Our home reno: Kitchen + toilet shopping and Reno details finalized

We got many things done today. That's why G and I are so exhausted now! We're just stoning on the bed at the moment.

We met our Id at 11am this morning to shop for kitchen + toilet accessories. We first went to El Bano at Geylang, which is pretty close to Heritage bathroom gallery. Honestly, it was a tiring experience for us. Because we had to look at new options (eg. single kitchen sink instead of double, non mixer kitchen tap, new brand of storage heater), compare against heritage's prices and haggle with the shop's assistant. We decided to go back to Heritage to double confirm the prices but eventually did not purchase from them since it would be more difficult for our ID to coordinate for us. Since the price differences weren't huge, we decided to go with his other business partner, Bactera. 

We chose our kitchen sink + tap + accessories and bathroom accessories like mirror, stand, toilet roll holder, towel bar, towel hooks and bidet sprays. Total damage was $1,300! 

The next part was finalizing our Reno details and final quotation with our ID. This process took 2 hours but I guess it was worth the time since we got many things sorted out. Quotation wise, our total came up to $36,000 including our electricals and study room. G decided to go for the study room eventually because  he just loved it too much! We decided to stay with the additions like shoe cabinet, TV feature + console and baby room cabinet. Our ID decided to give us some extras like master bedroom false ceiling + additional electricals + down lights complimentary. I guess that made us happier lol. 

So with everything finalized, we can start reno once we make payment for the next 45% of the full amount! They'll first start with the electricals, false ceiling then tiling works. Only when these are complete, carpentry and painting will begin. Can't wait to see our new home! 

Doctor's visit at 27 weeks!

Had our routine checkup with Dr Heng yesterday! Everything was fine except that doctor was telling me that I can't gain weight at the same rate for the next few months! At my last checkup, I weighed 56.4kg. Now I'm 58.8kg! Ahhhh. I can only gain 1kg per month from now onwards. 

We did our usual ultrasound and saw our baby girl! She seems to be growing well! Her weight gain has healthy and she's currently around 1kg. According to her head size, her due date is 27th dec! -.- earlier than what we expected. Still hoping to deliver her in January so she won't be lagging too far behind her peers. Let's just cross our fingers and hope. 

As I draw closer to the third trimester, I'm starting to feel more tired and exhaustion creeping back to me. I haven't been sleeping very well at night. Maybe it's the hormones, backaches and the constant need to pee (due to pressure on my bladder). I've been snoring lately too! Ah so unglam. I gotta learn how to deal with all these new symptoms! 

Here's a pic of me at 27 weeks! Baby bumps getting bigger! =D

Our home reno: Keys collected! =D

Yay! We collected our keys today! It's been an exciting day.

We settled all the administrative procedures at Hdb hub this morning. We had to buy our fire insurance, sign plenty of Hdb documents, pay our first time town council fees and start our SP services. G's parents and my mum came along to accompany us. Before we made our way to Punggol Emerald, we bought some oranges, muffins and joss sticks for our first time open door ceremony =D 

Our ID and air con guy were already there when we arrived. Before everyone stepped in, G and I did the honor of burning some joss sticks and rolling the pineapple into our home with a super loud 'huat ah!'. And then we were in! 

Felt kinda surreal to see our new home. It's small and cosy, like I expected it to be (thanks to all our neighbors who posted their pictures on facebook). It's good enough for G + I and of course our baby too! 

Living room was just nice for us and it was bright and to our pleasant surprise, quite windy when the windows were open. Kitchen was really quite small but that's fine since we don't really need to spend a lot of time there. And that means lesser cleaning too! 

Our study and baby rooms were quite a good size. And the toilets were quite big to me! =D they were also already fitted with sink, toilet bowls and showers so we don't need to purchase these accessories anymore. Last but not least, our master bedroom. This I must say, is really quite tiny. So I guess we're just gonna leave it for resting and sleeping only! We can only fit in our wardrobe, dresser, queen sized bed and side table I believe. Ah well! 

Our ID helped us to instruct his air con contact (Nation cool) to discuss where to run the pipes and install our air conditioners. We decided to get the Mitsubishi star max inverter system 3 (4 ticks energy saving) from them for $3,000. Having read online and Facebook reviews, this deal seemed pretty reasonable. The daikin inverter system 3 was $3,650 and had lower cooling capacity compared to the Mitsubishi so we decided to go for the latter. 

