Serangoon North Renovation By Defong Interior Design

[fragrancesmile 0]

Hi, I'm very interested in your kitchen, because you did a L-Shape Kitchen, can I know how it look like at the back of the Dish Rack/Sink (L-Shape)? As well as, do u mind to share your whole view of kitchen, like right side of your kitchen did you tiles the walls? or just paint over.

Hehehe thanks, and sorry if I seems to have alot of qns, because my kitchen layout is almost like yours, and I really think your kitchen is nicely done so i wish to have inspiration on how I can renovate my kitchen in the future

And do you mind to share your whole renovation fees? which can u include your plumber, electrician fees as well? Thank You.

[chocoholic84 0]

Hi Valerie. Thank you for your concern. Luckily all the furnitures arrive early today. Now Courts delivery guys are unloading the fridge and washer. But Singtel is not here yet to come and fix the fiber modem, then we can call it a day. Tml the IKEA delivery is coming, thanks GOD, we opt for their installation service, if not we will really be very exhausted for the weekends.

Hi Ayazumi ! Firstly , Congrats on the reno being done .. Now... part 2 ! the constant cleaning and steps to make your home HOME! can so understand how tired it can be ! hang in there ya .. take it step by step and remember to take time off away from the house to prevent oversatuation ! W bought many things from IKEA too ..opted for their installation services too namely for our Billy bookcases ..faced a hiccup since they sent the wrong book case ( and if it not enuff, they installed it .. luckily I managed to get a refund on it !) Our shoecases,chairs ,sofas odds and ends we bought on our second trip there and decided to DIY ourselves ... uber tiring but kinda fun as weelll sooo not complaining . haha..looking forward to seeing final pics !

[ayazumi 0]

42 days is not easy hur, I think I still have long way to go and many sleepless nights

It was raining this morning but seem all delivery done ok?

Hi Ayazumi ! Firstly , Congrats on the reno being done .. Now... part 2 ! the constant cleaning and steps to make your home HOME! can so understand how tired it can be ! hang in there ya .. take it step by step and remember to take time off away from the house to prevent oversatuation ! W bought many things from IKEA too ..opted for their installation services too namely for our Billy bookcases ..faced a hiccup since they sent the wrong book case ( and if it not enuff, they installed it .. luckily I managed to get a refund on it !) Our shoecases,chairs ,sofas odds and ends we bought on our second trip there and decided to DIY ourselves ... uber tiring but kinda fun as weelll sooo not complaining . haha..looking forward to seeing final pics !

Dear Friends,

Sorry for my (our) late reply. Hubby told me to read our blog as many people were "talking" to me (us). I am very surprised and touched to see many of my dear friends here are concern about our progress. So I told myself no matter how late the time now is, I still need to reply to you that WE ARE OKAY AND THANK YOU FOR ASKING! We were busy the whole Saturday, similar as what we did last Friday, we "worked" till 3AM before we could return home to take a shower and rest. The cleaning and washing progress seem endless... For Hoo: we are happy to build a new home of our own, and though we are tired, as what Hoo said, we enjoyed the process to tidy up a place none other than our home sweet home. Home renovation is a long and tiring process, but when it completes, it is a fun and thrilling experience which you will definitely enjoy with your family, spouse, and children. There's always a saying: Enjoy while it lasts...

For May: Fortunately, there was no delay in the furniture deliveries, and all of them came promptly before 3PM. We have the bed and bed frame received; fridge, washer and vacuum received (the microwave is missing!); and the Singtel technician who helped us to set up the MIO TV and Fiber modem. The unfortunate part is, my father sent another electrician to our house to check on the electrical wires, labelling, termination of Cable6 cables, and we found out that the previous electrician really screwed us up. Aircon 15AMP suppose to have a circuit switch itself, but that stupid electrician link the MBR power points with the aircon point - meaning to say that they share the same circuit switch; but there was a power point with a single alone circuit switch. It means that the stupid ah neh mixed the wrong wires. What the.... So next Monday the electrician who came today will be coming to our house next Monday to re-route the aircon wire to a single circuit switch. The electrical saga continues.... By the time the electrician left, it was coming to 7PM. We rushed to AMK Hub NTUC to buy our stuff. Oh, did I say about the missing microwave? We bought the Panasonic microwave from Courts, but they forgot to include this item into my invoice, hence we did not pay for the microwave, and it was not delivered today. So we bought a Taiyo microwave (cheap cheap one), Taiyo electrical fans (cheap cheap - $28.80), additional Corelle dinnerware, a portable induction cooker, and other things from NTUC. Too bad, Courts lost a customer who actually needs to buy these things, but not buying from them today.

