Freb's 5 Room Renovation Journey

[Freb 10]

Final Product

my lovely wife and i bought a house back 2011, now i just can't wait for the day we will be getting the key.


Our flat is near its completion and so i decided to start researching on renovation, heres our floor plan

HDB floor plan


HDB suggested layout


My own layout

Color code:
red - cabinet
blue - table
yellow - sofa
green - wardrobe
orange - bed
pink - fridge


i designed this layout based on the following reasons:

1. we will be living with my parents so we only need 2 bed rooms

2. Suggested study room beside living room will not be constructed as we prefer bigger living space

3. we will make a suite by joining bedroom 2 & MBR, bedroom 2 will be walkin wardrobe + study room.

4. kitchen service yard will be hacked to make kitchen more spacious, windows will be installed at the service yard


my bro-in-law is an ID so he will help us draw an autocad version of our dream layout and give us some advice for the arrangement of furnitures, material to use, design etc

The design we're looking for is simplicity and ease of maintenance, something like Scandinavian
 

Edited September 22, 2016 by Freb
add info

[Freb 10]

Shortcuts to my posts to save ur time browsing through all pages

Light Layout

HDB Screed + Kitchen Base

Kitchen Faucet

Robot Vacuum

Timer Switch & Door Viewer

Tile Selection

LAN Points

Before & After 1

Before & After 2

Reno Cost

Dining Table & Light

Fridge & Washer

Hidden TV console in Rooms

Kitchen Drawer (Note)

Complaints

Curtains

Sofa

Where to buy Sofa (Malaysia)

Sofa & TV

KDK Ceiling Fan (Malaysia)

KDK Ceiling Fan

Common Toilet/Kitchen Doors Design

Toilet Doors

Shoe Cabinet

T5 LED, Coffee Table, Toilet Cabinet

Display + Shoe Cabinet

Before Furnitures

Samsung Digital Lock + Kitchen Door

Sink Support

Walk in wardrobe (Note)

Kitchen Top

Kitchen Stove, Service yard cabinet, HERF

HERF Measurement (Note)

False Ceiling

Aircon Piping

Aircon Pipe Boxup

Gas Pipe

Shampoo Ledge, Bedroom TV consoles

Taobao Forwarder

Taobao Purchases (links)

Amazon Purchases

Edited March 23, 2016 by Freb

[Freb 10]

Today we went to the Furniture expo 2014. Sat down with a few ID firms to discuss and hopefully get a quotation thats fits our budget

oh we also ordered high end resilient flooring from evorich flooring for our bed rooms, and maybe will extend to living and kitchen

i bought this kitchen faucet 2 weeks ago for our new house but some how it ended up in my mother-in-law's kitchen -__-

on the bright side, i get to test it out before getting it again (if its good)

Kohler K-780-VS Cruette Pull-Down Kitchen Faucet, Vibrant Stainless Steel

bought this faucet from amazon and use forwarder Comgateway to mail to SG

its an amazing faucet, beautifully constructed and easy to install, the package only have 3 items in it, the faucet (with all the hoses attached), the counter weight and a top plate (to cover 3 holes if you have them on existing sink)

and its good! i love it, heres a video i uploaded on youtube that shows you its major functions, namely: 3-function sprayhead (spray, aerated flow and pause), oh it is a pull down design with magnetic docking and pro-motion that ensures your hose doesnt tangle (sounds like i'm their sales executive LOL)

oh btw, this Kohler is a USA brand, so obvious its hose size is different from SG's common 1/2" pipe, you need this, a T-Joint connector/reducer (the faucet has hot n cold water function, sadly HDB only gives 1 cold supply) to connect this faucet to HDB supply 1/2" hose, my suggestion is you bring your faucet to the hardware shops to try (i had to go twice as i bought the wrong size the first time -_-), i got it from the friendly owner at Teck Siong Huat Hardware Pte Ltd at blk 28 Kelantan Rd. Just let him know what you want, he will give u solution

Edited February 4, 2016 by Freb

[Songz 132]

Will suggest you do a sliding door for the Walk in wardrobe area so you can save electricity when you on the Aircon.

For the Living I will suggest don't do the column thing, really hard to maintain and clean the interval.

This is personal preference and hope it helps.

[shannie 3]

May I know the price you got for HERF at expo? Thanks!

[Freb 10]

Hi, Songz

Yeah we will do sliding door wardrobe as my wife is sensitive to dust.

What do u mean by column thing in the living room? you mean the separator?

Hi Shannie,

pm u

Edited July 21, 2014 by Freb

[Songz 132]

Here's the design we like:

The wood columns behind the sofa.

As the gap is small, it will be quite hard to clean.

[Freb 10]

The wood columns behind the sofa.

As the gap is small, it will be quite hard to clean.

got it, thx for highlighting

[Freb 10]

after 2nd round of discussion with ID, heres the new proposed layout for our new house. he advised me not to hack the wall between kitchen & service yard as we have sufficient cabinet space and it will not worth the extra bucks to hack the wall and rebuild the missing portion etc.



