Category Archives: Renovation

Chulet’s Dream kitchen

20 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by in Home, Kitchen wares, Renovation

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

It took me almost 8 months of planning and researching before I finalise my dream kitchen….phew.

Even hubby is now grudgingly complaining that the kitchen takes up a hefty portion of our reno budget. hohoho… Some of you probably think I am crazy spending so much time planing. But then, if you have a tight budget and big dream, you seriously need to put in a lot of thought on how to maximise each cent spend. ;p

Ta..da.. my kitchen in 3D sketch. It doesn’t come in colours. I add them in myself. not a bad job too eh? hehehe… it’s quite close to the final color I wanted.

Image of actual completed kitchen.

Countertop

To me, this is the most important item when building the kitchen. This is the surface where you will be preparing most of your food and subjecting it to your hot pots. It needs to be durable and wear lasting.

There are many types of countertop available in the market. However, my opinion is that the best would be professional stainless steel or quartz stone. Both of these materials are highly resistant to heat and are largely food safe. However, stainless steel makes me feel like it’s more to industrial kitchen and I wanted a homely kitchen. So, the decision was made to go ahead with quartz.

But, these babies are NOT cheap. If you are looking at the famous Caeserstone or Silestone, they can easily range from RM 300 – 500 pfr. And I have about 24 foot run of counter top space!!! Caeserstone boast one of the widest range of countertop colours. They have the most amazing colour range. Silestone on the other hand is very well-known since it is used by one of the top end kitchen maker in malaysia (signature kitchen)

http://www.caesarstone.com/en/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.silestone.com/in/

I refuse to give up having quartz countertop. So, when I found one company (HTrend) which offer it at RM 200 pfr during the promotion they have in HomeDec 2011, and in the colour which I can accept… I was very excited. Before I confirm with them, I actually demand to see the specification their quartz. It match quite closely with some of the big brands. And so, I was sold.

I was ecstatic that I manage to have my quartz countertop… Yay !!! The best thing was hub love it too. 😉

Mechanism

I know this seems weird for many but being an engineer, I can’t abide with lousy mechanism. Therefore, I waste no time insisting all moving elements must be either Blum, Hafele or Grass. These are the only brand I trust.

http://www.blum.com/sg/en/index.php

http://www.hafele.com/index_en.asp

http://www.grass.at/

Most of the reliable kitchen cabinet makers would know these brands…but, sometimes, they cheat! They will buy you the “copied” version to pass it off. So, it is very important that you insist on their warranty.

Cabinet

Not really my top priority as this would be easier to change in future (if you are sick of the colour). As for me, I ended up using matt polymer surface instead of the norm trend of gloss finish. Why?

  • I am not a fan of reflective surface.
  • If scratched, it is not as easily observed
  • I love the feel of matt surface.

Htrend made mock up samples of the cabinet in the matt finishing in the 2 colours I requested before I make my final decision. It’s really important that you see how these colours are in bigger piece as sometime it looks very different in small size !

Sink & Tap

If your kitchen allows it, always go for the BIG sink. It would be even better if you can have 2 bowls. Remember, we do a lot of asian cooking and think of the size of the wok you use ! Can it fit comfortably into your sink? The next you need to be aware is the thickness of the steel use to fabricate the sink. Commonly, 0.8mm should very sufficient. But, if you can afford a better one, why not? J The thicker the steel, the more solid is will sound when you place your item in your sink.

I really hate the ‘thang’ sound. So, I opted for granite sink. Muahahaha… And I think I got a pretty good deal. It’s from HCE. They claim it’s fromGermany. But, I normally take all these with a pinch of salt. Unless I see them participating in international market or they have international website, I am usually dubious about such claim. Nevertheless, it is made of granite and I love the overall outlook. Not to mention, it’s cheaper than some branded steel sink, so, why not? (I grab this picture from Builder’s Hardware, where I bought my sink). To Read more about the sink and tap. Go here.

As for the tap, I immediately decided I prefer the pillar style more than the wall-mounted type. Maybe it’s just my own reasoning… but I think the strength of the tap is better for the pillar style. Imagine this, you will be swivelling the poor thing very often. There are times where you might give it s tug. The strength of pillar is fully distributed along the length of the tap. But, for wall-mounted, it will be concentrated on the L-bend (abit like a fulcrum point).

Now, all is left for me to do is to wait patiently for another 6-8 weeks !!! (oh my… time goes so slowly when you are waiting) before I get can see and touch my dream kitchen. I’m so excited already !!!

** As for the electrical items I got for my dream kitchen, I’ll post on that another time. 🙂

Tiles, Tiles, TILES!!!

16 Thursday Feb 2012

Posted by in Home, Renovation

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

,

When my good friend was renovating her place, she showed me some tiles samples to get a second opinion and feedback. It took quite some discussion before making up her mind.

While sitting there looking at her staring between the tile samples, I thought I would definitely have been able to make decision much faster if I were her.