Mr P also helped us to check the defects of our home which was great because we were kinda lost and clueless. He brought masking tape and a pen to mark all those places that needed rectification. We didn't have major defects so that's good =) G just followed him around to note them down on the defects form. Whilst they did this, I was happily walking around taking photos hehe. 

Here are the pics from today! 

Our home reno: 2nd draft 3Ds done!

Today, our Id brought us to confirm our remaining lights at Skies Lightz (spent a total of $2,080) and our tiles at Hafary! Getting more and more stuff done for our home =D

And he showed us the 2nd draft 3Ds for our interior! He did all the necessary amendments after we shared our comments the previous round. The living room seems a lot whiter, brighter and more scandi. He showed us our study room design which we loved (especially G)! Seems very cosy. And he changed the cupboard colours for our baby room and master bedroom to be lighter than before. Overall, we're quite happy with the amended designs! =D

Here are some photos: 

Our home reno: Shopping for the Perfect Dining Set

I’ve been hunting for the perfect dining table for our scandi themed home. I’ve been relentless in my search I must say. The thing is, I have a rather specific design in my mind and that translates to expectations. Our table must be woodsy but it can’t be too dark a colour. So that rules out any table made of timber or any darker wood. The design must be simple, not complex. It has to be rectangle to fit the layout of our dining room. And due to space constraints, the table can’t be more than 160cm in length.

So far I’ve found options at:

-          Ikea

-          Comfort Furniture (found this shop online that customizes furniture)

-          Courts

-          Cellini

-          Star Living

I’ve also looked at other furniture places but couldn’t find anything:

-          Scanteak (wood too dark)

-          OM Furniture (same issue)

-          Vhive (furniture’s too awful)

Ikea

There’s this rather nice foldable table that Ikea sells. Its wood colour is fine by my standards. Initially, I was rather keen to get it since it fits our theme and is super cheap! It has a price tag of only $299. Can get a simple chair for about $55.

But after a while, I had doubts about its quality (ikea isn’t particularly known for this haha). And I was worried about the maintenance of the folding parts of the table.

So I decided to drop this option!

Comfort Furniture

 This shop has pretty nice designs. I was quite impressed with their ‘Butcher’ wooden table range and they actually allow buyers to customize the size of their tables according to their needs. How flexible. They had very nice modern, woodsy chairs for sale too.

After browsing their website, I immediately dropped an email enquiry on the prices of the dining table options and chairs. They responded very promptly! The table I liked cost around $1,000 for a 160cm length and the chairs cost around $150 each. You can tell it’s much pricier than the Ikea option but I guess they’re offering more quality furniture.

Courts (AMK)

I visited the place one day with my dad, mum and sis. We were checking out what refrigerator and washing machine to buy for my place (since they gonna sponsor hehe). Since I was there, I visited their furniture showroom upstairs. I was surprised to see that they carried one dining set which seemed to suit our theme! I was rather excited. The table had a maple woodsy top + white legs and it was pretty affordable at $499. The chairs were really ugly though so I didn’t even both to take a second look at them.

Cellini (Expo Fair)  

When G and I laid our eyes on this dining set, we wanted to get it soooooo much. It was simply tooo nice! But what held us back was its price tag. $1,888 for a 140cm table with 4 chairs. It’s crazy ex I know. I guess it was pricey because of its white quartz table top which is supposed to be anti-scratch, very resistant to stains and wear + tear. The dining table had wooden legs which would blend very well with our interior design.

We were so tempted to get this set that we even asked our ID to check it out.  But by the time he got back to us, it was kinda too late. The expo fair was over so the $200 discount they offered lapsed. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise!

Star Living (Singpost)

This place has pretty nice furniture I must say. I didn’t expect to find anything when I decided to browse around one day.

Then I realized the place has a dining table set that we might really get! The table I set my eyes on had an oak table top with white legs. It had a nicer and more natural colour compared to the courts table. Size wise, it has a length of 150cm which is fine. Pricewise, it cost $499 which is the same as courts. For chairs, there were so many options ranging from $59 for a simple white chair to $119 for the better white/red ones.

