Our self-designed chalet themed resort BTO

[cafehouse 6]

Hello fellow home owners!

Mr Z (aka The Boss) and I (aka The Secretary) have been silent readers of this community for quite awhile and started stalking t-blogs since 4 years ago (ever since we applied for our flat)! However, we have only started to be more "hardworking" in sourcing for ideas, concepts and IDs / contractors 2 years ago. We have learnt much from all the valuable sharings from this blog, and would also like to contribute our bits.

Our BTO is located in Ang Mo Kio, and it is the first BTO that offered a open concept kitchen. Open concept kitchen means a bigger living room space without having to hack any walls. Sounds good, and so we opted for it But, this option has also resulted in many of our sleepless nights (trying to crack our heads for ideas on how to prevent cooking smells from the rest of the house) for the past 2 years 

Here's the floor plan:

We received the keys in end January this year, a week before CNY. Here's a picture of our house (Can you spot The Boss in this picture? )

The whole renovation process took us 3 months, not inclusive of the delivery of our furniture. We must admit that it took a lot of time and effort to build a house to turn out the way we would like it to be (and also to make our hard-earned $$ worthwhile); nonethless a beautiful and enjoyable experience that we would not regret when we looked back now. If you would like to read more about our reno journey, do stay tuned for the next update!

- The Boss and The Secretary

Edited June 25, 2017 by cafehouse

[cafehouse 6]

Question: Should we engage an ID or Contractor?

On a fine Saturday..

The Boss: "Is the space planning and mood board proposal ready?"

The Secretary: "Ok." Flipped through the PowerPoint slides on the laptop.  

The Boss: "I would like our house to have a lot of ambience lights (and that means = cove lights, down lights), a cosy area with platform for us to host our friends, a super big TV and a good sound system to entertain our friends, and a big sofa too. And also, we should have a comfortable bed."

The Secretary: "We should have a walk-in wardrobe, shoe cabinet and a wet and dry kitchen."

The Boss: "Ok. Should we engage the ID or the Contractor?"

The Secretary: "I prefer to engage the Contractor since we already know what we want for the house. No need to spend more $$ on an ID just to render the perspectives out. I can hand draw the perspectives if you want." 

The Boss: "Ok. Pls call and arrange a discussion with Contractor C to finalise the concept and fee." 

And, that's how we chose Contractor C over ID S. 

Our advice to new home owners are: 

1. Do you know what are the key elements you must have in the house, and their locations? 

2. Do you have time to liaise with your Contractor and your Contractor's contractors? 

3. (Most impt!) Do you have faith in your designs and the materials / colors you choose? 

If the answers are yes to all 3 questions, then you may go ahead to engage a contractor since you are almost certain of what you want. 

And, before you enagage the contractor, do take a look at their existing projects to qc their workmanship. Luckily for us, Contractor C herself takes charge of the carpentry works. And I would say, it's pretty good 

Finally, sharing some pictures of how we have enclosed the suggested study area in our living room so as to convert it into a cosy area with a platform.

A few days later.. Ta-da...!

Ok, that's all for today. Time for bed. Shall share more tomorrow. 

- The Boss and The Secretary 

[izong 4]

The Boss and The Secretary wow, will be juicy!!

Very nice layout and the location must have cost a bit!

[cafehouse 6]

3 hours ago, izong said:

The Boss and The Secretary wow, will be juicy!!

Very nice layout and the location must have cost a bit!

Hello izong, thanks for your comments! Yes, you are right about the cost. 

We will be sharing more about the budget and Reno journey soon! 

[spooky 6]

I love neutral colors too, and will be aiming to use it for my place! All the best for your reno

[cafehouse 6]

31 minutes ago, spooky said:

I love neutral colors too, and will be aiming to use it for my place! All the best for your reno

Hello spooky, yes neutral colours will make the house brighter too! We have just completed our reno. Do come and drop by for more sharings on our reno. Look forward to your update as well! 

[cafehouse 6]

Mood board and Budget

One afternoon on a fine Sunday.. 

The Boss: "Have you compiled all of our research about the house together to show Contractor C? Where's the mood board? Go through with me again."

The Secretary: "Wau, you really think you are a boss hor. Here they are."

Living room and cosy corner -

1. We want to have a separator between living room and the suggested study area. Instead of putting table and seats in it, we opted for platform to give the cosy feel.   

2. Don't we just love brick walls? Truth to be told is that such walls can instantly fill up any empty corners, and soften the ambience of the house. We just love them! 

