Reno@Kovan Maisonette - 1st Reno update

Here's our first post on the Kovan Reno Update!!!
The contractor has been awarded and permit was gotten for last Friday and the workers have been really busy tearing this place down. As you can see, we are leaving nothing in its original state.
Doing almost full hacking works - floor wall ceiling, staircase, railing, cornices EVERYTHING!

it's going to look super new once we are done up with this place!!!

above: the kitchen cabinet are all stripped off and the floor are all hacked off. Balcony wall tiles are all removed too.

Above: here's a view from the dining area - main entrance, utility room, kitchen and staircase. Actually now that most of the walls and carpentry are all hacked away, the maisonette looks so bright! Utility room wall is here to stay because couple wants a study area, full glass partition between the study and dining would be good to allow more light in but because they have a young son, so they are going for a half height glass wall.

For the kitchen, we are going for glass door and sliding opening above the kitchen counter (photo has a small window opening) from living to kitchen to allow visibility and daylight in.

And we are going use aluminium glass bi-fold door between the balcony and living, that way we can keep the area open all the time just like now. That way we can allow more daylight in.

here's a panoramic view of the living and kitchen.

view of kitchen and staircase

upstairs - master - hacking of floor tiles and all the carpentry has been removed as well.

above: that's the hole in the wall where we are going for the "window" and BIG entrance to the balcony to allow daylight in.

that's all folks! - that's Jules and hubs signing off.

stay tune for more reno updates.

xoxo

velle

Reno@Hougang Maisonette - Updates this week!

Hi folks, another week has passed! How fast time flies.Here are some reno updates on the Hougang Maisonette.

minor plastering and touch up before painting works starts this week.
All the glass works have been delivered already, waiting for installation now.

Here's a view from the living area, looking into the balcony and out and beyond!

Above: a look at the kitchen - you see many patches of white here and there! the worker has been going round patching up surfaces and making sure everywhere is flat and smooth.

Above: staircase has been tiled and railing is up.

Partition wall to receive shoe cabinet at the main door is up too and patched up.

Above: Open and close sesame! That's iron lady chef's little walk in pantry room!

False ceiling up!

Upstairs: nice railing here and more patching up

above: see beige wall on the right, looks as spotty as a leopard!

Above: Master room - partition wall for tv console is up too!

above: here's a panoramic view of the master

Master toilet - glass shower screen is delivered here too! Waiting for installation. Common bath, missing 3 piece feature tile is also completed.

Next week - carpentry!!!!

xoxo
velle

Reno@Kovan Maisonette - Tile Selection!

The design for Kovan Maisonette calls for something resort feel and colour scheme to follow the FSM advice. So downstairs, we are proposing for birch looking cabinets for the kitchen area and wood tiles to give it a more resort and balmy feel.

For the toilets, there's going to feature wall and floor in both master and common bath. It's going to be an "L" shape feature thing that continues from wall to floor. Something similar to the Hougang Maisonette balcony area where we tile the walls and floor in the same tile.

The bathroom downstairs, we are going to keep it simple because it's quite small. So the lighter the tile selection, the brighter and "bigger" it will appear to be.

above: The whole selection of tiles for Kovan Maisonette - 11 different tiles!!!

Reno@Yishun - Pre Reno Photos

Some Pre-Reno photos of the Yishun Flat which we are about to call for quotations from the contractors. Reno is going to start first week of October. As it's a very new flat, there's very little builder's work involved here, mainly electrical work and carpentry. So we are targeting to finish the reno works before christmas!!!

We are DEFINITELY going to do something about this gate.
Although the couple seems ok with it, but i really hate the "abacus" look. Can you see those "beady" things on the vertical stripes of the gate? And there are swirls too!!!

here's an overview of the living room, we will need to lay the floor tiles here as the couple has chosen not to have HDB floor tiles and doors in this BTO exercise.

Here's an overview of the dining area, we are going to do a small little hack into the wall to bring more light into the kitchen. Fengshui master (FSM) also said the same thing, also he mentioned that if we are going to put a door to the kitchen, best to use a glass door to bring in more light.
Hubs holding onto his head here, previously we thought the small niche on the left of the door was the db then now on site, we realised that it's really a niche!!! there's nothing there and to the right of the door is the db!!! which is so big and we wanted to put the shoe cabinet there!!!! ALAMAK.

