Country-style HDB Maisonette

[EMtamp 1]

[purplegirafffe 0]

@EMtamp nice place you've got there, and congrats on moving into your new place(: Hehe we'll be doing a barn door too actually, but it'll be for the door between living and kitchen. Your layout sounds interesting, looking forward to seeing more pics! Oh and the power socket thing you've got looks v cool, where is it from?

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Hacking day #3

It's the final day of hacking, and wow I'm really quite amazed at how fast the guys worked. Up till yesterday, the place was still (relatively) navigable. Today, it was really just heaps of rubble everywhere  

Lights are all out, thankful for flash:D Cabinetry and doors from upstairs all dismantled. And the stairs!! Back to their bare concrete banister-less form. 

The banisters used to be one whole glass sheet, so you can still see the bits of glass left behind. Can't imagine how it must have been to whack away the whole sheet:/ We didn't venture upstairs for obvious reasons, but I can't wait to see the hacked walls and new MBR space.

And...the kitchen!!! The walls have come down, leaving behind a lovely open space(: It should look even better without the rubble. Hopefully. Haha. Asked S what those spots on the wall are, he explained something about chipping and how the tiles need a good surface to adhere to

Thank you neighbours for bearing with the noise! Unfortunately we've still got a couple months to go. I'll make it up with cinnamon buns next time^^

Edited July 19, 2017 by purplegirafffe

[purplegirafffe 0]

Post-hacking day #4&5

So our guys have been clearing out all the rubble over the past 2 days, and now our place look less like a disaster zone. In fact they have been working real hard, was surprised to see a few of them still hard at work when I popped by after work on both days!

Last bit of hacking done - storeroom under the stairs removed. We do want to eventually use it as a storage area, but depending on how our needs evolve (do we need an empty space? More shelves? Pull-out drawers?), we plan to do it up in a couple years' time.

Living and kitchen in a (slightly more) cleaned-up state! 

Our unit is almost at the end of the corridor and there are 3 short flights of steps down from the lift. We were still wondering how the workers would wheel the debris away...here's the innovative solution! 


New MBR with the walls knocked down. You can see where the original walls were from the ceiling track. That L-shaped area is the space we "reclaimed" from the corridor. To cater for a walk-in wardrobe:D

 
In its current condition, stairs look more like the way to some ancient ruins haha. Glad the glass shards have all been removed.

Tiles deliverered! In preparation for the next phase to start on Monday - tiling!

Edited July 22, 2017 by purplegirafffe

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Weekend shopping adventures

A greater part of yesterday was spent shopping for doors and sanitary wares with our contractor J. First stop was J's door supplier, located somewhere in potong pasir. After having a feel of the doors - swinging, knocking etc, we decided to go with solid wood for all the doors. It just feels a lot better! We were told it's suitable for bathrooms too, though the hollow type doors are not.

 
From L-R: Front door (in walnut brown), bedroom doors (walnut brown as well) + kids bath door (white), MBR bath (white, frosted glass but wavy rather than straight lines at the top)

Spent some time choosing the handle for the main door as well. Our old-fashioned taste meant the guy had to take down the samples from the top shelf and dust them off (“这种不懂多久没有人买了”). The antique-look ones just look so much better than the modern ones though. For the rest of the doors, we're going with regular stainless steel knobs. Prefer the feel of knobs to handles. 

Forgot to take pic, but front door handle is something like this kind of design. 

Next stop: Heritage bathroom gallery, for sanitary wares. It was super crowded when we got there, but J had contacted them earlier to check on their stocks for the antique-look faucets we wanted, so the salesman (Ivan, pretty friendly and helpful guy) was all ready with the different samples when we got there. We needed 3 - island sink, main kitchen sink, downstairs bathroom. 

Faucet for downstairs bathroom. More on that later. 

While browsing, we spotted something we liked even more: copper faucet! Perfect for our island sink, it matches the rose gold pendant lights which will be over the island. Favourite purchase of the day:D  

We decided on a white granite sink for the island sink. But after leaving, we realised it might be a bit too big): Hopefully we'll be able to change to a smaller model. Larger kitchen sink we'll be sourcing separately as we want an apron sink which isn't generally available in most shops I think. And for the faucet, in the end we decided on a more  functional stainless steel one with movable neck. Will be loads more practical for heavy washing and also getting to the corners of the sink. 

Selected our WCs, showers, upstairs faucets, bidet sprays, storage heater as well. For WCs, main thing was making sure both our bums felt sufficiently comfortable sitting on the seat:D Decided to go with Grohe for the showers and faucets as it's supposedly better quality and will last longer.

Deciding on sinks for the bathrooms was easy cos we wanted an undermount sink whereas what's popular is the sitting-on-top-of-vanity kind. So there were basically just 4 models of undermount to choose from rather than 50. Makes our lives so much easier:D bigger rectangular one for MBR, smaller oval-shaped one for kids bath. Done!

