the first time we stepped into our place and the view that has greeted us and even 3 years on, this is still the view that greets us everyday. unfortunately, this may not be so in another 10 or more years to come as keppel club did not get its' land lease renewed, big sighs.
thinking back, we were a lil stuck with the timeline for the renovation as we collected our keys at the end of the year. though we were not rushing to move in for cny celebrations, we were hoping to settle into our place before our wedding in may, hence, mar seemed to be a good deadline for the contractor. we did not have to, or rather did not bother to, source for contractors as Kenrich Design was highly recommended by the hub's friends and this was one major tick off the checklist! we could just go straight to them and start working our home's designs and layouts.
working with the 2 women (bee bee & ellen) at kenrich had been easy, in terms of communications and timeline, no major hiccups and nothing that a conversation cannot resolved. we told them what we want and ellen HAND-draw out the designs and measurements, both the hub and i were immensely impressed by her drawings. who needs fanciful 3d drawings when she is so good at what she does and most importantly, everything came out as per what she has shown us!
we had some big plans in the initial design stage of our home and almost all were rebutted by bee bee or ellen, citing the pros and cons of the ideas we wanted for our place. being suckers for practicality, we went with their advice and left our walls all intact, no hacking and our so-called great ideas went down the drains. sometimes, we still do wonder what if we hacked the walls down instead, how would our home have looked like?
though kenrich is classified as a contractor more than an id, we had no qualms worrying about any coordination of the electrician, lightings, wet works, installation and such. other than our air-con & installation which i got from an uncle, the rest of the renovation coordination was settled by kenrich!
the before and all the wirings.
the kitchen was a space that gave us the most headache as we were unsure of how the mechanisms should work, which mechanism works best for us and our lifestyle, whether the drawers are supposed to be doors or pull-outs and what not. though we had a bigger kitchen space compared to our neighbours, the construction of it was such that the fridge has to be in a compromising position and we still have to note the standard fengshui stuffs eg fire (stove) and water (sink) should have a distance between them. fortunately, ellen and beebee solved all the measurements for us, gave us enough tabletop work-space and the first drawing was approved instantly. that being said, choosing the laminates for the kitchen was an even bigger headache!
one day, i chanced upon this picture in one of the catalogs that ellen passed us, so i said to the hub: why dont we just follow this picture since our table top is black granite?
and this is what we got! haha.
our bedroom, the space that we will be spending at least 1/3 of our everyday in. we had a hard time finding our bed-frame as we will prefer something of solid wood, with below the bed storage and no lobangs at the bottom to trap dust. after visiting a few places, we decided that the one at ikea suits our needs most and the hub painstakingly fixed up the whole bed frame by himself, good job! the arrangement of our bedroom was suggested by beebee and ellen as well, so to maximise the walking space that we wanted. of course, the sacrifices were huge. my wardrobe size shrank terribly, there were no space for my bags. bye walk-in wardrobe!
ps: the balmain hotel series bedsheets are one of the most comfortable sheets i have ever bought, strongly recommended!
next, the study room! we gave quite a bit of thoughts into this room as the study room will be our work-space as well. instead of sticking to the same theme as the rest of the house, i suggested red for the cupboards since our work-space should be energetic and vibrant, this room emits a different energy when you walk in. even so, we added in a sofa bed for us to r&r during our work hours or to double up as a guest room.
our middle room which the hub refused to let me use as a walk-in wardrobe was intended for an entertainment room; eventually we didn't get down to doing it and left it empty and finally downgraded it to a temporary storeroom for a long while. we got down to packing the room last year and reignite our big plans to transform it and while we were still 'planning' on what to do, baby tan says hey, this is gonna be my room!
the yet-to-be-transformed room, though the hub has already put up baby tan's little wardrobe and storage. looks like we have to get some work done soon!
our living room - the first thing that was up is the platform that i wanted ever since young, haha. though ellen was telling me that platform was already not in vogue and stuffs, this was the only thing i insisted that i have to have!
our tv console and display design that we had asked them to fabricate.
the build-up of the living room and my love-at-first-sight sofa from scanteak!
the latest addition of one more legless chair and wooden table from muji.
it has been almost 3 years since we moved in and our renovations are still good to us. some of our neighbours have started or already had problems with their laminates peeling off or electronics starting to spoil. ours are, fortunately and luckily, still going strong, except for the kdk fan in the master room which we might have over-used.
my bottomline is, finding a good contractor is really important to ensure that quality of their work and products they used are guaranteed and renovation conflicts minimized. till the next entry!
