Emma - Our Em In The West

[ricepapergirl 21]

Day 11 - New pipes in! More tiling!

Every time I see there are photos uploaded to the group chat I have with my husband and Andrew, I get so excited to see the progress!

Today, Andrew asked us whether we were confirming parquet for second floor (yes!) and revealed more of the tiling that was done!

Waterproofing done and most of these two walls of the MBR toilet done! Really like the blue and black, grows on me!

Tiling mostly done for this corner (for the shower head) of the common bathroom on the second floor! Looks like they're changing the windows as well to top-hung.

Tiling in the downstairs L-shaped kitchen toilet! The design is slightly different for the kitchen toilet tiles, can't wait to see a photo of a more complete wall!

Kitchen backsplash up! White 3D subway tiles! Rest of the wall plastered and to be painted!

I asked for dark grout for the kitchen backsplash to show off the subway tiling and also because I really didn't want to handle white grout made yellow from smoke and grease.

Finally, pleasant surprises all around with Andrew showing off the new pipes. We asked him to replace all of the big pipes even though we might get HIP in the next ten years (the unit is quite old) and if we replace our pipes then it would be cheaper, because we seriously wanted to get all the trouble over and done with at one shot. And thank goodness we did! The existing pipes were scarier than I thought! Remember my terrible kitchen pipes? Not only was the overhang from the ceiling really low (which might restrict my ability to have a high wall cabinet or in fact my original plan was to have a tall unit there), but unseen in the photo there was also a piece jutting out around 20cm above the ground!!

Original kitchen pipes!

Today Andrew posted in the whatsapp chat: kitchen pipes up. kitchen pipe change position.

I am so happy with this! No more fiddly pipe sticking out at the bottom, and the position of the new pipes on top mean that my tall unit can continue to exist in that corner! YAY!

Wall and doorway up for the utility room as well! Heh heh.

Quite excited to go down personally and look at the place tomorrow morning. We'll be taking the opportunity to check on the work, but also quite importantly to be measuring the toilets so that we know exactly what size of sinks and toilet bowls we can buy.

[bykaraanne 30]

Love the updates! Seriously can't wait to see the completed outcome! 

[twinklecloud 2]

14 hours ago, ricepapergirl said:

Hi @twinklecloud!

Actually we already picked out all our lights and our fans (my fast hand fast leg reputation) previously so we're probably heading down to Chan Huat at one shot and order everything. Really hoping the dining room light I wanted is still in stock!! Still waiting to see your blog though!!

Yeah we probably have to go down to one of the Song Cho and just check what stock they have and whether we can pre-order anything they don't have currently in stock. Fortunately still have time...  

U r indeed fast hands and legs!!! lol. I tot u are still shopping for lights and fans!

u still have plenty time.. u just started tiling only.. hehe

i am looking forward to see your dining light.. haha..

i will start posting my lightings very soon.. haha.. too many pics.. got to sort them out. hehe

 

[alprakas 1]

Wow, this helps a lot @ricepapergirl. Thanks a lot!  I should have done this a little while ago. Right now, I will not have time to order online and wait for the packages to arrive, it seems. I will visit Aqualife and will just have to pay the extra for quick delivery. Today we have time to visit a few shops, hopefully will come back with a lot of items. 

Thanks again!

 

 

[ricepapergirl 21]

On 4/8/2016 at 7:42 PM, bykaraanne said:

Love the updates! Seriously can't wait to see the completed outcome! 

Awww! I loved reading your renotalk t-blog! *shy* Thank you for the kind words!!

[ricepapergirl 21]

9 hours ago, alprakas said:

Wow, this helps a lot @ricepapergirl. Thanks a lot!  I should have done this a little while ago. Right now, I will not have time to order online and wait for the packages to arrive, it seems. I will visit Aqualife and will just have to pay the extra for quick delivery. Today we have time to visit a few shops, hopefully will come back with a lot of items. 

Thanks again!

 

 

Awww no worries @alprakas! Maybe if you bargain hard enough they might give you a lower price!! My husband and I utterly suck at bargaining, we hate it so much we would rather go around looking for the cheapest price, go into the shop and just buy it at the listed price no questions asked (I have seen a few salespeople probably flashing $$ in their eyes at their luck at getting such easy customers lol). For us, online shopping is better lol.

