My 4 Rm Bto

[Garrison 2]

Hi RenoTalk!

Ok, first, a little background. Me and my wife collected our keys in May, but we started our hunt for ID last year. (We were supposed to get the keys in March, but HDB delayed till May). So we decided on the ID at around the same time we got our keys, after going through several quotes. Work has started last week, so I'm pretty late in starting my blog.

We wanted a cozy look, with modern touch, not the usual modern gloss white look that is quite popular nowadays. Our key criteria was easy maintenance, and maximize storage space. I must say I am pretty pleased with the ID, she was able to capture what we wanted, and we were quite happy with the first design she did for us, and we did not have to make much changes.

Well, long story short, this the 3D rendering of the house.

Ok, I'm jumping ahead. This is the layout.

Ok, that's all for now. More details later.

Edited August 16, 2014 by Garrison

[Garrison 2]

So, for the design. I actually planned the layout with my wife and got the ID to design for us. This is HDB's suggested layout

This is the mirror image to the actual layout of my unit. So mine is flipped horizontally. To me this layout is very minimal and does not maximize the space. So I made some improvements

Living/Dinning area

First thing in font of the door is a shoe cabinet and settee parallel to the door. This serves a few purpose.

1) keep shoes (of course) and a place to seat to wear shoes and socks

2) provide a partition from the door to the rest of the room, since my unit is diagonally across the lift lobby, I don't want people looking into the house if the door is open.

3) create a small foyer of sorts. I had the idea of using "outdoor" tiles for the small foyer. The ID also suggested getting a nice small light for the foyer. More on those later. Maybe.

The first design the ID gave us, the shoe cabinet is all white, no design. I wanted some design on it, my wife wanted ventilation for the shoes. So I came up with the idea of cutting long slots on the door. These slots will be slanted 45deg inwards, and the edges will have wood grain laminate, so you will see the wood grain instead of looking inside and see the shoes. They also serve as a bevel edge to hold and open the door.

We have a half height mirror feature wall for the dinning area. My idea is that the shoe cabinet will reduce the space in the dinning area, so a mirror will make the space look bigger and brighter.

I had no issues with the design the ID did for the living room. She understood what we wanted and got it right the first time, although the draftsmen took a few tries to get everything correct. Both my wife and I really like the colour she chose. The wood grain is actually a little bit lighter then what is depicted in the picture, and the white is a matte white, not glossy white. I positioned the TV console on the long side of the hall instead so that it can continue to the cabinet and subsequently the shoe cabinet. Unfortunately that means I have to re run the TV point provided by HDB to the other side.

Master Bedroom

Again I positioned the bed on the other side as I wanted a TV console to continue to the wardrobe. And unfortunately this means I have to re run the tv point again. Not much else I can do here due to the air-con ledge access window. Some people build their wardrobe over the window with a removable panel at the back. But this means you have to empty out your wardrobe every time you do AC servicing. Too much hassle. Pass.

For the first design, the ID did everything in 1 colour, and a much darker wood grain. I felt it was too boring and dark, like living in a hotel room. So she added the stipe, and we spent a lot of time choosing the colours to match. My wife fell in love with the textured wood grain laminate, and we spent a long time choosing a lighter colour with similar texture as well, and another lighter solid colour to match.

Study Room

Nothing much here. Just a study table and wardrobe. Again the first design by the ID was all dark grey (Lava Slate from Lamitek). It has a rough stone like texture, which is unique. My wife loved it, but I felt it was too dark, Makes the whole room look very gloomy, like living in a cave. So she added the light grey strips, which adds some nice contrast to the design.

These are the major rooms I think. I'll write about the kitchen and others later.

[newnew1 2]

Hi,

Like your overall design and concept, really looking forward to how your renovation will progess as i also have something quite similar in mind.

Edited August 12, 2014 by newnew1

[Garrison 2]

Kitchen

I think the 1st thing everyone has headache about for kitchen is what "cabinet surface should I use?" Solid surface, which is plactic, gets scratched easily and less resistant to heat. Granite is hard and lasting, but limited colours. Quartz is less porous than granite, harder, but also limited colour and expensive. In the end we decided to use granite for the balance between budget and quality. And the only both the wife and I like is the Galaxy.

