My White Sanctuary @casa Clementi

[potatoes 0]

Toh Guan too far for me. Where is mid view?

Midview city is in Bright Hill ... Next to AiTong sch

[k1_ 0]

Sorry for late reply. Busy days at work these 2 days. Here're my replies:

Lovely kitchen you have there and White is the new IN My contractors and suppliers were initially surprised at our choice of using all white, saying it's rare. And the latest trend being black and white or grey as in industrial look. But my fav colour is white, so no brainer on choosing it as my house's primary colour hue Then I put in diff secondary colour hues in diff parts of the house to make it more interesting.

1) Did you hack down any walls? Yes. I hacked away (a) the wall between MBR and Room 2 to make room for a WI wardrobe (2) wall between kitchen and dining area for open concept kitchen and to make room for a breakfast counter (3) wall between kitchen and service yard

2) Is that doors/panels which you installed? It's a bi-fold door in white powdered coated aluminium frames and tempered frosted glass. Put in this bi-fold door to hide away clutters created by hanging clothes and laundry baskets etc. It's more commonly used in bungalows and terraced houses with swimming pool. But I wanted this idea cos it's less space consuming than a sliding door. Due to space constraint created by 2 huge piping that take up a lot of space at the service yard, which does not allow a sliding door to be fully "opened"

3) Love to see more pictures of your kitchen~! Thanks. Here are some pictures of my kitchen

Amazing Kitchen and your photos prove it~! Definetly makes it less HDB and nice open n clean kitchen!!

And looking at your designs also makes me want to see your WIW as well~!

Am also thinking of WIW but want to only partially hack room2 only while still keeping 3 rooms.

Hope to see pictures of your MBR n WIW soon thanks!! n have a great weekend!

[BusyBee 0]

Amazing Kitchen and your photos prove it~! Definetly makes it less HDB and nice open n clean kitchen!!

And looking at your designs also makes me want to see your WIW as well~!

Am also thinking of WIW but want to only partially hack room2 only while still keeping 3 rooms.

Hope to see pictures of your MBR n WIW soon thanks!! n have a great weekend!

You can still keep 3 rooms. What I did was hack away both walls between MBR and Room 2. Then put in a full ht storage cabinet cum TV console on 1 side using thickness of wall. Then put in a L-shape partition in Room 2. So I have a small WI wardrobe oppo MBR bathroom entrance. Will try to upload my design plan and some pictures soon

[theitsybits 0]

Hello, read yr t-blog too. Nice flooring and white brick walls..very stylo. U moved in yet? I moved in in June. Unit above mine now still under reno. Got crackline in MBR ceiling and my son's room ceiling after hacking upstairs. Look like earthquake site haha. Anyway, got my painter to touch up liao. So watch out for such "casualties" in yr place if upstairs unit still unde reno

haha thanks thanks..haven't finish reno lei..have problems with carpentry..we won't be moving in till end of the year actually..

oh no, i will check..or perhaps go upstairs and peep if they have renovated..

[padipanda 0]

I like your living room, do you mind showing us more pictures of the living room esp the tv console area? Also where did you purchase your living room tiles from? Do you still have the serial quote for the living room tiles? Thanks thanks

[BusyBee 0]

I think the things that I remembered most from my reno were there was a new problem and challenge every day:

1. IDs

Even before we collected our keys in Mar 2012, I have started reading magazines and done online research on IDs (industry reputation, customer reviews, pros and cons etc) and reno ideas. Then we went to “shop” around for IDs and ideas.

But in the back of our mind, we were thinking of using our old ID who renovated our existing 3-room flat. Since his after-sales service has been very good and we have good “chemistry” during last reno. But we have some reserves since he left the reno firm and set up a new reno company with his partner. So we took our time “shopping” around and at the same time, asked him to show us current projects that he’s working on for workmanship and “feel”.

He shown us a few units and in the end, we decided to stick with him. We took into consideration that he’s not really an ID from renowned reno firm who will charge exorbitant fees for ideas alone. Such IDs normally will employ contractors to do the “hard” work. So we have to pay more for the same amount of work to be done. Also we tend to be quite firm in what we wanted in the design and colour and will “spoon-feed” ideas to the IDs. So most IDs will not be happy with working with owners like us and our reno will suffer as a result.

