Galloping Ps Build A Hygge-Rific Home

[GallopingPuffin 3]

Hi guys! So we got the keys to our 5rm BTO flat in October, waaaaaaay ahead of expectation. Both of us are the rather chillax kind, so we did not really do any research on reno stuff beforehand. We are in our BTO FB group and were quite amazed that people actually signed reno packages even before they got their keys . For me, I need to have a feel of the physical space before deciding anything. So, we only started reading up on renovation stuff one month before we got our keys. Our theme for the house was unanimously decided long ago: Scandinavian with essentials of wood, grey and white. Despite being an overly-done theme, it is something that we both hold dear, and one that works for us.


This is our floor plan:




Living room

Floor--at first I had decided on vinyl/HERF because of the nice woody look. But she was concerned whether there will be a smell from the plastic in the long run, and also whether it is truly waterproof (since they are assembled using the clicking system). A valid concern; so we decided to go for wood-grain tiles instead for the whole house (incld bedrooms).

Sofa/TV console/Feature wall-- We had a long discussion about this and finally decided to put our TV along the wall adjacent to Bedroom 3. There will be a feature wall of long vertical woodgrain tiles (1.8m high each) that look like wood planks. And on top of that line of tiles, we will install a thin ledge for us to place photo frames or posters. Something different from the usual brick walls.

Something like this for the feature wall, just that it doesn't go all the way to the ceiling:


Example of photo ledge:



Dining table-- It will be placed along the wall opposite the TV console. She wants a really biggggg dining table, so we are prolly getting a 1.8m long one, with a bench to match. Planning to place a bar table against the household shelter wall as well.

Built-in storage/display cabinets-- I personally hate having storage/display cabinets in the living room, period. The HDB living room is already too small for my liking (heng we chose a 5rm), having any sort of gigantic cabinets in the living room will just make it look even more cramped. So there will be none. Except for a shoe cabinet that we are planning to build into that recess to the right of the main door.

False ceiling/L-box-- None of this too. It will just lower the height of the ceiling even further.

Lighting-- Planning for track lights above the feature wall area. And a black ceiling fan. Hanging "spider" lights above the dining table. Track lights along room corridor. LED near the main entrance.


Kitchen

We are going to hack away the whole wall facing Bedroom 3, and build a kitchen island in the middle . Both of us like to cook, and can't stand claustrophobic kitchens haha. The island will be 1.8m x 1.2m, and the side nearer to Bedroom 3 will feature a counter with stools. There will not be any glass partitions or doors between the kitchen and living room. Yes it will be open but we are not worried about the smell! We don't do heavy frying anyway. There will be kitchen cabinets on both top and bottom on the other wall, and we are planning to get either Kompacplus or Pacnel countertops. Leaning towards Pacnel tops because as of now, they have more colour choices! As for the cabinets, we prefer the surface to be less "flat", contrary to the usual sleek, contemporary laminate surface. After Googling, we found out there's actually a name for this kind of design: it is called Shaker style.

An example below:




We are leaning towards dark grey cabinets with light grey Pacnel countertop.

Along the wall adjacent to the toilet until the service yard window, we are going to build a bottom side-board cabinet; on top we are going to put stuff like my Nespresso Pixie, toaster oven, Hurom etc.

Bedroom 3
We are hacking away the whole wall facing the kitchen and replacing it with a black aluminium-framed glass wall/door, to make the whole house feel even more spacious. This will be the gaming/study room! Going to put my PS4, a 40inch UHD TV with a Yamaha soundbar in there.


Master Bedroom
Making a L-shaped full height wardrobe! Was contemplating the idea of a platform bed, but decided it was too expensive and the ceiling will be too low (planning to put a ceiling fan). Going to put the usual queen-sized bed frame!


Toilets
Going to install a vanity top with mirror box cabinet for both toilets! Prolly going to use black Pacnel top for the vainty. For the MBR toilet, there will be a glass shower panel (not door), separating the shower area from the toilet bowl. Cos I feel having a sliding door is too claustrophobic. For the common toilet, there will be a shower kerb with IKEA's shower curtain rod (no shower panel, to save costs).