I managed to wash and clean most of the things last night (with lots of blisters on hand even wearing gloves), so we are more or less ready to move our things to our new house. We need to start packing later or tomorrow, then slowly slowly bring over to our new house. We will be expecting to receive our IKEA furnitures in this afternoon. For choco84: we also opt for IKEA installation and not doing the installation ourselves. After a long long process, we both are quite tired to stay till mid of the night before we can return home and sleep. I hope you and Pirvan are doing well for your renovation. Should have completed already right? Now is furbishing time? Do keep us update okay? We are waiting for your final product.

Edited April 28, 2012 by ayazumi

[ayazumi 0]

How cln is the hse when during handover? Mine shoukd be coming fri, but I still see like paint on floor n window grill this wk.. Wonder if are all these expected to be off totally during handover?

How is the re do tile will it affect other tiles or cause other prob?

Hi muska. Our contractor completes a good handover to us on last Friday. He engaged part-time local cleaners to help us clean the paint on floors, clean the windows, wipe the cabinets, etc. He also engaged another bangalah to help us wash our toilets. What I'm impressed is that this is my first time I see contractors engaging part-time cleaners to clean homeowners' newly renovated home before handover the house to owners. What I see from other people's blog is that their ID/contractors engage only bangalahs to clean the house.

One thing you have to know that after re-tiling work is completed, there will be slight uneven tile level. Meaning to say, the tile will either sink lower than the tiles by its four sides of tiles, or the tile will be slightly higher than its four sides of tiles. I'm not sure if there is anyone's re-tiling work can do very evenly without any slight level difference, unless the tiler's skill is superb but our house's re-tiling work slightly sink down a little, which we feel it's uneven. Therefore for our case, this is an unavoidable issue.

ihave this square basin issue too..too big gap and the plumber hav to use white cement to seal up the gap

I think we got the same batch of sink from Hoe Kee. Cheap and lousy quality!

Wow! I like yr renovation so much! Esp yr kitchen! Can tell me how much is yr renovation like this cost? Thanks in advance.

Hi, thank you for dropping by our blog and liking our renovation. I have pm-ed you.

Hi, I'm very interested in your kitchen, because you did a L-Shape Kitchen, can I know how it look like at the back of the Dish Rack/Sink (L-Shape)? As well as, do u mind to share your whole view of kitchen, like right side of your kitchen did you tiles the walls? or just paint over.

Hehehe thanks, and sorry if I seems to have alot of qns, because my kitchen layout is almost like yours, and I really think your kitchen is nicely done so i wish to have inspiration on how I can renovate my kitchen in the future

And do you mind to share your whole renovation fees? which can u include your plumber, electrician fees as well? Thank You.

Hi, thank you for dropping by our blog. I do not have the overview of the kitchen look now as my kitchen is in a mess. I will upload the photos very soon once we clean up the kitchen. We do full kitchen wall tiles, so there is no walls except the ceiling.

Regarding about the dish rack question, this is the latest pictures I have taken for you when I saw your message today

With dishes

Without dishes

I hope I don't give the impression to all that my kitchen is messy. Now is cleaning process only

I have pm-ed you other details.

Edited April 28, 2012 by ayazumi

[ayazumi 0]

Yesterday was a busy busy day. We have furniture deliveries to receive, and work together with the new electrician to check on all the power points and labelling at same time. I would like to share with you some of the purchases we have made during this renovation process.

We bought Dunlopillo bed for ourselves. Aside from renovation, this is our second big investment which we splurge on. Nothing can beat than having a good bed for a good rest.

My purpose is actually not showing the bed brand. I want to show you how much I love this piece of green wall as the feature wall for MBR. Again, my S2 did not do a great job by showing the right color contrast. This is definitely a nice dull green color which gives the nature feel. I feel like I am in a forest now.

