Frosted Glass - Now you see me not

Would like to present to you our frosted film glass door. This was not a frosted glass door because our ID highlighted that the glass door would have water stains eventually, and it would be costly and troublesome to change one. Instead, this way enable us to change just the film itself when we reckon it's time. For comparison, a glass door cost about $800 while the film cost $4psf, adding up to slightly less than $100. Definitely a good point to note if intending to stay long at the house.

The glass door would definitely have a gap between the door and the frame to cater for the turning radius. Depending on the position of the sanitary fitting or shower area inside, this gap may be more exposing than you wanted. Hence, a rubber seal is recommended to block out any prying eyes. However, do note that there are different type of seals and ensure you get the right fitting one. The original one we had were too big, and it caused the door to vibrate vigorously when opening. Fearing that it cause unnecessary stress on the glass door, and it's just waiting for a breaking accident to happen, we found another one which fitted much better.

And here's a fun fact which we did not noticed prior to the renovation. The door handles and lock on glass door are usually removable using the allen keys. There are actually alot of things that requires the allen keys, such as our taobao chairs and tables. In the beginning, we thought that the frosted film would have to be cut to fit around the handles and lock. #justsharing

Got a cheap doorbell for our house too because there were too many contractors that tried to ring the unarmed doorbell and ended up having to call me to open the door, despite me being in the house. We are going to get another more sophisticated doorbell soon so this is just a temporary one for the time being. Ding Dong!

Our store room racks has arrived too. At 11pm. Our appointment was between 6pm and 9pm, but there were no news from them until we had to call them at 9pm asking for their whereabouts. They said they were caught in a jam earlier so things slided but they would arrived at 10pm, which they did not, nor did they inform us again, and we have to ring them up again. This time, telling us that the previous client had a messy store room and hence delayed. It was only at 11pm, FIVE hours after my appointment timing, which they arrived.

In short, their price was not exactly a steal, nor their quality something to raved about, nor did they compensate any kind for being 2 hours late, nor did they took the initiative to inform us about being late, nor were they professional in time keeping, nor did they keep their words and therefore, i would not recommend this S**** R****Z company.

Keeping the heat out while starting the fire within

We got ShieldShade International to do our solar films for the house. It was largely fate that we chanced upon them because when we were finding other contractors, we saw their leaflets at our house door, and with a very competitive price on it. A rough gauge on solar film is that 3M, a household brand, cost about $8psf. We got ours at half its price, but the catch is that the warranty does not last as long. In the previous post, they did use their gadgets to measure the heat and we were impressed and so, we decided to give this a shot.

The three installers were hard at work, cleaning the windows and getting the film up. Did a quick check after they are done and we thought they did a great job. The main reason we decided to get the solar film is that we do not want to come back to an oven-like house at the end of the day. Plus this keeps out the dangerous UV rays that are harmful to us and our furniture so it has multiple uses. Let's hope the next time we go up to the house we could feel the difference. Stay tuned!

Could you spot which window has the film up and which has not? We chose the 50% VLT because we did not want it to be that dark. Again the purpose is to keep the heat and UV rays out, not so much about blocking the views and making the room dark. We have our blackout curtains for that. It does dim down a little, but overall, it was still decently bright when the curtains are drawn. Regardless, the windows are likely to be opened when we are at home too anyway.

At our service yard, we decided to paste the film on the inner door/windows because we will be air-drying our clothes in the service yard and we wanted the heat to come in there instead of blocking them out. But the heat would be blocked by the inner door/windows so that they do not enter our house. This was the plan because we did not want to hang the clothes outside as it is cumbersome to keep the clothes one by one when it starts to rain (as you cannot keep the clothes by taking the whole rod in so you have to un-kiap one by one), and that it is still very dusty outside due to the many renovations taking place at our new BTOs.

Additionally, we got the darker one with a 10% VLT as we realized we forgot to take this windows into consideration for our projector. At the current situation, the sunlight from the service yard would cause half of my projector screen to be flushed out as it is too bright. Hence, we went with 10% VLT to keep the light out. We did not go with black out black because we felt it may be too dark and not look nice too. Turns out the 10% VLT is just sufficient for our projector.

We also done the frosted film for our toilet glass door but we forgot to take the picture!

Our queen sized mattress is delivered! It looked so small, but we guess it would be perfect for the two of us since we are considered small-sized. Beside, all the more reason for us to sleep closer to one another uh!

