Less Is More~ Our 1St New House

[sweetpoison 0]

Very eager to see the changes on this part. Do you need to apply permit for this?

Hi OceanEleven,

Talking about permit is the part where we nearly vomited blood.. LOL! Yes, we have to. In fact, twice. As the previous owners only shifted out in mid Dec, we can only get our ID to take measurements & applied permit around the same time. (That's the 1st time). Permit to hack the store wall, kitchen & access area wall & the current main entrance wall.

As the reno goes on, we decided to change the common toilet entrance so we can have space for laundry area. (That's the 2nd time).

Which part we nearly vomit blood? The waiting for approved permit for hacking kitchen & access wall! We waited for 3 weeks! Jobs being delayed. Giving us restless nights thinking of "Plan B" if the permit is being rejected..Do we need PE? Can we have our place done up before CNY?

[sweetpoison 0]

Closer look of the old skool floor..

And what was left after hacking...

Bye Gem...

[sweetpoison 0]

Our reno started on the 11th Dec. The night before we dropped by our place and met our new neighbours. A very nice couple who invited us into their house to have a better feel of how it will be like when the place is fully furnished. Hope our reno will not cause them much headaches...

Here are the photos!

The above pic was taken from the main entrance, facing the study room wall. There was a built in book shelf at that corner which looked like this.

[sweetpoison 0]

On the following week, more works were done.

Tiles, cement, sand & all the right tools..

If you have noticed, we hacked off the round edge of living beam wall. It makes the wall looks smaller now and we are lovin' it!

[OceanEleven 203]

Hi OceanEleven,

Which part we nearly vomit blood? The waiting for approved permit for hacking kitchen & access wall! We waited for 3 weeks! Jobs being delayed. Giving us restless nights thinking of "Plan B" if the permit is being rejected..Do we need PE? Can we have our place done up before CNY?

Yup, heard many stories on how efficient on getting permits approval as well as reject without any particular reason.

To wrap up by CNY is a long shot, given now still pending hacking approval and workers wrapping up 1 week before CNY.

Timeline wise practically you are left with approx. 3 more week to go only.

IMO better to pace nicely than to rush for CNY.

[sweetpoison 0]

Checked! To shift our current main door to the front of the access area has approved by HDB. So I guessed permit is needed.

[sweetpoison 0]

Ok, I think I have to be more organized here.. Lemme keep things short and sweet by allowing the photos to do the talking.

Living/ Dining Area

Hacking (Started on 11th Dec)

Bare/ Cement Screed done (2nd week of reno)

Tiling (2nd week of reno)

Tiles done (Before Xmas!)

Edited January 4, 2014 by sweetpoison

[sweetpoison 0]

Masterbed room toilet

Hacking

Cement Sceeding/ Waterproofing

Tiling

Just before Xmas..

On Xmas night. (Shower kerb is up!)

Edited January 3, 2014 by sweetpoison

[sweetpoison 0]

Just realised that we did not take much photos of the rooms. I guessed thats because we did not do much to them except for changing the floor tiles. Thank God the place has no built-in wardrobes to hack. The only area that has the most changes is the kitchen. So lemme share the photos of the kitchen since the first day of reno till Xmas...

Kitchen

Hacked

Waterproofing

Partial tiling

Edited January 4, 2014 by sweetpoison

[Harriette 42]

Hi Harriette! Love your EM especially your glass balcony! How's your reno going?

I dunno if we need to apply permit for shifting the main door. I didn't even think of it till you asked.. I think I have to check it out. Thanks for the reminder!

Hihi, my reno should complete in end Feb 14. Hope all goes well. All the best for your reno too.

[sweetpoison 0]

Initally we wanted to have 2 different wall tiles for the kitchen, hoping to create a feature wall. But our ID rejected one of our selected tiles as he said it cannot stand chemical wash and it will not be easy to maintain the tile. (Hearing that makes me worried cause I can be those 'HardCore cleaning aunties' when it comes to kitchen & toilets). So he suggested that we make another selection. We did. However, after some discussions with our ID, we decided just to stick to 1 type of tile. The most simple white tile 30X60. And to only tile half of the kitchen, where the cooking and washing areas are. Hoping that we can save some bucks, at the same time, have a different look instead of having whole kitchen wall tiled.

We even told him not to wall tile where the cabinets will be as we thought "the tiles will not be seen even if they are there, so what's the point?" But when he told us that by doing so, it will only save us $200+(!) And my dad, who used to be a carpenter, said it's better to have the tiles there as the wall will be smooth for the cabinets to be installed.

So on Xmas night, our kitchen is wall tiled!

WE LOVE THE LOOK!! (Even though the pipes are in the way...)

Can anyone tell that the tiles were started from the middle of the wall? Heard from our ID that it's not the usual way of doing it.

Edited January 4, 2014 by sweetpoison

[sweetpoison 0]

Our initial choice of kitchen tiles..

The top tile is the one that cannot take "shampoo bath"...

[sweetpoison 0]

Yup, heard many stories on how efficient on getting permits approval as well as reject without any particular reason.

To wrap up by CNY is a long shot, given now still pending hacking approval and workers wrapping up 1 week before CNY.

Timeline wise practically you are left with approx. 3 more week to go only.

IMO better to pace nicely than to rush for CNY.

You're right. We really don't want to rush the work as we are afraid that the end product will turn out to be horrible. Have already agreed to shift in without kitchen carpentry. As for the rest, our ID promised us that it can be done. Now, all the walls were hacked. Our ID will give us a revised workflow by next week.

[sweetpoison 0]

Hihi, my reno should complete in end Feb 14. Hope all goes well. All the best for your reno too.

Good Good! So by end Feb, you & your family can enjoy the beautiful scenery by the balcony!

[sweetpoison 0]

Now for the common toilet. We decided to change the entrance of it during the 2nd week of reno. Actually months ago, we played with the idea when Mr A suggested to me after hearing me complaining there's no space for washing machine. But I brushed the idea aside, thinking "less hacking = less $$ spend".

But I really can't think of any other corner to put a washing machine! So, mainly for the sake of a laundry area, we changed the entrance.

Common toilet

If you guys can see, there's a water pipe on the right wall sticking out. That's the pipe the ex owners used for their washing machine and the machine was placed right outside the entrance. Meaning, people have to circle around the machine each time they use the toilet.

Hacked

Wall Tiles up

Just before Xmas