Owl & Bear's Parisian-Chic-Lookalike Nest

[owlNbear 2]

@matchalatte I'm so glad you agree with me. I hate it so much, and I was starting to feel abnormal when everyone else around me (mainly Bear) is saying there's nothing wrong with it   Wow sounds like you have a story to tell. Share share what happened? I think it really boils down to luck. I very specifically told them rectangle seat. How to go wrong with that?

[huiamos 6]

22 hours ago, owlNbear said:

Meanwhile, off-topic a little. All of this sparked a new idea in me...a concrete bathroom vanity! See images below:

 
(taken from pinterest)

 

I like this! Good inspiration thou my toilet is really small

[owlNbear 2]

9 minutes ago, huiamos said:

I like this! Good inspiration thou my toilet is really small

But based on your floorplan, looks like it can be done eh!

[twinklecloud 2]

owlNbear,

everything seems to go well!!! love the reviews on your purchases too! helps me to decide on my decision as well.. hehe

i do agree the seatee look super old school.. sorry to say that... was it requested to build? has the issue been rectified?

 

[OceanEleven 203]

A couple of factors come in play here, owner preference to combine WC and shower couple with the un-hackable pillar with the pipes.

The ultimate layout now looks tricky I must say. To shower, one must pass the WC and wash sink…..not easy.

The pillar with pipes and the depth of the basin top will only narrow down the walkable area further.

 

As for rounded corner, changed if you are installing glass since it irks the **** out of you.

But if a concrete wall is erected, can consider to keep it.

Just bear in mind, whatever changes that ID/contractor says will absorb, the cost is recovered from elsewhere.

 

My guess there is no other way to run the water pipes, or at least HDB don’t allow, unlike condos.

However the way around this is to lose maybe 3 inches of wall depth and bury the piping in these 3 inches. Cost wise is another consideration.

 

Looking at the shower seat and drainage hole, user likely be sitting down with left feet nearing the drainage hole most of the time.

If using conventional shower set, the standing position may not be getting much of the rain shower, block off by the seat.

[owlNbear 2]

25 minutes ago, twinklecloud said:

owlNbear,

everything seems to go well!!! love the reviews on your purchases too! helps me to decide on my decision as well.. hehe

i do agree the seatee look super old school.. sorry to say that... was it requested to build? has the issue been rectified?

 

Thanks for the moral support babe! It actually means a lot. Especially when it comes to something as serious as a renovation. A lot of courage is needed  We will be getting them to rectify. One way or another.. Lol. 

[twinklecloud 2]

2 minutes ago, owlNbear said:

Thanks for the moral support babe! It actually means a lot. Especially when it comes to something as serious as a renovation. A lot of courage is needed  We will be getting them to rectify. One way or another.. Lol. 

u r most welcome!! Was it requested to be built?

for my case i asked my ID to do it...

[matchalatte 16]

7 hours ago, owlNbear said:

@matchalatte I'm so glad you agree with me. I hate it so much, and I was starting to feel abnormal when everyone else around me (mainly Bear) is saying there's nothing wrong with it   Wow sounds like you have a story to tell. Share share what happened? I think it really boils down to luck. I very specifically told them rectangle seat. How to go wrong with that?

oh man i cannot afford to allow "luck" to dictate the outcome of my renovation, i absolutely will not allow that to happen! lemme see, first of all, it was my kitchen counter height. since my relatives and family all had a height of around 80+cm for their kitchen counter, i thought that was the norm until it was my turn. mine was 70+cm and it came up to somewhere around my hips when it should have been around my waistline. even though that was back in year 2000, i still vividly remember telling the guys who installed my kitchen that it was too low and they had the cheek to say things like "if it were too high your hands would be in an awkward angle when you cook". i then told the ID, who was my aunt's church friend and she said "but this is the industrial standard". so right now, i get backache whenever i do the dishes. while it wasn't wrong of them to say that my hands would be at an awkward angle when cooking, its so much worse when doing the dishes since the sink is, well, sunken in. and the times when you have to wash the dishes is way more frequent than cooking. second thing was my window grilles. i wanted those horizontal type grilles like the lines of a foolscap paper. i did not specify the width of each grille but i only said  i didn't want them too close to each other. ended up what i got was like the gap was super huge i can actually put my head through. i was too young and inexperienced then (and probably afraid of offending the ID) so i kept quiet and didn't ask if it was possible to rectify. so now i vow to never let this thing happen to me again. 

