Serangoon North Renovation By Defong Interior Design

[ayazumi 0]

piknik: So glad to know many people like yourself, May, NeoBy, etc, who like oil/arcylic painting. Actually, my hubby can paint better than me. He can mix colors very well. I am still learning from him, and looking at color chart. Hahahaha... As you mentioned, the house is in good condition, so we have already cancelled some renovation works, not doing false ceilings and windows saved quite a bit. Most important now is do up the wall and floor tiles, electrical and toilets (ie. A&E). Other works can do later when we saved enough.

Valerie: Yes, a little pity, but we saw the wood at bottom of the doors are starting to peel and crack. One of the door bottom side has chipped off. Bedroom 3 door is worst. Our house is quite windy, and maybe because of the wind, the ex owner probably did not put door stopper, so the door constantly bang too hard, the side of the door has cracked on both sides. We still opt for solid classic door. Cost is definitely the main factor. We initially wanted semi-solid veneer doors, because a solid veneer door is very expensive. I thought of just "for decoration", so any veneer door is okay. But come to think about it, compare solid to solid, a veneer door costs 40-50% more than classic door. So we decided to get something more practical and best material at lower cost - get a solid classic door.

Edited March 15, 2012 by ayazumi

[Valerie Low 0]

Just wondering if you don't do false ceiling for living room. What kind of lights do you plan to use? I am also contemplating whether to do false ceiling. But not sure what kind of lights should i use if i do not want to use those normal white fluorescent lights. Hmmm..

By the way, there are so many artists here! Wow!

[NeoBY 1]

piknik: So glad to know many people like yourself, May, NeoBy, etc, who like oil/arcylic painting. Actually, my hubby can paint better than me. He can mix colors very well. I am still learning from him, and looking at color chart. Hahahaha... As you mentioned, the house is in good condition, so we have already cancelled some renovation works, not doing false ceilings and windows saved quite a bit. Most important now is do up the wall and floor tiles, electrical and toilets (ie. A&E). Other works can do later when we saved enough.

I only did still life previously. extremely lousy with potraits!!

[ayazumi 0]

Valerie: We saved the false ceiling cost to buy better lightings for the living hall. We bought two square lightings for the living room. The light casing is quite big; three light tubes are required. This light comes with a remote control, to allow us to control the brightness of the lightings we want, to allow us to switch off two tubes, leaving one tube of lighting for the room, or switch off one tube, and leave two tubes on. We have requested for two white light and one warm light. If we need warm light for romantic ambience, we can switch off the two white lights, leaving the warm light on. I did not take pictures for the lightings that day, if not can show you. There are other nice lightings that you can choose to make your living hall look nicer without false ceiling. For us, we prefer to save the costs and use the money to buy other items for the house.

NeoBy: We also did still life painting at this moment. What we learnt in class was that we were given a photograph, and were asked to paint on the canvas what we saw in the photos. Our "teacher" (the artist) told us that for beginners, it is better to start with still life. Try not to do portraits, because it is not easy for beginners to draw a human face. The difficult part is not the painting or outline, it is the mixing of colors. Have to catch the correct tone colors, and sometimes this confuse me too. Sometimes still life is not easy to paint too, for example, trees. There are many different color tones for the leaves. Need to be observant and practice makes prefect.

[piknik 1]

Ayazumi, where did u buy ur living room light? It sounds very interesting. We went to Light Craft and saw one huge round light for living room. Thought of getting it.. $400/++. Ex or not? It is definitely bright enough for our squarish living room.

[ayazumi 0]

piknik: We got our lights from Pan Tech Lighting @ Jln Besar. I think the price is almost the same. I got the light at $200 each. I would prefer one big light in the centre of the living room, than having two lights. Didn't choose one big light is because I thought I could have a ceiling fan in between the lights, but too bad, I can't have a ceiling fan at home. Maybe what you saw was a designer light, that's why it costs $400?

[Valerie Low 0]

Wow, your light sounds good! Do you have the model of the lighting? For my bedroom, i thought of having a chandelier. But anyway, i'm just thinking only. It may not be practical.