[ricepapergirl 21]

Phew! The end of a busy weekend for us! We ran around Singapore trying to finish purchasing all the stuff we needed Andrew to install. 

First stop, Song Cho at Plaza Singapura on Friday night! My mother-in-law has had Song Cho's Wel-Mi range of bathroom accessories installed in her home for 15 years and they really seriously have not rusted at all even when the other pieces she has in her bathrooms have gotten green and pitted! So we're definitely converts to the Wel-Mi rust-proof range. We bought 3 of their toilet roll holders (though the website shows it as a towel holder), 3 of their towel racks, and 2 of their glass shelves (we don't need a shelf for the MBR toilet). We were also originally going to buy their mirrors (Mother-in-Law also has two of these and no black spots at all!) but they recommended their safety mirrors which is actually metal with a sticker on it. Looked good so we got those instead.

Saturday started with us heading over to the unit armed with some drinks! There were 6 workers working on tiling and cement screed for the second floor, and the work all looked quite good! I was particularly happy to see that my L-shaped toilet didn't make the remaining space in the kitchen too cramped! We measured some of the dimensions of our toilets (to figure out what sizes we could buy for our WCs and sinks) and ran off to our next stop!

From Jurong West to Sin Ming! We visited the shop that Andrew and @twinklecloud visited, LE Bath and Lights. There really was a nice line of WCs on display, both with and without Geberit systems inside. The list prices were a bit scary but the salesperson assured us that they would discount them for us (especially since we told them we were Andrew's customers) and so we picked this one-piece Otto HF8377 WC for our MBR toilet and common toilet (S-trap).

We particularly liked the shape and the fact that the toilet bowl lid was quite solid and could be easily detachable for washing. 

For our kitchen toilet WC, because the connection is a pipe that extends from the main pipe instead of from the floor or from the wall, the shop people told us we could only take a specific 2-piece WC that they didn't have in their showroom. We agreed to get one piece of that anyway.

For our sinks, again, we got normal wall-hung white rectangular sinks for the MBR toilet and the 2nd floor common toilet, but had to buy a much smaller one for the kitchen toilet. Hope it still is functional!! >_<

(The small one is the one on top...)

They did calculate a good price for us so we just bought the lot from them. Saved us the trouble of having to trek through Jalan Besar, which was our backup plan if this shop didn't work out for us.

As I've said before, my husband and I are terrrrrrrible at bargaining, we basically hate doing it and would rather just find something that's within our budget and just pay that list price. My husband did warn me that we really ought to try bargaining for WCs and sinks since they have been known to be severely overpriced, but thank goodness all we had to do was emphasize that we were Andrew's customers and that we came all the way down from Jurong West and please give us a good price whilst internally hoping they would come under our pre-agreed budget. Which they did by a few hundred dollars. So yay for us!

Next stop, a bus ride down to Chan Huat at Balestier! Same thing here, we hate bargaining, but we had a secret weapon: my best friend works for the company that supplies bulbs to Chan Huat and had specifically told me to ask for one of their workers and tell him her name. Believe me, it worked lol. Not sure how much of a discount we were eventually given but we were WAY below our original budget (we probably did budget super conservatively though) so we were really happy.

We bought our Fanco FFM7000 fans (x2, one for the living room and one for the MBR) from them, and also track lights for the living room and MBR. Because our living room and MBR were both 5m wide, we sat down with Sherwin for a long time working out what was the best way to run the track lighting so that the entire long room would be brightly lit. We originally wanted to put the fan in the middle of the room, and the two tracks at two far ends of the room, but Sherwin warned us this would mean the middle of the room would be dim (we didn't want light kits under our fans) so in the end we agreed to put the track lights lengthwise instead.

Most of our lights are quite boring (lol) but we did get one nice "feature" light for our dining room! 