did you show them pictures of what you wanted or it was just like a verbal description? i think in order not to have disputes, i'll just show them pictures of what i want. better start collecting pics now lol. 

btw back to yr seat, i do not think its just the rounded corners that makes it so ugly. its also the joint area between the top and sides where they added a strip of that white thingy. its so dated but also expected since they're contractors so they probably haven't had much experience of those modern/sleek/european stuff. so even if u were to tell them you want a rectangular seat, they'll just put that strip of thing as if it was the natural thing to do. if it were me, i'll just tell them i want a concrete slab but most importantly, show them a d4mn pic!! lol

Edited February 24, 2016 by matchalatte

[owlNbear 2]

@twinklecloud i did show pictures. I even did a sketchup model which i showed to my contractor, not the head tiler. I also had a very long discussion with head tiler about the dimensions the placement, everything! I think i did everything i could, short of doing it myself hahaha. Anyway, enough of that seat  Lets talk about happier things 

@matchalatte wow 2000... You must have been a really young homeowner then Really can't blame you for not being firm enough, but lesson learnt! Always stand your ground. I keep telling myself I refuse to be bullied into submission. After all this is my **** freaking house and I'll be the one living with your mistakes for the next 7-8 yrs (I see where you're coming from!)

Okok getting emotional *breathe deeply*

Anyway, I'm seldom at the kitchen, but Bear, who will be doing the dishes, also specifically requested for a higher kitchen cabinet. Our carpenter was the one who asked, actually. 

So yeah, I know how you feel. I'm so not-chin-chai that I think my contractor and subcons all hate me

 

[owlNbear 2]

@OceanEleven thanks for the comments. I'll be sure to keep them in mind. 

[owlNbear 2]

Just a note to those who have gotten my contractor's contact. I have passed out his contact because quite a few have mentioned that their renos are about to commence, and time is critical. But on hindsight, because my reno isn't over yet, I am unable to give a completely fair assessment of him. So please keep an eye on my thread for more updates. And also, please also use your own discretion to decide whether or not you would like to engage him. Thanks! 

[huiamos 6]

19 hours ago, owlNbear said:

But based on your floorplan, looks like it can be done eh!

@owlNbear On a second thought, if got cockroach in the bathroom, I can't see them!  Keep in view first

[owlNbear 2]

Hi all! I've been away for so long. As always, hectic week, made even more so with the introduction of our new little furbaby! More on that later.

So, this is a backlog post on carpentry from almost 4 weeks ago. It feels like the entire renovation comprises of various 'arcs' (like y'know, story arcs). This is the second arc, and takes up probably 40% of the entire chunk. We thought it would be simple, but we were sooo wrong. In brief, here is our carpentry process.

1. 1st meeting. Ms C, our carpentry contractor, brought along material catalogues in book form to show us, to confirm the materials to be used (laminate and maybe coloured PVC). If you can't make up your mind, request to bring the laminate catalogue home and go through on your own. It was easy for us because we're only choosing 2 different laminates.
2. 2nd meeting. Ms C. passed us large pieces of laminate samples that we shortlisted from the catalogue book. She also came with the carpenter himself to our house to take measurements, give suggestions and take down notes. The carpenter adviced on things that seem 'out of the norm', and pointed out some problem areas. We also provided the dimensions of all our kitchen appliance (fridge, oven, washer, dryer, kitchen sink). Here are the laminates that we finally selected. I don't think you'll even believe me if I told you what an excruciating process this was. I must have carried around the few pieces of shortlisted laminates everywhere I went for one whole week. I placed them this way and that, trying to see them in different angles and under different lightings, comparing them against other materials and objects etc. It took me a herculean effort to finally just say 'OK, this is my finally decision'. Bear says that I'm super indecisive but honestly, cut my some slack. This is a 10-11k purchase we're talking about, horkay
   
   
    
3. At home, I used the IKEA catalogue as reference, and searched for many cabinet / wardrobe images to use as reference. After getting a clearer picture of what to do, I sketched out the design on paper first, then used sketchup to do a very precise layout with measurements of all the carpentry. (For us, directly liaising with our carpenter is different from engaging an ID, who will shoulder the designing responsibility. But good thing is, Ms C. does provide us with 3D drawings.)
   
