We are on Lookboxhttp://i1310.photobucket.com/albums/s653/clouds00007/Lookbox/2013-03-15125106_zpsa5a83f60.jpg

Ok, here are some outdated post all the way from Mar 2013.

Our house was featured on Lookbox Magazine. (No credits to our nightmare contractors/ID firm)

Should I start my own Design Studio?

Have being having this thoughts in my mind for a few years already.

Nearly thought that my dreams would be realised back then when someone told me to be a partner with him in a new venture. But unfortunately, it didn't really work out as what I thought.

It was just another businessman's ideal of churning out mass manufacturer lifeless product. So after 2 years, with another opportunity knocking on my doors, I bid goodbye to my partner.

However, the opportunity after 2 years with them, was another meaningless drone work of replicating what "they" want. Pretty much they just need a designer skills to help them draft, model and render what they like. And what they like is most of the time either rubbish OR someone else's product. IT like ripping off others people's design.

It's killing creativity at its max.

That is when "that" thought came to my mind again. Should I or should I not, take the risk and venture off into uncharted water and strike it out on my own.

Have always see the possibility of providing affordable designer furniture in our local market, some sort of an ikea but it will be more focus on design rather than flat packing matters.

But with much commitments on my shoulder, is what keeping me away from this idea every now and then.

What a dilemma have I put myself into.....

Anyway, with that, recently i realised that my place lacks a coffee table, hence i took some effort in working some concepts which might be my final piece for the living room.

FourPt Coffee Table in Solid Wood Top & Matt Black Frame

FourPt Coffee Table in Tempered Micro Etched Black Glass with Stainless Steel Frame

Personally, I felt that black frame works better for my place but I am so in love with the Micro Etched Black Glass look.

The Geek in Me

Finally got the "approval" from my "finance controller" to indulge on a few gadgets for the new place.



It's was a pretty heavy haul all the way from town back home.



Behold, Krups Espresso Machine, Krup Coffee Beans Grinder & lastly my Benq DLP Projector.



Though I know I should have opened it only at the new place, but i supposed I have to try them out first to make sure that there are no defects which I can claim within 7 days of purchase right?

Everyone kept asking me to go for the nespresso capsule machine. But to me, whole beans will always taste better.



Haha, and of course, trying of the projector is the most fulfilling.

Can't wait to get my home theatre system up and running.

A costly affair

Gosh, couldn't believe that the amount of money to be spent for home accessories is going to be half of what our renovation is gonna cost us.

Really going to be very careful not to burst our budget from this point onwards.

Anyway, on one of the weekends, Sam brought us to OSK Lightings to choose our Lightings and Toilet accessories.



At the shop, the sale people there kept insisting that we were to get the LED Lightings which is more costly than the conventional ones.

Yes, I do agree that it's greener and in the long run, we should save from our electrical bills. Was almost tempted to buy it, till I realized that the LED systems they are using, are pretty much customized.

Ok, when referred to customized, I mean it just some LED solder to a PCB board with some circuitry.

That is a big no no for me, as I have no intention to limit myself on where I have to get my replacement bulbs when they are spoilt.

And I could feel the pressure from their hard selling and luckily, I am not as gullible as they thought.

As I am aware that even with a normal halogen bulb holder, i can always grab one of those Philips led from the hardware shop.

So in the end, here are our selection for the spotlight. We bought 5 nos of the square ones for the house.




As for the downlighting , we also skip the Led hard sell, and insisting on normal PLC ones.

And one thing to take note off. The shop self proclaim that they had modified the light holder to accept those screw in bulbs so that the ballast is not required.

When i questioned them what is the cost difference light of i were to stick to the norm, with the ballast, they told me it the same cost.

I was like,"huh?". How can the ballast makes no difference in the cost of the entire set?

So I decided not to be bullshit by them and asked for the normal PLC downlighting which requires the ballast.



This is the light for our balcony area, specially chosen by my wife. We opt for the wall mount kit.



The top floor of OSK lighting is their bathroom accessories wing.

The sales up stairs are so much better.

As our renovation quote includes full house hot and cold plumbing service, we thought it would be good to have taps which could utilised it.

However, half way choosing the taps required for the house, we realized that it's pretty expensive to opt for 2 way taps for the entire house.

And considering that Singapore been a topical county, which is hot all year round, we just couldn't justify the need for hot water on our normal tap requirements.

Hence we cancelled our first selection and re-select it accordingly.

