Reno work

The reno took up the entire month of April and while the sweat-smelling workers are hard at work, we have our own endeavors as well. It has become a ritual that every weekend or free time, we will heed down to whatever place to furnish our place. I guess it is the same for all newly wed couple to get excited at every advertisement that claims their furniture is heavily discounted during the sale period. It also appears to me that the promotions are already on-going for months and without any hints of when the sale will ever end.

We already have a vision of what we want to see in our home. I, for one, stubbornly insisted on having a ceiling fan. The engaged interior designer suggest doing away with it as it will become an eyesore in the living room.

"Nah... I would rather have a ceiling fan than the ugly standing fan towering over the corner of the feature wall and the need to adjust the optimal fan direction to accommodate everyone." I thought to myself. "Let’s include the ceiling fan into our living room and see how it goes..." I insisted.

Plasma tv will be mounted onto the mirror-finished feature wall. The intention is that the feature wall is made up of several long horizontal strips of black-colored glass across the entire wall to enhance the feature of our long living room space. Unfortunately, the glass has to be divided at the center because there isn't enough space for the worker to manoeuvre in the stairwell while toiling the glass to our home. We also wanted a full length mirror as our dining space backdrop.

Living room has 2 lighting schemes - white energy efficient dowlights for reading and general lighting and warm florescent tubes hidden under the L-box ceiling around the living and dining areas. Warm lightings are concealed under the tv console and full length mirror. We soon realized that we had too much lighting in our house when we shop for the lightings! Too late!!

All the rooms have concrete stabs at the windows and von wanted something special for our bedroom. She opted for cushion covered window bay with a sliding mini table so that she can rest her back onto the wall and do her future blogging there... (I am hoping to see this happening though...)

Study room has customized black/white laminated study table and cabinet. No unsightly drawer handles for everything as the cabinet doors are tapered.

Stay tune for the completed home interior photos with furnishings and different lighting moods...

Lighting wiring

False ceiling

Galaxy grey feature wall

Study Room Window bay

Study table and Cabinet

Ceiling fan!!

Balcony lamp

MBR light

Bedroom light

Dining light

Mirror

Feature wall and tv console

Living and dining

von cosy window bay

Prelude to home reno

The keys were handled over from our ultra-thin indian lawyer, who I in no doubt, long suspected him of suffering from a very serious case of malnutrition and anorexia. The sight of his belt coiling almost 2 turns around his waist almost prompted me to ask him if he is a spokesperson or ambassador of a weight loss programme. Anyway, von gave me a nudge to stay focused in getting the keys from him and get it over and done with quickly.

Without any much delay, we headed our way to our newly acquired home and made our first entry for a quick peek. Armed with only a camera-equipped handphone, we took snapshots of the vacant unit.

Living room

Main entrance walkway

Dinning area

Kitchen

Walkway to bedrooms

Master bedroom window view
Study room window viewBedroom window view

Here we go... House hunting

It all began with the perfect dream of owning a decent flat by putting our names into those silly programmes - Walk-in Selection, Balloting. It was not until a series of crushing disappointment of our successive attempts in getting a queue number did it dawned on us that we have to start looking into the resale market to have the slightest chance of setting up a new home.

House hunting is indeed an eye-opener for us. First-owner flats with its first paint coating barely intact could only be describe in one word: Shocking. Large and long cracks along the kitchen and wash area with spalling concrete ceiling and musty smell were an appalling sight.

"Not a problem, since we have to reno the entire place up anyway. " I sounded positively to prevent our morale from dipping any further.

We soon realized that the asking price plus any major reno to be done was unjustifiable. We could not understand the attractiveness of staying so close to the MRT with the train passing every 15mins starting at dawn! It is even illogical to think that their value of the flat is inversely proportional to the distance to the distance from the MRT station, considering level of noise generated.

Most of the flats do not leave a very good first impression for us even though the older flats are inherently larger than those newly builds. All lacked the so-called "X factor". We began to visit condo showrooms to satisfy our carvings and day dreaming agenda.

Then along came Baywater that both of us liked very much. The agent kindly opened up several units for us to decide and compare. Units near to the busy road linking the Reservoir and Bedok town were out. Flats balcony facing too close to the opposite block were out as well. We were left with only 2 units to choose from - 4th and 5th floor unit, both facing the reservoir but well away from the road. It was ideal, especially so when I first opened the window with the constant gush of fresh air and wind blowing into my face. This is the deciding factor for me.

We spent very much of our time doing financial calculating over and over. And 2 days later upon our second viewing, we sealed the 4th floor unit because the 5th level will burn an extra $30k in our pocket.

Home is finally found.

"... Dear, when can we have our blog published..."

"We should have a blog of ourselves!" exclaimed von, who has been pursuing her friends' blog religiously for the past 6 months.

After much tugging and constant reminder for it, I finally registered our blog space - hovon. Like a behavior of a 3 year old, I made a big hooha over this accomplishment, feeling I am one step closer for a nobel prize nomination.

Then came the bombshell... "Please dear, at least have something there for people to read..." von spoke with anticipation.

So with that, came the1st keynote entry... "hello world"...

Our blog space was very much left empty after its glorious birth and just as quickly as it came into life, it diminishes into the wilderness with only 1 blog entry - "hello world"...

"You got to do better than that, darling."

"Look at this blog... and this... with pictures somemore. Let's start with blogging our newly renovated home first. I'm sure its gonna be interesting for all our friends to read comment."

So, for several months I've come out with several good excuses such as "We got no camera to take our home pictures, let me buy a camera first", "Let's read up on PSP slim instead".

Now, with the already acquired camera and PSP under our belt and the long weekend holiday with von in Suzhou, the very first official blog is written for her leisure reading. I'm sure there are more to come while she is still in Suzhou....