Opening A New Chapter Of Our Lives ... 2nd Home In 7 Years

[Chunky Monkey 2]

11 January 2008

Update. We are at a stage where we are making note of areas that we want our main contractor to make good mistakes or improvement. Initially, my biggest peeve was the humming sound coming out from my PLC lights all over the house. That has been resolved. It was all because the ballasts inside the PLC housings were loose. So can you imagine the double work the electrician had to go through, to reach out to 70% of the lights in the house, to tighten up the ballasts.

We are still getting bits and pieces of our carpentry work rectified. Unfortunately, an apprentice came along with 3 other senior carpenters. And this apprentice alone caused a lot of problems. He was not skillful enough when cutting the laminates/PVC edging that he broke some of the laminates that were already glued onto the carcass at the factory. There are areas that I can close an eye on, and let it pass. There are however mistakes that are too glaring and I am insisting on re-lamination.

We have asked for removal of all the drawers in our kitchen larder. I have had experience with drawers that are not deep enough, and when you pull out the drawers, packets of food like chips fall out from the sides. So I insisted that all the shorter drawers be replaced. And this is not good for Classic, because I did tell my designer on more than one occasion that I wanted deep drawers, and he didn't think I needed them. Sorry that I won't be overruled.

Here's a picture of 2 new sample deep drawers, amongst all the shorter ones. And I have also asked for the doors to be removed, to give me opaque film, which was what I asked for right from the start, by my designer thought it wouldn't look nice. But I am putting my foot down and that's what I want to get.

And here's a picture of my twin fridges. One with a left hand close, and the other a right hand close

I had my retractable awning made by Parosols Unlimited. I highly recommend them. Very professional and very good. I am using Somfy motor, the best in the market I hear. And the arms are very strong.

More updates another time. Gotta take my kiddy winkies to school now.

[gumbokins 5]

with the new drawers, you just doubled the storage volume! coooooooooooooooooooooooooooools!

[Chunky Monkey 2]

with the new drawers, you just doubled the storage volume! coooooooooooooooooooooooooooools!

Each set of runners can support up to 50kg. So I won't push to the limit. I won't stack too many things in each drawer anyway. The increased height of the drawer is just to make sure things can't fall to the sides when I pull open the drawer.

My wrought iron gates were installed today. It was a weird feeling. I felt as if the space has shrunken. The caged up feeling was no fun. I guess my feelings were no different from animals in captivity!

Here are the pictures:-

Edited January 11, 2008 by Chunky Monkey

[BunBun 5]

Hey CM, very nice carpentry & furnishings you have there, makes me drool even more over your house.

Each set of runners can support up to 50kg. So I won't push to the limit. I won't stack too many things in each drawer anyway. The increased height of the drawer is just to make sure things can't fall to the sides when I pull open the drawer.

My wrought iron gates were installed today. It was a weird feeling. I felt as if the space has shrunken. The caged up feeling was no fun. I guess my feelings were no different from animals in captivity!

Here are the pictures:-

[Chunky Monkey 2]

Hey CM, very nice carpentry & furnishings you have there, makes me drool even more over your house.

Thank you, BunBun. All the homes I see here are very nice.

12 January 2008

My designer called up to say that the Corian guys would be going to my place to install the counter top for my bathroom earlier than the date they communicated to him. This was a pleasant surprise. I didn't make it for the installation. When I went there to see it a couple of hours later, this was what I saw ...

I was pleasantly surprised. And I am usually very hard to surprise. The Corian guys did a fantastic job. No mistakes, and exact to my specifications.

There will be 2 huge free standing mirrors on the ledge. The mirrors were leaning against the wall in the shower room. I tried to lift one of them up by myself but it was just too heavy to do so. Will have to wait for my main contractor to help me put them in place.

In the coming week, I hope the plumber would be able to come back to install the faucets.

My WIW is still not ready ... And I think it won't be ready till the very last minute!

[renoGirl 1]

OMG~~ Nice!! I always wanted 2 sinks!! I VERY VERY MUCH LOVE TO HAVE IT.. Its like a "His" & "Hers" thingy.... But HDB flats toilets are way too small to accomdate the idea... So you and ur husband will be using your very own sink?

[Chunky Monkey 2]

Yes, one sink for each of us.

[wuga98 0]

CM: what kind of tiles is this? homo or marble? and they are 600mm by 600mm?. Thanks.

As promised by our main contractor, the tilers started tiling our living room.

Before today, I'd not noticed that living room floor tiles are to be tiled starting from the main door. Our main con said that that's the best starting point, so when we open our main door, the view is of nice, big, regular sized tiles.