After looking at quite a few options, I feel that this is the best option for us. The design and price are just right =D

Can’t wait to bring hubba down to take a look. Feel like confirming our purchase so we can finally tick this item off our list! Hopefully, Star Living is able to hold on to our dining set until our house is ready!

Update:

G and I brought our ID to check out the Star living dining set today. And he gave a big thumbs up! According to him, on top of suiting our theme, the table was of good quality (not made of chipboard) for the price and the size was just nice (not too squeezy even for 2 big men to sit side by side). He told us the price was good because based on his experience, such tables usually cost around $599 onwards at other furniture shops.

I asked him if we could buy 2 white chairs and 2 red chairs to match and he advised against it. It looks simpler and cleaner by having all 4 same coloured chairs. He added that the best way to decorate the dining table was to use a bigger vase display with red roses/tulips, green colours etc. The point is to use brighter colours to add that pop of colour. Made very good sense to me =D

Given his blessings, G and I decided to make the purchase yay! The entire set cost $735 but we just paid a deposit of $235 first. So happy with our buy! *beams*

Our home reno: Yes! Keys are coming!

We finally have our key collection date! Yaaaaaay! *happy dance* I found out when I casually checked MyHdb website in the late afternoon on Thursday. Honestly I wasn't expecting to see a status change after being disappointed so many times when I was constantly checking the website for the past week. So this really came as a surprise! 

 The date given to us was 14th Oct at 8.10am in the morning -.- The timing was bad so we managed to change it to 10th at 10.10am =D so super excited! 

Hope there aren't gonna be any major defects! After reading our forums, I'm expecting at least some minor ones (eg. windows, wall cracks) that are apparently quite common. 

For good luck, I think we're just gonna buy a pineapple to roll into the house that day! Hehehe. It's gonna be fun! 

It's finally the Baby market fair!

I can't believe that Baby market is finally here! Time really flies. I've been looking forward to this fair for some time. 

I hope we'll get all our good buys today! I've been looking at my shopping list, baby market's check list and brand list to plan our purchases. 

Time to go shopping!

Update:

The fair was crazy! So many mummies, daddies, babies and strollers everywhere. It didn't feel like a Friday when I was there -.- I reached earlier than G + mum and dad to check out the booths and get my bearings. Started all the way on the left and began from the A booths. 

There were so many booths that it felt overwhelming! Thank goodness I did research beforehand soI knew what booths I wanted to visit. Whilst alone, I managed to get some baby clothes (carter's), wash cloths from Shears, bath towels, bibs, socks, Aden + Anais swaddles and sleeping bags! 

My gosh, the Aden + Anais items were on such a great sale. But I did work for it cause I had to queue for like 30 mins to pay for them at the cashier. The cashiers were really inefficient and everyone was getting annoyed at waiting for so long. 

Thank goodness I started shopping earlier cause when mum + dad and G arrived, it was getting very packed! I felt like I was in orchard during xmas -.- we immediately went to the Spring Maternity booth to get our Combi stroller, which was on a slight discount. We bought the purple one! 😄 Mum and G had to go queue first cause the line was craaaaazy. In the meantime, I managed to check out the yellow farm bedding set (super cute!) and a baby pillow so we got those too!

We wanted to get the Medela promos but it was insanely crowded and apparently some of the sets went out of stock. After G queued for a while, we decided there was no point waiting since we could just pay slightly more to get it elsewhere. I could tell G was getting upset at the fair. It didn't feel pleasant having to squeeze and queue with so many people. 

We then hunted for Ergobaby's carriers and had so much difficulty finding the booth because it didn't put up its booth number and the products were quite obscurely placed. When we finally reached, we were disappointed that the carriers had run out! It felt so annoying. So we gave up too, which I guess is a blessing in disguise because I found cheaper online deals thereafter.

We didn't get any baby cots either cause the price seemed similar to that at baby's boutique, so very near our place. 

Anyway, after all the walking, squeezif and queuing, we decided that there's no point in coming such fairs. We rather pay slightly more to avoid the experience haha. But I have regrets coming to the fair since I did get some good deals and learnt that there's no need to come to similar ones in the future.

Anyway, here's a picture of our buys! 

Our total investment today was $760!