The picture has the sink and hob position reversed. But I have decided to install the hob on the same side as the sink, so that will be wet area. ID and relatives who are housewives agree. The area beside the frigde will be for coffee machine, microwave, etc

At first the ID had the top cabinets on both sides black, but again I felt it was too dark, so we changed one side to wood grain laminate.

Bathroom

My wife insisted in having a shower screen in both bathrooms. We decided to remove both the basins provided by HDB. For the master bathroom, we built a vanity cabinet and mirror, so we can keep the extra TP, shower foam, etc. Black solid surface for the vainty cabinet, and the laminate will follow the MBR. For the common toilet, we will install a sink cabinet instead. And the shower screen will have to be L-shape, which I feel will be too small to shower comfortably. But my wife will be the one using it mainly, and she's only 148cm/42kg

BTW the wall tiles provided by HDB do not look like this. It is a ugly cream colour, and with a strip of UGLY green mosaic .

HDB rule is you can't hack the tiles, and we decided not to overlay them, as that will make the bathroom smaller. Not to mention the $$$. But after looking at some of the photos of others who overlay the bathroom, I'm starting to wish I had spent the money.

Next up, TILES

[Garrison 2]

Tiles

The first time the ID brought us to Soon Bee Huat, I was like . I have never imagined there could be sooooo many tiles, soooo many different designs, and ceramic tiles can be printed to look like all kinds of wood, sand, limestone, almost anything!

But, we went with the more safe design, as some of the fanciful designs do not suit our theme. One design that caught our eyes was one with a swirling pattern. The pattern was really nice, and it's a running pattern, meaning the tiler must line up all the tiles in the correct direction, but it was only available in brown and grey.

grey

brown

The pattern does not show up well in the photo for the grey, but it is a lot more obvious for the brown. The staff said the tiles just arrived, and they had just put up the display pieces that morning. Even the labels were not stick on yet. We really liked the pattern, but I wanted light colour for the living room. The grey looked nice and unique, but I felt the brown looked old and dirty, even though the pattern is the most obvious. In the end we chose the grey for the bedrooms and another white design for the living room. This was before we had seen the first 3D drawings from the ID.

As I mentioned, I wanted different tiles for the foyer. I envisioned those granite looking tiles, with the granite texture, in grey colour. The idea is we don't have to worry about wearing shoes into the foyer before taking off. My wife was very particular about the feeling of the texture. We joked that she wanted to scrub the dead skin on her heels on the tiles . Finally we settled on this one.

At the showroom I felt it was a shade darker than I liked, but now I feel it looks fine. And it fulfills my concept of creating an outdoor foyer look, even though its inside.

Fast forward several weeks, after we have almost confirmed our design for the house, we went back to SBH to confirm our tiles. Lo and behold, they have the same pattern as what we chosen for the bedroom, but this time in white! So we almost immediately changed the living room tiles to this one.

Well, it looked like white in the showroom, it's actually a slight cream colour. Maybe it's the lighting at the showroom. Somehow the greys look darker there, and the light colours look lighter. I got a scare when I first saw the tiles laid in my house last week. I thought they delivered the wrong tiles! The next day my wife drove down to SBH to double check the order and got a sample. They didn't have a sample the first time we saw it. To be honest, I'm a tiny tiny bit disappointed it's not the white colour I remembered , but I still like the pattern more than any other I've seen.

[Garrison 2]

ARRRRGHHHH typed a long @SS post, and the laptop suddenly rebooted!! it's 3.20am now, I'm not gonna re-type everything. Maybe tomorrow.... Or more accurately, later today.

[Garrison 2]

Ceiling, Lights and Fans

Ok, we wanted easy maintenance, so that means no cove lights, even though I really light the effect of cove light. It's just an unreachable area for dust to hide. We are ok with false ceiling and down lights though. So we are doing false ceiling in the living area, walkway and MBR

Keeping it simple for false ceiling design. I think no body looks at the ceiling anyway. I don't remember what the ceiling in my in-laws place look like.

We also want ceiling fans in every room, including the dining room. I sent so many hours surfing the www for information. Other than one ceiling fan in my old house, I know nuts about ceiling fans. But my only criteria are

1. No UFO shape fans. You know what I mean right? The typical fan design

2. No pull switch. I hit it all the time. Most fans come with remote, so that is already solved. Remotes have their own set of problems, but still...

