Week 5: Painting / Vinyl Flooring

Step 6: Painting
Super stoked the see the colours come to life back at the KRIB just in 2 days! Just to say we're really pleased how the colours turned out. (See Week 4's Post for colour selection) It was one of the most nerve wrecking decisions after tiles because it really could impact the look of the house greatly!

Black wall for the MBR!

We painted the study playroom in a coral pink tone which turned out pretty bright initially but growing to love it! (It's gonna look duller with the floors up)

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We also went on to some simple installation of
1. Service Yard sliding windows

Most people would opt for 3 panels windows but our HDB architectural planning is once again so lousy that the space could only accommodate a slimmer window track so we settled for 4 panels instead. Opted for white frame so that the look looks flushed to the white walls.

We also got our toilet bowls delivered to be installed over the weekend! Our unit did come with existing toilet bowls but we really didn't fancy the look of it. (see below)

It comes with the supposedly eco-friendly tap on top and the traps of the water pipes at the bottom are too visible. It's a painful decision but we decided to hack both bidets and replace them with the most affordable and acceptable looking ones - Baron W888 which we got from domaco at about $300 each.

Step 7: Vinyl Flooring
Finally a long awaited installation of the floor! I have always wanted vinyl flooring cos I simply love the look and feel of it! Maintenance wise as long as you don't leave puddles of water over a prolonged period it shouldn't be an issue. Furthermore it is easy to replace in strips if it's ever required. We got ours from FloorXpert in a medium warm shade from the Korea series which I luvvvv. The installation was completed in a day.

Week 4: Partition / Paint selection

Our tiling works extended beyond last week due to the laborious tiling required for the mosaic tiles we chose for the service yard. The tiler had to shave the sides of the connecting tiles one by one so that it has a 45 deg surface at the edges so it took a longer time.

Our ID also insisted that the tilers change the grouting of the tiles so that it's darker to match the tiles. The tilers literally have to dig the grout line by line so that they can reapply again. All I can say is we are super glad to have our ID more particular than us in all these small details and always making sure our house is as aesthetically pleasant as possible.

Step 5: Partition

This normally includes works like false ceiling and boxing up of ugly trunking if any. We didn't opt for false ceiling but we opted to box some pipes.

On top of that, one of our most exciting part of the project was to conceal the existing beam. To give some background, HDB units normally have some indented wall here and there due to the structural beams.

The uneven wall is exactly where our sofa would be and I really dreaded how, awkward it would look having the uneven surface right in the middle of the sofa. Of course, I realise that's a very personal preference since some people dont think it's any issue.

Photoshopped below for reference hahah

Anyway initial idea was for us to fill up the recessed wall with partition all the way to the other end of the wall. However that would really means we would sacrifice quite a significant space as the beam is about 20cm thick and that would minimise the floor space of the small unit to begin with. Zhaohui was not entirely supportive of the idea as he could tolerate the original look so he was not too keen with the idea of topping up too much extra to waste space.

I finally proposed a relatively unusual idea of enhancing the beam and make it a design element. Instead of filling it all the way across, I suggested we carve an arch shape within to achieve a design recessed look.

There was some little hiccups while they were working on the arch as we realised we did not calculate the dimensions on the left meant for the sofa accurately. Thankfully after some communications my ID managed to sort it out and we love the final look! Who can be extra like us to have a design arch in the living room :')

For the longest time since we selected the unit 2 years ago, we have toyed with the idea of hacking the MBR to combine it with bedroom 2 so that we could get a spacious bedroom with sufficient wardrobe space. However, many mums advised me against it since the extra room would really be necessary for the kids next time if we want to train the babies to sleep in a separate room from young. We struggled with this idea back and forth until we met our ID who supported my idea to achieve a bigger room while not sacrificing one entire room.

At the proposal meeting, Huimin proposed that we hack just one hole to steal space from bedroom 2, just enough the construct our wardrobe within the newly built recessed area, while ensuring the bedroom doors are completely flushed with the wall. The bedroom 2 would have just 60cm space taken away where the wardrobe is on the other end. I loved this idea which in fact, I proposed many IDs that we've met to see if we could do this but everyone rejected my idea saying it'll be too squeezy and expensive. I loved how Huimin managed to take in our needs and proposed just the idea we wanted without breaking our banks.

There you see a newly created recessed area for our wardrobes and I love it already!


