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!

Tiling works. Actual tiling works have not started yet as Contractor M workers are still busy with another project. Will probably only be able to start next week. Waiting with impatience because i am so eager to see how this bulk of the reno will turn out to be. We visited SBH a total of 4 times (WHAT?!), i am on good terms with the staff already. Living room and bedroom tiles Was adamant on wood-like tiles after seeing so many gorgeous inspiration on pinterest. We did consider Vinyl too, but among all the contractors and IDs we met in the initial selection phase, most contractors, albeit they are the more traditional kind (including my chosen one) were against vinyl. Not sure is it because Vinyl is relatively new in the market, and they are less receptive to new things just like elderly tend to shun technology. One contractor remarked: she would earn a higher profit if she did vinyl for us as compared to her profit margin if she tiled our house. We didn't want to take any risks of in the future of going crazy over a small puddle of water on the floor and the need to wipe it immediately (not sure how true this is), so we went with tiles! SBH had quite a huge range of wood-like tiles. with eyes, without eyes, in different shades and sizes. Look at the samples that we lugged home! Husband said that we can go every week and ask for sample, and soon we can tile our house with all these sample pieces (things the weird husband says) This was my favorite! Photo from SBH website. It's woodessence Beige. So pretty!! A pity we didn't pick it as contractor M said that this kind of short and thin tiles looks best on herringbone laying and not the normal random/steps laying. It was also pricey at 5.30 psf, and he said that he would have to charge us more too, since more tiles and more labour needed to lay this kind. BYE BYE MY FAVORITE TILE We settled for this in the end! Oxford Roble. at about $4.60 psf irc. That's the husband kissing his 8k worth of tiles. Brick wall tiles We have a small area of brick wall at our kitchen area, if you look at the drawing above. Didn't spend much time on this and we picked this! Classic white. We were actually contemplating to use hollow bricks to build that wall and paint it over. But i didn't to have cleaning issues because of the rough edges, and future child safety issues so we opted for this below!! Not as rough, and equally aesthetically pleasing. Photo koped from SBH website. It's brick white, and it costs like 4.90 psf after GST. Contractor M say he will close one eyes on the price since we are tiling a small area only Kitchen backsplash and toilet wall tiles Finally a less expensive option compared to the other 2 tiles. it's less than $3 irc and contractor M assured us that it will still be beautiful. I liked the marble look, and we decided to go for uniform tiles for the toilet wall (3 sides at shower area) and the kitchen backsplash area I decided to use the same tiles that he did for a project a while back. Cheap and nice, he said. Hoping this won't go wrong too. Below is the picture he sent over, on the toilet that he tiled for his previous project. Looks pretty decent! So this is probably all the tiling works we are going to do! if budget permits, i would have like to tiled my non wet area in the master bedroom toilet too! However, i figured the HDB white tiles will suffice, although i am a little worried about now my SBH tiles will protrude out against the HDB tiles

@fifteenmay hello! waves! wanted to tell you i am also probably going to tile my home with the tiles you were planning to use for your balcony! it's oxford roble right? @POX are you engaging a contractor too? yes, sometimes it really takes a lot of imagination man. Pinterest is nice to follow, but when you mash up different pinterest together, you wonder if the outcome will still be pinterest worthy @spooky yes right! i was so impressed as well! helps me to visualize a bit better. Although i am still afraid i will get all my paint colour and laminates all over the place!

@matchalatte My contractor is a friend's recommendation. My contractor also doesn't really get my theme of like boho, eclectic too. he summarized my theme as ' i just want different from others'. I think he is too accustomed to doing the more older generation kind of houses, but he definitely knows his materials and colours well la. Yes, i saw that commune sideboard on taobao too, but it's so ex and its not on prime ezbuy so went to get it from local! I am getting lightings as well from taobao. my contractor (because he is more traditional) said no no to sinks from taobao, he just cannot trust the quality

Sharing some of my favorite buys thus far from taobao and Singapore retail shops! Commune, Bruno TV Sideboard. This was expensive, even at 20% off, but i loved it and i saw some renotalkers who have purchased it! Castlery, Tana Sectional Sofa. Snagged it during the recent Castlery Warehouse Sale at a good price. A little scared that this gigantic sofa will make my living room even smaller, but the husband just love to nua his leg on the L shaped. Bohemian Tapestry. I love this, gotten it from taobao, not that cheap, at 70 bucks, but luckily it's quite pretty irl! Now the headache is for dining tables. anyone has any recommendation for solid wood dining tables that are reasonably priced? Any reviews on wihardja? saw that the prices are quite reasonable but not sure of the quality? HELPPP!

Been a silent lurker for a while, and really got a lot of inspos and useful feedback from you guys so decided to contribute! What a funny theme i have right? Even i am unsure how it will turn out since we are engaging a contractor and not an ID, so i dont get to see those autocad drawings. However, my contractor draws very nicely too with his trusty pen and paper, so for now i am still hopeful i will get my desired home! Some of the major works i will be doing 1. Hacking away my kitchen wall. this was an ongoing debate between my husband and I. Hacking the wall really makes the area more spacious. we don't cook, neither do we know how to cook. However, i do have those dream one day i can be whipping up delicious meals that my mum does, and i think my husband think that this cooking activity is more of playtime rather than really filling up our stomachs because he claimed it's expensive and time consuming to cook for 2, and there are so many food choices near us. I have also heard of stories of friends telling me that even frying an egg is disastrous in an open concept kitchen. the whole living room gets oily too Nonetheless, i pat myself on the back on the decision finally made and hope i don't regret. 2. Tiling my living room, passage way, and 3 bedrooms with wood-like tiles! 8K went into here, and i just had to choose my made in italy tiles 3. Converting 1 room into a wardrobe. Due to those structural walls in the wrong places in the house, i basically cannot hack any rooms. So i guess i can't call my room a walk in wardrobe. At best, i can only call it a changing room. my dad is even worse, he calls it a storeroom for clothes. 4. Building a 5 feet vanity cabinet at the master bedroom toilet with quartz top. This is another ouch cost! But i just cannot withstand solid surface top and the potential stains it will give me 5. My master bedroom toilet door. Not sure if you can see from my floor plan, but the layout of the masterbedroom toilet is horrendous!! we can't even build a swing door for the shower area due to the HDB given door that obstructs all space. So off the door goes!! one of the saddest thing my husband witnessed. He hates to pay money to remove existing stuff and pay money to rebuilt it. So he is shaking his head in helplessness at my 2 vanity basin and the bathroom door all removed! Wont really share my quote here, as this contractor is from a friend recommendation and i think i had a better price, and i dont wish to share till i really see for myself the quality of his carpentry! But you can see some of his drawings below! Really not bad right!! (Yes, i am having a dark green wall- and i think i am going blind from choosing all the green)

Hi ALL, i collected my keys in Jan 2017, in Boon Keng area, and finally works are starting!! This is my floor plan!

hello! I really love your whole earthy and bohemian feel, i am thinking of doing the same too! i am struggling to find the perfect navy cabinet for the kitchen too. can you advise which brand and which laminate did you choose? TIA!