Anyway, went to many places, but not many have a wide range on display. They take up too much space, I guess. Finally, we went to Phylux in Paya Lebar. They carry a wide range, and have a lot mounted and working, so you can not only see it, but feel it in action as well. Finally, we decided on the 52" Spin 2 blade for the living room

I like the sleek cylindrical design, and the airflow is quite good, even though it is only 2 blades. And 2 blades means less cleaning!

We also got the 46" Crestar Icol for the MBR, and the same model with LED light for the 2 bedrooms

And finally, after much deliberation, we decided to get the same fan for the dinning room, But with a steel body and black blades, to match the living room one. Because of the shoe cabinet, and we want to installing a hanging light in the dinning room, can only fit a small fan.

[Garrison 2]

More Lights

We already decided to use downlights for living and dinning room and MBR, so choosing lights would be easy, right? WRONG. Again, many late nights were spend in front of the laptop searching and researching. First of all, LED or normal energy saving bulb? LED is more energy saving, and the light last longer. But many people say if you only turn on the lights for a few hours a day, the energy cost saving not worth the upfront cost. That would be true if you bought the LED lights at normal retail price. For me I still chose LED because besides the electrical consumption, I didn't like that energy saving bulbs flicker when turning on, and would take a long time to slowly brighten when they get old. LED down lights have the added benefit that they are lower profile, so your false ceiling can build with less drop.

Also, I wanted day white, but my wife wants warm white for ambiance. Then we saw the Philip 3-colour LED down lights, and we really liked it. But the price was . Plus, even though they have 1 yr warranty, Philips down lights have the driver built in, so if the driver spoils after 1 year, you have to replace the whole thing. Phillips LED are known to be good quality, but there's always the occassional lemon. And, you have to buy their proprietary switch. I'm not gonna spend 4 digit on down lights alone. So pass.

Then I started searching Aliexpress. (didn't search Taobao cause my Chinese is CMI), and was about to pull the trigger for some 3-colour down lights, then I read about a local company called Zenterra. Checked their website and emailed them, and they told me they were having promotion for furniture show at Expo. So I went down to take a look, and saw they have 3-colour down lights too. At only 30 bucks for road show price, it is only slightly more ex then Aliexpress. And they provide 3 years warranty. So I decided to support local.

The 3 colour light is only for the living room and MBR. Dinning light and walkway will have normal day white lights. Bad thing is, the glass sits floating below the gypsum board, not flushed, so there will be dirt there.

Also bought LED T5 tubes for study lights to fix under the top hung cabinet, and lights for toilet and service yard. That leaves the kitchen and foyer lights. We didn't find anything we like there, so we continued searching.

Finally we came across Lumiart at Tanjong Katong and saw something like this

The glass cover screws into the metal base like a giant glass jar, so it's fully enclosed, no need to worry about oil fumes and insects. It uses 3xE27 holders, so I bought 3 cheap LED bulbs from Aliexpress. The glass has like a storm cloud like frosted pattern, pretty nice. You won't see it in this pic cause I just pulled it off the internet. I think it would look really cool with warm white bulbs, but I got cool white which is more suitable for kitchen.

Also bought this from Lumiart for the foyer.

Lumiart also has some nice simple pendant lights which we considered for the dinning area, but the price was too high. So we bought these from Aliexpress.

Not very pleased with this purchase, to be honest. Firstly, I did not check the cost properly, and did not see there is a shipping cost of 30+ USD, so the price adds up to be 70+ USD each. Although the colour is nice, the glass is much thinner and lighter and the plastic is cheap quality compared to what we saw in Lumiart.

[Garrison 2]

Furniture

so, most of the storage are built in, and not much furniture to be bought, just the sofa, coffee table, dinning table n chair and bed. But that didn't make our furniture hunt any easier. The typical MDF with gloss finish type of furniture are easy to find, but it didn't suit what we want. And we decided early on we didn't want MDF furniture cause it doesn't last.

Sofa: Leather? Fabric? PU? Well, I don't like the design of typical leather sofa. PU leather are known to peel after a few years too. Real leather are super ex and require some TLC to last. So fabric it is. We chanced upon this sofa at Hommage.