Edited March 16, 2012 by ValerieLow

[ayazumi 0]

Valerie: The model is 4201. They have quite a few light color and designs with remote control. Though the price put remote control is sold separately, but no harm asking for FOC. If I'm not wrong, the remote control costs $30-40 per piece. The con for this type of light is that the mechanism is unique by its own. You cannot use one remote control to control all the lights. The sales person can be right, but I would like to try to ask my electrician if he can make one control remote to control the two living room lights.

[piknik 1]

Thanks for the light shop info. Will try to visit the shop soon. I like the idea of being to use one bulp instead of all, when necessary.

[getzski 1]

Valerie: The model is 4201. They have quite a few light color and designs with remote control. Though the price put remote control is sold separately, but no harm asking for FOC. If I'm not wrong, the remote control costs $30-40 per piece. The con for this type of light is that the mechanism is unique by its own. You cannot use one remote control to control all the lights. The sales person can be right, but I would like to try to ask my electrician if he can make one control remote to control the two living room lights.

might be possible. you may have to buy a multi-point remote module, and then connect all the lights to it. but it is probably to turn on and off only, and cannot do any special features on that one particular light.

[beluga 1]

Just wondering if you don't do false ceiling for living room. What kind of lights do you plan to use? I am also contemplating whether to do false ceiling. But not sure what kind of lights should i use if i do not want to use those normal white fluorescent lights. Hmmm..

By the way, there are so many artists here! Wow!

There are definitely many ways to light up the living other than using false ceiling. Only thing good about false ceiling is you can hide away all cabling and trunking. This can also be achieved if you use L-box but again, L-box is only surrounding the walls. If the living room is big, middle will be dark.

[ayazumi 0]

piknik: We also like the idea to decide how many light tubes we want to on during the night. Some lights have 3 light tubes, but they don't have the flexibility to switch off 1 or 2 light tubes, leaving 2 or 1 light tubes on. We like the flexibility of this light.

getzski: Possible to do the on/off remote to control two, but the special feature you mentioned, e.g. the brightness control, may not work. It is still possible to install the diming mechanism, but the light bulbs or the light mechanism might not be able to accept. Previously my parents' house installed the diming mechanism for normal wall light. It worked perfectly fine at first, can dim down and brighten up, but after a few times later, the bulb burnt out, the light also spoilt, couldn't use anymore.

beluga: You are right. If the living hall is too big, L-box is not bright enough for the hall. The centre will be dark, but the sides will be bright.

Edited March 16, 2012 by ayazumi

[getzski 1]

on most nights, it is sufficient for me to just use my 2 LED tubes to throw an upfront onto the ceiling, and it is bright enough to illuminate the living,dining area.

but....you can't read newspaper or magazines.

[ayazumi 0]

Everyday is SUNDAY Shopping

Yesterday, we went to Hoe Kee to re-measure the toilet bowl and the basin dimension. Got a feeling that the sink is too big to fit in the toilet, though our contractor said it was okay to take 18" basin. We wanted to place the basin and toilet bowl at one side, so there must be ample space between the wc and basin. The other side will be shower area. When my hubby recalculated the toilet dimension (space between the toilet bowl and basin), only 14-16" basin can fit in the toilet. The basins that we bought from Hoe Kee were 18", which could not fit into our toilet.

Therefore, we changed to smaller basins; 16" for MBR, 15.5" for Common (Common dimension is shorter by 0.5")

MBR

Common

We spent another $100+ to buy additional accessories like the hanger, additional glass shelf, wall brackets for shower mixer etc.

Edited April 24, 2012 by ayazumi

[ayazumi 0]

DAY TWO

My father has arranged two bangalah to help us clear the debris that hubby managed to dismantle on first day. Throwing debris to Defu Lane is $200.

The most difficult part to tear is the built-in wardrobes. Now that we have crowbar, hubby tried to pull out the wardrobes, but failed. Maybe we are afraid to damage the wall if we use force to pull out the wardrobes. Shall try today (again) to see if can pull out the wardrobes.

Edited March 17, 2012 by ayazumi