White House...

[whitehousey 0]

Greetings.

I've been wanting to do a T-Blog from the start of our reno but never got to it. So now we're at the end of our reno, this just a recap of our journey.

This is my floor plan.

We were hunting in the mountbattern area for at least 6 months and finally settled on this one mainly because of the floor plan. These are the other 5 rooms we checked out in this location.

This is in the newer block. I liked the distance of the block to the station but not this floor plan, especially the narrow living room.

And this one has a nice big living and dining.. It was a toss up between our final choice and this and the one... The bigger mbr and toilet location was the deal clincher.

Edited August 16, 2012 by whitehousey

[getzski 1]

i've been to both the first and second floor plan.

the first one feels a lot bigger, and also can be easily reconfigured if you want to.

second one is really crampy.....but you do get a good view of the national day fireworks (depending on your balcony orientations....)

[May_dream1 14]

Congrats on getting such a good location!! Actually I would prefer the last layout. Seem like a bigger kitchen?

Show your white house pictures, please?

[whitehousey 0]

Design phase.

Choosing an ID wasn't difficult. We have an ID friend that has done up 3 of our friend's houses and we like the consistency in quality so we went with him.

We did look around to check the market rates for reno stuff and this forum was particularly helpful in this area, and found our ID quite pricey. So after a bit of bargaining and a lot of consideration, we decided to go with the quality we know we will appreciate in the years to come.

After many revisions in the design, we settled with this. Our ID still says that he didn't contribute much in this phase cos we pretty much did all the layout planning ourselves. But looking back now we really couldn't have done without him. Apart from just getting everything in place, our ID sorted out all the necessary lengths, heights, recommendation of colour schemes, materials... Final touches that we "untrained" people will not realise till it's too late.

We never got a proper rendered 3D picture but this was fine.

The reno stuff in general are:

- leaving the rooms almost untouched

- hacking away the old wet kitchen and wall

- build new dry and wet kitchen, separated by a sliding glass door

- remove all existing flooring in the living/dining and corridor

- hack into the existing balcony and incorporate it with the living

- redo both toilets

[whitehousey 0]

Wow you guys reply fast.. Don't know if I can keep up with this!

I totally forgot to mention that the theme of the house if you haven't already picked up on is "WHITE! and simple". Nothing new but we love it.

Congrats on getting such a good location!! Actually I would prefer the last layout. Seem like a bigger kitchen?

Show your white house pictures, please?

Thank you May.

Yes the last one has a huge kitchen, especially if you open it up.

But because we both cook a lot and definitely need a dry kitchen, a confined space for that was imperative. And that last floor plan really works best when it's totally opened up which we prefer not to.

[whitehousey 0]

Before photo

The house was in a good condition when we took over, but due to the new floor plan quite a lot of the existing stuff had to go.

There was a TV console splitting the living area. Living area was an elevated timber flooring.

This is the balcony that will be incorporated into the living.

Existing kitchen

Common toilet

Master toilet

Edited June 26, 2012 by whitehousey

[whitehousey 0]

Hacking...

The living looks much bigger with out the TV console.

[whitehousey 0]

There was a long pause in the reno here.

It took almost a month after the commencement of hacking before the permit was giving to:

1) Build into the balcony

2) Hack existing kitchen wall

In the mean time, the tilers started...

Edited June 26, 2012 by whitehousey

[whitehousey 0]

Last update for now.

Finally the hacking done. Tiling was done soon after.

[applepie 0]

another in this area

my cousin's place (same block as my parents) is the one with the long long living room. i find it hard to fully utilize the space as i prefer a squarish living room.

is ur hse done up already? can go drink kopi with denimart hehe.

[May_dream1 14]

The existing really looks quite good. The kitchen also very new.... When was it renovated previously?

[whitehousey 0]

another in this area

my cousin's place (same block as my parents) is the one with the long long living room. i find it hard to fully utilize the space as i prefer a squarish living room.

is ur hse done up already? can go drink kopi with denimart hehe.

Yeah I know we're all in the same area. the coffee shop with the handmade pau has a new stall.. It sell laksa and some noodles stuff, took over from the prata stall there. Has any of you checked it out yet?

My house is done up, just some minor touch up left for the contractor to do.

Photos will be up soon.

The existing really looks quite good. The kitchen also very new.... When was it renovated previously?

The kitchen was done up about 4-5 years ago i think. We actually had the intention of keeping the existing kitchen but upon closer inspection we found that the counter top was turning yellow, you could see the joint line in the top, the wood in the cabinets were on the verge or rotting.. On top of that we wanted a dry kitchen, our ID advised us that matching that old/yellowish counter top may not be easy. Furthermore we both cook a lot, so we decided it'll be best to start with a new kitchen.

[whitehousey 0]

Tiles Done!

Yes we kept the shoe cabinet. It's not going to match the new design/theme but it's very functional. Save $$$.

After removing the sliding door to the balcony there was a little gap in the wall.

This was a last minute request and our ID sorted it out very quickly.

Edited June 27, 2012 by whitehousey

[whitehousey 0]

Carpentry...

And we had a slight problem.

We wanted the oven to be slightly higher than the kitchen counter but not a full height cabinet, with a functional space above the oven to put stuff on. Although we wanted the oven at about 12 inches higher than the counter our ID kept saying that was too high and suggested 4-8 inches and then our ID recommended that we build a thick border around the oven to make it the center piece in the kitchen.

So this was his drawing.

But what we got was this, only 2 inches above the kitchen counter and without the border.

Because of their slight error, we negotiated for them to rebuild the oven cabinet to be at the same height as the rest of the kitchen and also in the same laminates. We're really not too adventurous. I think our ID just wanted some colour in our kitchen and we kept turning down every single idea.

[whitehousey 0]

The glass guy came in.

And our toilets turned from this

To this

One special touch our ID did that I don't see in many renos is he embedded the U Channel for the shower screen glass into the tiles.

Not sure about it's function/durability but it definitely looks better.