Took some effort to convince my wife to accept it. But we didn't buy from Hommage though. At the recommendation of wife's friend, we went to inquire from S&C, and was quoted a price about 25% lower! So that's settled.

Next, we went to Comfort funiture, and my wife chose this coffee table

Matches the sofa pretty well, I think.

Dinning table: Lorenzo had some nice solid wood tables, and the price was pretty reasonable, but they were too big for HDB flats. Scanteak's glossy red oiled wood colour and design just doesn't appeal to me. And I was told they are not really teak, but rubber wood. We also saw very good quality solid wood tables from Hommage, but the price was too high. So we sat on it for a very long time (the decision, not the table) , but finally on our second trip to Comfort Furniture we decided on this table

Actually, I was a bit worried that a solid wood table would be too much wood in the house, so this, I feel, is a good balance. Would be better if the glass was tinted, but Comfort Furniture does not do tinted glass.They are customizing the glass to have rounded corners, though.

These chairs also from Comfort

And finally, my wife insisted on getting this, so I got the set

Lastly, Bed:

My research tells me that the mattress industry is all about marketing, branding and ridiculous mark-ups. Underneath there is very little difference. So I was not very willing to splurge on mattress, although my wife was psychoed by her friends to buy branded, you know, the few brands that start with "S". Spent a lot of time arguing over this. The only thing we agreed on was we wanted storage bed.

Luckily, we chance upon Getha latex mattresses at furniture mall, and they had a promotion for their Eco 10.

We both found it comfortable, and our combined weight is only about 105g, so we felt we don't need fancy spring mattress. The bonus is the height is lower, only 10" compared to 13-14"" of spring mattresses, so on top of the storage frame the bed would not be too high. My wife is only 148cm tall

[northhaven 4]

Can I check what's the dimensions of the comfort dining table and how much? Looking for similar one for my home.

[Songz 132]

Went to try Getha bed previously and found it to be comfy, however the pricing for the bed frame is too expensive.

[Garrison 2]

The

Can I check what's the dimensions of the comfort dining table and how much? Looking for similar one for my home.

The table is 1.4m by about 75cm. That is the max size i can fit in my dinning area. Price is 615 before GST

Went to try Getha bed previously and found it to be comfy, however the pricing for the bed frame is too expensive.

The storage bed is 550 with purchase of mattress i think. We got 100 off for the divan frame without headboard. Not that ex bah.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Garrison

[Garrison 2]

Hmm, I ordered cool white instead of daylight white for down lights and study table. Will it be good for reading? Should I go back and change?

[Garrison 2]

Tiles Part 2

So work started 2 weeks ago, and all tiles have been completed. Managed to drop by a few times after work to take a look, workmanship is pretty good, I must say. But must check if all the tiles are aligned correctly.

Pretty neat work, and good attention to details.

Big gaps at the edges, but all covered by skirting now.

metal strips for joining between 2 different type of tiles

How it looks now.

Most of it is now covered by cardboard. Need to talk to the ID about how to inspect the tiles...

[Garrison 2]

3D (Dusty Delivery Day)

Today was a really busy day at my future home. Electrical works started today, as well as installation for AC piping. Once the drilling and hacking starts, it's really dust and chaos everywhere. At the advise of the ID, we arranged all the stuff that needs to be installed delivered today. Mistake. I would advise others to have them delivered earlier, or after the electrical works are done.

Anyway, other than lights, fans and AC, I have also had the basin cabinet, common toilet accessories and kitchen sink from Hoe Kee, and Hob and hood from Turbo. We wanted the hood in black colour, but the shop we bought from didn't place the correct order with the agent, so they sent the stainless steel one instead. Agent will have it changed next weekend. I hope they don't forget.

Also, as mentioned in my previous post, I realized I ordered cool white instead of daylight white for the down light and study lights. Wondering if I should exchange them? For the colour scheme of my house, will cool white look better? Is daylight less glaring/strainous for the eyes? Suggestions?

Electrical works: Well, HDB has run most of your electrical points for you, I must say there isn't a lot to be done, depending on how you are doing you house. As mentioned, I am re-running the tv point in the living room and MBR

Air con trunking in MBR. Mostly will be covered up by the cabinet.