Update
Finally this persistent wall is down. Whahaha..
At least I think the house now looks bigger now.
Finally the toilet is also up
Now we just have to wait for the bathtub to arrive. MINI TUB hohoho!
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Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Overrun!
Shuck.
After 2 weeks, they had only done up the toilet walls.
Unable to handover the house on time now.
My big SURPRISE which I had been planning for the whole year cannot be done now!
Urgh!
Update: As I wrote, I received news that my permit to knock down the wall is approved! One more obstacle down!
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Wednesday, August 12, 2009
11/08/2009 - The First Day of Renovation
Finally the day has arrived. I had this idea from one of the designers that I met. He told me that if we do engage him for his renovation services, he will take pictures of the same angle everyday to show me how my work progress and how our home is born. But since he want to cut our throat, I can do it myself.
We start work on 11/08/2009. But I didn't really go and take a look at the place on the first day as I predict it will be chaos. So we just peep from the outside and ask our neighbours to excuse us for the next few days as our renovation will cause disturbances to them. Having good neighbour relationships beats facing ugly ones everyday especially they are so near to your home. You wouldn't want to risk people keep sweeping their sand underneath ur door. Hahaha
This was the sight that greet us on the 2nd day.
Super chaotic yet I feel super excited. Alot of hiccups here and there throught the whole planning work but now my house is falling into place. Pun intended
They hack away the false ceiling which initally drop 6 inches so we decided to move it higher up to only 3" to make the place seems bigger because our unit is really very meeny teeny compact. i always tell Ivan dun jump else he is going to knock his head against the ceiling. =_+
It always seems very irony how many tools one has to use to do up the renovation and all it takes is just one crowbar to pull everything down into pieces.
As we intend to hack away the wall connecting the kitchen and the living room and many other other reasons, we decided to take another one big chunk of moolah out to change the tiles. *Bleed
This is what is left of the door way as we had seen earlier (below)
They took away the laminated flooring too. Actually, i would love to have just cement screed for the whole entire apartment but its not maintainance-savvy. I like the industrial feel but only in the day light. Haha night time can look abit spooky.
The wardrobe is gone too.
This is what is left after the common toilet. Notice that the walls of these toilets are made up from metal tubings? Weird right? We do not have concrete walls inside the toilets. Just partition boards and underneath are these metal tubes & sheets. So everything inside the toilet cannot be reposition. URGH. My rainshower.. Is GONE....
Even the mirror panel is FIXED. You cannot change it.
Estimated date of completion is 12/September/2009 which means its 29 more days to go!
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Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Random Pictures - Royalty Free
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Pre-Renovation Thoughts
Renovation is going to start on the 12th August 2009.
In a week's time, all the previous owner's memories will be demolished and my house will slowly turn into my home.
In order to squeeze the most out from our strict budget, we decided to get an contractor instead of an interior designer. Of course, we will have to put in extra EXTRA more effort. This would mean that we had to spend or burn our weekends googling online for ideas or sitting at different bookstores till late night to check out the newest trends This would also mean to go to 10 different tiles shop to just find one type of tile which we like and in the end realise that it might not suit the layout of our house and have to go through the process again.
Our initial planning was that we had wanted the whole apartment to look simple and neat. Clean neat simple lines ARE NOT THAT SIMPLE to achieve. The concealing works, the shifting of points, the choosing of material and the matching of colour tones and the most expensive part is to build enough storage to keep everything out of sight. SIMPLE AIN'T THAT SIMPLE. If I do get another chance to renovate another house, i will choose the industrial look.. Everything can lay exposed and still look awesome. Hahaha..
Also, there are alot of initial ideas which have to abandon because they are just not worth the extra effort.
We are not changing the direction of the common toilet's entrance anymore. Just to change the door entrance would mean shifting all the water pipes, hack the doorway, then make good on the surface and then tile the external wall with tiles. That would mean, alot of extra work and it will look weird. Never mind.. we can change our living habits and walk alittle longer.
We cannot find a place to put a full height shoe cabinent because of our floor space. We do not want the cabinent to be too close to our dining table for hygiene reasons. So we choose a smaller one to put ivan's shoes and my shoes will remain IN THE STOREROOM AGAIN. The contractor said he will throw in free shelvings for us in the storeroom. WHY IS IT THAT MY SHOES ALWAYS HAVE TO HIDE IN THE STOREROOM?
We also decide not to have a walk in wardrobe anymore it doesn't make much sense to hack down a wall and then build a smaller room to hold the wardrobe and then to realise that the wardrobe would be smaller than the normal 6ft ones.. So we are going to turn one room into a full wardrobe with a table for us to do some work on. This way, we do not need to hack any walls. We might need to walk slightly further to take our clothes but after weighing all the pros and cons, we think its better cos NOW MY WARDROBE WOULD BE 3 TIMES BIGGER.. I AM GOING TO BE MAD... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA IDIOT
Ok enough of ranting because I realised this is getting too long. God knows how would i feel when i am reading this post 5 years down the road.. Hey, have you regret?
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Sunday, July 12, 2009
Handover 120709
Yday we went to collect the keys back to our new flat. Finally after so many months, its finally considered ours.
This was the view that greet us. We welcome this sight.. at least now it looks bigger.. They removed all the furniture.
View from the window..
View of our front door
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Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Collection of Keys - 2nd Appointment.
For most Singaporean, they will know what does it means. Haha.. Yes 26th June 2009, we will be collecting the keys to our first apartment. Buying an apartment is probably the biggest purchase of your life. When we first sign the OTP, my mind went blank for the first time. The 2nd time was when i went for the first appointment. Now its too late for anything now cos in 2 more days time, WE are collecting the keys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One more thing achieved in my 5 years plan.
As most of you know, I have exactly one year to finish up my wedding next year. We didn't planned for it. Just happened that both events coincidentally falls on the same date.
Now lets hope our apartment will be ready by our birthdays! Hahahah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Sunday, June 21, 2009
20th June 2009
With the advice from HDB, we decided to go and take another inspection of the house before completion.
The moment I step into the unit, I was like ermm.. ok.. why did the floor plan make it seems so big? OH NO.... All our original ideas have to be revise now..
The owner's daughter is really a sweet pea.. She seems to grow taller since the last time I saw her. She tugged at me and ask me to play with her brother. Haha and then I took out the camera.. Wala~ then we all have fun in the room ignoring Ivan.. the uncle. Wahaha I am the jie jie and he is the uncle..
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Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Coffeetable
I never like the feeling of conventional furnitures.
Tables must look like tables, Chairs must look like a chair.. I dun quite like this mantra. I like to break the rules alittle.
I always like the kind of house where u know u can just laze around and YET still look incredibly neat. Nothing seems out of place. Most of all, I like light and space.
So how does this coffeetable comes into the picture now... Cos I always walk into one. Be it tall ones, big ones, small ones or low ones..... My legs just like to go right into one of them.. Like metal to magnet.
I tot of a design ... Executing it right now.. See how it works..Labels: 48SA23227, Home
This was the sight that greet us on the 2nd day.
View from the window..
Common toilet.. Again.. I think my eyes are tricking me.. I tot the toilet used to Look big.. Also, I learnt not to trust the floor plan.. They always give u the illusion that the place is really big..
The walkway