Finally, last item on our list was the downstairs toilet (ie powder room) sink. Due to size constraint as well as for aesthetic purposes, we wanted to go for a pedestal sink. Something like in these inspiration pics:

Pedestal sinks are so uncommon though! Or else, the less-uncommon ones are those modern, futuristic looking ones like the kind you see in mall toilets. After sourcing around a bit, J found out that Toto carries a relatively-inexpensive model: 

So last stop of the day: Toto, at their newly-opened store at Henderson. They had just one of the sinks in stock, but turns out it's the model with 3 faucet openings, whereas we need one with just 1. It IS possible to purchase the other kind of faucet, but since we're only having cold water in the powder room it would just confuse guests...can imagine them turning and turning away at the tap and wondering why no hot water comes out. So we'll probably be placing an order for the single-opening one, hopefully they'll be able to deliver in time.

Edited July 23, 2017 by purplegirafffe

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Island sink

So we headed back to Heritage bathroom gallery today to hunt for a smaller island sink. Not sure why our brains were both not working, but the one we decided on previously is definitely too big (I think the width is around 600) and will take up too much precious island space. Since the island will be about 7.5ft long and the sink will only be used for light washing (dishes will be done in the larger sink), we need something around 15-18" wide (380-450mm). 

Because we want the sink to be white, stainless steel is out... so the only available option that fits our size requirement is this Rubine white granite sink, 380x440mm. And apparently cos it's an Italian brand it costs more, so we would have to top up even though the previous sink was larger >< Also we're worried that white granite will stain/discolour after some time. Anyone has any experience with using white granite sinks? Is it hard to maintain?

Another sink that caught our eye was this range of fireclay sinks...compared to granite it definitely looks much better! And it's a lot hardier too (although hairline cracks are supposedly to be expected after a while). But the dimensions are all way too big. Tried to hunt around online but looks like fireclay sinks are just too uncommon here, and those that exist are all too big. 

Edited July 24, 2017 by purplegirafffe

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Tiling

The tiler has been hard at work this week, starting first from the upstairs bathrooms. So far the kids bathroom is mostly done, while the MBR bath walls are done, floor should be done tmr as well. 

Door frames for both bathrooms are up as well. The kids' bath doorway was hacked slightly to widen it a bit (who knows, kids may turn out large though I hope not), but MBR bath can't be helped cos there's no wall to hack (guess we can't get too wide...or else have to borrow kids bath alr).

The new MBR wall is also partially up. Got a slight scare when we thought the doorway may have been in the wrong place...thankfully our carpenter managed to confirm that it's in the right position. Cos it's basically dependent on the layout of our walk-in wardrobe. 

Rough layout of the WIW...bottom half of the room will be taken up by the bed of course. Just trying to maximise the space to get as much storage space as well. Length of the 3 rows of wardrobes are around 240cm, 115cm and 145cm. Not sure if this is the best possible layout, appreciate any better ideas!

Edited July 27, 2017 by purplegirafffe

[EMtamp 1]

On 7/19/2017 at 11:44 PM, purplegirafffe said:

@EMtamp nice place you've got there, and congrats on moving into your new place(: Hehe we'll be doing a barn door too actually, but it'll be for the door between living and kitchen. Your layout sounds interesting, looking forward to seeing more pics! Oh and the power socket thing you've got looks v cool, where is it from?

Hi, it's from Lazada. I post more pics once I snapped it using my camera.

[EMtamp 1]

The stairs was decorated with a world map black acrylic pieces.

[EMtamp 1]

[purplegirafffe 0]

@EMtamp cool decor on the stairs, we were planning on using those walls for decor as well. 

I see you're a Blum fan as well heh. How's your experience so far?

[purplegirafffe 0]

Tiling week #2

We're into the 3rd week of reno, and things seem to be progressing well according to the works schedule provided by our contractor J.

Tiling works in the upstairs bathrooms is mostly done. When I stopped by today it looked like some of the grouting was in too.

Mudroom tiles were done last Friday as well. Glad we decided to go for the staggered/overlap method of laying! 

Screeding of all the upstairs bedrooms and stairs are done as well. Love how smooth and clean everything looks now. Vinyl for the bedrooms and parquet for the stairs will come later.
 

Kitchen floor tiling began today. Finally got to witness firsthand the painstaking process of tile-laying, it's almost an art form. The way he spreads and scrapes the mortar kinda reminds of how I frost cakes:p And the precision with which the tiles can be cut for the drainage holes is amazing!

The wall extensions are up as well. First pic is of the kitchen, wall extended slightly (left side of the doorway) to accommodate the fridge. 2nd pic is of the kitchen-yard doorway, wall also extended slightly on the left side to accommodate slim cabinetry which will run along the wall outside the toilet. 

