Project Muji Home - of white, wood and chrome

[dietgalvon 14]

13 hours ago, JennyTan said:

Thanks for sharing your taobao stuff. Any good stuff to recommend from the stuff that you bought from taobao, ie rain shower, track lights etc?  Am thinking to buy from taobao to save cost but a bit worry about its quality. Thanks.

@Jenny Tan I review my taobao purchases from time to time. You may want to back track the posts with reviews.

10 hours ago, Clarence Lye said:

Very nice.

 

Mind sharing me the contacts for window + window grille please?
Also, your track lights for the living, are you intending to use how many bulbs of how many watts?

i using track too but not sure how many metre track and lights i should use..

@Clarence Lye PMed you on the windows contact.

I would think that length of track lights is based on own preference. For lights, I used 7W lights, I think most people uses 7W!

[JennyTan 0]

For the cement screed, do you request HDB to do it or your contractor? Understand that HDB ceased to provide free cement screed from Oct 2014 onwards. 

[Diluted 0]

On 13/07/2017 at 0:31 AM, dietgalvon said:

Today while we were cleaning the house E brought someone up to view our flat! I think it's one of the readers here because E told us that they showed him a picture of our home.  

Anyway, our home progress will be stagnant for a while till handover next weekend.  Meanwhile, some backdates of the home - mainly plumbing works!

RENOVATION UPDATE - 9 JULY 2017

MBR Toilet

PD Door

The reason why we took a PD door is due to the cramped space left between door and the vanity when the door is open. As much as I prefer a glass door, the fiance thinks that the mechanism of a PD door is needed. We went for the simplest design and glad we did so. It turned out pretty nice especially when the T5 lights are on; I was afraid it would look cheapo initially lol. After all, it's a plastic door mah.

This is how our MBR toilet looks like! 

I prioritize counterspace, so we bought a smaller basin. I think the tap looks a little oversized here. But the way the water flows from the tap is really like a sheet of paper. Pretty! Fiance say it is not possible to achieve this if the tap is any smaller. Can only blame of the size of our toilet, that I can't get a bigger basin. Oh well.

I also have a hand towel bar at the side of our IKEA molger mirror!

Really love this mirror.  

Side view; how pretty is this tap!

Rainshower, glass shelf and bidet - all from taobao!

We will be installing 2 glass shelves instead.

Our toilet paper holder is a stick-on one, so we will stick it on when renovation is over.

Towel rack at the opposite side of the shower area. It's at a height perfect for me but a little dangerous for the fiance (it's directly at his eye level)! But the last I asked him he said it is fine as it is impractical if I struggle to reach it. 

A clothes hook behind the door!

Common Toilet

A clearer shot of the Taobao vanity!

Single towel bar, bidet spray and toilet roll holder - all from taobao again.

Towel bar is not exactly centralized; think it's due to the water pipes at the left side. Toilet roll holder has a cover because we ain't installing shower screen here and the bonus is the handphone rest! Fiance likes this lol.

Shower set provided by HDB, and a simple corner shelf.

We have one issue though. Initially we wanted to put shower curtains here, but realised that the windows there is in the way and we can't install the shower curtain rod! I don't know what can be done but surely I cannot allow water to splash every day because I don't want me vanity to rot. Shall see how since we won't be using this toilet for quite some time, I hope.

Our silm storage heater!

Last but not least, our kitchen tap is also up! I love this tap a lot!! It looks sleek even though it comes with a pull-out sprayer.  And the quality is AWESOME!

It's a little big for my sink (55cm) but it sure will look great with a 65cm and above sink. Again I got a smaller sink to maximize counter space. But I underestimated the length of my kitchen. I have twice the amount of counterspace compared to my own home now. Lol.

Is your kitchen sink undermount?

Will it be easy to replace the sink in future? Need to remove the entire table top?

[dietgalvon 14]

14 hours ago, JennyTan said:

For the cement screed, do you request HDB to do it or your contractor? Understand that HDB ceased to provide free cement screed from Oct 2014 onwards. 

@Jenny Tan I got HDB contractor to do it for me. It is now on an appeal basis. They only do till 40mm though.

13 hours ago, Diluted said:

Is your kitchen sink undermount?

Will it be easy to replace the sink in future? Need to remove the entire table top?

@Diluted yup undermount because it looks sleeker. And yes that is the risk that comes with undermount sinks. But as long as you get a decent quality sink, all should be well.

My current home's sink is still going strong after 20 over years.

[izong 4]

On 7/17/2017 at 9:20 AM, dietgalvon said:

@Jenny Tan I got HDB contractor to do it for me. It is now on an appeal basis. They only do till 40mm though.

@Diluted yup undermount because it looks sleeker. And yes that is the risk that comes with undermount sinks. But as long as you get a decent quality sink, all should be well.

My current home's sink is still going strong after 20 over years.

but nowadays things aren't build to last  

[dietgalvon 14]

8 hours ago, izong said:

but nowadays things aren't build to last  

@izong I cannot say I disagree with this! But so far I don't think I heard of 'spoilt sinks'; perhaps leaking, yes. But leaking can happen with top mount sinks too haha. I guess buying a good sink + go for what you like is best.

