Our Oriental-Rajasthan Inspired Home

[meeko 5]

It's been an exhausting but very fruitful day, spent observing the reno work going on. Alan made a trip down to make sure everything was going according to plan. Had a nice chat with him...must say he's a really great guy to work with and he's got a warm personality once you get to know him better. Things completed today:

Carpentry

electrical/ lights & switches for the whole house except for the kitchen (waiting for the glass backsplash to come in first, before the applicances will be installed)

kitchen sliding door & backyard bifold door

varnishing of all our new black bedroom & bathroom doors

We also had our new shoe cabinet from vhive (just a simple white one we put in the bomb shelter) delivered and installed. Very good and quick service from them. Our new laundry system from Tame was also installed today. Not bad, very punctual and fuss free.

Last delivery was for our new LG fridge, LG washing machine, water pot and rice cooker from the Mega Discount Store at Kallang. That was not so fuss free. Delivery was supposed to be from 2-5pm. They came at 540pm. The worst part was that they couldn't deliver one item, which was the Brandt single large burner hob. Our carpenter was actually waiting for the actual hob to arrive so that he could take more accurate measurements before cutting the hole in the counter to mount the hob, but at the last minute, after calling and chasing for almost 2 hours, I was told by the Mega Discount people that their warehouse had "lost" the stock and the hob couldn't be delivered. @#%%%^$&! At the end, the carpenter had to rely on the diagram that I had to download online. First and last time I'll ever be buying from Mega, that's for sure.

Another incident was when the washing machine was finally delivered, very late as it happens, and couldn't fit through our backyard doorway due to the freshly installed bi-fold wood and glass door. And all because the delivery was delayed! Had no choice but to call Alan to the rescue and my poor contractor very obligingly offered to get the door guys to come back and dismantle and reassemble the door. Now that's what I call good service Thank you Alan!

[meeko 5]

Ok, now on to updates with more pics of the house

Master Bathroom

Master bathroom bathtub and shower area (it's actually a bathtub/ shower area that's side by side)

Master bathroom shower area. Had Alan build a shower wall with pockets to put my toiletries. Brand new one piece Baron WC in the background.

View of my rain shower set and bath tub. Hubby and I both think the tillers did a pretty awesome job, don't you?

[meeko 5]

Master Bathroom (cont'd)

Retained the original position of some built in shelves from the previous layout. Plan to display some of my candle holders and other ornaments here.

Master bath vanity (taken in the day, no lights on)

Master bath vanity taken at night (with bathroom lights on)

Close up of master vanity. Chose a faux fabric laminate that's supposed to look like silk. I just dig the texture and pearlised finish

Edited September 2, 2013 by meeko

[meeko 5]

Common bathroom (aka the guest bath/ hubby's bath & the little one's bath)

Our common bathroom, althought pretty spacious, only has a shower area (still a generous space by most apartment standards). There was an odd hollow area in the original design, so we asked Alan to create some tiled shelves for us to put our toiletries, décor etc. We also had the shower set moved from the opposite wall so that it would be on the same side as the WC (which is the same design as the one in the master bath). This way, the WC could be separated from the shower area by a shower wall, as seen in the next pic:

The vanity for the common bathroom. Chose a silver woody grained laminate with a slight greyish- brown undertone to match the darker floors and marbled wall tiles. Counter top will be a black quartz top inlaid with purplish quartz crystals.

[meeko 5]

Maid's Toilet & room in the Backyard Area

Chose similar themed tiles for the maid's toilet, but with different tones. While the master bathroom tiles and mosaic tiles are a lighter cream tone, and the common bath a darker brown tone, the maid's toilet has a slightly more greyish/ green tone.Due to the space constraint, we had to keep everything really simple.

The utility/ maid's room. Had Alan's carpenters make simple shelving around the room so that we can store some light household items as well, plus our helper's personal items.

[meeko 5]

Of Bedrooms & Closets

Master bedroom built in closet. Tempered glass sliding doors were put in this afternoon, as well as T5 lighting for the inside. No more fumbling about for stuff in a dark closet! Pics were taken in the afternoon, so I guess it's quite difficult to see how far the T5 lights illuminate the space.

Our kid's closet, also fitted with interior light.

Study room closet, which will be used by Hubby.

[meeko 5]

Finally, just thought I'd do an update of our kitchen cabinets. Once again, I have to say that Ah Gwee (not sure if I'm spelling his name right or if I've caught the right name at all) and his carpentry team from Aian Furniture (Alan Design's in-house team) did a fantastic and clean job. All come with soft closing systems (didn't opt for Blum as was told that this other brand was almost the same in quality and performance).

Corner shelving unit

Tall pull-out cabinet.

[macuser77 1]

It's been an exhausting but very fruitful day, spent observing the reno work going on. Alan made a trip down to make sure everything was going according to plan. Had a nice chat with him...must say he's a really great guy to work with and he's got a warm personality once you get to know him better. Things completed today:

Carpentry

electrical/ lights & switches for the whole house except for the kitchen (waiting for the glass backsplash to come in first, before the applicances will be installed)

kitchen sliding door & backyard bifold door

varnishing of all our new black bedroom & bathroom doors

We also had our new shoe cabinet from vhive (just a simple white one we put in the bomb shelter) delivered and installed. Very good and quick service from them. Our new laundry system from Tame was also installed today. Not bad, very punctual and fuss free.