4. 3rd meeting. Brought along laptop with sketchup and went through every single detail with carpenter. Carpenter took down every single measurement that we gave her. This meeting took us more than 2 hours. Along the way, the carpenter also will advise what can and cannot be done.
5. We started sourcing for materials, namely - cabinet knobs and a pull out storage drawer for the kitchen.

 

So, prior to meeting the carpenter at his factory (4 weeks ago!), we spent 3-4 nights sitting in front of the computer and finalizing all the details. We had our eyes set on the Ikea PAX system wardrobes, and here are some of the images that we really like. After gathering inspiration, we had to come up with a sketchup model of a wardrobe that would be the perfect fit for just the two of us. Here are some points that we had to discuss and plan for, before designing the wardrobe.

1. It can only be a maximum length (or width) of 2850cm due to space constraints in the room.
2. All the space in the wardrobe has to be maximized. There should be enough space to comfortably house all our clothing, so that we won't have to use any external hanging racks.
3. Apart from clothing, decide on the items that will go into the wardrobe. Eg. will there enough space for all my bags? Should we store our suitcases inside? etc.
4. It has to cater for the height difference between me and Bear (20cm), so that both of us are able to reach comfortably for our individual items.
5. The rounded corner of the room meant that a section of the wardrobe has to be shallower than the rest.
6. There should be enough space for all my clothing (quite a lot!), without compromising on the hanging height space (eg. for longer dresses, they shouldn't have to be 'crumpled' at the bottom).

Finally, after hours of discussion, this is what we came up with.

Once our designs were up, we were finally ready to meet the carpenter himself, whom we call just 'Uncle'. Ms C was also there to guide us, and clear the air on whatever lame layman questions we had. When we got there, we really didn't know what to expect. And to be honest, it was one of the most overwhelming (but fruitful) meetings that we had to date. Because there are so many finer points of carpentry that we, as laymen, don't have a full grasp on, the entire meeting took nearly 4 hours. Uncle is a slightly eccentric, but very energetic and enthusiastic China uncle who has been living in Singapore for decades, and has been working as a carpenter for just as long. Throughout the meeting, he very conscientiously went through every detail with us. Even after our (so we though) meticulous planning, there were many things that we had neglected. Measurements had to be re-calculated, other minute details had to be considered, and a few new ideas were incorporated. All in all though, we still managed to keep as closely to our original vision as possible, which I'm super relieved about.

 

Here's our very chirpy, happy-looking (but he's also very fierce, don't pray pray) carpenter going through the laminates with us. We changed our minds many times about the laminates and coloured PVC. We initially planned for black wood grain laminates for the bathroom cabinet, but decided to use concrete ones instead because I wanted a uniform look in the bathroom (all concrete look).

 

Uncle very swiftly cut out a few pieces of wood to demonstrate to us how our sliding door would turn out.

 

Uncle demonstrated and planed out the sliding door configuration for the wardrobe. The problem with our wardrobe is that because of certain factors (too complicated, I shan't bore you with them), we were not able to get 4 segments (or carcasses) of equal width. So that meant that when the doors were open, certain segments would not be fully accessible. We managed to solve this by adjusting the widths of the segments, and placing the sliding doors in a certain way (I think you can tell that I reeeeaally don't wanna go there again LOL). And I must very proudly mention that this was suggested by Bear, and Uncle agreed that it was the best way to do it.

 

These are plywood boards that will be used for our sliding partition doors in the study room (to section off the storage area, since we don't have a storeroom). Ms C. very kindly persuaded Uncle to give us plywood boards instead of MDF boards, which we initially requested for (because they are cheaper), because MDF boards are way too flimsy to be used as partition.

