The Finale

Our renovation has officially ended a couple of months back, but we were still getting our stuffs ready, hanging up clocks and photos, setting up new gadgets and completing our home. With our housewarming party due the following week, we did a mini photoshoot of our house so that we could compare how much transformation the house has gone through. We have always seen others posting their before and after photos so we had made it a point to do it too, else it is too late once the walls starts coming down and the carpentry up. So for those that does visit this blog, here is the preview of our home....

The entrance, where we had sealed up the original door to the kitchen.

Our shoe cabinet which also concealed the unsightly bomb shelter door.

The view of our living room once we step into our home.

Here's the open concept kitchen as well as the entrance to it.

Presenting the deep-end sofa for us to lie down comfortably to enjoy our movies.

A custom made sword case as our tv console. And a plain wall behind it.

which transform to anything we want at a touch of a button.

Open-concept kitchen which we have not been cooking much.

and the other end of it with our service yard behind those doors.

The corridor splashed with maroon and the doors framed black.

Our recreational room where we work out and namaste.

keeping the room simple so that it could be anything we want next time.

Here's our study area where we get the work done.

Took down much of the walls to combine both rooms into one.

Bedroom cum study room cum walk in wardrobe.

Our platformed curb for our beauty sleep.

which opens up to store (and hide) our future belongings.

Our wardrobe which closed up the original door to the masterbed room.

and the other side of the wardrobe.

A little changes to the toilet, with the toilet bowl remaining constant.

and finally, how our vanity cabinet had enlarged to this.

This is home... truly...

Maximising our Kitchen

It had been a real tough previous week with couple of school assignments and military events earlier and we did not have the time to update this area. But now that they are submitted and over, we are back! Given that most BTO's kitchen are rather small, we would have to find ways to maximise our space within. One was having the portable kitchen cabinet which provides us more counter space, and the other way was to use the vertical space.

The black racks from IKEA caught our eyes and we purchased a few of them to have them installed on our kitchen walls. Many thanks to my cousin's husband for helping us get them up nicely. We initially ran into a small problem where the back of the tiles were hollow and there were no cement for the nail to be secured onto. It was also untraceable as we did try to knock on every tiles when we first gotten the house but this did not show any signs of defects. The only work around was to get a longer screw to drill to all the way to the back. Let's hope the tiles is strong enough and does not crack over time.

Hanging the boards, and having a basket for our condiments allow us to have more counter space to prepare the food. Plus the blackness of the rack blend in with our kitchen theme so it look really complete and pretty.

In the end, we also changed the rack that were previously at our sink. Funny how that did not even last a week. However, we will install that in another place, probably the service yard but we shall see.

Our complete kitchen look. Loving it!

Doing it ourselves as a learning opportunity

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Through this renovation, there were many opportunities where we decided to use our own hands to get things right instead of relying entirely on our ID. Changing of bathroom tap, fixing up our oven because it was crooked, and siliconing our skirting are just some examples of which we had done it ourselves. Of course if our ID had made them perfect in the first place, we would not have to get down to that, but we like to see it as learning opportunities for us. Beside, now is the best time to try it ourselves because if things get damaged, at least there is an ID who has contractors to fix them up. Could you imagine the cost and trouble of finding a tiler next time to come and fix ONE tile because the drilling cracked it?

And this is the hubby installing the rack to hang our stuffs. It may not seem like anything but we were quite worried that the tiles may crack from the drilling. Apparently it seems that the tiles were stronger than it seem. Hubby's dad came over to demonstrate how to drill the tiles and we fixed up the rack. There is still one more rack to be installed on the other side of the kitchen but have not bought it yet. Finger crossed for that because it will be done entirely by the hubby next time!

The finished product. Space is always a constrain in BTO because of the small area, so we must make use of all the spaces that are available, including vertical space. This way, it enables us to have more space for preparing the foods.

Bought a mini fan for our living room too. Now we are able to save money from not relying on our aircon, and also the hassle of bringing our Dyson fan around so that we have wind wherever we are.

So far it's working well. Even our tissue paper box is licking its tongue in delight!

Few more Minor Touch Ups

Ever since we officially moved into the house, we have brought many electronics into our home. Due to their high values, we insisted in replacing the number lock to our house with a legit padlock. This way, it is more secure than a number lock, which could be broken into in less than a minute, and it also restrict the contractors from entering without the supervision of my interior designer. However, such security resulted in a standstill in our renovation. It has been almost a month of no updates, and it is slowly draining our patience out. The only thing that is making us hold on is that we constantly find new things to get our contractors to touch up or install, so it all works well somehow.

Just a rough list of what there are to do....

Wild hairline cracks appeared at our entrance. It is not obvious but upon a closer inspection, it becomes hard to ignore. A repaint job would have to be done.

Previously had plastered the ceiling, but because it was so similar to the ceiling paint, we missed it out and only found out several days later. Touch up paint would be required.

Several grout lines has some holes on closer inspection. Although this was probably there since the beginning of time, our designer said it could be fixed up and he can take it up so we are looking forward to it

We had requested for this netting thing to be changed to an acrylic board so as to prevent cobwebs and dusts from collecting, and also it look nicer with the toilet ambiance lights. Still waiting for the acrylic boards to be delivered and put up.

Had installed LED lights at our bedhead, and the drivers are placed in the display cabinet at the side. Had requested for a cover to be made to hide the drivers, and is still waiting for it. There were also some problem with our lights, where it kept losing power after a while, and had requested for our electrician to take a look at it.

After trying our designer tap for a while, we really dislike it and intend to change it. The water power is too low, and the water stream is too close to the edge. Kind of an installation issue when they drilled the holes on the quartz top, but a change in the tap should fix the issue.

Where the walls meet the floors will often have gaps like this. It is unavoidable, but that is the reason why trimming are always used around the house. Here shows an area of the wall where the trimming was forgotten and the hole was visible. Now we need it to be covered up.

Another area where there the trimming is missing, but because this area is quite small, we would be covering it with the brown sealant to cover the gap.

And lastly, because we had chose for such a bold solid color, the painters need to apply many layers of coat to achieve the desired result. However, this also mean that the paint is prone to being chipped off whenever we accidentally knock something against it. Here is yet another hole that require to be painted over again due to our carelessness. Being extremely careful is the price to pay for having our walls painted with such bold colors.

Would there be more discoveries after another round of inspection?