Initially, we wanted (actually is me) to ask Hubby's great grand uncle to bring back the MBR wardrobe to his factory to do a new piece of laminate cover for the sliding doors. His great grand uncle is a carpenter, so we can rest assure our doors are in good hands. I initiate to do white glossy for the door, leaving the centre with brazilian walnut laminate. Too much brazilian walnut makes the wardrobe boring. However, when the bed and bed frame arrived, the brazilian walnut doesn't really look that ugly as how I feel. Ahhh.. I know I am always the troublesome one. First is the toilet pipes, now is the wardrobe doors. Hubby has no choice but to obliged In the end, we called uncle not to come to our house to collect the doors, because I have changed my mind to remain the wardrobe as what it is now. Sorry for the poor lighting, my S2 didn't serve me well enough..

[ayazumi 0]

This is some of the other purchases that we bought from Courts.

The Panasonic inverter fridge:

Samsung top load 8kg washer. The space is sufficient to put a quilt cover and king fitted sheet. I think still have space for two more towels, but I didn't squeeze the towels to wash together with the quilt set, scared that the new towels furry furry will stick to the new bedsheet set, so it is better to avoid washing new towels with clothes, bedsheets, and other stuff. It is always better to dip your new towels in a pail of water, so that the color will come off, or the furry furry will come out in the water too. So far I have use the washer twice yesterday, the washer is pretty good, no strong vibration, and when the machine comes to an end, it gives out cute melody tone. I like to hum along when the washer ends. Haha...

Here comes the IKEA shower rail. We thought this thing was easy stuff, within 5 minutes we would be able to fix it. Who knows we took more than half hour to fix this shower railing?! Hubby has to go to YouTube to search for help on how to fix the IKEA shower pole. IKEA should also print how to extend the pole, rather than printing pictures on the cover to teach us how to fix the pole to the wall. Overall, it is a pretty good experience.

This is how our MBR toilet looks like now, with the shower curtain

I did not take our Common toilet because it was in a mess - with many pails and cloths. When I tidy up the place, I will make up for more photos

Remember the main concern that I had for the uneven kitchen wall to the living room, and was later flushed with gypsum board to make the two walls even together? I also asked for even skirting level with the kitchen wall tiles. This is the finished product. The two walls have joint together now. So much prettier now.

I shall continue later. Got to sleep now, very tired Good night all!

Edited April 28, 2012 by ayazumi

[Yishun404 0]

Hi Aya,

How many rooms flat is yrs? Mind showing closer pics of yr floor tiles? The fren told me the killer part $ to any reno is the flooring. but I'd tink the killer part is the built-in cabinet ya. Haha... If cannot take good pics of the floor tiles, maybe can take snapshot of the sample tiles? Shd b easier cos smaller piece. Thanks ya!

[May_dream1 14]

Such long reply! I like to go amk hub ntuc, big and have a lot of things. And sometimes the offer for Correll are quite good. When I see yr dish rack with all the dishes, I know u are also a fan of Correll. Hehe.....

Enjoy your home and remember to have house warming party, ya?

[ayazumi 0]

Hi Aya,

How many rooms flat is yrs? Mind showing closer pics of yr floor tiles? The fren told me the killer part $ to any reno is the flooring. but I'd tink the killer part is the built-in cabinet ya. Haha... If cannot take good pics of the floor tiles, maybe can take snapshot of the sample tiles? Shd b easier cos smaller piece. Thanks ya!

Hi there, ours is 4-room flat. I shall bring the DSLR camera to take a shot, hopefully the camera can capture better pictures than my S2. The small sample floor tiles are quite inaccurate to show you as the tiles that we have first selected, some of them were reselected again, for example the kitchen floor tiles, the common toilet wall tiles, and the two toilet floor tiles, due to color combination. I will try on capturing the photos using the better camera, hopefully can show you some pictures later.