In the end, we have to do a lot of brainstorming and homework before sitting down with our ID and discuss with him. He will then throw in a few ideas which we sometimes include in our overall design.

2. Reno ideas and HDB Permit

Our first quotations include:

a) hacking of wall between MBR bathroom and MBR

b) hacking of wall and floor tiles for both bathrooms and replace them with homogeneous tiles

c) hacking of wall between kitchen and living room

d) hacking of wall between kitchen and service yard

Then ID informed us that HDB does not allow hacking in areas with waterproofing membrane. Any hacking in such areas has to be done after 3 years’ warranty period. But we asked ID to go ahead to apply HDB permit for these areas and reno was delayed till approval. Then (a) was rejected. We replaced (b) with overlay tiles instead of hacking. © was approved. (d) was subjected to PE endorsement at additional costs.

So after much hassles and delays, reno started in first week of April 2012.

HDB Floor Plan

Space Planning

[mellus 0]

Hi BusyBee,

Nice white house you have.

Can you post come photos of your WIW as well as your common toilet?

[BusyBee 0]

I like your living room, do you mind showing us more pictures of the living room esp the tv console area? Also where did you purchase your living room tiles from? Do you still have the serial quote for the living room tiles? Thanks thanks

Thanks. My reno was all done by this ID contractor, including supply and laying and overlaying of wall and floor tiles. He brought us to choose the tiles from LSH and Hafary. And I chose this homogeneous tiles with porcelain top coating to get that "white effect". Cons of these tiles are: under very harsh light, the tiles will show "waves" that makes the flooring look "uneven" (but so far, I don't find this a problem) and it's more expensive compared to normal homo tiles. Will try to get the tile serial quote from my ID contractor and update you again.

It's a pre-requisite for us to have a lot of storage space in living room (for my shoes, my DVD and book collections, players, home theatre system, karaoke speakers etc). And my hubby and I don't like to see clutters exposed in "plain sight", so we incorporate that into our design. We have this stretch of full height storage cabinet in white laminate finishing(with blum tic-tac system)cum TV console at one side of living room.

Here are the pictures:

URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/684/livingroomff.jpg/]

[padipanda 0]

Thanks so much for the photos, thats really alot of stoage and makes your home so neat and beautiful. Thanks for taking the trouble to help me with the serial quote for the tiles, looking forward to received the quote from you :)Thanks thanks.

[yuene 0]

Congrats on moving into Clementi! It's a very nice neighbourhood

[BusyBee 0]

You can still keep 3 rooms. What I did was hack away both walls between MBR and Room 2. Then put in a full ht storage cabinet cum TV console on 1 side using thickness of wall. Then put in a L-shape partition in Room 2. So I have a small WI wardrobe oppo MBR bathroom entrance. Will try to upload my design plan and some pictures soon

Hi, here's my MBR and BR2 design plan for easy reference.

Due to space constraint in MBR, we have hacked away the L-shaped wall between MBR and BR2, then making use of thickness of wall, put in (1) a full ht storage cabinet cum TV console on 1 side. And put in (2)a L-shape partition in BR2 for a small WIW. In this way, MBR is more spacious and we still have space for a single bed for my MIL who is staying with us.

[BusyBee 0]

MBR Storage Cabinet cum TV Console

MBR Bathroom with 32" TV and LG soundbar system

[May_dream1 14]

Wow!! Bathroom also got tv! Luxury! So nice.... Wonderful idea!

Edited July 19, 2012 by May_dream1

[BoBochacha 0]

I also said the same thing when I saw the tv in the toilet!

[whitehousey 0]

Haha. This makes me jealous!!

I presume you can see it from the shower area too right?

Can you please share more photos of your amazing toilet.

On another note, do you use hot water when you shower? Because when I do the whole toilet fogs up..

How do you protect your TV and sound bar from the condensation and humidity?