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.

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.

Grilles, Glass, Platform up

The grilles are up! Initially we did not want to have any grilles because we much preferred an unobstructed view out of the window. However we understand the danger that it potentially may cause, especially next time when they are kids in the house. Hence we came up with a creative way of putting the grilles up.

We had the frame for 3 grilles but we only had 2 grilles installed. This way, when there are no kids in the house, we could push the grilles all away and have back our lovely unobstructed view. We had customized a latch to hold the two grilles in position too so that it does not move around despite the lack of one grilles. However for our 4 window grilles, we just had the full set because we would ultimately have two blocked windows regardless we have 3 or 4 grilles. Happy with our end product!

Our MBR toilet glass work is up too. And yes, there is a door to the toilet if you look closely. It is a clear glass door but we will be getting the frosted laminates to paste over the door for privacy. It is just that my ID recommended such method as a frosted glass door would have higher maintenance issues, otherwise there will be much stains and discolored marks. This way, if the laminates are giving us the problems, we could just change the laminates at a cheaper cost than changing the entire door. And also revealing our rain shower. The pressure and functions and designs are all highly commendable. Cant wait to bathe there!

Our platform is up too. Love the choice of vinyl flooring but was quite disappointed with the grey trimming which did not match well with the vinyl flooring. Hopefully our ID can find something that is of a closer match, otherwise we would request for it to be black instead. The platform does not feel entirely solid either and there were some areas which we could hear a thud when walking over it. Are most platforms like this?