You are right, the killing part is not the tiling work and tiles, it is the carpentry that you want for your home. Tiles are pretty much standard pricing, you choose the floor tiles that you can afford. Don't think that one piece cost ( for example $10 ) is cheap cheap. You need to count by per sq feet, then you decide whether you want the tiles or not. Normally for this kind of calculation, leave it to your ID/contractor, they can calculate for you. Labor cost for homogenous/ceramic tiles is also pretty much standard, unless you meet an unethical ID/contractor who decides to take you on the chopping board, and let's not talk about marble/granite floors which labor costs can be quite expensive, compared with homogenous/ceramic tiles. Out of so many, carpentry is the most expensive category in the renovation. They are calculated by per feet = how much sum of money, the mechanisms you want to use (for example BLUM), whether you want internal laminates or not (calculate by feet again, not by per piece), and if you want to change the doors to drawers (that is additional sum of money as most contractors quoted you is doors, not drawers - you need to ask. ID works on your requirement, how many drawers or doors you want, if you want handles for the doors, etc) - the total sum for carpentry work can be very expensive, and this is the killing part in your renovation. For us, we did only kitchen cabinet and MBR wardrobe for this renovation as these two carpentry items are more important for us, so we do only this two first.

Such long reply! I like to go amk hub ntuc, big and have a lot of things. And sometimes the offer for Correll are quite good. When I see yr dish rack with all the dishes, I know u are also a fan of Correll. Hehe.....

Enjoy your home and remember to have house warming party, ya?

Morning May. AMK Hub NTUC is really big, and you can find many many things in that branch. I bet you have been there shopping before, so you understand what I mean We saw that NTUC was having this 20% sales, so we decided to grab more Corelle plates as the Corelle set we got from Robinsons was only 18 pieces set, so might not have enough plates if we invite friends/relatives of more than 4 people to our house, hence since now got sales, we grabbed more. NTUC offers better price for Corelle than Robinsons. We saw Robinsons selling the plates for $11+, but in NTUC, it is $8+ Luckily we got the set from Robinsons which is much more cheaper than getting the individuals, not we did not buy the separate plates, otherwise we have wasted too much money on the dinnerware. The purpose of buying many additional plates is for housewarming party hehehe... I remember the party invitation Hubby also laughed at me when I bought so many plates. He said: Are we having big party now?

[Valerie Low 0]

omg! Your bed looks so comfy, feel like lying on it.. haha.. did you choose the firm one or soft mattress? It's so hard for us to choose mattress as i prefer softer mattress and hubby prefers the very firm one.

I love how the shower curtain blocks the air pipe! Love the overall feel of your house. Look forward to more photos after the IKEA furniture arrives!

So will you be taking leave tomorrow to rest? Looks like you have a tired weekend.

[muska1119 1]

Hi muska. Our contractor completes a good handover to us on last Friday. He engaged part-time local cleaners to help us clean the paint on floors, clean the windows, wipe the cabinets, etc. He also engaged another bangalah to help us wash our toilets. What I'm impressed is that this is my first time I see contractors engaging part-time cleaners to clean homeowners' newly renovated home before handover the house to owners. What I see from other people's blog is that their ID/contractors engage only bangalahs to clean the house.

One thing you have to know that after re-tiling work is completed, there will be slight uneven tile level. Meaning to say, the tile will either sink lower than the tiles by its four sides of tiles, or the tile will be slightly higher than its four sides of tiles. I'm not sure if there is anyone's re-tiling work can do very evenly without any slight level difference, unless the tiler's skill is superb but our house's re-tiling work slightly sink down a little, which we feel it's uneven. Therefore for our case, this is an unavoidable issue.

Oh urs is really nice..mine I thk usually do the last part of cleaning by himself, so may not hv Supeb quality.

I hv a few tile 1 of the corner slightly higher than rest.. I thk after redo may be worst become 4 corner higher or lower .. But then this will give excuses not to rectify.. That doesn't sound good. Hmm

[ayazumi 0]

omg! Your bed looks so comfy, feel like lying on it.. haha.. did you choose the firm one or soft mattress? It's so hard for us to choose mattress as i prefer softer mattress and hubby prefers the very firm one.

I love how the shower curtain blocks the air pipe! Love the overall feel of your house. Look forward to more photos after the IKEA furniture arrives!

So will you be taking leave tomorrow to rest? Looks like you have a tired weekend.

