A Corner 3-Room Flat To Call Home

[sherting 5]

My reno plans..

1. The storeroom has to go. It feels claustrophobic with the huge chunks of wall in the middle of the house. I want the house to feel airy, lively, and bright. With the kitchen thus opened up, a breakfast counter will break the living area and the kitchen.

2. Creating a wall to enlarge the common bedroom to house my 2 growing kids. The younger boy will take the external part of the room. The elder girl will take the inner, which comes with more privacy. Their maternal grandmother will also live in with the girl, as she is our caregiver for the young boy in the day.

3. Relocating the mbr toilet door.

4. Bringing the vanity basin out of the mbr toilet.

Above plans are translated on the following floor plan..

Hi

Your boy's room will have no window and not much ventilation? Air con needs to be switched on all times?

[kaykay 36]

Hi

Your boy's room will have no window and not much ventilation? Air con needs to be switched on all times?

Good eye.

Thankfully the adjacent wall between these 2 rooms have a 5ft wide x 1ft high opening at the top.

I will be DIYing a frosted acrylic 2-panels to board up this opening.

I will create ventilation holes with the 2 panels.

Picture will follow after build.

Btw I have made a change in the floor plan in a later post (about 2 weeks ago).

[kaykay 36]

This is the ventilation window I am talking about.

[kaykay 36]

My mosaics are here!!

This is how it glistens under the glare of the noon sun, silhouetted by leaves of the trees, as it sits on my car boot..

I hope I can carry this out.

Or I can always engage the skills of my current tiler, who has become my friend over a week of curry puffs and 100plus drinks. Hehehe..

[BH72 8]

My mosaics are here!!

This is how it glistens under the glare of the noon sun, silhouetted by leaves of the trees, as it sits on my car boot..

I hope I can carry this out.

Or I can always engage the skills of my current tiler, who has become my friend over a week of curry puffs and 100plus drinks. Hehehe..

It will be a great achievement if you could DIY tiling of mosaic tiles.

Maybe you need tile spacer so that the gap will be more even when you join two sheets of mosaic together. Local hardware shops sell in pack of one hundred but you dun need so many. You can try to get some from your tiler friend

Tile adhesive will be better as it sticks really well. A bag of 25kg should be enough if you are applying 3mm thickness. Mapei Keraflex Maxi S1 is quite good and about $25/bag. You can also use premixed dry mortar which is less than $10/bag. Just need to add water only. Try not to use those that require you to mix Portland cement, sand and water. That is very cheap but you don't know the proportion of each.

Just my 2cts. Happy DIYing.

[kaykay 36]

It will be a great achievement if you could DIY tiling of mosaic tiles.

Maybe you need tile spacer so that the gap will be more even when you join two sheets of mosaic together. Local hardware shops sell in pack of one hundred but you dun need so many. You can try to get some from your tiler friend

Tile adhesive will be better as it sticks really well. A bag of 25kg should be enough if you are applying 3mm thickness. Mapei Keraflex Maxi S1 is quite good and about $25/bag. You can also use premixed dry mortar which is less than $10/bag. Just need to add water only. Try not to use those that require you to mix Portland cement, sand and water. That is very cheap but you don't know the proportion of each.

Just my 2cts. Happy DIYing.

Hi BH72,

Thank you thank you thank you..

This reply is just what I needed to know the estimated material cost required to get it to work.

Any chance you know where I can source for this stuffs in Singapore?

I was trying to cut the glass mosaics with a normal nipper. However (obviously) I cannot get a clean cut.

Will there be cheap tools available for this job?

Thanks bro.

[Ks Toh 74]

For the opening at the top of the partition wall, may I suggest you do not board it up first? With the door closed and without air-con, a room with no openings can be very, very stuffy and kind of claustrophobic. I had a similar problem with a created helper's room the last time and I ended up simply putting a few grilles over the opening, so that there is plenty of ventilation. Even then, I ended up creating a window (luckily able to do so).

For the mosaic tiles, I wonder if you will damage the glass backsplash below, or dirty it.

Good luck.

[BH72 8]

Hi,

Below three are the more popular ones. They will have everything you need except the glass mosaic nipper. I never seen it before.

Please don't go early in morning. Many contractors will be there to make their purchases. Especially if you need any advices from them.

1) Siong Hua (Sungei Kadut) Tel : 6769 1001

2) Builder Smart (Changi South St 3) Tel : 6545 5333
http://www.buildersmart.com.sg/store/
NB: Don't go to the balestier branch. The branch has very limited material. Chnagi South is the main office.