I also read on a blog which remarked that the sales people refuse to let the husband to confirm the tiles without their wives, claiming that she was sick and tired of order changes. At the time when I read that, I laughed at that.

sigh…  

little do I know, I turned out to be the worst monster when it comes to tiles. Hahahaa.. I could laugh about it now since the tile choosing process is out of the way, paid for and waiting to be delivered. Pheew… one down and a gazillion more items to go. (le sigh)

The whole process took almost 4 months before arriving at my decision. Shocking? Hehehe… anyway, I thought I share with you my tile choosing process.

Manufacture / brand

There are many good brands available in Malaysia. Choose the one which you feel most comfortable with in terms of price range and tile varieties.

For us, hub and I decided that we will stick with the tile manufacturer our developer use since we need to get additional tiles to replace those which was destroyed during the renovation. So, Feruni it is.

Colour scheme

Luckily, hub’s only requirement for colours are, please choose happy and light colours (oh well – so, no dark hues for us).

Since I have always been a big fan of earthly tones, I started showing hub some ID pictures of earthly tone toilets. Good thing that he was ok with it. Yay !

You should also bear in mind what types of lighting you are planning to use. Warm light or white light gives off quite a big difference. Feruni provide this little mirror box for their customer to play around with the tiles. The only drawback is there’s no option for lighting here. So, I tried to simulate the light with flashlight and natural lighting.

Can you see the difference??? It’s the same tiles but under different lighting condition.

Range / Functionality

Once we decided on the colour, I moved on to check out the range Feruni has. Remember to always check with the tile specialist on the suitability of the chosen tiles.

e.g. Porcelain vs. Ceramic tiles, Floor tiles vs. wall tile. Outdoor vs. Indoor, wet vs. dry, and etc.

we head to Feruni’s showroom along Jalan 213 in Petaling Jaya. It was really great experience choosing tiles there. The sales person in charge of us was friendly, efficient, timely and reliable (not to mention, very patient with me – i think we went back there for like 4 times and change our tiles and room layout for like a dozen time). The best parts are the little square samples which they allow you to take as much as you want.

Being an engineer, I am quite anal about measurable results. Hehehe… So, armed with all the different range and colour of tiles, I set home for my experiment.

The tiles were grouped depending on the functionality. (e.g. Bathroom floor, Bathroom Wall, Kitchen Wall and etc.)

  • Experiment one – Water Dispersion
a) Wall Tiles  
Setup                           : Placed selected tiles standing straight (Mimic actual wall tiles)
Test procedure             : Spray water onto tiles and observe.
Measurements             : Time took for water to trickle down.
 
b) Floor Tiles
Setup                           : Placed selected tiles on flat surface
Test procedure              : Spray water onto tiles and observe.
Measurements              : Surface tension of water.
Higher tension gives me the impression that residue is less likely to get trapped on surface of tiles over time. No ?
 
  • Experiment two – Friction
a) Wall Tiles  
Setup                           : Placed selected tiles on flat surface
Test procedure             : Rub elbow against tiles 5 times. (DRY tiles)
                                    (Change elbow / rest before next tile. Stop when hurts)
Measurements             : the abrasive feeling (depends on how thick your skin ;p)
*** Force hubby participate by rubbing the tiles on his arm while he’s playing computer. He thinks I’m crazy. MUaHAHAHHAaaa… but it’s very important for wall tiles so that if you accidently rub against the wall, you will not get cut / hurt.
 
b) Floor Tiles
Setup                           : Placed selected tiles on flat surface
Test procedure             : Spray water onto tiles and Rub your thumb along the surface.
Measurements             : Friction available during wet condition (depends on senses)
*** Unable to obtain hubby’s data as he refuse to let go of his mouse. Was seriously considering to rub the tiles on his face but decided that it will be a bad idea to piss off the biggest shareholder. I try to find a tile which gives enough grip during wet condition.
 
 
  • Experiment three – Staining
Setup                           : Placed selected tiles on flat surface
Test procedure             : Leave dark tea water marks all over tiles for 24 hours.
Measurements             : Notice-ability of stain
*** Hub was really impressed with this test as some tiles really LOVES stain. Imagine the horror if you had that particular tile install in area where spillage / staining is likely to occur.

 

Price / budget

From the experiment, some of the tiles were clearly winners but there’s always the budget constraint. Sigh…

The experiment stage had to be repeat several occasion due to budget reason. So, after conducting like several dozens of experiment, the results versus cost was analyse and the following were the decision we made.

Bathroom wall  : Natural matt series & Modern matt series
Bathroom floor : Modern rough series
Kitchen Wall    : Natural polish series

I think the most important thing at the end of the day is that you enjoy the process and not get too stressed out by it. I definitely had fun with my experiments. 🙂

3 Phase ready !!!

16 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by in Home, Renovation

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, ,

Yay – we went over to our site and found that our meter is now upgraded. We are now officially 3 phase ready. The meter is a little bit larger compare to the 1 phase model. And now there’s 3 wires going into the main DB of the house. (refer to 3 phase vs. 1 phase in my earlier post for details)

That was after some calls to TNB, Topping up the deposit and paying of some outstanding amounts.

Despite the long wait (almost one month plus), I would have to say I did have a rather comfortable experienced with TNB shah alam. We went to their office on weekend and was pleasantly surprise that the team there are very friendly and smiley people.

I’m so happy this is out of the way….