Colour Palette

Selecting your colour palette is crucial as it is going to set the tone and overall mood of your home. 

• Planning to decorate your home with dark wood furnishings? Try to keep the colour of the walls and ceilings light and bright.

• White wall is also the perfect canvas for bright furniture.
• Very light flooring goes well with bright colours and darker details.  

•  Ivory, taupes and creams are not boring colours. The key is to mix & match with textures & patterns that attract attention without overpowering your furniture and accessories. 

          Below are some beautiful colour palettes to inspire you! 

Spring inspired colours : mint, pink, yellow, lilac and green

 

Back to basic: Warm white 

 Navy, turquoise and cream colour scheme

  

 

 English Rose: Blushing pink, taupe, green and cream

 

  Morning dew: Brown, green, dusky pink and cream

  Sensual: Lavender, brown and cream 

Did you know in Feng shui dark purple invoke feelings of dignity and wealth? 

   Royalty purple are very regal and are a wonderful enhancement to the abundance and 

prosperity are of the Feng shui bagua. 

 

If you think that purple can be tricky and tacky...think again!

For our home, we have selected this palette as our colour scheme :)

3D Drawing ~ 1st draft

This is the 1st draft of the 3D drawings received from Plush...I must admit that their 3D drawings are gorgeous! They manage to conceptualize my vision and design ideas very well...even though we had to go through many rounds of meetings before they truly get what I want and produce the drawings.

Entrance, kitchen & dining room.
Dish rack above kitchen sink is missing, so they will have to add this.
I have also requested for a 3D view of the fridge area.

Master bedroom.
I requested them to change the wardrobe to a darker brown as I have an existing bed with a black head board.

Master bathroom.
Requested ID to change the bathtub tiles to match wall tiles instead of the floor tiles.

Study cum Guest room.
Bookcase and work desk to be changed to dark brown for a more manly feel.
Desk to be shifted to opposite side and sofa bed next to bookcase.

Common bathroom.
Glass shelve to be added just below the mirror (above the sink area).

My Design Inspiration Mood Board

I love spending all my evenings and weekends browsing though pictures, books, magazines for my home inspiration. I embarassingly admit that I even have my laminate catalogue by Jenning's (loaned to me by my ID) next to me on my bedside table so it's easily within reach. I will share with you readers my favourite website, books, blog, you tube videos and much more!

I absolutely love reading a book, have my breakfast, watch the sunset and the list goes on...in my balcony. As you know, I will convert my tiny planter into a balcony....so I am looking for ideas to make my small balcony cozy and inviting.

What do you think? These balconies are tiny yet they are so beautiful!

I absolutely want this concept for my kitchen! I love it!

I saw this desk table from Ikea and fell in love it. I really like the idea of working on your
laptop and looking out of your window :)

Someone had the same Ikea table sprayed in gold! Very nice!

Houzz
One of my favourite website is Houzz (you can also download Houzz application on your i-pad). They have an extensive catalogue on everything you could possible think of relating to home design. If you need design ideas, let's say....a small laundry room, just type "small laundry room" in the search tab and voila...you will have endless design inspirations!

Home Decor by Page One

I absolutely love the Home Decor series by Page One...I purchased volume 32, 34 and 35. These books provide many information on different design concepts.You can also choose to browse these books at Kinokuniya Ngee Ann City..there is a whole section on Interior Design ;)





Blogs
I have a couple of favourite blogs which inspire my renovation :-
~ Check out Lieblingsg's blog on myhometown.sg forum. His blogs are so inspiring.
~ http://emrenoblog.wordpress.com/about/ (transformation of HDB executive maisonette).

Videos
Robeson Design - I am obsessed with Robeson Design videos...watching interior designer Rebecca Robeson transform all those apartments and houses makes you want to renovate your home right now! She has over 200 videos and below are a few of her more recent videos which i really like.

Elle Fowler (Vlogger) - I am in love with Elle Fowler's whimsical design inspiration. I would love to have her apartment if I was a single girl, living on my own. Check out those gorgeous sparkly columns!

I am also fascinated by how designers transform tiny apartment into functional living space without compromising design and style. This lego style apartment gets my vote!

Small black & white fashion inspired home makeover:

Selecting our tiles at Lian Seng Hin

We met our ID at Lian Seng Hin in Balestier Road to select our tiles. We were served promptly by a friendly sales person who was very accommodating despite the store being quite crowded. Our ID seem to know everyone there so everything was handled smoothly and quickly too! We did not spend too long there as we already have some ideas of what kind of tiles we want.

Below are the tiles we have chosen:

Common & master bathroom wall tile

Common & master bathroom floor tile

Kitchen floor tile

We had a small issue at LSH as we were informed that we are unable to select the bathroom wall tile we wanted as it cost $3.40. In our contract it states that we can select any tile costing up to maximum of $2.80. Of course I was terribly upset as prior to signing the contract I did inform our ID on the type of tile I wanted for my bathroom wall and I even emailed him a picture of the wall tile. I would not have known that the tile I wanted cost more and it is unfair for me to select another tile as this is the only design i wanted since the beginning. Eventually our ID relented, much to our delight! We were happy with their flexibility.  