3) KAI LIM BUILDERS MERCHANTS
TELEPHONE: 6742 3333
ADDRESS: 369 CHANGI ROAD SINGAPORE 419969

Just some cost estimation for better quality material. A normal ones that contractor using would cost cheaper.

Tile adhesive -- $25/bag (25kg)

Grout - $25/bag (25kg) -- I think you need less than 5kg. Heard Siong Hua selling smaller pack from another thread.

Tile spacer -- $15/1000pcs. You should need less than 100pcs.

I don't know if you are familiar with mixing the mortar/cement with water. When you pour cement/mortar into the water, it will create a lot of dust. Please wear mask, if possible also a safety goggle.

Sorry, can't help you on the nipper for glass mosaic.

[kaykay 36]

For the opening at the top of the partition wall, may I suggest you do not board it up first? With the door closed and without air-con, a room with no openings can be very, very stuffy and kind of claustrophobic. I had a similar problem with a created helper's room the last time and I ended up simply putting a few grilles over the opening, so that there is plenty of ventilation. Even then, I ended up creating a window (luckily able to do so).

For the mosaic tiles, I wonder if you will damage the glass backsplash below, or dirty it.

Good luck.

Thanks for the heads up, kstoh.

I will not be boarding up the opening on top of the wall between the 2 rooms.

What I will do is to DIY some frosted acrylic pieces to form the following pic attached for air ventilation.

For added ventilation, the small room without windows will have a 48" ceiling fan to aid in air replacement.

Noted on the mosiac tiles installation.

I must admit that there is a fine line between optimism and pure foolishness. And I am currently not sure which side I fall into.

However, I may have been bouyed by my confidence from my previous successful attempts at DIY, namely self installation of laminate floors for 3 bedrooms, building a wood cabinet from scratch for my 3x2x2 marine fish tank, or my self installation of a 2.4m kitchen cabinet with worktop from IKEA within one day.

I have a sneaky feeling I may just see it through.. Unless I chicken out nearer the installation.. Lol..

[kaykay 36]

Hi,

Below three are the more popular ones. They will have everything you need except the glass mosaic nipper. I never seen it before.

Please don't go early in morning. Many contractors will be there to make their purchases. Especially if you need any advices from them.

1) Siong Hua (Sungei Kadut) Tel : 6769 1001

2) Builder Smart (Changi South St 3) Tel : 6545 5333

http://www.buildersmart.com.sg/store/

NB: Don't go to the balestier branch. The branch has very limited material. Chnagi South is the main office.

3) KAI LIM BUILDERS MERCHANTS

TELEPHONE: 6742 3333

ADDRESS: 369 CHANGI ROAD SINGAPORE 419969

Just some cost estimation for better quality material. A normal ones that contractor using would cost cheaper.

Tile adhesive -- $25/bag (25kg)

Grout - $25/bag (25kg) -- I think you need less than 5kg. Heard Siong Hua selling smaller pack from another thread.

Tile spacer -- $15/1000pcs. You should need less than 100pcs.

I don't know if you are familiar with mixing the mortar/cement with water. When you pour cement/mortar into the water, it will create a lot of dust. Please wear mask, if possible also a safety goggle.

Sorry, can't help you on the nipper for glass mosaic.

Thanks so much bro.

This is great help.

I will pay one or two of these shops a visit soon.

I will decide if I want to carry out the DIY installation after the visit.

[KimNaNa 6]

Hi KayKay!

Wow .. wow.. Wow.. such great developments in your reno project..

and your mosaic tiles are so pretty.. All the best in the DIY project..

I can't wait to see your successful results!

[Brian Huang 4]

Looking forward to see how your reno turns out.. amazing how u created an extra room!

[sherting 5]

Any updates? Looking forward to your 3.5rm transformation!

[Ray Tay Hong Choon 4]

Can try diamond cutter for the mosaic cutting but it require some skills. Try on some spares to practice cutting a straight line.

[kaykay 36]

Hi All,

It's been such a long time I visited this forum to update.

I must sincerely apologise for the absence.

It has been a start-stop renovation project for me. My contractor has also been patient enough, although at times tearing his hair out trying to accommodate to my urgent requests.

Some updates on the mosaics.

I bought the following tools to ready myself for this DIY project.

What is missing is the glass wheel scorer, which is commonly recommended at US websites.

This tool is so elusive, and imposible to find locally. Anyone has any clues?

I got myself a simple tile cutter instead, and tested cutting some mosaics I brought along to the hardware shops.

Achieved a more than 90% success clean-cut rate at the shop. I will probably stick with that.

As for the rest of the house, reno is almost complete, save the carpentry.

It will be slightly delayed though. I am sure thankful that I have a place to squat while waiting for reno to complete.

More pictures later.