November 3, 2009
Home Furnishing 2009
After all reno and painting works finished, it’s time to furnish our house hehe.. It’s been quite fun to browse the furnitures, mix and match it to decor our house hehe 
Our house main theme is simple, space, flowery, and one more thing is walnut haha.. 
you can see the wood colours that I chose usually a dark chocolate or walnut colour hehe.. :p
The furnitures and electric appliances we got mainly from the vendors below:
1. Best Denki – rated ****
2. Audio House – rated ****
3. Cellini furniture – rated ****
4. Nova furniture – rated ***
5. Bed and Bedding at Paya Lebar – rated ***
6. Wihardja – rated ****
7. IKEA – rated ***
Overall we quite satisfied with the services.. all vendors quite easy to deal with so far.. hmm maybe we are quite a nice non-fussy customer hehe.. :p
Here’s our home furnishing photo gallery:
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- Set of sofa + coffee table + tv cabinet
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- Nova Divider and TV set
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- Dining table set
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- Our furnished kitchen set
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- Our cooker hob
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- Bedroom set for parent room
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- Built-in feature wall and small cabinet
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- Master bedroom bed frame & wardrobe
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- Master toilet accessories
November 2, 2009
Home Renovation 2009 (II)
The following is the list of things included in the minor renovations we done for our house..
1. Hacking of the kitchen tiles, to lay the new tiling, and construct the fridge and waching machine base.
2. Hacking of the 2 bathrooms’ tiles, lay the new tiling, including the installation of the toilet accesories.
3. Supply/install shower kerb and shower screen c/w swing door in master toilet.
4. Furnish or refurbish old kitchen cabinet.
5. Installation of 3 bedrooms’ doors and 2 toilets’ doors.
6. Supply construct cornices in 3 bedrooms’ ceiling.
7. Build laminated feature wall in master room c/w low cabinet below window.
8. Chemical cleaning of whole house.
Before reno works started:
This pic description from top left to right, the selection of tiles for toilet and kitchen while below left to right show the script planning for feature wall and low cabinet below window at master room.
part of the planning process
The grey tiles we chose for our bathroom toilets and the white tiles are for our kitchen.
The feature wall was planned according to our ideas and being visualized with drawing consept by Henry.
During reno works was in progress:
covered living hall and hacking of kitchen tiles and bathroom tiles
The second pic description from top-bottom left, other rooms were covered to avoid any destruction, and top-bottom center shown the new tiles sample in the kitchen floor after hacking the old tiles and the unfurnished kitchen cabinet.
After reno works finished
After all reno works had done, then the painting process of the whole house was started. The paint colours for each room is different, we had been helped by our designer from the ID firm which we only took their painting services to mix & match the colours.
Here’s some pics of the whole house after the painting works finished:
Our maindoor and gate. The left one is the meter reading room.
Living and Dining room
Our balcony glass door. Last time we planned it to be removed but luckily we didn't
Kitchen Store Room, the paint colour is the same as the main door gate
Our refurbished kitchen cabinet, does it look new? hehe
This is the painting in common room 1
This is the painting in common room 2
The 2-tone colours of wall painting for our room
We got our TV feature-wall mounted in our room
Our master bathroom door with the toilet accessories installed
We got our toilet accesories from Genova, and we also got the tempered glass cooker hob - Fujioh 3 burner – from there too..
My next pending post is the home furnishing series.. Had been pending it for so long coz quite busy with my Jakarta wedding preparation and some office works.. Hoping to finish the home series soon as I couldn’t wait to start my wedding preparation stories
October 26, 2009
Home Renovations 2009 (I)
As promised, in this post I will share about my home renovation which conducted around February this year.. After we confirmed our house on August last year, got our housing loan approved then began to process the handover of the flat. Our agent settled all the mandatory things, from paperworks, dealing with HDB officer and intro us to a lawyer..
The processing of the flat handover with HDB took around 3 months time. I forgot exactly when was the first appointment, think around early or mid September last year. While the handover of keys, should be around late December but our ex-owner had requested to extend the stay till another 1 month as they prepared to moving out.
We started to look around for our home reno vendor early October last year, during one of the home exhibition at Singapore Expo.. Actually just wanted to see and look around first, but end-up we signed with one of the interior design firm and put our first deposit which later can be used for whole house painting services.. maybe we’re both too naive, we quite amazed with their design idea and the 3D images they showed us hehe.. when I came home, I begin to do research about the company.. we heard about the renovation forum, “renotalk”.. and to my surprise, so many bad words about this firm.. o.O
I still continue doing more researches in renotalk about which vendor is recommended.. then from that I got ask few quotations too from another contractors.. Thanks to the forumers, quite a lot info I can get from there regarding the first time renovation.. We decided to do minor renovation only, as this is only our first home..