Color code:
red - full height cabinet
blue - full height wardrobe
yellow - feature wall
green - tables/half height cabinet/TV console
orange - full height shoe cabinet/shower shampoo storage

My wife is tempted to do built-in recessed shampoo storage in the MBR bathroom shower area. but ID advised to position the opening in the middle for better effect and proposed to use built in shower instead, however he warned that any leakage would mean its necessary to hack away and rebuilt the storage =\ we're definitely not keen on that idea.

anyway we've already purchased a very nice exposed rain shower system @ bargain price and will definitely install it for both bathrooms. we will KIV the recessed storage option for now

Tested this awarding winning GoldenEar 5.1 speaker at Adelphi, sounds awesome and might just be what i need for my living room. Considering to install ceiling speaker instead of using speaker standings with those messy wires lying around. this also means that i need to do false ceiling for my already low ceiling HDB, more $$$, dilemma =\

Edited February 4, 2016 by Freb

[Freb 10]

met up with ID to discuss the detail, heres 1st set of 3D drawing he showed me (apparently its 2nd set cos he thinks i will definitely reject the 1st set)

1. Living Room - 1

 

the ID suggested doing a false wall across entire living room to hide the recess wall n column. but at first sight, i rejected it straight. its too ugly (especially the wooden stripes), too complicated and its covering my dining window! also its a little too pricey, so i suggested doing away with the false wall and do simple open shelvings instead between TV feature wall and dining, a deviation from our "minimum maintenance" idea but no choice. i also don like the idea of recess TV console with lights, its white elephant, no use and require more maintenance, i need to figure a way to put my subwoofer on the ground also, speaker seller said if i put it in the cabinet, it will vibrate the whole cabinet =\

 

overall give it 3/10, fail

 

 

2. Living Room - 2

 

 

this one looks more pleasing to me, although openings layout in the full height built in storage is a bit off, We requested for simpler design. the choice of color (white with wooden frame) is ok for us. i want glass casement doors for all openings, no dust pls...

 

the vertical columns...omg its so fat & ugly...i wanted a wall that blocks my view of the windows from main entrance. In Chinese Feng Shui, it says if u see windows straight from ur main entrance, it means lose $$ fortune...

 

the ID suggested see through display cabinet instead of built up wall, more practical. Agreed but not both way see through.

 

on the false ceiling, i requested to do L-box only, i don't like cove lights as it will only attract insect inhabitants...i also want built-in ceiling speaker for my home theatre, so ceiling layout need to adjust, but it can be finalise in a later stage.

 

Overall i give 7/10.

 

 

3. Kitchen

 

 

nothing much to say about this one except for the colors & open corner shelve. i want close shelves.

 

still thinking whether to use black galaxy granite top or caesar stone (more expensive), any recommendation?

 

i hope HDB give me white tiles...as in really white tiles not greyish type...else we might have to overlay for flooring and add white crystal glass backsplash for sink area , more $$...

 

overall, i give 7/10

 

 

4. Walk-in wardrobe with Study

 

 

wardrobes on both side of the room and there is a full height mirror on the left, study area seems a bit cramp, perhaps need to make the left side wardrobe shorter so we have more space for study. also we will change part of the wardrobe layout to storage for our documents.

 

overall, i give 8/10

 

 

5. MBR bathroom

 

its slick looking but i don like the color theme, its too dark, more like hotel than my house. i want lighter colors to match our house theme (i.e grey, light grey etc)

 

overall i give 8/10, just need to change the colors.

Edited February 3, 2017 by Freb

[Freb 10]

For kitchen cabinet colors, we choose wooden for bottom cabinets and white color for top cabinet, both smooth surface.

chose these 2 colors, dark wood for all round frame and lighter color for doors, both textured surface.

oh my broinlaw (also ID) told me only to use Lamitak laminates as they offer the most design n best quality. a point to note for fellow renotalk users

For bathroom tiles, something like this will be nice.

Edited February 4, 2016 by Freb

[Freb 10]

hello, any1 bought this brand before from taobao, is it good?

[yogi07 2]

Hi, can PM me the price you've got for the HERF? Thanks!

[Freb 10]

Hi, can PM me the price you've got for the HERF? Thanks!

hi, pmed!

[Freb 10]

2nd set of 3D photos

still need some changes here or there

Living:

don like the black one way mirror at all, although it helps to keep dust away and still allow remote operation, but it doesnt seem to match my theme

note: no cove lights for me, neither do i wan yellow lights...

Living storage:

better looking openings but the middle display area between the 2 glass cabinet looks weird and it will be useless to me, I'm not gonna put a plant there...need to change...

Wardrobe:

not much comment except i want the study table to be 800mm depth instead of 600mm due to my iMac 27inch

Kitchen:

all enclosed with added storage above the fridge, considering to shift the sink away from the fridge, too close seems to pose risk of water damage.

Master bathroom:

still looks too dark for me, maybe just leave the feature wall and flooring dark, the rest i want lighter colour.

what do you guys think of the 3D? any suggest to make it nicer?

Edited February 4, 2016 by Freb