EM in Tampines - Time to move on!

[chocoholic84 0]

Hi everyone, I am the wifey of pirvan =) I will try my best to contribute to this T-blog when my son is asleep for the day!

6 years ago, we did not have a fixed theme when we did up our current house.We just knew we wanted to create a warm and cozy santuary with a touch of luxury(just a smidgen) hence lots of wood, greens and warm colours. As posted previously by pirvan. Our wishes were executed beautifully by our prev ID.                                                                                              

It was during this time that the hubbs picked up SKETCHUP to better visualize our concepts as well as to plan what goes where.

Now, for our second haven,he used the same software( which is free btw)to try out different possibilities of how we want the place to look like while remaining functional. Doing this makes any discussions with our ID James from Design Cube much easier on both sides.

As the boss mentioned, since we only have a short period of time to do a complete unheaval,the first few days were a blur of activity with a lot of people coming in and out!

After hacking the original study room wall, the whole place really opened up (that will not last long though..)

Next came the plastering and start of the toilet and kitchen tiling which was done really well by Jame's team. =)

Pic 1:View from the main door

Pic 2:View from the balcony

Pic 3: View from the dining room

Pic 4:View from the front door into the kitchen

 

 

[chocoholic84 0]

Quote

 

Next up, the flooring and tiles which will instantly set the look of our home, James brought us to Hafary at Eunos Ave 3. It was as I remembered, big with many many (have I mentioned MANY?) options of tiles. Having browsed through tonnes of Pinterest, I  knew I wanted subway tiles in the kitchen which my hubbs very kindly let me have my way. So, our mission of the day is to find tiles for the 2 toilets, and the kitchen floor.

Both of us thought though we have an industrial theme, we did not want the same for the toilets as it would make it look too cold. Hence we decided that once we choose a nice main tile and the complimentry tiles will easily follow suit. Boy.. were we wrong!

First stop, we wanted to choose cement screed like floor tiles.There were only just around 100 types of variation of like tiles.. Not wanting to miss the perfect one, we scanned through everyone till we got numb. haha!

We finally settled on a 60x60 grey stonish tile for our kitchen tile and a 10x30 subway tile for the blacksplash.

We also chanced upon a display wall of wooden tiles which the hubbs like so we got it as well for the common toilet in the kitchen and paired it with 30x60 white tiles with a slight shimmer. Our common toilet is really small so I hope this will brighten it up and make it look bigger! Fingers crossed =) All this just merely took us 3ish hours?

By then we were oversaturated and had to come back another day to deliberate on the master toilet.

Going back with a fresh mind helped, we decided to use the subway tiles again and a really pretty diamond shaped tile that will def not win us the tiler's favour! we told each other to mollify him with "liang cha" whenever we see him! Haha!

 

Edited May 19, 2018 by chocoholic84

[Pirvan 3]

On 5/19/2018 at 9:11 PM, KFC1189 said:

Wow, your old place looks really classy! You must be sad to let it go!

By the way, I noticed that you are going to reposition the staircase. Do you need to engage a PE for that?

 

Thanks!

Regarding the repositioning of the staircase, its actually a very smart idea from my ID. Instead of paying and getting a PE to endorse it, we are fabricating a staircase landing extension to form the L angle. As there is no modification and its not permanent, an endorsement is not required!

[Pirvan 3]

For a house of this age and with this particular layout, the dustbin chute is usually at the balcony. This posed a problem as i did not want to have a rubbish chute sticking out in the middle of nowhere in an area we are trying to make into an activity area. Hence the search begins for a fire hose cabinet!

Initially we thought this should be easy and started scouring for this via TAOBAO, Q and even carousell. Turns out that we cant seem to find one that is for decorative purpose and only the real deal (real functioning cabinet) is sold. But they are usually super expensive hence the hunt begins for a less pricier option

Edited May 23, 2018 by Pirvan

[Pirvan 3]

Works for the house is now chugging along nicely. For the first 1-2 weeks, it was a little more hectic and alot of decisions had to be made quickly. Eg, positioning of sockets, light points, partition wall thickness, blah blah blah. Very often, a daily visit to the site will turn into a mind numbing whirl of snap decisions that had to be made on the spot. 