The Citygas installer also came up today to attached our gas pipe to our hob. We decided to go with the gas pipe so that we would never have to worry about running out of gas, or that we have to cater a space for that bulky gas tank. We did not go electrical too because gas is cheaper than electricity, and that we would save a lot more in the long run. The fires were shockingly strong and huge, and it made our current house fire feels so inadequate. Let's hope we can get used to this strength of fire and not injure ourselves in the future!

After the installation, we went to check the gas meter outside and we were shocked why there were bubbly soapy liquid at the pipe. We were about to report it to Citygas worrying that there are something wrong but it turns out (as indicated in the manual for the gas hob) that one should use soap liquid at the joint to test for gas leak. So apparently our installer had did just that and tested for gas leak, but we felt that it would be much better if it were cleaned up instead of left there. Ohwell.

We will be moving in soon! Real soon!

House of sweet dreams

Many people put the mural at their bomb shelter door to conceal it, but we decided to break out of the norm by putting the mural at our main entrance to beautify it. Really love how this enhanced the whole feeling of coming back home with this art greeting us everyday, and hopefully it would catch some sweet dreams for our house too. On the more practicality side, this would also help to avoid having people knocking on the wrong doors. There have been too many occurrences just during this period of renovation where people mistook the door numbers and went to #223 instead of #233. Talk about having an identity for the house.

Our mirror for the walk in wardrobe is up too. Originally we wanted to save on some cost by getting the mirror from IKEA. However, our ID managed to convinced us that it would be much nicer to have a mirror that covers the entire wall between the window and the cabinet. Looking good.

Fine tuning the house

We really hate holes, largely because they are magnets for dust sand dirt. We sourced around for stickers that closely resemble our laminate colors and my wifey found it! Then we spend the night sticking over all the screw holes. It became so less obvious immediately. There are a variety of colors and patterns so it will be easy to find one that matches the laminate.

A glimpse of how my DB box is right now. Neatly wired up to my modem there. The yellow wire is actually very fragile so take extra caution not to bend it. Just bending it 90degree would result in a snap in the wire. The rest of the lan cable had been connected to the ports which are linked to all the CAT 6 wires that are hidden in the cement of the house. Really job well done by the BTO Home Networking team.

Our solar film contractor came down to demonstrate their films. Statistically wise, it has great results, and is looking forward to having all our windows covered with it. The reason why we wanted to get them is so that we can keep the heat out during the day. There were too many terrible days where we came home to a scorching oven because all the heat had been trapped in the house. The film would also keep out the harmful UV rays, keeping us safe, and also our furniture from discoloring.


Our horse painting is hung! This is really a remarkable workmanship of an expert and we hope we are able to chance upon him again next time. And the story on how we decided on this painting would always be etched in our minds. There were two beautiful horse paintings that we could not make a decision on which one we should get, so we flipped a coin and this was the result. Actually in the end, we requested for a combination, where we got the horse from one painting and grass from another painting to form this art for us.

Our projector is finally installed! The cause of the problem is that the contractor that installed it had used some cheap butterfly plugs which was broken during the installation, resulting in it behind unstable. Our ID decided to take it himself and used his better quality butterfly plugs. Now everything is good, and we could just flopped onto our sofa and enjoy a good movie night.

On this, just a shoutout here is that we really love how our ID is all about using only the best quality items be it wood, quartz or even the screws. He always ask us to throw away the screws that came with the item because they are likely to be bad quality one, and he just used his to install them. And this is why despite his higher quotation as compared to his competitors, we chose him because of the quality he deliver.

Open the curtains, Close the holes

Forgot to take the before shot before applying the silicon. During the renovation, there were many skirting that were removed due to wall hackings or installation of carpentries. Afterwards, they are placed back but due to the unevenness of the walls or floor, there may be gaps here and there. Did you know: the floors and walls are not as straight as you think. I have always thought they should be. Anyway, decided to take matters into my own hands by getting the silicon and applying myself. This was the last one I did, which was also the most perfect one after all the practices. Look good right?

Used this instead of the silicon gun because there weren't many gaps, but I still have to close them up because I couldn't stand the dusts that are accumulating inside them. However after applying, my ID told me that this is the cheaper one because it does not have some anti-algae capabilities. Ain't they all the same? Let's hope everything remains good. Else we can always pluck them out and change a new set.