After so much arguing with my hubby, whether wanna give them a chance or don’t wanna use them to continue the renovation, we decided to keep our peace of mind.. we dropped the firm and only use their painting service.. for the renovation work, we decided to use one of the recommended contractor in the forum.. the decision had been made after we’ve been comparing the quotations and met him in person and we think that was quite a reasonable price he gave us.. as usual, my hubby was the one who did the negotiation hihihi 
We made the right decision, the renovation works was done smoothly.. the contractor was good in followed-up the progress with us.. After the reno finished, then we continued with the whole house painting service that we got from the interior design firm.. luckily the interior designer that we rejected, still helped us to choose the wall combination colours for our house and gave some suggestions too.. hehe
Some of our own conclusion about the firm, we think that the person in office and the actual person who do the reno works were not in synch.. the designer may have a wonderful idea and talent.. but lack of control and management with the workers.. too bad.. compared with the contractor, himself who manage the workers and know the actual works on the field.. the painting was done a bit messy.. but we couldn’t say much, the designer also acted like he couldn’t do anything.. so we just accepted it.. a bit sympathy to the designer though.. I felt relieved didn’t take their renovation service intead trusted the reno works to our contractor
oh btw, our contractor is Henry Goh from Impress 21
Here’s some pics of the rooms before renovation started, when we went to view the house with Henry to get the first quotation..
main door, living & dining room, master room
master toilet, 2 common rooms, and kitchen
To be continued in my next post >> Home Renovation 2009 (II).
October 20, 2009
Our Home Sweet Home
This time I’m going to share my experience about finding and building our “nest” in Singapore.. 
We bought our sweet HDB home last year around August 2008.. After gone thru house viewing for a number of times already, I think since mid of last year and been dealing with 2 different housing agents.. Finally we set our heart to this home..
We purposely chose to find a house in the middle area between my hubby’s working place and mine, for the first time we decided to focus on Serangoon area, considering that there will be an interchange MRT station built there.. After few times viewing with the first agent, we almost dealt and set our heart to one of the HDB flat there.. The place is not bad, only walking distance to MRT, got eating places, and the neighbourhood seems not bad.. We’ve put our first deposit with the agent.. but for some reasons, the owner couldn’t sign and make a deal on that day.. so we need to wait for the next day as the owner’s wife not around to sign..
I didn’t know why, my feeling was so-so only, but it seemed that there was something that was not right. Looked like I was not satisfied enough hehe.. somemore it was an old HDB building, around 20+ yrs.. So I discussed with my hubby about my feeling, then after few times thinking I felt like the house a bit dark.. maybe coz the place was in corridor area so the owner only opened half of the window the other half was shielded.. so hurriedly we decided to cancel the deal.. a bit paiseh with the agent, but somehow it should be a nice place for us to live mah, how to live there if we didnt feel comfortable at the first place..
Thankfully the agent still managed to help us to cancel the deal with the owner.. fiuhh.. hehe so I guessed it’s not our destiny with that place hehe
After that one, we looked around more areas as Serangoon area not really much new HDB flats.. By then we tried to look around Hougang area with the same agent.. but still couldnt find the suitable one till the agent didn’t feel to follow up more I think hehe.. there was one nice HDB flat but we couldnt manage to get the deal as there was another buyer dealt earlier..
There’s a friend who intro us to another housing agent, from this agent we quite like with the houses that he brought us.. There was a couple of nice houses, some it was too exp for us and some I didn’t really like the location as it was just in front of the main street.. so I thought that might be a bit noisy and can get dirty easily.. hmm looks like I was a bit choosy hehe..
Luckily this agent is patient enough to deal with us hehe.. after going through 2-3 houses, finally we found our dream house hehe
The place is without afternoon sun coz it’s facing north east and it’s located a bit inside from the main road, just beside the small shopping mall.. so just nice I think hehe.. even a bit far from MRT, but there is a nearby bus stop hehe..
When we first came in to view the house, we were greeted with the nice Malay owner.. I like the open space and it’s quite windy in the living room, as the main centre of the house.. the owner was not fussy at all, same like us hehe.. they said we were the first buyer to view the house.. they were going to sell the house coz their family is growing so they’re going to move in to a bigger place.. which is a 2-storey mansionatte… wow.. >,<
I think I have fallen my heart with this place.. so told my hubby and he negotiated with our agent to deal with the owner’s agent.. then finally we got our own place to live hehe..
I will continue my story regarding the minor renovation we’ve done for the house in my next post..
PS: here’s some sneak preview of my living room, taken with my new camera Canon IXUS 200IS hihihi
Did u see my hubby there?