P.S. Pls don't tell my kids next time that I stole space from their room for my wardrobe lolol

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My first ever shipment of 1cbm of Taobao reached! It took me 3 hours to unbox so I really didn't have the energy to take pictures esp when it's super dusty and hot. Will take pictures once everything is installed! But so far we're just really impressed with the quality of the items we got off Taobao.

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More Materials Selection

Over the weekend we headed to the Kombacplus showroom near Woodlands industrial area (omg damn ulu) because we wanted to see full pieces of the countertop which could help us make better decision of the look we want.

Paint Selection

We planned to use very bold colours for our house so colour selection was really important. Any wrong choice of colour would go awry and affect their entire look of the house. One of the reason we were keen to work with our ID is the fact that she was really particular about materials selection and was willing to explore paint brands further than the usual Nippon to ensure we get the colours we want. Most of the IDs stick the the boring Nippon colours and are not flexible enough to help look for what you really need.

Nippon do have a great selection of colours but we wanted duller tones that it did not have. Over a few days we went through the fan decks of Nippon, Dulux and Jotun. It was especially difficult to decide the right shade of green for the living room so we got small 1L tins of paints just to test the colour before committing.

Uncle mixing the small tin of paint for us so that we could bring back to test.

We tested 3 shades of Green before deciding on the very first colour, Dulux's New England Green.

It was also not easy to find the right shade of black. Yes BLACK has shades too.

Decided on a Jotun black which has the least undertones amongst all brands. Loving how it goes with our wardrobe laminate linen selection!

Choosing a coral pink for the play room

After the thorough search of fan decks from all 3 brands, I conclude in my very humble opinion that Dulux has a great variety of shades and you could really go with one brand to get all the colours you need with Dulux!

Week 3: Screeding / Tiling

Earlier this week we managed to finish screeding of the floor and am really glad that the contractor did a very good attempt to get the floor as even as possible. It is difficult to manually screed an even flooring so we topped up extra for auto-leveling that will improve evenness of the screed. 

Step 4: Tiling works

It's the start of another exciting phase! We're really anxious at the same time to see how the tiling of the toilets would turn out since you can't really visualize your chosen tiles fully due to the variations of shade and veins that you may not notice on the sample displayed at the gallery.

A sneak preview of the common toilet below. We opted to go ahead with half-tiled walls for some surfaces to achieve a unique look + cost savings! We also got rose gold aluminium transition wall strips for a seamless transition. Got the sizes custom made off taobao and am really happy with them! It's tricky getting aesthetic materials over tb since it's difficult to see true colour in pictures.

For the MBR toilet which we spent the most time selecting tiles on, I was super anxious to see how the cut tiles look since we only saw them in 60cm x 60cm sizes at the gallery previously. We wanted a really dark grey - black stone-look tile in a long shape that allowed herringbone tiling. We also only opted for the herringbone to be done only on one side of the wall since labour is really tough and costly for the pattern to be possible. It was so difficult to get these tiles within budget and so we topped up a reasonable amount to cut an existing large tile to get these and we are so in love! The tiles look really dirty now but it's supposed to be rather clean with minimal variation and fully matte finish. Can't wait for the toilet to be put together!

Our ID was also really meticulous with the designs and did a drylay to ensure the tiles look fine before they go up the wall.

Goodbye kitchen tiles! I promise you wouldn't see any tiles HDB left us in our KRIB! We overlaid most tiles and screed over any other visible surfaces. HDB really don't provide pretty tiles but I just read an article that they will now provide larger and more aesthetically appealing tiles. Lucky new owners! Tiling is one expensive work and we spent close to 6k to overlay the 2 toilets criesss. Then again... we spent too much time in our toilets to not beautify them.

Week 2: JB shopping / Screeding

It's Friday again which means end of Week 2! 

End of Tile Selection

We're so glad to finally finish tile selection! We started our very first tile shopping since mid-April but it was so difficult to source for the right tiles. Really glad we finally found the tile for the MBR toilet which took us the longest. As we could not find any that we liked in the right size we needed, we topped up for tile cutting service to get the tile we want. Found this very last gem at a small shop called Hong Lee Building Materials over the weekend. 

JB Fan Shopping at Tampoi Lighting Centre

We took a day off on Tuesday for a Day trip in JB to buy fans from Tampoi Lighting Centre. 