 

These are the rollers to be used at the top hung track for our sliding partition doors in the study room, that we're using to section off the storage area. Uncle showed us the different kinds of rollers, and told us we would be getting the bigger, better ones, so yay for that.

 

 

Here's the roller, that will be concealed with a board.

 

The sliding mechanism for our cabinet drawers. We didn't go for soft closing because, stingy lah. And we've been living with normal closing drawers for all our life, and we're doing fine with them

 

[owlNbear 2]

Picking up from where I last left off (before the carpentry post).

So, after the CNY week, our contractor gave himself and his workers a "nice" 2 week long "holiday", which in turn really cost us a lot of time. Our initial plan was to have everything done by the 1st week of march, clean up by 2nd week, and move in by 3rd. But it's already the 3rd week now, and we've only just started on the carpentry. Because everything is linked together, the carpentry wasn't able to commence (carpenter didn't want to come down until after the plumbing rectifications and electrical works were complete) and so everything came to a standstill. But that's over now and things are starting to move again, so that's cool. Anyway, here's whats been going on so far. I'll start with the brick walls first.

Brick Walls

Our brick walls are located in the living room and bedroom, and are about 6.5m in the living, and 3m in the bedroom.

Closeup of the bricks. Bear instructed the tiler to lay it as unevenly as possible to give it that raw, rustic and unpolished look. Tiler nodded his head and told Bear that he's been doing these forever, lol.

I guess our tiler works really quickly, because these brick walls were done in about 2.5 days. Initially I felt like it looked weird, then I realized that the 'grout' was missing. Which resulted in a lot of 'dark' gaps around the walls. Bear liked the look, but I felt that it was really too raw, so I insisted that the grout had to be filled in. Plus, leaving it unfilled would have caused it to turn into a dust and insects haven. Total no go.

And here's the bedroom brick wall, already painted white by us. Btw, why did we have to paint it on our own? Because our contractor, apparently, did not include the cost of painting  brick walls into his quotation. Are brick walls not walls in the house? *Shrug* Go figure.

Anyway, we really love it now. Much neater and cleaner. Right now, we're still deciding on whether to paint the living room white or not. We'll probably be waiting till the furniture is in to see how everything looks like together.

Edited March 26, 2016 by owlNbear

[owlNbear 2]

Installing of electrical wires

This was done over a span of 1 week or so (IIRC) before and after the brick walls.

Previously I mentioned that we had had a meeting with the electrician on planning how the wiring would be run. Even then with all the planning, many things went wrong, or were not what I expected.

Probably the biggest booboo was this one particular incident. I must first mention that my initial idea was to have EVERYTHING done in pipes. I figured since we were doing an industrial sort of look, pipes would be the best way to go. However, this meant that in the living room area where the pipes run out from the circuit board, there would be 3 pipes running along the ceiling (each pipe goes into a room). The electricians even gave me a stunned like vegetable look. Still, silly me insisted that I wanted it that way.

So I had the shock of my life when I went over one day, and saw the pipes - because of the width of the pipe hangers (I don't remember how much it is, too traumatized), multiply that by 3, and add the pipes width, the total width was probably almost 1 foot...and SO FUGLY! Seriously, what was I thinking. So I thickened my skin, swallowed my pride and asked for it to be redone into 1 neat trunking It looks so much better now, but it's an expensive mistake that cost us a few hundred to rectify. See image below for an illustration of the could-have-been disaster.

Now, 3 pipes have been removed and in place is a single trunking. So much neater and tidier. Plus, it fits in snugly with the brick walls. 

Because the electrical works aren't complete yet, I'll leave the rest to be posted in a final post.

In retrospect, I don't think we did a very good job with this. Being a totally visual-oriented person, I know nuts about technical stuff like these. And Bear, being new to an entire house renovation, was quite clueless as well (although less so than me). Also, unlike with the rest of the house, we didn't have a concrete plan for the electrical works and without an ID (or someone!) to sit down and plan the wiring with us, we could only rely on our own common sense, and the electrician's expertise. Of course it's not complete yet, so probably will see how it goes from here.

 

Edited March 26, 2016 by owlNbear