Colour Our Scandi Home =)

[clownprince 4]

Hi, can share your contact and quote? Thanks!!

Hi angeljas, sorry that we won't be revealing the contractor at this point as we are in the midst of reno and we only want to recommend our contractor if we truly believe and trust that she's super awesome! will update again! hope you understand!! meanwhile, all the best in your contractor/ID search! )

[clownprince 4]

SCANDI - Stressful Choices, "All Not Desirable (hide) Inside"

i'm ze wife and yup, that's right! that's our mantra which we strongly believe in! anything pretty, show! anything ugly, hide! ! !

when we all think of AIRCON , the most horrifying part of it is not the aircon itself but the TRUNKING! *cues lightning and thunder effect*

i've never given much thought to the aesthetics of aircon until recently when it was time for aircon installation. my jaw dropped when i finally saw the trunking for the first time for myself. the thickness of it is unimaginable and unacceptable. i cannot imagine that the design of the house would be ruined just like that! when i think back of all the pinterest pictures that are oh-so-pretty.. i wonder where did all their aircon trunking go?!

and to make this Aircon Adventure even more challenging, we are not doing any false ceiling and neither are we going to do any boxing up of the trunking!

before i could get over how thick the trunking was, the aircon guy started asking me where and how i want the trunking to go. *stress*

fortunately, i did have a short discussion with contractor E before the aircon installation day to roughly map out the "route" of the trunking. of course, there were some parts that i didn't know i had to think about and due to some "disagreement" by the aircon man who mentioned that some positioning of aircon is not ideal, i had to make a few on-the-spot decisions! [even more fortunately, the hubby didn't scold me for the decisions i had to make hehehehe, or maybe… not yet]

going with our "All Not Desirable (hide) Inside" mantra, we decided to have the trunking go inside our 2 bedrooms. we are not doing any carpentry to the 2 rooms now but contractor E did say that, next time if i want to build wardrobe, i can cover the trunking inside the wardrobe!

here's some pics of the aircon in our house! we chose Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (they should change name to "Mitsubishi Heavy Trunking") from Gain City! :

Top 2: MBR

Bottom 2: Bedroom 2

Top 2 + Bottom Left: Bedroom 3

Bottom Right: Living Room

Left: View from Living Room

Right: View from Corridor

oh, did you think that this was all? hahaha that's not all. after returning to the house a few days after the installation, i was HORRIFIED to see this:

[confirm kena scolding by hubby for not checking properly. BUT I DID CHECK OKAY! i swear i did ]

this was the aircon unit in the living room. sigh, everyone i know in the house tried to push it back but it just wouldn't stay! seriously, whoever sees this would think that it's spoilt right!

and so, i had to call Gain City to get someone down to have a check on it. (on a side note, i think Gain City's service was not bad la, they came down promptly on my next available date.)

when the aircon man came again, he turned on the aircon and told me, "it's like that one. the design is like that one." of course, i didn't believe him and i told him, "cannot be right? anyone who sees this, will know there's something wrong!" but he insisted it's the design. since he could not do anything to it, i thanked him and told him to leave. and we would probably call to make noise.

BUT MIRACULOUSLY, as the aircon man turned off the aircon and left my house, (it was very dramatic… imagine the door closing slowly behind the aircon man…), i looked at my aircon sadly, AND THE AIRCON COVER CLOSED SLOWLY BY ITSELF! *gasps*

at that moment, i finally understood what the poor aircon man meant at last! the line that he said, "it's like that one. the design is like that one." echoed in my head… he was trying to tell me that when the aircon is turned ON, the cover will open itself. when you turn it OFF, the cover will close automatically!

omg.

after that, i told the hubby. and then, he sent me this picture.

the hubby did a google search on heavy industries manual and this was what it said! the mystery has been solved! so apparently, the heavy industries aircon unit in the living room has this 'feature'…. but cannot blame us for thinking that it was a spoilt cover right?

haha PHEW, what an Aircon (mis)Adventure!

Edited March 13, 2015 by clownprince

[clownprince 4]

SCANDI - Sinks : Chose Amazon, (but) Now Doing Ikea

well, after incessant nagging from the wife (for getting her hooked onto renotalk) and me just reading all her posts, ze husband is finally back to post. If you recall, in the first post, the wife's the arty farty one, and i'm the masterchef, who's good at cooking everything and anything (at least i hope so ) So that means, anything that goes into the kitchen is mine,

As you can see from the title, this is about the sink - there's other stuff in the kitchen but i think the Sink's always going to be the pretty centerpiece right? So after googling around and after staying in the UK for a year, i decided i wanted a huge sink that had a farmhouse apron. So like ze wife says, Pinterest became my best friend for a couple of days as I looked up design after design, and googled sink after sink. So here's the style i wanted.