We wanted the Vento Fino fans which are really rare and expensive in sg (about sgd475 on qoo10) while the Fino 2 was priced RM850, Fino 3 at RM1100 just across the causeway. About $200 savings per fan! If you're planning on getting bulky ceiling fans and don't drive like us, Tampoi can help get you a car to delivery you and your goods back to your home in SG at about RM270. As we only ended up with 2 fans and 2 pillows (my fave only avail in Malaysia), we decided to save the money and lugged them back. 

Also take note to declare 7% GST as the relief is only capped at $100 per pax. 

Step 3: Screeding
This week we also saw completion of the electrical wiring works and finally started screeding. As we have decided on vinyl flooring over tiling, we need to screed the floor level to the require height before laying the vinyl over.

HDB used to provide screeding services foc or at a minimal cost. They no longer do so unfortunately so that means more reno costs for us. Thankfully they recommended contractors that could do it at a discounted price for the BTO project.

We're on schedule to start all tiling and partition works next week! 

Week 1: Aircon trunking / Electrical works

Hi there! Updating with a post for the official Week 1 of Renovation, which has finally started after close to 3 weeks from key collection.

Tip: Before you start any work, install a door stopper hinge so that the contractors will not accidentally damage your door due to haulage. You can get them easily installed from SlideArm or UniArm.

Edit: Hacking works started first after we got the HDB approval to begin renovations. We got approval to hack the existing service yard windows and door to extend the kitchen and also hacked one wall panel of the MBR to extend our wardrobe.

Step 1: Aircon Trunking Installation
We started comparing prices rather early on and decided on our Mitsubushi Starmex System 4 from Mega Discount with premium installation of 2 visits.

When the installers came onsite, they commented that the structural beams for our BTO project was planned really badly and did not cater the right dimensions for Aircon to be installed nicely.

For instance, the beam just behind the living room is bigger and lower than the connecting beam which makes it impossible for us to have the unit installed at the living room. Most of us could only settle for the aircon at the dining area. Most of our trunking cannot be properly concealed for the same reason that the beam is built way lower than usual, while the aircon vent provided by hdb is way too high for proper installation of the aircon unit.

Tldr; HDB/BSC did a very terrible job building the structure of our estate. I don't think we deserve this after the price and long wait that came with this, but I guess we can only settle for the hideous aircon trunking which our installers tried their best to make it more aesthetically acceptable for us.

Step 2: Electrical Works
We are really lucky to have Zhaohui's uncle help us with the electrical wiring. Basically you need to start planning early where you need your plugs and additional lighting point to be. These labour cost can add up to a significant amount up to 2 - 3k based on the amount of work you plan to do for your unit.

The most challenging part was planning the light points for the unit as we're not planning on having any false ceilings. It is more difficult to have diffused lights with LED track lights so really crossing our fingers that the lighting plan would turn out fine for our rather dark unit.

You also need to know what lights you will be getting for each light point so that you can estimate the right location and dimensions for your electrician to pull the power source to.

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Other than the actual physical work done on the home, we also worked on other further preparations for the subsequent reno steps.

1. Materials Selection 
A. Laminate/ Vinyl floor selection
This one did not take us long as we were pretty clear from the start what colours we need. I will dedicate another post on the design on the house later on, which also took us months to develop after tons of research on Pinterest and Qanvast.

We wanted to to get anti-fingerprint laminates for the kitchen and this material only comes in grey or black. We chose the latter.

As for Vinyl flooring, we needed a medium tone wood and it was easy since there was only one choice in that shade from Floor Xpert.

B. Tiles selection
This is by far the toughest and longest process ever. We did our first tile shop visit when we first finalize our ID before our key collection and we have still yet to finalize that one tile design.

It really is a tough job selecting the right tile. You know they may look same same but different? Even in a selected tile, one carton of the same tile can come in various shade/vein/variation. It is really difficult to picture how it looks since you normally only get to see one or two samples at once.

Tile shops visited till date:
Hafary Eunos*
Hafary Balestier
Soon Bee Huat Toh Guan*
Soon Bee Huat Changi
Lian Seng Hin Balestier
Lian Seng Hin Ubi*
Malford Ceramics
RICElab

I have included * to indicate the larger showrooms. It is worth the visit if you do not mind the traveling to the various galleries as they tend to display more pieces of a tile which helps with better visualisations. It's also useful to get more tile sample to bring back to your home. I noticed it is better to visualize how the tile will look at the actual site.