In the end only our master bath room and common shower will comes with 2 ways tap.

So here at rout selection. Nothing too fanciful.







For the heater we are still not sure if we had made a wrong choice to get the 25 liter as we will be getting a tub as well.




We also got our kitchen stove, hob and oven from that place.

Initially we chose the oven on the top. But might be changing to the ones below as it looks better.

Will decide when i get the specs from the shop.


Our stove package comes with the hob.







That trip had made a slight dent in our budget, especially when considering that we have yet to choose our tub.

And I had forgotten to take pictures of the rain shower back then. Silly me.

1950 American Diners Payphone

Finally it's here.

A few weeks ago, while at Centrepoint, Robinson looking out for iRobot Roomba, we came across this 1950 American Diner Payphone selling for $300+

It was love at first sight but it's a little too costly for us, considering that we seldom use the landline at home nowadays.

But considering that we have this feature column post at our new apartment, we thought it would enhance the living area.

So, as a veteran googler, i jumped into the world wide web, and dig on that.

Armed with only the brand of the phone, "Wild & Wolf", I founded 3 sources.

2 from overseas site while another from Kris Store.

However Kris Store only allows purchase for people departing Singapore (crazy rule here) while one of the overseas site doesn't ship to Singapore.

Thank goodness, the last source does shipped internationally. And not juz that, they are way cheaper then buying it at Robinson or Kris Store. The difference is like almost $100+ more.

Side track a bit, retailer ought to wake up their idea about these crazy mark up of the prices. Especially when Internet is the way to go, if you know where to look.

Anyway, not only our last source are selling much more cheaper, but we got it like 3 days after paying and their customer service beats Singapore's hands down (just had one miserable encounter during the weekends when a service provider threaten to seek legal action against me, after I commented about their less then average services)

Anyway, behold the most expensive deco which I might have at the new place.

1st Appointment to Sell

Finally after a long wait, today we are at HDB Hub for our first appointment to sell our current place.

It's pretty fast. Got everything done within 30 mins.

So now for a little breakfast before heading back to office.

1st site visit with ID Firm

Today was the 1st site visit with our ID firm to access any issues with the house prior to renovation.

Also bought my parents along for this.

Basically there wasn't pretty much issues there, except for the HUGE pipes in the bathroom.

Well, as we intend to have a bathtub or some sort, in an orientation which we had fixed, these huge plumbing pipes seemed to be in the way no matter how we look at it.

This is specially highlighted to us by Sam, our ID firm representative from 3D Innovations.

So next weekends, we are scheduled for some tiles shopping with Sam, plus maybe shopping for a tub suitable for our bathroom.

Oh, took this picture showing the Views from our MBR.

Nothing pretty but at least we have some distance from the opposite block.

Up up we go

Yup it's getting stack higher and higher.

Still, we are still talking about the tip of the ice berg here.

Too much clothes

Ok, I know that this is some sort of a "first world" problem but yes, we have too much clothes.

Considering that we wouldn't be having any full height wardrobe at the new place, this might be an issue.

So I suggested to my wife about vacuum packing those winter clothing plus those which are too dear to be thrown away, to reduce the space required to store them.

Oh not to mention the blankets and bed sheets as well.

Anyway it seemed to be doing quite well and it might just work.

Too many things

Ok, I am gonna confessed that I am not doing a lot to help in packing for the new place.

My wife had been doing most of the hauling here.

Anyway, realize that we really have plenty of stuff here.

Despite wife clearing and throwing a lot of them out, we still have plenty, accumulated over the past 10 years living here.

Now I just hope that my design would accommodate all that is left and essential.

P.S. we still have open the pandora box (the storeroom)

Expensive Decorations

In the era of mobile phones, I can say that the landline phones are losing its popularity around the developed world.

That is why our decision on this purchase, is a excessive one, making this one of the our new house most expensive decorative item.

The classic Wild & Wolf 1950 Diners Payphone



And guess what? It's reaching us by end of this week. Awesome.

Time to slowly start packing

Ya, many might say packing 2 months in advance is an overkill.

But we really had tons of stuff.

So after scouring through Renotalk, we finally found out mover.

Elite Mover was chosen due to the good reviews in Renotalk by home owners who had previously used them.

Though they might not be the cheapest, but as long as they are not the most expensive in town and they can provide a good service, why not?

Afterall, with so much things on our list now, getting into too much hassle with service issues, are the last thing we hope to get.

Oh, we were given a total of 70 boxes based on Elite Movers' estimation.