We then finished off the day by heading down to Universal Union at Paya Lebar and getting my Fujioh FS-890R hood (in Rich Silver - husband's choice! It's different from the usual silver display sets so I wonder how it would look!) together with the Rinnai 3-burner tempered glass hob RB-7503D and also the Bosch HBN331E2J!

Today we popped by the Song Cho at IMM to pick up two bidet sprays (we looked around and Song Cho's was still quite attractive) and also some paint chips so that we can start assigning paint colours soon! Meeting Andrew on Tuesday night to discuss lighting and electrical plans, and also paint colours!

[yellowteacups 1]

On Friday, April 08, 2016 at 6:21 PM, ricepapergirl said:

Day 11 - New pipes in! More tiling!

Every time I see there are photos uploaded to the group chat I have with my husband and Andrew, I get so excited to see the progress!

Today, Andrew asked us whether we were confirming parquet for second floor (yes!) and revealed more of the tiling that was done!

Waterproofing done and most of these two walls of the MBR toilet done! Really like the blue and black, grows on me!

Tiling mostly done for this corner (for the shower head) of the common bathroom on the second floor! Looks like they're changing the windows as well to top-hung.

Tiling in the downstairs L-shaped kitchen toilet! The design is slightly different for the kitchen toilet tiles, can't wait to see a photo of a more complete wall!

Kitchen backsplash up! White 3D subway tiles! Rest of the wall plastered and to be painted!

I asked for dark grout for the kitchen backsplash to show off the subway tiling and also because I really didn't want to handle white grout made yellow from smoke and grease.

Finally, pleasant surprises all around with Andrew showing off the new pipes. We asked him to replace all of the big pipes even though we might get HIP in the next ten years (the unit is quite old) and if we replace our pipes then it would be cheaper, because we seriously wanted to get all the trouble over and done with at one shot. And thank goodness we did! The existing pipes were scarier than I thought! Remember my terrible kitchen pipes? Not only was the overhang from the ceiling really low (which might restrict my ability to have a high wall cabinet or in fact my original plan was to have a tall unit there), but unseen in the photo there was also a piece jutting out around 20cm above the ground!!

Original kitchen pipes!

Today Andrew posted in the whatsapp chat: kitchen pipes up. kitchen pipe change position.

I am so happy with this! No more fiddly pipe sticking out at the bottom, and the position of the new pipes on top mean that my tall unit can continue to exist in that corner! YAY!

Wall and doorway up for the utility room as well! Heh heh.

Quite excited to go down personally and look at the place tomorrow morning. We'll be taking the opportunity to check on the work, but also quite importantly to be measuring the toilets so that we know exactly what size of sinks and toilet bowls we can buy.

hello! may i know how much does it cost to replace the new pipes? thanks in advance!!  

[ricepapergirl 21]

20 minutes ago, yellowteacups said:

hello! may i know how much does it cost to replace the new pipes? thanks in advance!!  

Hi @yellowteacups! For me, I asked to change all my pipes except for the super long two-storey one at my balcony, and the cost that was quoted to me was $2050. My ID did mention that HDB will charge less than $1k or slightly above but I couldn't wait for it.

Do note mine is an old EM though, you may have less pipes to change (and thus cost less) if your unit is only one storey high.

[ricepapergirl 21]

[Edit: I answered my own question, dug around and found that hansgrohe does angle valves as well, called up a few hansgrohe distributors and found someone who would sell them to me cash & carry for $20++ each, so problem solved!]

Question: my ID has asked us to buy taps that connect to our bidet sprays. His explanation is that typically you wouldn't want to allow the water in the mains to build up pressure within the bidet spray since the spray will spoil easily (it's not meant to take such high pressure) so you would install a mini-valve (like an on-off-switch for water) along the mains, but such mini-valves are cheap and typically wouldn't really last very long, so his suggestion was to buy a tap to be installed after the mini-valve at the mains pipe, and then the bidet spray goes onto the tap. (Edit: I checked around online and apparently they are called Angle Valves or Angle Stop Valves)

Does anyone have experience buying such taps? where are good places to buy them? We have avoided buying no-brand or unknown-brand water fittings so far (hansgrohe, Song Cho) because we didn't want anything that was fixed in the toilet to have to suffer from pitting or rusting, but now we're at a loss where to find good quality taps. Any recommendations?