It is also more efficient to drop by Balestier since both Hafary and LSH is side by side. Imo Hafary is slightly higher priced. The last two listed are small boutiques with a small variety but we are desperate at the moment since we cannot find the right tile we need for our MBR toilet. Fingers crossed we can finalize them tile choices since we are delaying tiling works due to the prolonged selection process.


2. Purchases
A. TAOBAO
We also spent an extensive amount of time on Taobao for the past week. It is useful to note the substantial savings you can make if you choose to buy from Taobao wisely. Thankfully I shop frequently there and have no problem conversing on the Taobao language 亲亲 haha. It is important to time your shopping well as you need to take 2 - 3 weeks of sea shipping.

Our first shipment mainly consisted of toilet accessories and lightings that needs to be fixed by the plumber around Week 4. That's why it's been such a stressful week urgently shopping to get what we needed.

Besides the lower prices, many sellers on Taobao also support customisation so do explore that option if you can!

I have included brief screenshots of our purchases for our toilets. Feel free to let me know if you need further reviews or links later on!

It may be useful to note that you'd want to ship your bulky heavy items via sea volumetric shipping as shipping by weight is usually more costly. I decided to ship via Oops as it has the most competitive price (CNY450/CBM) and has a great customer service that replies WhatsApp instantly even at odd hours. They also have a great online platform for easy registration of parcels.

Here's a quick guide on how to ship your tb buys with OOPS:
1. Key in your unique shipping address on Taobao for all your purchases to be shipped to your unique OOPS address
2. Register parcel with domestic tracking number and price of parcel for gst declaration on OOPS
3. Consolidate shipment and prepare for stuffing to SG. It takes about 10 - 14 days upon stuffing on container, which happens on Tues/Fri. Just prepare your shipment and pay before that!

Here's my 93.9kg / 1 CBM, all ready to be packed. It is a great coincidence that it could be nicely packed in 1CBM. I like that OOPS can also ship in lower volumes (rate is not as good), and also prorate the rates above 1 CBM.

B. ELECTRONIC PURCHASES
- Brandt Induction Cassette Hood Hob, Pyrolytic Oven (Hoe Kee)
- LG OLED 55'' TV (Harvey Norman - KINEX Roadshow)

This pretty much sums up a rather busy Week 1!
Next up: Screeding and Tiling / JB Light and Fan shopping

Week 0: Building a #KRIB - The Start of a Home Renovation Journey

2.5 years ago, Zhao Hui and I decided to give our very first try at balloting for a flat. We applied for a sales of balance launch in Nov'16 for the Geylang district which was near my place. We were really lucky to get a good ballot and fast forward till 29 April 2019, we are finally proud home owners of MacPherson Spring!

I decided to work on documenting the next 8 - 10 weeks of Renovation Journey since this is one of the biggest and most expensive project that we'll be working on. 

We started talking to IDs and contractors many months ago to make sure we can start reno asap so that the house will be ready before the wedding in Sept. We're really blessed to meet an ID we really like just weeks before the key collection. I would share more about my review of our ID at the end of this journey. 

Our #KRIB is named after Keh x Kwong crib, I hope it's not too cringy haha. It's a 4-room flat just above MacPherson MRT. 

Purchases

We also did our first purchase for the house that has to be shipped in time by tiling and flooring works. Got brass/copper/aluminum transition strips for flooring and walls, as well as floor traps. Due to the long dimensions, they have to shipped by sea so I got them shipped via ezbuy ship-for-me. 

Feel free to drop me any questions and I'll be glad to share my experience with you! 

The Proposal

I have stopped writing for the longest time but I thought it'd be best to pen down my thoughts and journey towards the next significant milestone of my life.

As of 14 May 2018, I'm engaged!

Before I get started on how the proposal went, a quick update on the timeline!
We applied for a BTO flat at MacPherson Spring (Beside MacPherson CCL/ DTL) in Nov 2016 SBF and got it at our first attempt with a #4 Queue! There was not much choices since it was an SBF launch but we managed to got our first choice among the options that were available. Fast forward to date, we are expecting to receive keys hopefully in Q1-Q2 2019. 

With the flat nearing, Zhao Hui was planning a proposal which I knew is most likely gonna happen this year. He's not the best at planning events/surprises so I gave him some tips to help him: 
1. Private proposal
2. Avoid planning an indoor/staycation proposal, preferably at a pretty outdoor location
3. Surprise me! - I'm quite quick at sniffing out any clues so this was going to be a real challenge to plan something behind my back.