Hi Valerie. Thank you for liking our home. The shower curtains block out the ugly pipes, now the toilets look much more nicer now. Luckily we didn't want to do shower screen because we do not intend to hide the pipes, so it doesn't really look good with the shower screen + pipe in toilet, unless we box up the pipes. IKEA will be coming at 2-6PM, hopefully they can come earlier so we need to spend whole afternoon to wait for them to complete the work. We want to go NTUC again to stock up food supplies. We are so kiasu I will not be on leave tomorrow, so no choice, tired also need to go to work, but I will taking leave next Wednesday to wait for the blinds installation and the sofa delivery.

For the mattress, we choose the medium range - not soft, not very firm, but it's firm + soft. Hubby fell in love with the bed when he lies down on the mattress and insist wanting this bed, hence we buy the bed. We tried King Koil, but it was not to our liking - some are too soft, some are too hard, and the mattresses have weird latex smell. We also heard feedbacks about King Koil beds sink after a few years. By right good mattresses can last a good 10 years or more, but King Koil mattresss cannot. We tried Sealy, but the mattress is too soft for our liking; when lie down, I feel a little "seasick". Maybe the mattress is too soft and not firm, that's why I feel uncomfortable and sick when lying on Sealy. We tried Maxcoil, slightly better than King Koil when we tested, but we didn't get the mattress because the brand name looks so uncommon and unpopular. We also tried Simmons, but the mattresses are too expensive. The normal range for Simmon mattress is so-so only, don't give us the WOW feel when we lie down. The "better" ranges (we didn't try) are very expensive. The normal range Simmon mattress cost as much as our Dunlopillo mattress, so might as well take Dunlop since the mattress is comfy though price is expensive, but a good bed is essential for a good rest. I know some brands carry two different mattress to put together for couples who face the same situation as you - one want soft mattress, the other want firm mattress. Maybe you and your hubby can opt for two different mattress firmness buy taking this option.

[ayazumi 0]

Oh urs is really nice..mine I thk usually do the last part of cleaning by himself, so may not hv Supeb quality.

I hv a few tile 1 of the corner slightly higher than rest.. I thk after redo may be worst become 4 corner higher or lower .. But then this will give excuses not to rectify.. That doesn't sound good. Hmm

Hi muska. You should suggest to your ID/contractor to engage part-time helpers to help clean the house before handing over the flat to new homeowners. Benefit also not on you alone, but for his future projects with other homeowners too. Ours are not perfectly clean when our contractor hands over the flat to us, but at least it is about 80% cleanliness, we are okay with that already. The rest of the things we can clean them ourselves, and if there is stain, Hubby will use thinner to wipe off. This cause his hands and fingers burnt after using too many thinners. Poor thing...

Have you inform your ID/contractor about the uneven floor tiles? If it is really that bad or serious, then they should rectify your floor tiles again. Sharp edges are no good for the feet, might accidentally hurt your feet if you are not careful. I told Hubby, our next home renovation we don't do homogenous tiles again. I don't like the gap lines (grouting lines) in between the tiles; feel so uncomfortable to step on. We either find a house with marble floorings or save more to do marble floors. At least the grout lines are not very obvious and doesn't feel "sharp" between the gaps/grout lines. Anyways, this is our first experience of home renovation, we may not know much things in the beginning, but after this renovation, we learn a lot of things, and we also know what is good what is bad, so our next home renovation we will choose something more practical. (Haven't move in already think of moving to new home )

Edited April 29, 2012 by ayazumi

[fragrancesmile 0]

Hi, thank you for dropping by our blog. I do not have the overview of the kitchen look now as my kitchen is in a mess. I will upload the photos very soon once we clean up the kitchen. We do full kitchen wall tiles, so there is no walls except the ceiling.

Regarding about the dish rack question, this is the latest pictures I have taken for you when I saw your message today

With dishes

Without dishes

I hope I don't give the impression to all that my kitchen is messy. Now is cleaning process only

I have pm-ed you other details.

Hello aya,

Thankyou for the pictures. so sweet of you to specially take the pictures for me. Your kitchen is very nice as I mention earlier. Haha. Nope, your kitchen looks Good and clean. Your bathroom looks nicd too with the shower curtain. Looking forward to the completion of your new home with furnitures ^^

[May_dream1 14]

Why your tiles can feel the grout lines? there shouldn't be any sharp feel as it will hurt yr feet when you walk ard. I like homogenous tiles is cannot afford marble.