Last delivery was for our new LG fridge, LG washing machine, water pot and rice cooker from the Mega Discount Store at Kallang. That was not so fuss free. Delivery was supposed to be from 2-5pm. They came at 540pm. The worst part was that they couldn't deliver one item, which was the Brandt single large burner hob. Our carpenter was actually waiting for the actual hob to arrive so that he could take more accurate measurements before cutting the hole in the counter to mount the hob, but at the last minute, after calling and chasing for almost 2 hours, I was told by the Mega Discount people that their warehouse had "lost" the stock and the hob couldn't be delivered. @#%%%^$&! At the end, the carpenter had to rely on the diagram that I had to download online. First and last time I'll ever be buying from Mega, that's for sure.

Another incident was when the washing machine was finally delivered, very late as it happens, and couldn't fit through our backyard doorway due to the freshly installed bi-fold wood and glass door. And all because the delivery was delayed! Had no choice but to call Alan to the rescue and my poor contractor very obligingly offered to get the door guys to come back and dismantle and reassemble the door. Now that's what I call good service Thank you Alan!

Hi Meeko,

Great to hear good progress on your reno.

Just curious, what if the washing machine is down or if you intend to purchase a dryer ? You'll have to remove the door then ?

Anyway just sharing our experience.

Edited September 2, 2013 by macuser77

[meeko 5]

Hi Meeko,

Great to hear good progress on your reno.

Just curious, what if the washing machine is down or if you intend to purchase a dryer ? You'll have to remove the door then ?

Anyway just sharing our experience.

Good question. Most likely won't be purchasing a dryer as hubby doesn't believe in them. He doesn't even like the front load type. So stacking one on top of the other is out. But if we need to change the machine, I guess we may have to dismantle one door panel to get the old one out (and this time, we're buying a smaller one) or totally wreck the spoilt one. haha. Actually the door way is normal sized. Just that we got a super duper big washer. Edited September 2, 2013 by meeko

[meeko 5]

Nearing the end of the work week. As promised by Alan, all the remaining debris have been cleared up, and the second layer of protective coating has been applied by the marble specialists today. The final marble polishing will be done tomorrow, followed by washing of all the floors.

Bedroom floors were stained a very dark, almost black brown with a semi-gloss finish. Finally had the chance to take some pics earlier today as we had to keep the door closed the last 2 days due to the yucky fumes

The development came with long timbre strip flooring for all the bedrooms, which the parquet guy said would last a really long time, so we didn't really have to do much except to polish it. The original colour was a light mahogany brown, which we felt looked a little dated, so we decided to go for a darker, almost black stain to hopefully modernise it.

[meeko 5]

Anyway, back to the cumbersome problem of the gigantic washing machine...I'm very relieved to say that my every-resourceful hubby, with the help of Alan's guy, managed to just remove one of the hanging rollers from the top hung track and wala! through went the washing machine to its home in the backyard

Here's the infamous bifold door, taken standing in the backyard. You can probably glimpse our new Turbo built in oven in the background. The kitchen appliances, including the oven, haven't been connected yet. Waiting for the electricians to come and connect the switches. Most likely tomorrow, according to Alan. They will also be tweaking some of our lights, which were not working. On a side note, we purchased all our LED downlights and tracklights from Chan Huat at Balestier. Not sure if they're the cheapest around as we didn't really bother to shop around much, but we had great service provided by the staff. The lady who served us is called Anqi and she was really knowledgeable and helpful. They also gave great aftersales service when we discovered that 2 of our tracklights and 4 of our downlights were not working.

[meeko 5]

Our concealed kitchen wood and tempered glass top hung sliding door was also finally put in. The plaster guys came in to finish up the wall to conceal the door too. I love how the door looks and how easy it slides into the wall. We chose not to have any of the glass for our doors frosted as we wanted to let as much light through as possible.

As you can see, everything is moving fast, fast, fast! Yay to Alan for ensuring that not a single day is wasted. My curious new neighbours also popped by to say hi and I invited them in for a sneak preview...heehee After a quick look around, they also have to agree that my contractor is good, and they're even thinking of getting him to do some minor jobs for their apartments too. Alan, looks like you're going to be even more busy from now on!

View from inside the kitchen

View from the dining area, looking into the kitchen. The unpainted wall on the right is the newly constructed plaster wall. Paint touch up will be done last, right before we move in.

Edited September 4, 2013 by meeko

[meeko 5]

Now that most of the heavy work is done, we've also started arranging for the delivery of some of the new items that we've purchased over the last few months, such as our storage racks for our bombshelter and our simple shoe cabinet which is also in our bomb shelter. We intentionally left a gap along one wall to allow for hubby and our kid's bikes.

Our new pull down laundry system. Bought it during one of those expo events.

Edited September 4, 2013 by meeko

[streamium70 0]

what is the model of the LG washing machine and fridge? Looking around for washing machine and fridge as well.

[meeko 5]

Don't have the receipts at the moment. But I remember the LG fridge no is 702. The LG washing machine is the 12 Kg 6 motion one. Think it was the latest model at the time we purchased it. It's gigantic!