I also noticed that the tilers slip in between the tiles little strips of paper (reminds me of litmus test paper). I am actually puzzled what the paper is for, but am willing to hazard a guess that the strips of paper is to keep the tiles apart, to make the grout lines.

Here's a pic showing the little strips of paper slipped in between the tiles

This picture was taken at noon. I believe the whole living room is now fully tiled. Yipee!

Credit goes to my DH. I was the reluctant (read: chicken) one.

[lifestyle 0]

Hi Chunky Monkey,

You place is coming along very nicely and looks fantastic

[Chunky Monkey 2]

CM: what kind of tiles is this? homo or marble? and they are 600mm by 600mm?. Thanks.

They are homogeneous tiles, wuga. And yes, they are 600 x 600 mm.

[Chunky Monkey 2]

Hi Chunky Monkey,

You place is coming along very nicely and looks fantastic

Thank you, lifestyle.

20th January 2008

4 more days, and it's our home removal day. The date's fixed, and the movers are confirmed. We will be using Crown International for this move, even though it's only a local move. DH swears by them, and trusts no other company. All our big furniture will be disassembled, wrapped up for moving, and then unwrapped and reassembled. We have full confidence using them because they use cardboard to wrap up delicate furniture like sofa sets and wooden furtniture. And we will also have a complimentary 2 hours of handy man service the following Monday to hang pictures up for me.

Our home renovations are almost completed. I say "almost" because my spray painted sliding doors have not been spray painted (athough they have already been fixed), my Kaba locks have not been installed, and my frameless shower screens have yet to be installed. I too have my wardrobe ladder outstanding as well. Yes, you are reading it right. We are installing wardrobe ladders because we have an extremely high ceiling, and we refused to waste the space up there. There will still be minor touch-up's here and there over the next couple of days ...

[Chunky Monkey 2]

Here's an updated picture of my kitchen larder and wall hung cabinets above my twin refrigerators.

I had requested for a change in door film from translucent to opaque. I really wanted this, because I don't think I can deal with a 'wayang' burst of colours behind the glass doors.

[BunBun 5]

CM, Noticed that in one of your pictures which shows part of your sink and a big cabinet that holds 3 ovens, your sink is undermounted right?

If so, did you have any concrete sink support for it since I can't see any signs of sink support?

[Chunky Monkey 2]

CM, Noticed that in one of your pictures which shows part of your sink and a big cabinet that holds 3 ovens, your sink is undermounted right?

If so, did you have any concrete sink support for it since I can't see any signs of sink support?

Hi BunBun - yes, my sink is an undermount. The support for the sink is the kitchen cabinet under it.

[Chunky Monkey 2]

23rd January 2008

Today is the eve of our big move. Although our removal package consists of movers packing everything for us, we decided to take the opportunity to go through our belongings, and to throw out the junk that we hadn't used in ages. The mantra is, if we hadn't missed it the last few years, we aren't going to miss it in the next few years!

Some things are cutting really close. For instance, my WIW has just been completed. The sub-contractor engaged by my wardrobe designer literally just installed the pole system and sliding doors yesterday. Here are the pictures, finally, of my WIW. If you look hard enough into one of the pictures, you will be able to see a telephone set on the floor. Use that as a reference to judge the length of the WIW. I can't recall if it's 6m or 6.5m???

Wall hung ironing board with cover. I haven't adjusted the height of the hanging rod. It will be adjusted upwards, to make way for the ironing board. We wanted to make full use of the 3.3m height ceiling, and hence took advantage of the pole system to give us maximum hanging space on one side of the WIW. No visible in this picture, there is actually another hanging bar right under the ceiling. And how out of reach would that be, you may ask. Have no worry, the rolling ladder hasn't been installed yet. It will only be ready tomorrow. Can you imagine the installation will take place when movers are in the house?! But such is life ... we can't always work things out to perfection.

Other views of the WIW

The stack of drawers with round handles can be locked with a single key. Like those you see in boutiques, where all the drawers in the same column are locked at once with one key. My designer had never done this before, but I insisted on it, and he sourced it for me. I feel something like this, should be a standard for any type of wardrobes.

The glass installers also just installed my frameless shower screens/doors. As I had refused to have U channels and silicon seals (major peeve is the discoloured/blackened silicon over the years), the glass installers took a longer time to prepare the tempered glass. Here are a couple of photos showing where stainless steel clamps would be, to hold on to the glass on the floor, as well as on the wall. Seeing them finally installed made me really happy.