Then i realised, there was a renotalk discussion on Sinks, and after reading it i was convinced i wanted a Kraus Farmhouse sink from Amazon - was looking at the 33inch set.

pretty right? i'm sure it would be nice, and after hearing all the rave reviews from the other renotalk thread i was all set to go, and i was pleasantly surprised to know that it would take like 5-7 working days for Amazon to send to SG. Amazon FTW! But that's only just the beginning of the story. First the wife objected saying it wouldn't fit into our theme, but being the owner of the kitchen, i told her i wanted functionality and it would go well with our metalish hood and she gave in. So after checking with our contractor on the sizing, I went ahead to buy it - problem solved - order placed.

Surprise Surprise. Next day, received an email from Amazon telling me they wanted me to verify my card and my account was SUSPENDED. Like WTH right. After buying from Amazon UK for so long, never kena anything, first time buy from Amazon US got this kind of thing. Initially thought it was a scam, but then i realised, no my account really suspended and they needed my credit card details from the bank, like biilling address, hp number and email address and last two digits of card. So i happily printed my statement, blanked out the important details which they didnt need, and faxed it over, writing down the information that wasn't in it. Surprise again when Amazon rejected it again and upon checking, realised that they needed a bank letter with those details. Like which bank in singapore gives a statement with hp and email address right? How dumb can amazon get. SO after a week of ding donging with Amazon chat officers and trying to get my bank to give me the letter, i gave up. By then Amazon had cancelled my order, unsuspended my account and asked me to try again. Which I did. This time, it worked, no need to check details. But after 3 days item wasn't shipped yet. by then the chat officers were my best friends - i got upgraded to priority shipping for free, and i had international shipping for free too. Almost thought Amazon would give me like free credits for going through soo much angst.

But despite bugging Amazon for another 3 days, it still didnt get shipped. I GAVE UP and cancelled the order.

Back to Square One. So this time, i decided ok, since Amazon sucks, i'm going to try get another sink, and went around again and this time, i realised IKEA has it too. So we happily went to Ikea and bought it. We were so happy with the purchase and excited about it, because first, it fits in the colour theme better, and the wife like the white colour better.

here's the ikea sink, and ze wife even tried putting the pot in the top left corner picture into the sink to see if its big enough - cos she says, ze husband going to do all the cooking, and as usual she will do all the washing, so it must be easy to wash =) So excitedly we got the sink and collected it the same day.

BAD CHOICE. My advice, if you are ever buying a FARMHOUSE huge sink, do not cash and carry - ask them to deliver. As usual, i ge kiang and tried to carry all 46kg of it into the car, and halfway through, pulled a back muscle. The wife had to support it for a while when it balanced precariously on the car boot while i stretched out my back muscle. Never going to try that again and never ever thought that i would have so much fun and adventure and angst trying to get a Sink =). Hopefully the kitchen will look nice with it

[nolifesg 1]

Hi clow prince,

I hope your pull wasn't a bad one. Had that before and I couldn't stand for a couple of mins. Yoko yoko will be your best friend at this time!

Hi clownprince's wife,

Is there any reasons why your air-cons are placed in the middle of the room? I feel that if the air-cons are placed on top of the doors, it will cut down the trunking route and aesthetically look better with less trunking running around.

[clownprince 4]

Hi clow prince,

I hope your pull wasn't a bad one. Had that before and I couldn't stand for a couple of mins. Yoko yoko will be your best friend at this time!

Hi clownprince's wife,

Is there any reasons why your air-cons are placed in the middle of the room? I feel that if the air-cons are placed on top of the doors, it will cut down the trunking route and aesthetically look better with less trunking running around.

Hi nolife, it wasnt that bad actually. I think its just a pull, no strain. also because i played a football game before going to ikea and after pulling went to play another game LOLOLOL - think ze wife cannot stand me hahha

[clownprince 4]

Hi clow prince,

I hope your pull wasn't a bad one. Had that before and I couldn't stand for a couple of mins. Yoko yoko will be your best friend at this time!