And we really need start early, considering we have to stop whenever Ashley said so.

Drawing Principles

"Some people starts drawing by simple geometrical shapes like Circle, Square, etc before adding in the details to form the shape. But there will also be a handful who prefer to jump in direct, skipping the basic ground work. No right and wrong though"

- Just Saying 

Dinning & Chairs for the Studies

Our intention to use Laminate for the whole house, including kitchen, had brought us to a big decision.

1- To use normal laminate and risk water damage in the Kitchen

2- To pay a premium to use HERF and enjoy a lifetime worry free flooring though out the entire house.

Ok, we pick "Worries Free" hence we have asked our ID firm to quote us Evorich Allure HERF.

But his quote didn't came out too "beautiful", so to let him understand that we are not just a pair of "blind" consumer, buying without thinking, we told him that we will be going direct to Evorich for a quote.

And we were glad that we did, as the price is unbelievable. So we past the information to our ID and hope that if he is interested, he will have to do something magical about it.

Since Evorich is at Tai Seng, we thought why not drop by Lush Lush for a peek.

Wow.. this trip to peek had made me poorer this weekend.

We have bought 4 EM Plastic Chairs for the dinning area, 2 EM Plastic Chairs with Arm Rest for the Studies and 2 Panton Chair for the Living Room.

Ouch.

Boring Lightings to be avoided

Been through many blogs on their lightings and even did a little of googling around.

One word, "Boring".

More of less, what I am seeing a a combination of down lights and clove lights, making everyone's house almost identical.

So the search is on for interesting lighting ideas.

We can't be using too much hanging lights, as we have intention to put up ceiling fans at areas where people will gather. We need to avoid the "Hellish Flickering Light" cause by the ceiling fan syndrome.

Also, as I have the fear of height, the lights chosen eventually, shouldn't need me to meddle around too much just to change a bulb or tube.

But yesterday while on an outing, I saw this lighting while waiting for my wife outside the ladies, and I thought, wow.. this is interesting.

The Best Place for Inspiration, IKEA

Considering that our new house will be based on our design, the ID firm didn't managed to impress us with anything they had, we begin our research on the furniture, decor and accessories which will suit our style.

And talking about searching for inspirations, what better place to see it all but at IKEA.

As we had decided not to do the "traditional" 2 Tier Kitchen Counter which is like practically can be found in any HDB Flat, we really need to figure out how to fully make use of what we will be having and pack in as much storage space as possible.

Saw these modernize kitchen storage solution here at IKEA and decided to take a few snapshots of it, so that we can show it to our carpenter when the time comes.

 Oh, great, saw this and it makes a good reference photo to show our ID Firm exactly what I have drew in my layout for them.

Want to nicely arrange my washer and dryer in such a way that I can still make use of the countertop space on top.

 No upper tier kitchen counter storage means need to find ways to store stuff, traditional store "up" there.

Told my wife that I wanted at least 2 tiers of these rods across the entire span of the kitchen where I could hang these accessories required in the kitchen.

Oh, and saw there ergonomic dimension specification for kitchen at IKEA.

Thought that it would be useful to take a few photos for reference later too.

We have brought down many walls in our plan reducing from 4 bedrooms to just 2.5 bedrooms.

And wife said we need to have some contingency plans set aside for situation when our parents sleeps over at our place.

So no choice but to search for a decent sofa bed to squeeze into the already small study room.

Saw this but still not sure if this is a perfect choice as it seemed more bed than sofa to me.

Wife saw this and her reaction was "Oh, I don't care, I want this in the bathroom".

So I snapped this picture.

 We thought that these would make a good display for our balcony in our room.

So I snapped this picture as well.

 Ok, though our bathroom is huge, when compared to typical HDB flat bathroom, we wanted even more space.

So to do this, we decide for some small but yet unique basin for both the common and master bed room.

 For the first time, I wanted some spotlight in the house, especially to cast that sweet warm lighting at our featured bookshelf in the living area and the feature walls at our dinning area.

Saw these which I think think is quite interesting.

But the final decision will be comparing what the electrician can offer for those built in ones.

Saw these nice hanging pendant light which I suppose would make a good match in our kitchen, above the counter top for the much needed direct lighting during food preparation.

It also gives our kitchen a little bit more of the Cafe feel to it.

After our IKEA inspiration "hunt", we did popped over at Courts to check out for anything interesting.

Sadly such a big complex but nothing worth taking picture of in it.