likes to copy (and he likes the scandi, muji style) where he say things are uniformed. all white, all wood, etc. But for our house, he has seen some of my ideas and buys thus far, from lights that look country-style to antique etc, a persian rug i am eyeing, that herringbone console that i bought from commune, and a green wall!!, he cannot imagine. To be honest, i can't imagine that much too, and that there isn't a focal theme for our house. i can only assure him that the elements that are uniformed is that the house is still mainly white, and wood.

@matchalatte @spooky@daryl78 yes, $900 all in for the 3 walls within the shower area for $3 psf tiles! i don't have any quote for just 1 wall! Update, work is starting to pick up now Hacking is done! photo sent by contractor M Aircon trunking tomorrow! Totally know nuts about trunking so threw this homework for my husband to settle. Ours is from Mitsubishi Electric, system 3 (Not installing the aircon in the wardrobe room) We decided on 18K BTU for the living area in the end despite having an open concept kitchen mainly because this size is enough to be mounted on the beam. If i were to pick 24k (what usually open concept kitchen homes will pick), i cannot mount mine on the beam due to it's bigger size, and would have to mount on the dining area wall. And so, the 1st thing my guest or I will see when i open my main door will be that big aircon. It was a struggle initially to pick 24K BTU for practicality or 18K BTU for beauty and also... we are not really that frequent users of aircon in the living room. I can only foresee myself using it probably only when guests come or when i want to pamper myself over the weekend at home. Let's hope 18K will suffice. Contractor M says it should be no problem since i told him i am usually scared of the cold and sleep in 26 degree Celsius

Hexagon is nice!! i thought of this or the subway tiles too, but i think of all the cleaning between the grouts i scared already!

@spooky i was quoted $900 too! maybe it's really the norm price for contractors? compared to when i saw the quote for the entire bathroom area, this is so much more pleasing to the eye hhaha. @swirl360 Ooo, are you the in the project nearer to the mrt? Have you started reno as well? Mine is considered slightly late already as we were honeymooning during the time we were supposed to sign some docs, hence the delay.

@Raylowwl Hi, yes i did see this website too!! they have a similar one i know, but its also quite pricey at almost 1000 dollars and they are not on ezbuy prime so i dare not think of the shipping costs. In singapore i bought it at 20percent off at almost 1.2k only, rather pay slightly more then to have any defects or exorbitant shipping fees!