Btw, anyone has experience using Floor Xpert's carpet grass (ezyturf)? We're planning on using it in the yard area and I'm wondering how easy is it to maintain. It's almost like just laying a rug on the ground, except it has a drainage base below the "grass layer" to allow for water to drain off. And to clean it, according to their website you can just use a vacuum like with any other rug. Sounds pretty cool...but I'm wondering if there'll be any issues like bugs taking up residence in the base layer.

Edited August 1, 2017 by purplegirafffe

[EMtamp 1]

I fixed these ikea outdoor decking for the balcony. Still a bit more to cover until my laundry partition.

Edited August 2, 2017 by EMtamp

[purplegirafffe 0]

End of week 3

Just a short update on various things that have been completed this week. First up: kitchen floor is done! Although it's pretty much not visible lol... it's been covered up with corrugated cardboard to protect it. But what you can see is the water pipes sticking out which marks where the island sink will be! 

New MBR wall is done as well. Really glad for that extra bit of space that this change gives us.

Random thing we spotted that came up today as well: new dustbin cover:D 

Preparing for next week - the final stretch of tiling work, kitchen wall subway tiles! Worked out the design for the backsplash in great detail today, just hope the tiler gets it right and also that he can tessellate better than me (I would not be able to figure out that herringbone pattern in a million years).

Couple more random pics from around the house - I think our tiler forgot to bring his calculator, otherwise maybe he just really enjoys long division. Below is a pretty accurate sketch of the kitchen layout, parked in the most convenient place - the kitchen wall:D I think I'm gonna miss spotting all these random doodles and sketches once the plastering is done.

Edited August 4, 2017 by purplegirafffe

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Week 4

Wow it has been almost a month! Really thank God that thus far there have been no major issues/cause for complaint. J and all his sub-cons have been working really efficiently, and the house already looks so different from how it did 4 weeks ago. 

1) Tiling updates

Downstairs toilet (powder room) is done! So pleased with how the tile trim which we hunted high and low for turned out. Of course the upper wall section remains to be painted...selecting the exact shade we want will be the next headache  

Initially the 'step' into the toilet was tiled with the kitchen floor tile (the wood look one). Since the door will sit outside rather than within the frame (it'll be a very *special* door - stay tuned till when carpentry works come in), it should be the toilet tile that is on the 'step' instead. I didn't even notice the mistake, but J spotted it immediately and by the next day it was rectified. Very thankful for J's attention to detail and proactive-ness... I can imagine some other contractors would just try to make excuses or try to convince you that "it must be like that one", or better still, say it's your fault and blame you for not being clear.

Kids bathroom is done too! This was taken earlier in the week...since then I think the rest of the tiles have been grouted too.

Very pleased with the workmanship for the MBR bath. S had the idea of making some sort of trim for the windows (which are all installed btw! More on that later), which J gamely translated to the tiler. It's not v clear in the pic cos of the glare from the windows, but the tiler definitely had to do quite a bit of extra measuring and cutting... as our carpenter F said while admiring it, "I can just hear your tiler complaining while doing the trim"  What's left to do is the box-up of the pipe, which is awaiting installation of the concealed rainshower first.

Anddd here's the kitchen backsplash (or as my confused tongue often says, "blackspash" :D) Very very pleased with how this turned out. It is pretty much exactly how we envisioned, with the subway tiles + tile trim + herringbone design in the centre. It has since been extended further on both sides, now just awaiting grouting (not done yet cos the tiler was waiting for us to confirm that the tiles end in the correct place, which was in turn dependent on our kitchen layout). Will post a close-up once the grouting is in.

Here's the other section of backsplash on the opposite wall, all nice and grouted (and basking in afternoon sun...). This section will sit above the kitchen sink in the "wet" part of the kitchen. 

2) Plastering

Plastering works started yesterday and wow... I think I would really love this job. Reminds me so much of cake batter and frosting:D 

Kids room, MBR, mudroom, kitchen. Walls are so amazingly smooth now...S commented it looks just like a new BTO haha. I think the same 2 guys have been working through the past 2 days and they still have a bit left to do, but everything looks so nice already mebbe can save money on paint la hahaha. 

3) Windows

This is the sight that greeted me when I got to the flat yesterday afternoon (spent the entire afternoon there meeting with electrician + air-con guy) - whole landing/corridor outside the flat was lined with window panes and frames of varying sizes hahaha. Sorry again neighbours :| Anyway was very excited to see these windows go up. Sadly hdb only allows for aluminium windows, but somehow within these constraints J managed to source for the closest possible thing to French windows - yay! And within the afternoon everything was up - mudroom living kitchen bedrooms bathrooms all!

Casement windows for the bedrooms, sliding windows for the downstairs (cos corridor, and cos living has this...awning sorta thing outside which is too near for casement. I suppose it's there to block sun/rain which is a good thing I guess). Really loving the look of the casement windows esp!

Edited August 11, 2017 by purplegirafffe