Advice to readers out there, best if you could negotiate with your ID to allow you to select tiles up to $3.40 so you will not face issue of having to top-up the cost of your tiles should you take a fancy to the higher range one. You will have much more choices :)

By the way we also selected our kitchen counter top and bathroom vanity top. We settled for solid surface as the price is less expensive than granite and quartz but yet it is low maintenance and looks just as good.

We selected Blizzard.

So far we have no problem maintaining our solid surface counter top...still looks as good as new! One regret though is I wished I had selected the solid surface with a bit of shiny specks (just for the glam look..lol).

Hacking starts

 The hacking work started as scheduled and the whole process went very smoothly. We were not there when they did all the hacking....we left it in the good hands of our ID. We checked in on the apartment after all the debris were cleared and this is how it looks like:

Kitchen walls hacked! We are keeping the yard door.

There used to be a kitchen sink in this corner. We are going to put the fridge here instead.

 These area near the ceiling were boxed up. We removed it as we prefer high ceiling.

Living room, Window grilles removed.

We removed the built in display cabinet on the wall.

Hacked the wall of the 2nd bedroom. We will convert this room
into a study cum guest room and install a double glass door.

There used to be a vanity area next to the master bathroom door. We hacked the wall to install a clear glass window as this is where the bathtub will be. The idea is to be able to look out though the glass window while you soak in the tub.
It also make the small bathroom less claustrophobic. 

ID vs Contractor

All along we knew we wanted to engage an ID for the following reasons:-

• Both myself and hubby are working full time and we simply do not have the time to oversee a renovation project. We prefer to engage an ID to coordinate and be the main contact point for our renovation.

• We also prefer what I would say a ‘one-stop service center’ whereby we could select our all materials, painting, bathroom and kitchen accessories from one source.

• Last but most importantly for me….is the 3D drawing! I absolutely have to see how my apartment will turn out in 3D drawing before proceeding with the actual renovation. I know for some others this may not be important but as this is my first home renovation, I would like to have the re-assurance that everything will be exactly like what I wanted and that the designer completely understood my vision.

I can’t help being a perfectionist….hubby commented since the planning of our wedding in 2011 that I have an obsessive, compulsive disorder…lol!! I was a bridezilla (as he said)…obsessing over every little details…doing all the planning and sourcing myself as I do not trust anyone doing a better job than me ;) Of course in the end I was extremely overwhelmed...fussing about stuff right up to the moment of my actual day wedding banquet. Lesson learnt...I should have engaged a wedding planner....does it makes sense now why I chose an ID?

ID also comes with a higher price tag as you know they will obviously take a cut out of everything. If you select doors for your rooms through your ID the price will be more expensive than you buying direct from the source...for example though Yontat doors (apparently this supplier is widely talked about on forums). But the pro is that all coordination will be done by your ID....if they deliver the wrong door (in our case we got the wrong door a couple of times!) your ID will handle to make sure they change it. If you order direct then you will have to liaise with them to get it changed. I read of a case on forum whereby the door maker keep sending doors which doesn't fit and they had to keep changing up to 3 times!! As the owner ordered direct...he had to be there each time they changed it! It depends on your luck...

I am not trying to promote ID services but it's merely personal preference...as it is after all my first renovation project. For my next home I will most definitely consider to engage a contractor as I am more aware now on the process of renovation and later on in my blog I will elaborate further on the difficulties I encountered with my ID and some important tips for future home owners.

Condominium apartment pictures- Before renovation

It has been a long time since I started this blog with the initial intention of documenting the whole renovation process. With all the distractions of the renovation, I did not manage to complete the blog.

For information, we selected Plush Living as our ID.

Below are the pictures of the 2 bedroom apartment we purchased before renovation.

Living room / Dining room / Kitchen

Living room

Dining room

Kitchen 

Kitchen - Sink area next to yard

Guest bedroom cum study room

Common bathroom

Master bedroom / Bathroom

I will briefly run through the process of how I make decisions before making an offer to purchase.

• I have a few basic criteria which is to have a master bathroom with separate bathtub and shower, a balcony or terrace, an open concept kitchen and last but most importantly is walking distance to MRT.

• Each time i visit a unit I am interested in, I will make a rough sketch of the floor plan (as you know most units does not have an open kitchen and some have a very small master bathroom). When I get home I will try to find a picture of the floor plan via Google images if the agent could not provide. I will then work on the floor plan to figure out if walls can hacked to make an open concept kitchen and to expand a small bathroom to accommodate a separate bath and shower. 

• Basically I will already have a vision of what I am able to do with the apartment after the first visit.

• Above is our floor plan. In yellow are all the walls that we plan to hack. Of course we cannot touch the structural walls.

• When you enter the apartment there is a very small entrance way and the kitchen is just next to it, separated by a wall. I plan to hack this wall to make an open concept kitchen incorporating a small island. This will also make the entrance way more brighter and create a better impression as you walk though the door.

• We will also remove all window grills as we do not have any young children.

• From the picture of the living room, you can see a narrow planter just outside the window. We plan to level the planter up and convert this space into a small balcony.

• In the common bedroom we plan to hack the wall to install a wood framed double glass door. This room we will convert to a study cum guest bedroom and install a custom made full height bookshelf incorporating a small wardrobe.

We plan to revamp the whole unit keeping only the existing marble flooring in the living room and parquet flooring in the bedrooms to save cost.