We did our thorough clean up today, and hanged up all the curtains too. The track they provided were quite stiff for us to pull the curtains, but let's hope it loosen up after some uses. As of writing, it seemed to be better, but it could just be my mind.

The living room curtains are up too. There is no problem with this track because it is using the Dooya automated track! Have been enjoying opening the curtain automatically when we stepped into our house, and closing them automatically before leaving. Very satisfied with this investment. Can't wait for it to automatically close when our projector are switched on for our movie nights!

Fixing up some of our fixtures

Wifey working really hard getting our canvas art onto the wall. We gotten this online at a cheap deal. This would be our temporary living room picture until our wedding shoots are developed.

We gotten some greens to decorate our shoe cabinet. Looking realistic and good although initially it kept dropping grass all over and we have to constantly sweep them up. Now we could not bear to put our shoes on it for fear of dirtying it.

Table from Taobao. Looks good although the table was shaky after putting on its legs. Luckily it could be easily solved by getting some rubber beneath the feet.

Our dining Eames chairs which goes well with the table. It was fun fixing the chairs up, and I guess this is the latest trend nowadays, where you do see a lot of similar chairs in cafes and restaurants too.

Our study Eames chairs. Decided to get some popping colors for this instead to decorate up our study room. Easily differentiated by our favorite colors. Now which belongs to who?

Adding the fine details now

At this point of time, the main bulk of our renovation had reached the end. The things remaining now are the touch-ups, minor corrections and a few missing elements. The clean-up of the house had also been completed, and although not exactly dust-free clean, but it's in a bearable condition. A few other stuffs happened today too.

Our ID came up to help us drill holes to install some towel racks and the IKEA mirror cabinet. It was hard work because the drill was the portable kind and not very powerful, but appreciate his kind gestures to help us get them up. The mirror is looking great, although Wifey commented that it was thicker than imagined, and expressed concerns that people may hit their heads when using the tap. Perhaps we will put a "Caution your head" sign on the mirror if there were to be anyone who hit their head on it.

Our ViewQwest was connected today. Say hello to WIFI! This is the heart of our home automation system, as well as the core to our projector streaming videos and tv channels. Hence we invested in ViewQwest, as well as the monster ASUS RT-AC88U. We had always admire ViewQwest for it's say no to traffic-shaping/throttling unlike the other competitors, and its excellent customer services, again unlike the other competitors. Furthermore, when we saw that their price were not that far apart from the rest during the IT Show, we signed with them straight away. The above speed and download/upload rate were with my Dell XPS using Wifi 5GHz on ViewQwest 1Gbps plan. Pretty impressive I must say.

Our blinds are up. We got a light colored one for the study room so that it would still be bright enough for any works at the table, yet keeping the glare out.

We gotten the darker shade one for the bedroom 3 just in case there are any guests that wants to sleep during the day.

The curtain contractor helped us to put up the Dooya track too. Really thankful because we did not have the equipment to drill all the support onto the ceiling. We plugged in the Dooya motors too, and our motorized curtain track is complete. Cant wait to put up the curtains and play with it after we did a thorough cleaning.

We had also pulled the wires for the projector to the mount in anticipation of installing the projector. However, there were some problem with the support structure that is holding this mount, and it was shaky when we fitted the projector. Hopefully our ID can solve this.

It would be terrible if the projector were to fall off halfway, and even disastrous if the entire false ceiling were to crumble and collapse due to the strain of the projector. In defence for our ID, he had actually planned for a support block in the false ceiling for my projector, but during the installation of the mount, we realized it was too near to the wall and we decided to pull it back to have a larger screen size. However, the new place does not have any support block within, but was assessed to not be a problem because my projector is relatively light at 1.5kg only.

Despite that assurance, we still feel a bit uncomfortable because there are 5 holes in close proximity which are stress points and could give way anytime. Let's see what our ID can do when he comes and take a look.

Livolo instruction manual

The Livolo switches had been awesome so far, and we would still recommend it. It looked so classy and futuristic and in our opinion, much better than the stock switches. However, we had an experience and would like to share it so that you would not get the same panic as us.