Panel only:




Contractor
We met a grand total of one contractor and one ID. We invited the contractor to our new house and told him about our plans and ideas, and to give a quote. The moment I spoke to him, I knew I could trust this guy. There was rapport, we could click, and he was clearly experienced in his field. He suggested alternatives when our ideas were not feasible. We were very comfortable with him and were eagerly awaiting his quotation. It came back to be around $48K! At first it was shocking. But after calming ourselves down and looking at the things we wanted, we concluded that it was a reasonable (though not cheapest) pricing. (We later changed some stuff and the price dropped to $46k.)


On the other hand, the meeting with the ID was unplanned. I chanced upon this FB post of a so-called renovation "open-house", where various companies will be there to showcase their reno materials (kitchen tops, cabinets, tiles, lights etc), so that we can have a better idea of what materials to choose for our reno. So I thought to myself, why not? Upon reaching the place, there was a group of young people smoking in the stairwell right outside the entrance to the openhouse. Impression down We walked in, one young guy approached us, and introduced himself as an ID from ___ company, and offered to bring us around. At this point, we knew it was not such a simple affair. He brought us to see all the materials, tiles, tops etc. Along the way, he kept emphasizing on how credible and accredited his company was (rolling eyes at this moment ). At the end of the tour, he made us sit down and listen to him intro his company's reno packages. Upon first glance, the pricing looks reasonable. But upon closer scrutiny, we realised the package was super basic (plain white tiles @ $3 per sq feet etc). So if we add on the things we wanted, it will prolly add up to a substantial amount. Then he suddenly whispered to us: if we sign today and give the deposit, his boss will waive the 7% GST. Ermigawd. Are you freaking kidding me. That's like the lamest sales pitch ever. Everybody knows you have already factored in the GST into your pricing right?! We walked out without signing anything. The silver lining was that our time was not totally wasted; we learnt quite a fair bit about the materials


TL:DR version : Not impressed with ID company, signed with contractor.

Edited November 19, 2015 by GallopingPuffin

[Lazyfatcat007 5]

Welcome and congrats on getting ur new house. Love your mood boards and ideas. Actually $45k is not too bad I suppose, my tiny 3room is around the region too Looking forward to see more updates from you!

[nextstep 3]

Congratulation, congratulation!

Welcome to this community and thanks for sharing with us your journey.

By reading your concept, I really can't wait to the all your idea materialise, I am sure it is going to be very beautiful.

And with all what you going to do with the house, the price quoted by your contractor I think it is a very reasonable price.

So do keep us update on your progress and all the best on your renovation.

[Changbp 5]

we have similar shaker style it seems, though you have more walls to hack then i do.

[bykaraanne 30]

Hope that the shaker style cabinets come to life for you!

We scrapped it due to many reasons, though I love them as well. I had to settle for the smooth surface.

Excited to see yours!

[GallopingPuffin 3]

Thanks for the support!! Yeah after the initial shock, realised that it is not too bad

Welcome and congrats on getting ur new house. Love your mood boards and ideas. Actually $45k is not too bad I suppose, my tiny 3room is around the region too Looking forward to see more updates from you!

[GallopingPuffin 3]

thanks! will try and update frequently!

Congratulation, congratulation!

Welcome to this community and thanks for sharing with us your journey.

By reading your concept, I really can't wait to the all your idea materialise, I am sure it is going to be very beautiful.

And with all what you going to do with the house, the price quoted by your contractor I think it is a very reasonable price.

So do keep us update on your progress and all the best on your renovation.

[GallopingPuffin 3]

Our contractor already informed us that the renovation will start next week! The two walls will come down first. So stoked!!

For the past few weeks, we actually settled most of the pre-reno essentials; like choosing our tiles, furniture and buying most of the needed appliances. fast hand fast leg!

Floor and feature wall tiles

We went to both Soon Bee Huat and Hafary to check out their selection of woodgrain tiles. Asked one of the guys at SBH about the 1.8m long tiles; he said they don't have such tiles there. I walked around a bit and spotted them plastered on a wall. Anyway the particular one that we wanted was already phased out (then why is it still listed on the website...? ), so we left SBH and went to Hafary.