Now that most of the major decision have been settled, its more or less time to let James flex his muscle and make all the subcontractors play nice. For the past few days, the 3 main group of guys i see are the electicians, painter/plasterer and tiler. 

Special mention to the guy that does all the partition work for us. Ah Guang works alone but is super efficient. I watched him work the other day and came out impressed. Tell him how you want a wall or ceiling to be done and he will measure 3-4 times, cut once and it will come out looking exactly like how you want it. Highly impressed. 

[Pirvan 3]

Mr Roy from Deco art has been in and out of my place for a few days. He and his assistant has just completed the works i commissioned him to do and we have been highly impressed as well. They've made multiple trips partly due to their diligence in seperating the stages in which the craft wall goes up, at the same time, accommodating the other sub cons when it comes to sharing spaces. The wall is up and now its just a matter of waiting for everything else to be completed before he comes in to touch up any defects of 'harm' that was done to the walls because of the other reno works in the house. Attached are some pictures of his work. I can't seem to organize the pictures in the sequence in which they are done thou.  I'll just leave that to your imagination

[Pirvan 3]

Part of our research process led us to the blum showroom. We were there during one of the weekdays afternoon hence the showroom was relatively empty. One of the sales staff saw us walking around aimlessly and decided to give us a full run down of how blum works and the difference between the different models. Good man! We came out of the showroom rich in knowledge but poor in the wallet

We both loved the way BLUM functions and was very sure that it would maximise our storage, and also be very functional in the way we use our drawer spaces. Hence we told james to help us include BLUM bits in all of our carpentry. 

Edited May 23, 2018 by Pirvan

[Pirvan 3]

One of the small things i wanted for this house was to use more unique glass(es) for the balcony doors and also to be embedded in some of the carpentry. A while back during one of our travels, we chanced upon wired glass being used to good effect and that left a fairly strong memory for me. Hence this time, we explored using them in our house as we didnt want the usual suspect of frosted/clear/tinted. Frosted wire glass was common enough and most glass makers in Singapore would be able to do it easily. Clear wired glass however was another story. It cost a bomb but I was so smitten by it that we decided to allocated some budget to it for the balcony door. It doubles up as a visual cue to people that likes to walk into glass doors

Edited May 23, 2018 by Pirvan

[Pirvan 3]

Having an ID that cares about how the house will ultimately turn out is extremely important. James took pride in each house that he is designing and goes to great length to ensure the end result is not just 'satisfactory', but he wants it exceed the expectations of his client. One good example was how he would arrange with us to meet him at night to go on site to test out various lighting for the important areas. He knows I am a big fan of using lighting to create the right , hence we spent 2 nights at my new place testing out various lights and positions before the electrical work started.

[Pirvan 3]

Along the way, items that will be installed eventually makes it way into the house. We choose AOSbath with its digital heater as our main source of hot water. As well has Turbo for its hob and oven and INNOVAR for the vinyl flooring. Cant wait for the end when all these items are installed.

[Pirvan 3]

During our last reno, we wanted to try getting some furnishing from TAOBAO but got so intimidated by the plethora of options available and Mandarin not being our strongest suit, we ditched the idea. One of the items on our wishlist this time round was to try and at least give TAOBAO a try and see if indeed, the price and items from TAOBAO are worth the effort. THANKFULLLYYYY, James has a partner called Charmaine, and she is the TAOBAO queen. All we had to do was to give her the items we wanted, she will talk to the vendor, work out the dimensions/colors etc, and arrange to be shipped right to our doorstep. We are waiting for our shipment right as we speak. We ended up buying a TV console, 2 network cabinets (more on that later), a toilet vanity, some lights and also a custom study room table+shelf (my most worried item). Fingers crossed it all turns out well.

 

[Kherro 0]

hello! I'm also looking to reno my EM, same layout as yours! Can i check how much was your reno? Hoep to see more updates haha!

[jonchar 0]

Please keep the updates coming in. Been a while.

Thanks!

[KL Adrian Tan 0]

Hi, may I know how much do they charge for stucco wall along stairway?

 

 

[hdb4ever 3]

Really looking forward to updates too!