3. To make the house brighter, the wall color has to be neutral tone. Maybe add a few paintings to fill up the space too. And of cos, we love big sofa! 

Kitchen

1. White just make everything looks lovely! This combi of colours are very nice, but we didn't go with the blue bottom cabinet as the colour didn't went well with the rest of the house. 

2. Perfect way to add more storage within  a small space. Since our kitchen is quite small (due to splitting them into a wet and dry area), this low height cabinet is ideal for us to place our rice cooker, coffee marker machine and much more..

3. How about an island in the dry area? 

Master bedroom

1. Choice of colours and design complementing well to create a cosy bedroom.  

Walk-in wardrobe

1. To all the ladies out there! Don't we just love to convert the whole room to be a walk-in wardrobe  (must thank The Boss for letting me to fulfill this dream).

Master bedroom toilet

1. For this toilet, we wanted to create a hotel feel. So the choice of colours in this picture definitely is a go! By the way, we must thank HDB that they have chosen dark grey tiles as toilet floor tiles too! 

Bomb shelter 

1. Creatively converting the area where the bomb shelter and DB box are located to be a shoe cabinet! Brilliant! 

The Boss: "Budget, how much ar? We did some benchmarking the last time and it was about 50-$60k for reno?"

After doing some mental sums, The Secretary: "Ya, not more than that. But, this amount like a lot hor?"

And so, we went to sleep with a smile, but heavier heart and a lighter pocket. 

- The Boss and The Secretary 

[cafehouse 6]

Hello, we are back again! Today we are going to share on the tools that helped us to design our house, as well as the reno process during aircon trunking works and tiles selection.

Tools to help when designing the house yourself

Since we don't have any ID to render the perspectives for us, we DIY ourselves using the available free online software. We tried a few software, and found that Floorplanner is the easier one to use for amateurs. Although the items that they have in the software may not be the exact items that we would buy in future, it is still a good software for space planning. 

Have also attached the picture below to illustrate the space planning that we have for our house. This is also used as a guide when discussing the layout and ideas that we have with our Contractor C. Along the way, we did some minor changes to the layout of the design.

Aircon trunking works

Personally, I think our aircon technician, who was introduced by our Contractor C, and his team have done a great job. We wanted 5 units of fancoils, 1 in living room, and 4 in all rooms (including the cosy room!). He was able to advise the best permutation of the aircon compressor and brands. Furthermore, he was able to advise the trunking routing and how our Contractor C can conceal the trunking. Hence, all our trunking are hidden in our house!

Aircon trunking across the living room to be linked to the cosy room

Aircon trunking for the living room

Aircon trunking for the master bedroom

Tiles selection

Like many homeowners, we went to Hafary many times. We only managed to confirm our tiles selection only at the last trip. As we wanted to create a neutral tone for our house, we chose the floor tiles with lighter colours. We have also chosen tiles to overlay out master bathroom as we wanted to create a more luxurious feel, similar to those in hotel.

Floor tiles for living room

Floor tiles for foyer

Floor tiles for bedroom

Wall tiles for master bathroom

- The Boss and The Secretary

[Clarence Lye 10]

interesting boss-secretary blog here. Progress looking good.
wow your tiles very expensive leh.. 

 

How many shades of "gray" are you into? haha.. 

Edited June 28, 2017 by Clarence Lye

[cafehouse 6]

The final product - Our house

Finally, after 3 months of renovation, these are the final products of our house!

Must really thank our Contractor C for helping us to realise our dream house. She has been very patient with us throughout the journey, as we kept making (hopefully small) changes 

Living room + cosy corner 

Foyer + Shoe cabinet + Bomb shelter 

The wet and dry kitchen

 

The master bedroom 

The walk-in-wardrobe 

The master bathroom

Hope you guys like our house as much as we do! 

- The Boss and The Secretary 

[JennyTan 0]

Hi Boss and Secretary, love your house so much! I like the wet and dry kitchen. Can share with me the contact for Contractor C? Thanks.

[saura 0]

Nice house! Love that suggested study space.

Do you mind sharing Contractor C's contact and quotations as well as a guide for me. thank you!

[Clarence Lye 10]

very nice, can i have Contractor C's contact too? 

[izong 4]

wow... l really like the house!! very nicely done up!!

[p31j1n 0]

Hihi I'm a fellow neighbour at teck ghee parkview! Alot of my ideas are very similar to yours - like the platform, fry and wet kitchen and island! Can I check what is the length and width of your island? Does the space feel cramp given that there is both an island and dining table?