Hafary's showroom at Ubi was really impressive. Huge selection of tiles! But customer service was meh. We immediately walked to the woodgrain tiles section and was spoilt for choice. All the nice ones that we liked (for floor) were too expensive (in the range of $7~$8 psf) Due to budget constraints we decided to go for those below $5 psf. After much deliberation, we chose the following tiles:

Floor: Wildwood Light Grey

Feature wall: Malga Rtt (20cm x 180cm)

The grey shade might look similar here but actually the Malga Rtt has a much darker shade in real life. So the contrast will be there.

Edited November 18, 2015 by GallopingPuffin

[GallopingPuffin 3]

Hi there! What were the issues with the shaker style cabinets?

Hope that the shaker style cabinets come to life for you!

We scrapped it due to many reasons, though I love them as well. I had to settle for the smooth surface.

Excited to see yours!

[bykaraanne 30]

Hi there! What were the issues with the shaker style cabinets?

Beveled edges are not easy to create and has its maintenance issues if created using plywood and spray painted... Almost went for the IKEA range but due to the covering up of pipings, was easier to go the custom route.

Some others have carved the edges using solid wood (super expensive), others have created ones using multiple pieces of wood etc...

Curious to see how your contractor does it for you. though I might be a little sad because I do love it.

[GallopingPuffin 3]

Believe it or not, the first electrical appliances we bought were ceiling fans. My first choice in mind (before going down to the shops) was a black Haiku; but it was prohibitively expensive ($1.2k?!?!). Crazy sia. But after browsing through the selection on display at the showroom, I noticed one model that was more aesthetically pleasing (and much cheaper) than the Haiku! You can request for the staff to turn on the fans and feel the wind strength for all the models.

This! For the living room. Aero 52-inch DC fan (we chose dark grey)

Cheaper model 'Helix' for the gaming room and MBR:

Both models come with the option of adding an LED light, which was super bright. We decided to add lights for both rooms but not the living room.

Edited November 25, 2015 by GallopingPuffin

[GallopingPuffin 3]

Beveled edges are not easy to create and has its maintenance issues if created using plywood and spray painted... Almost went for the IKEA range but due to the covering up of pipings, was easier to go the custom route.

Some others have carved the edges using solid wood (super expensive), others have created ones using multiple pieces of wood etc...

Curious to see how your contractor does it for you. though I might be a little sad because I do love it.

Ah, I get what you mean. Never thought about the maintenance issues but my contractor said he can do it I will ask him more in detail on how it is going to be done!

[gallopingpenguin 2]

Hello everyone! I'm the other Galloping P in our (hopefully) hygge-rific home

So after we got the fans, we visited Scanteak which was in the same building. I think they are having a sale until the end of Nov if anyone is interested. We saw quite a few potential pieces, afterall, our theme IS Scandinavian

Puffin didn't let on why we are so taken with all things Scandi but I'll let you in on the story! We both spent 6 months (at different times) in Norway during our undergraduate years because we were lucky enough to get the chance to go on an exchange programme. Great times! We were young, wild and as free as our limited budget allowed~

Back to 2015~ So we shortlisted some pieces at Scanteak and decided to visit Castlery since there was still time. We had previously visited their online store and did like many of their pieces. The showroom was not big but the staff was really friendly! It was also great that we could test the furniture we had shortlisted. We ended up spending $4+k on the pieces below:

Dining Table bundle - comes with 4 chairs! We chose the Charcoal colour (;

Dining Bench

Sofa in Tiffany Blue

This is the actual colour - much nicer in real life! Those interested should really go to their showroom to take a look at the real stuff.

Coffee Table Set

Bed Frame - Queen

And a TV console that's no longer on their website

A good day's work!

After that, Puffin was on a roll, researching away and getting his feathers all ruffled~ Next post will be on aircons!

Edited November 19, 2015 by gallopingpenguin

[sapphire89 5]

Hihi!

Welcome! We might be neighbours with about the same theme and exactly the same floorplan!!

[gallopingpenguin 2]

Hihi!

Welcome! We might be neighbours with about the same theme and exactly the same floorplan!!

Hi Sapphire89!

Just read your tblog! Yes we might very well be neighbours and so coincidental that we have similar design concepts (; Interested to see how your kitchen turns out too!