[Diluted 0]

15 hours ago, dietgalvon said:

@izong I cannot say I disagree with this! But so far I don't think I heard of 'spoilt sinks'; perhaps leaking, yes. But leaking can happen with top mount sinks too haha. I guess buying a good sink + go for what you like is best.

I like the look of under mount sinks as well. But worried about the sink rusting. Heard of friends with stainless steel sinks but still rust. Thats why im concerned if it will be hard replacing and under mounted sink.

[S750WP 0]

On 7/4/2017 at 3:32 PM, dietgalvon said:

@Sehn82 I paid $370 for windows only. This contractor that I used charges $850 for windows and grilles for a 4room bto.

Can PM the contact of your contractor to install the windows

 

[S750WP 0]

On 4/30/2017 at 10:07 PM, dietgalvon said:

It had been some time; we like that things are slow... and moving at the same time. 

Last week, we went to Audio House and IKEA to buy some items as vouchers are expiring.

PURCHASES - PART III

(1) ARISTON 20L SLIM STORAGE HEATER

Place of purchase: Audio House
Cost: $289 ($249 after $40 in vouchers)

The only reason why we chose this is because the fiance says it looks like an aircon; much nicer than the conventional storage heater (lol).

(2) VARIERA CUTLERY TRAY

Place of purchase: IKEA
Cost: $34.90

(3) RIMFORSA RAIL (80CM) & HOOKS

Place of purchase: IKEA
Cost: $12.90 & $2.90

I had a $50 voucher, so we bought the Rimforsa rail & hooks first. Would need to find a condiment stand that fits this flat rail - we love the sleek look of it compared to the usual poles - but might make do with the bamboo condiment stand from the Rimforsa series if we can't find any. The one from Rimforsa series is not upright and that bothers the OCD me. :X

How is the 20L ariston storage water heaters? Is the pressure good for rain shower 

[dietgalvon 14]

On 7/19/2017 at 7:49 PM, Diluted said:

I like the look of under mount sinks as well. But worried about the sink rusting. Heard of friends with stainless steel sinks but still rust. Thats why im concerned if it will be hard replacing and under mounted sink.

@Diluted Get a good quality sink, I guess? Compared to the $1k plus countertop getting a slightly more expensive sink is quite worth it haha

On 7/20/2017 at 8:50 PM, S750WP said:

How is the 20L ariston storage water heaters? Is the pressure good for rain shower 

@S750WP I have not tried out the pressure but surprisingly contrary to what people say about having to wait 10 minutes, the hot water is ready within a minute or two only!

[dietgalvon 14]

DEFECTS CHECKING BEFORE HANDOVER

We went to check on defects of the renovation works; there indeed are quite a few. E says he will arrange someone to do touch up works today and our handover is actually, today! Hope all goes well later.

There is one area that E told me cannot be helped and it is also something I am honestly a little bothered lah. That is, there are some visible joint lines on our carpentry. Not sure if I can simply refer it to, no laminate trimmings.

Majority of the carpentry comes with trimming, i.e. you don't actually see the 'black' line there.

I have asked E (and a few others) and confirmed that it is due to the thickness/length being out of the standard few that they have. Hence no trimmings for these.  E did mention that the very expensive laminates do have such trimmings but it's very expensive lor.

Other than this, the defects for carpentry are rather minor. The paint on some of the door frames are also chipped off, I hope they do paint the whole door frames for us haha.

VARIATION ORDER

Well, we (or rather, I), got a shock as the VO came up to $3.5k! I am so sad this burst my initial budget though the fiance thought for the amount of items we added, it's not exorbitant. I kind of regretted not asking specially the prices of every item that we wanted to ask so that we can have an indication of what the final figure would be. While we have no regrets choosing E for their works, there are some items that they too outsourced so we felt a little ripped off. For example the acrylic panels, I knew exactly where to get them and it's at 25% of what E charged us! But it was a little too late when they fixed the lights they already changed it to acrylic panels, oh well.

Alright, I think I will do a proper review on our contractor after we finalize the VO and after our flat is returned to us.

We still have to source for blinds, storage racks for bomb shelter, digital locks and what not before moving in. We will be moving in officially on National Day! But will not be staying there officially till after marriage lol.

Till then  

[ccw562904 0]

On ‎4‎/‎7‎/‎2017 at 3:32 PM, dietgalvon said:

@Sehn82 I paid $370 for windows only. This contractor that I used charges $850 for windows and grilles for a 4room bto.

Hi there,

do you mind sharing the contacts for the window? is it sliding with 3 track?

[JennyTan 0]

Can share the contact for window? Tks.

[spooky 6]

Congrats on reno completion!! The edges are visible because of not having ABS trimming, right? Did you ask if they can 'hide' the black lines using carpenter's paint? My ID mentioned that.

Did you ask E to change the toilet panels to acrylic ones?

[dietgalvon 14]

14 hours ago, ccw562904 said:

Hi there,

do you mind sharing the contacts for the window? is it sliding with 3 track?

@ccw562904 I didn't look that close, but service yard windows are regulated by HDB, the windows are standard. So I don't think there is any option anyway! PM sent.

10 hours ago, JennyTan said:

Can share the contact for window? Tks.

PM sent.