We chanced upon this instruction after buying the Livolo switches. This was not found on the site which we bought, but since it was an instruction, we told our electrician about it. However, he did not turn off the power supply when installing it so we did not think too much on this. Anyway, so he screwed it in, and we attached the cover and there arise the problem. After we tap the button (to test it), it got jammed, as if someone is holding onto the button. We were like, oh no defect piece?! We tried to detach and attach again, and even tried our spare piece, and all had the same problem! We even tried to put some cupboard inside, thinking perhaps the sensor board was too close to the touchpad, causing the problem. But nope. problem persisted.

Luckily, it turns out, after attaching the cover, we just have to wait for about 2 minutes for it to 'settle down' and the switches can be toggled without any issues. It was such a relief when we finally discovered that, and were grateful that all our switches were in great condition and none were defective. I guess the 2 minutes in the instructions does mean something afterall.

An open concept within a close concept

Our walk in wardrobe is complete, with the addition of the final piece, the glass door. We had decided on having the doors because an open concept wardrobe would attract too much dusts, conflicting with our desire to have a low maintenance house. However, we still want to open the wardrobe fully in order for both of us to access all the clothes at the same time and so we came up with this idea. We requested for the track to be extended all the way to the 'entrance' so that we would be able to push both doors 'out' of the wardrobe, giving us full access to our clothes. One thing we hated about sliding door last time had always been the fact that only half the wardrobe could be opened at one time. Another alternative was the new-trend bi-fold doors, but that was out of our budget.

Now that the our wardrobe is complete, here are some things to note for future projects.

1. Size of the glass - the ideal maximum size of the glass door is dependent on how big your lift door can fit in. One can always get a larger glass door and request for it to be brought up through the stairs or via a pulley system, but the cost would increase tremendously. The service fees are usually charged per floor, ranging from about $50 to $100 each. Staying on the 20th floor would require $1-2k extras!

2. Support of the glass - Beyond a certain size, the door frame requires a support beam in the middle for the glass to be stably held on by the door frame. I believe the size would depend on the type of materials for the frame, the type of tracks, and the type of usage it is expected to go through, so it would differ between each one. This is nothing too disturbing, but just a friendly reminder to anticipate it because usually the 3D concept drawing will not include it so that it look seamlessly beautiful, yet deceiving.

3. Hanging compartment, shelves and drawers. This are the 3 types of compartments, and the only 3. One could always start by taking a look at the current wardrobe and see what's lacking, and do a rough plan to let your ID know. Afterall, only we ourselves would know what we need most. After our wardrobe is completed, we may have a bit too much drawers and too little hanging compartment ops!

4. Take note of your height and how high you can reach. Even if your ID tells you the height would be the default one, it would be wiser to get the measurement so that it would not be ambiguous. Ours was at 210cm in the beginning, a far reach for both of us. We had to request for it to be lowered to 180cm, which was similar to all our current house wardrobe which we thought was the standard template.

Originally the hubby's drawers were on the right side, but we soon found out it would be blocked by the door when we pushed it to the entrance, a mistake we overlooked. This is because the entrance is slightly smaller than the door itself. Luckily our ID agreed to help us rectify this issue by changing some of the parts of the wardrobe to bring it to the left side.

There were a couple more issues with the walk in wardrobe, and in summary, I feel all of them could have been avoided if we had the blueprint of the wardrobe to look through before the assembly of the carpentries. I could not stress more on the importance of the blueprint, and I hope that in the future, we could avoid the painful mistakes we gone through this time. Please remember to demand for the blueprint if it was not provided.

How colors make a world of a difference

Our LED light strips are up and running! Initially, we were skeptical about the whole cove light things, and had decided on not having it until our ID convinced us otherwise. Now with the lights installed, we had a great time playing with them. And it is true, the interchangeable lights does affect the whole mood of the house. Romantic, cool, bright, party, you want it, we make it happened. However we need to be considerate for our neighbors. The hubby have plans to change all the downlights to interchangeable lights and make them flash according to the music bass, but that would be too badass and neighbor-unfriendly. Perhaps when we have a private estate next time.

Movie nights are for sure at our house so we definitely should not blind each other whenever we need to grab or prepare something from the kitchen. So we got LED light strips all over to provide just sufficient light to get our snacks ready because we get back to our couch and unpause the movies.

Our sleeping crib is not spared too. Loved the atmosphere here, almost as if inviting us to quickly lay down on the soon-to-be-delivered bed for a good night sleep. This is it!