Hi clownprince's wife,

Is there any reasons why your air-cons are placed in the middle of the room? I feel that if the air-cons are placed on top of the doors, it will cut down the trunking route and aesthetically look better with less trunking running around.

hello nolifesg,

yesssss! my initial plan was to have them placed on top of the doors too!

BUT the aircon man told me that there would be a risk of condensation issues for bedroom 2 and 3, as apparently, if i turn on the aircon for living room, the water will flow past the 2 bedroom aircon and might cause condensation. (of course, i don't understand and i'm not really sure about what he was saying but since he mentioned, i better play it safe.)

the other thing was: if you look at the picture of my MBR, you'll realise that there's no trunking on the wall with the aircon! hehe! they actually used the same trunking that was drilled through into Bedroom 2. (But he also mentioned that there is a risk of condensation issues as well if we keep using the MBR aircon without turning the Bedroom 2 aircon on!) but since the hubby and I rarely sleep in aircon actually, i guess this wouldn't be a big issue. *fingers crossed*

due to our walk-in-wardrobe partition, our aircon in MBR MUST be at the position in the photo, and cannot be at the entrance beam outside the toilet, where most pple usually put. if not, only the walk-in-wardrobe will be cold due to the partition haha!

i also wanted the position of the 2 bedrooms' aircons to be the same, hence the current positioning of the 2 aircon in Bedroom 2+3! and of course, i chose to sacrifice the 2 other bedrooms for a prettier MBR aircon haha. i cannot imagine having another huge trunking on that wall that my MBR aircon is at!

i hope u understand what i'm saying haha.

-clownprince's wife

Edited March 14, 2015 by clownprince

[clownprince 4]

SCANDI - Sh*tting & Cleaning, Always Necessary & Damn Important!

According to a recent study* on what we actually spend the most of our lives doing, an adult (at an average life expectancy of 78.6 years old),

1) spends 1.5 years in the bathroom

2) spends a total of 92 days on the toilet.

*Source: http://news.distractify.com/jake-heppner/astounding-facts-about-how-we-actually-spend-our-time/

---

as the goody-goody wife who aims to take good care of the hubby, i therefore strongly believe and am very convinced that our toilet must look and feel very good!

looking at our hdb toilet, we are both convinced that there's going to be quite a big overhaul due to our infamous GREEN mosaic tiles (if you are living in the same estate, you will know EXACTLY what we are referring to!)

we decided to retain our current hdb toilet floor tiles as they are greyish and acceptable. also because we need the moolah to invest in overlaying of the wall tiles! i wanted to only overlay the wall with the green tiles initially to save money.. but the hubby managed to convince me to overlay every side.. since 要做就做到美美 [want to do, do everything swee swee!] let's hope it's money well spent!

as a big fan of prints and geometric patterns, here's a few ideas that i shortlisted from Pinterest (not ours, sadly!!) :

i wanted to add in pops of colours by using coloured subway tiles. i decided to go for the picture at the top. For toilet 1, i was planning to do dual tone coloured subway tiles - top half white, bottom half pastel pink. For toilet 2, i was planning to do the same, but with top half white and bottom half pastel blue.

---

excitedly, we went to Hafary Tile Shop at Balestier!

BUT *cues thunder and lightning effect* when we saw the range of subway tiles they had, they didn't have the colours that i have in mind! boooooohoo.

so i thought, maybe we can just go for White+Turquoise combi for both toilets.

UNTIL… i saw their honeycomb tiles and FELL IN LOVE immediately! Look at how pretty they are!

i quickly did a Pinterest search on honeycomb hex tiles and i realised many people use them for the floor instead of the wall. there were a few on the wall and i realllllly love love love it! looking at the colours, i gave up the "pops of colours" initial idea and decided to go for the WHITE hex tiles. i prefer matt to glossy, so we went for the matt one for both toilets!

TADAAAAAA….

here's the before and after pictures of our dearest beloved toilets with the white hexagon tiles!

First Pic: Common Toilet

Second Pic: MBR Toilet

[*on a sidenote, can you spot the horrifying green tiles? ]

Now, now, now… i wouldn't mind spending my whole life in a toilet like this.. how about you?

Edited March 15, 2015 by clownprince

[benetay 14]

Are you okay with the sprained back? It is regrettable that you didn't get the Kraus sink due to poor service.

Hope everything else is fine.

[clownprince 4]

Are you okay with the sprained back? It is regrettable that you didn't get the Kraus sink due to poor service.

Hope everything else is fine.