Above is the view of the master. quite small but still bigger than most condominiums. Bigger than the ones I'm doing.

Side track a little, things are so busy at work because the main contractor is on board now and next week on, I'm moving to site with my bulging tummy!!! and I'm still haven't finish checking all my kitchen and carpentry drawings!!! Anyway I'm being very kiasu and ganchiong, piling haven't even started yet.

Above: another view of the master where we are going to put the tv console here. Anyway the tv point is already set here. So all's good.

Above: view of the long corridor. we have to lay tiles here and do some false ceiling or cove lights to light up this corridor. And no doors, so we got to buy new doors too.

 Above: view of bedroom 3. We will leave this room empty and just lay tiles.

Above: View of bedroom 2. Going to add the walk in wardrobe here and study table. Going to lay the floor tiles then start on the electrical wirings and carpentry later.

Common bathroom. I don't like the small accent wall tiles at the shower area. Actually I really hate it.
I told the couple that we should do an alcove out to put their shower items and lay a similar colour tile over this then add a glass shower screen to prevent water from splashing out to the WC and sink area.
The sink is also another eye-sore, which the couple agreed too. But we told them that it's such a waste to buy another sink. We'll just make do with this one and do a nice mirror box above. Below the sink, there's really not much we can do here to hide the "pedestal" of the sink. i think open shelving is the best. Something from IKEA might work.

Above: Master toilet. Same small accent wall tiles. Seriously, have you seen this kind of brown grey small tiles in 5star hotel bathrooms at all? HDB thinks that Singaporeans don't travel often is it? How can they propose this kind of toilet tiles for home buyers? They should just leave it plain and simple. Maybe mosaic might be nicer. For the sink, the couple really want to change for the master. So we think it's better that way too.

 Household shelter is tiled. and quite a good choice of tile I must say! NICE!

Here's a look at the kitchen where the FSM say it's too dark, must bring in more light. So we will try to hack a window opening to the left of the bifold door to bring more light in from the yard. But HDB puts a powerpoint there!!! And we don't want to touch that electrical wiring. So the window on the left will be higher than the right which I told the couple and they said they didn't mind. Sigh, actually what can they do right since HDB already put the powerpoint there.
Furthermore, behind this wall is the water pipe and powerpoint for the washer too! So it's definitely involves the electrician and plumber if we want to hack the window opening to match the one on the right.

Here's a look at the yard, see the water tap on the left? that's where the window opening is suppose to be if it was to flush with the window on the right.

above: view of kitchen from yard.

stay tune for the 4room Yishun transformation!

xoxo

velle

FLASH FLOOD at Commonwealth Ave!!!!

This morning when i got out of my house and open my gate, I had a shock! The water level was so high that it has gone pass my open drain! The rainwater was above my ankles! And when we got to the carpark, our car was almost "swimming". Lucky the rainwater has not reached the exhaust pipe yet. So hubs was able to drive it to higher grounds where the water wasn't so deep.

hubs with his jeans folded up

hubs taking a photo

Jules with a towel over his head because the brolly was leaking

Flash Flood at Commonwealth Ave

This was taken this morning when we were bringing Jules over to my parents place. The entire road was blocked with plastic white and orange barricades, but the funny thing was, it was "floating" around in the flood!!!!

My Ikea Buys this weekend

Check out what we did for Jules over the weekend!

click!

Stirling HDB Terrace - Yard all Tiled up!

We used to have 2 lighting points in the planter box for night lighting, so when the planter was removed, we bought 2 new wall lights for the back yard area and here's a look at what we have gotten for our yard.

Above: a zoom in at our light! Got this from a neighbourhood store in Alexandra Village at our place for $30 inclusive of light bulb.

Here's how it looks from afar...we got the electrician to do a black piping for us to match the outdoor lamp.

Above: Laundry area

Here's how my newly tiled yard looks from my kitchen. Now that the bamboo planter is gone, it's very sunny and bright and there's more space for us to do our laundry drying!!!

Hubs is real happy about it though I really miss the green I used to have at the back of our yard.

Well, everything has its pros and cons. No shade but now i have sun and space for more laundry!