Edited April 11, 2016 by ricepapergirl
Questions ownself answered

[saikofreakAP 2]

12 hours ago, ricepapergirl said:

Phew! The end of a busy weekend for us! We ran around Singapore trying to finish purchasing all the stuff we needed Andrew to install. 

First stop, Song Cho at Plaza Singapura on Friday night! My mother-in-law has had Song Cho's Wel-Mi range of bathroom accessories installed in her home for 15 years and they really seriously have not rusted at all even when the other pieces she has in her bathrooms have gotten green and pitted! So we're definitely converts to the Wel-Mi rust-proof range. We bought 3 of their toilet roll holders (though the website shows it as a towel holder), 3 of their towel racks, and 2 of their glass shelves (we don't need a shelf for the MBR toilet). We were also originally going to buy their mirrors (Mother-in-Law also has two of these and no black spots at all!) but they recommended their safety mirrors which is actually metal with a sticker on it. Looked good so we got those instead.

Saturday started with us heading over to the unit armed with some drinks! There were 6 workers working on tiling and cement screed for the second floor, and the work all looked quite good! I was particularly happy to see that my L-shaped toilet didn't make the remaining space in the kitchen too cramped! We measured some of the dimensions of our toilets (to figure out what sizes we could buy for our WCs and sinks) and ran off to our next stop!

From Jurong West to Sin Ming! We visited the shop that Andrew and @twinklecloud visited, LE Bath and Lights. There really was a nice line of WCs on display, both with and without Geberit systems inside. The list prices were a bit scary but the salesperson assured us that they would discount them for us (especially since we told them we were Andrew's customers) and so we picked this one-piece Otto HF8377 WC for our MBR toilet and common toilet (S-trap).

We particularly liked the shape and the fact that the toilet bowl lid was quite solid and could be easily detachable for washing. 

For our kitchen toilet WC, because the connection is a pipe that extends from the main pipe instead of from the floor or from the wall, the shop people told us we could only take a specific 2-piece WC that they didn't have in their showroom. We agreed to get one piece of that anyway.

For our sinks, again, we got normal wall-hung white rectangular sinks for the MBR toilet and the 2nd floor common toilet, but had to buy a much smaller one for the kitchen toilet. Hope it still is functional!! >_<

(The small one is the one on top...)

They did calculate a good price for us so we just bought the lot from them. Saved us the trouble of having to trek through Jalan Besar, which was our backup plan if this shop didn't work out for us.

As I've said before, my husband and I are terrrrrrrible at bargaining, we basically hate doing it and would rather just find something that's within our budget and just pay that list price. My husband did warn me that we really ought to try bargaining for WCs and sinks since they have been known to be severely overpriced, but thank goodness all we had to do was emphasize that we were Andrew's customers and that we came all the way down from Jurong West and please give us a good price whilst internally hoping they would come under our pre-agreed budget. Which they did by a few hundred dollars. So yay for us!

Next stop, a bus ride down to Chan Huat at Balestier! Same thing here, we hate bargaining, but we had a secret weapon: my best friend works for the company that supplies bulbs to Chan Huat and had specifically told me to ask for one of their workers and tell him her name. Believe me, it worked lol. Not sure how much of a discount we were eventually given but we were WAY below our original budget (we probably did budget super conservatively though) so we were really happy.

We bought our Fanco FFM7000 fans (x2, one for the living room and one for the MBR) from them, and also track lights for the living room and MBR. Because our living room and MBR were both 5m wide, we sat down with Sherwin for a long time working out what was the best way to run the track lighting so that the entire long room would be brightly lit. We originally wanted to put the fan in the middle of the room, and the two tracks at two far ends of the room, but Sherwin warned us this would mean the middle of the room would be dim (we didn't want light kits under our fans) so in the end we agreed to put the track lights lengthwise instead.

Most of our lights are quite boring (lol) but we did get one nice "feature" light for our dining room! 