Hi benetay,

yup everything's good. I think we were happier with the ikea farmhouse, was around when the carpenters measured it for the cabinets, and they tried it on the cabinets and it looked good, big and nice =)

on a side, was kinda frustrated on Sat night. We went over to take a look at the place around mid night, and discovered that one of the combination locks could not be opened. Suspect that the workers accidentally changed it =(

[clownprince 4]

SCANDI - Storing Clothes Also Necessary & Damn Important!

finally! our partitions for our walk-in-wardrobe are up!!

fyi, I'm the wife and the person who WANTS WANTS WANTS a walk-in-wardrobe is actually NOT ME…its the vainpot hubby! at first, he still wanted to break down walls or use the second room as a wardrobe BUT I'm super against it as i want to keep the other 2 rooms free for future! so i cracked my head real hard to try to magically squeeze out a walk-in-wardrobe in our MBR!

you can refer to post #7 for the floor plan and my sketch of space planning for the MBR!

fortunately, the plan to segregate the WIW and the sleeping area in the MBR was approved with chop by my contractor! at first, i only wanted to use curtains for the "walls" of the WIW. but Contractor E suggested building partitions (which we are okay!) and only using curtains for my entrance of the WIW. we did consider using doors for WIW but i decided to go with curtains to soften the look

of course, space constraint is an issue! to split our already-small-MBR into two and making it even smaller is a risk!! but i guess… as the hubby and me are quite tiny people, we are really okay with it!

my hubby is also super lucky to have me! i'm so simple, i don't need a dresser table. so i guess it really is okay to have a small part for sleeping area. we plan to just have a bed (pls note we are going for Queen sized bed!) and thats about it! maybe a small stool as a side table. no plans for a tv in the room as of now and we are totally cool with it! of course, as the arty-farty (eeeekkksss… the autocorrect always changes "arty-farty" to "arty-fatty"!!) wife, i did some search on some DIY painting designs on the walls of our sleeping side to hopefully make the space look bigger hehehe (*COMING SOON: wall design for MBR! woots!)

oh yes, i even tried googling the size of a normal baby cot because if anything, i want a baby cot to be able to be pushed into our sleep area next time!! cos the walkway IS quite tight! hmm, i think should be can laaaa. need to go and measure again. but the hubby says.. at most, baby sleep in the next room lor. well, if it doesn't work out, maybe baby will sleep in the WIW next time muahahaha.

here's some pictures of the partitions for WIW!

View from entrance of MBR:

View from the other side of the MBR (sleeping area+window side):

View from inside the WIW:

we are using a U-shaped pole system for the wardrobe.. cannot wait for the pole system to be fixed!! meanwhile we chose the colour of our poles to be aluminium silver and the "cabinets" to be the lightest shade of brown (bottom right) !

the different colours to choose from:

super excitinggggg!

Edited March 17, 2015 by clownprince

[eekenji 3]

Nice concept and ideas .. love your DIYs too .. Can't wait to see your scandi home ~ I always wonder how the scandi home in Singapore looked like .. After done many research, my home still far away from scandi feeling .. probably the furniture also play important role.

[CountryGlow 10]

Great idea to build a WIW within a room! 4 room flat's MBR doesn't have that luxury as it's so small!

Looking forward to see this innovative WIW

[clownprince 4]

Nice concept and ideas .. love your DIYs too .. Can't wait to see your scandi home ~ I always wonder how the scandi home in Singapore looked like .. After done many research, my home still far away from scandi feeling .. probably the furniture also play important role.

hello eekenji!

thanks for your kind comments! your house IS SO SO PRETTY! (i love your blog too! i need more time to explore it hehe) you guys are such an artistic couple! haha scandi or not, your house is lovely! anyway, i'm not sure if our house will turn out scandi too! but i guess i'll be happy as long as i like it hehe. *fingers crossed*

-clownprince's wife

[clownprince 4]

Great idea to build a WIW within a room! 4 room flat's MBR doesn't have that luxury as it's so small!

Looking forward to see this innovative WIW

hello CountryGlow!

thanks for dropping by! oh is it? i went to a friend's 4 room and i thought the only difference was the living/dining room size! i didn't know that our MBR is bigger! hmm or did you get tricked by my photos haha. cos it IS small, especially to split into 2 parts!

anyway, your tiles are awesome! i love your rectangle wood tiles! so pretty!

-clownprince's wife

[coyote 6]

Very excited for you and looking forward to more pictures. I am exactly the same theme in mind, even the farm house sink is in my to-buy list too.