So the boyfriend actually started with the ring purchase early in the year with a rough design idea I gave him while he executed the search for the perfect stone hehe. He also planned for the most amazing surprise that I wouldn't have expected him to do so.

THE SURPRISE TRIP

We were in Beijing when I noticed I might have to do a work trip around the weekend of 19 May (less than a month later) to BKK. Bf usually isn't particular with my work trips since I travel quite a fair bit but he was really concerned this time when I mentioned. He dissuaded me from going giving excuses i.e. BKK is dangerous (?) etc. and I found it really suspicious. He then revealed he planned to bring me for a surprise weekend trip to KL. I probed further to ask for the dates since my job doesn't allow me to take random leave without advance notice and realised he is taking me away for 10 days. Who goes to KL for 10 days?! Anyway I figured perhaps we were going on a SEA back-packing trip since he said it'll be a roadtrip. He also already helped me to apply leave from work in advance. At this point, I was very sure the proposal would happen then, since it's unlike him to plan anything huge like this. 

The real surprise was finding out where was our destination. He gave me the weather to pack for (12-22 deg) which was kinda the temperature for Sapa. With that, he successfully misled me into thinking we were going Vietnam. He picked me that morning (12 Jun) from my house and gave me this card to guess where the destination would be. I actually started to believe perhaps we were heading to Taiwan instead. 

Finally at check-in where we tagged our luggage, I accidentally saw the luggage tag and saw 'ICN'. Oh my gosh INCHEON?! It ever crossed my mind that it'd be amazing if he brings us back to Korea where we got to know each other a lot better over exchange 4 years ago, where everything started. Then again, I didn't think he'd really do it since expenses to execute this trip to Korea would be really high, so I brushed that thought off rather quickly.

We spent the entire day on flight delays and finally reached Incheon at midnight. I was gushing over the surprise the entire day simply because I really love/miss Korea and it's my first time back on leisure trip ever since exchange (apart from biz trips).

I have to give him credit him for planning the entire trip itinerary himself, as I usually do majority of the planning for our trips. He even contacted his Korean buddy to help him suggest places to go/propose and even helped booked my hairdresser for me to perm my hair, first thing to do the next morning just to make sure I look photo-ready for the moment!

THE PROPOSAL (14.05.2018 | 39th monthsary)

The night before, he passed me a dress he bought online and wanted me to wear next day to look pretty for our monthsary. Unfortunately the dress wasn't fitting but it revealed a huge hint that tomorrow is gonna be important!

We traveled an hour on subway out of Seoul to Ilsan Park, Goyang City.
There was supposed to be a flower festival at the entrance of the park but the event ended the day before and the gate to the park was blocked due to the tear-down of the event. I secretly wondered if bf really got the dates wrongly and wanted to propose at the festival. Anyway, he insisted we find a way to get into the park since we are here anyway, so we made a detour around the park to finally find an entrance beyond the festival. We strolled along the park and he suddenly took a path off the beaten track into a nice path of trees that resembled like those in Nami Island, less the crowd. Apparently many korean dramas were also filmed here!

We were setting up the tripod to prepare for a photo together and he asked, "do you think this path will ever be empty?" So cute haha it's like preempting me of what he gonna do next.

While posing for the picture, he then turned me around and whipped out this impressive handmade pop-up card with our pictures, and my dog (to bribe my heart), and a page resembling the place we are, with a pop-up word to pop the question and of course revealing the ring. He knelt down to pop the question, and with no doubt, YESSSS!

It's no doubt the best proposal that I could have ever asked for. I had little to no expectations and he exceeded way beyond what I wished for. To be engaged in the city so meaningful to us, in such a pretty venue with natural lighting, what more can I ask for!

The rest of the trip was one of the best trips we've ever been. We ate so much that we spent all the money we brought there, and had an amazing time in our favourite city!

You can check out more about our trips on my insta-stories highlight!

Special thanks to our friends (JJASH, Don, wm, st) for helping him out in the proposal and planning. Now we can't wait to embark on the next journey of our lives soon!

P.S. On a side note, while we were on the way to Ilsan, I noticed a scratch on the camera lens that bf borrowed from his friend. He was worried sick the entire time if he'd damaged the camera and it bugged him the entire time throughout the proposal. I think he was more stressed about it than the proposal itself haha!