We then finished off the day by heading down to Universal Union at Paya Lebar and getting my Fujioh FS-890R hood (in Rich Silver - husband's choice! It's different from the usual silver display sets so I wonder how it would look!) together with the Rinnai 3-burner tempered glass hob RB-7503D and also the Bosch HBN331E2J!

Today we popped by the Song Cho at IMM to pick up two bidet sprays (we looked around and Song Cho's was still quite attractive) and also some paint chips so that we can start assigning paint colours soon! Meeting Andrew on Tuesday night to discuss lighting and electrical plans, and also paint colours!

Can check wats the price of the one-piece Otto HF8377 W?

[ricepapergirl 21]

7 minutes ago, saikofreakAP said:

Can check wats the price of the one-piece Otto HF8377 W?

PM-ed you!

[alprakas 1]

On 4/10/2016 at 9:23 PM, ricepapergirl said:

Awww no worries @alprakas! Maybe if you bargain hard enough they might give you a lower price!! My husband and I utterly suck at bargaining, we hate it so much we would rather go around looking for the cheapest price, go into the shop and just buy it at the listed price no questions asked (I have seen a few salespeople probably flashing $$ in their eyes at their luck at getting such easy customers lol). For us, online shopping is better lol.

Thanks @ricepapergirl Actually I think I am pretty good at bargaining! Hahaha We also had a lot of things to do over the weekend. Went to harvey norman millenia walk to settle the bed stuff. We had already purchased our mattress and bed earlier, this weekend was to select the color and type of bed frame that came with the package. So that is settled now.

Next stop was the hob/hood/oven purchase. We ended up buying a Brandt set for the hob/hood and also a Brandt pyrolitic oven; all three items from gain city. Hopefully they serve as well. Now, the next target is all the toilet stuffs and the kitchen sink. Hopefully, this weekend we can finish all of that. Both me and my wife work on Saturdays, so we only get Sundays together to do all the shopping, so it is always a rush rush to get everything settled within a day every week.  Can you also pm me the price for all the WCs that you bought, if you dont mind.. Thanks!

[ricepapergirl 21]

5 minutes ago, alprakas said:

Thanks @ricepapergirl Actually I think I am pretty good at bargaining! Hahaha We also had a lot of things to do over the weekend. Went to harvey norman millenia walk to settle the bed stuff. We had already purchased our mattress and bed earlier, this weekend was to select the color and type of bed frame that came with the package. So that is settled now.

Next stop was the hob/hood/oven purchase. We ended up buying a Brandt set for the hob/hood and also a Brandt pyrolitic oven; all three items from gain city. Hopefully they serve as well. Now, the next target is all the toilet stuffs and the kitchen sink. Hopefully, this weekend we can finish all of that. Both me and my wife work on Saturdays, so we only get Sundays together to do all the shopping, so it is always a rush rush to get everything settled within a day every week.  Can you also pm me the price for all the WCs that you bought, if you dont mind.. Thanks!

PM-ed you! Goodness only one day a week to settle stuff?? That's really tough! My husband and I usually spend Saturday doing all our shopping but we've spent all our Saturdays before that to scout out prices and models and stuff so it was a matter of actually heading down to buy the models we wanted.

[ricepapergirl 21]

Day 15: More tiling and windows changed!

Another batch of photos through whatsapp! Exciting to see things moving!

Tiling looks complete for the MBR toilet! Yay! I think Andrew was trying to show off the floor tiles for the MBR with that second picture. I also see the drainage covers in, one at the dropdown shower area and the other in the old area!

Looks like only the wall tiles are mostly up for the common toilet on level 2!

A slightly different design for the first floor kitchen toilet! Looking good!

Wood-like tiles for the kitchen floor being laid! It's been so long since we picked out these tiles I actually couldn't remember what colour they were supposed to be...

Also, what used to be tiles at the vertical bits of our staircase (the horizontal bits are parquet and is being covered up) have been plastered over and to be painted!

New windows also up in the three bedrooms! They used to be sliding windows but we asked for new casement ones.

Also windows have been replaced for the kitchen, two top-hung for the bathrooms upstairs (kitchen toilet has no window, only a ventilation hole lol!) and new frosted glass sliding windows for the dining room which faces the corridor!