Living Room Chairs

I like these chairs.

Finally got to unwrap the living room chairs from Comfort. They look pretty decent, hope they last :) They yellow in the photo is not accurate, must be the fluorescent lighting.

I ordered from Comfort's Beach Road shop, found the salesperson Fion, quite "with it." She even managed to reschedule my delivery date without a hitch.

Bedroom 3: Lighting

We were planning to install spotlights to illuminate the built-in wardrobes in Bedroom 3. The only hitch is that there is a huge beam (actually its more like the whole ceiling drops 30cm towards the end of the room). There is only a thin layer of false ceiling there, sufficient to disguise the wiring to the wiring point, but not enough to recess MR16 LEDs.


Because the ceiling + beam + false ceiling is so low about 2.1m, clearance from our heads is only about 30cm, so we had to find a ceiling spotlight fixture that had a low profile.


I liked the IKEA Beryl a lot, but it was 21cm minimum height (if you start tilting the lights, the height increases). The Philips Ledino in our Study was also about quite tall.

Tross Spotlight & Bulbs

In the end, we went with the IKEA Tross, which has a profile of only 10.5cm at its shortest. The bulbs are exposed as it's sort of a no-frills lamps, but I don't mind the bare industrial looks; in fact, I prefer it to some of the designs I've seen for spotlights which are too fussy.

Balcony Lighting

Got the dark grey version, not the white

Purchased 2 Philips "IP44 water resistant" lights for the balcony from LEDWorks (bulbs purchased separately from the usual cheap sources). I liked the designed and couldn't find a similar design in Chan Huat or Lightings.com.sg. Should provide enough "mood" lighting for dinners in the balcony when we feel like it.

Being the tinkerer, I of course opened up the light first to remove the large product information label which would be blocking some of the light if left there.

It was only then that I realised that the casing is opened by a screw on top and a screw at the bottom. Because one of the lights would be quite high up on the wall, it would not be possible to screw in the top screw. Oops. Oh well, my solution is to use the bottom screw, and instead of top screw, just use clear scotch tape to secure the top corners. Fortunately, the light casing is plastic with a metal grille, so it's pretty lightweight.

Bathroom 2

Bathroom 2 has a blue mosaic and white tiled walls. We got a bowl for the sink even though it's slightly impractical as this is a guest bathroom so we wanted to do something fun anyway. Shower head and holder is the same as Bathroom 1.

The photo also shows the e-saver timer switch that we installed for the water heater. Lighting scheme is 2 x PLC downlight + 2 x MR16 LED over sink

Bathroom 1

Black & White

We have a black and white theme for Bathroom 1. The above pic shows the black tiles, the shower, and you can just see the top of the bathtub.

We bought a shower holder that didn't fit (too tall, bathroom ceiling too low), shop was kind enough to allow for 1:1 exchange since not installed yet (fortunately our site supervisor actually checked first before instructing his men to install)

Another thing we had to hunt for was a bathtub that was suitable for showering. For this we had to thank our architect relative who helped us find a bathtub with a relatively 'square' sides, and also quite shallow (I think whole tub is only 450mm high versus regular 600mm high). I went to several shops and couldn't find something similar. We shower and don't take baths but our children are small and having an occasional bubble bath is a treat for them.

Invisible Grilles

We took the longest time to decide what to do for the dining room bannister. Eventually, we decided to go for invisible grilles because all the other options were either uglier and/or obstructed too much light. 

The pre-fab invisible grilles were installed on Friday and the see through effect is very nice. I am not sure whether they will survive a stress-test by rambunctious youth though. Also, sharp corner at the end, no running allowed in the dining. Anyway, we'll see how reliable/sturdy it is and report back.

Facing dining/kitchen

Further along the dining room

Laundry

The original laundry area was tiny. The previous occupants probably used the dryer extensively instead of hanging clothes to dry. This was the area that required the most hacking with two walls hacked away. First wall to be hacked was the wall adjoining the pantry in order to combine the two spaces for a large laundry area.

New windows

Second wall to be hacked was the utility room. We shrank the size of the utility room slightly in order to make a niche for a washer and dryer side by side (as shown in the photograph). This allowed the laundry area to have an unobstructed rectangular area. We also installed a window with louvers as the utility room will also be the maids room.