Furniture is coming in!!

MBR bed frame. It does occupy a huge chunk of my room...

hahaha...

anyway the mattress (placed in other room first) couldn't fit into HDB lift. The workers had to carry up and every floor have to pay $10.

3 of them carried... -_-"  really heavy.

Sofa.... another bulky item.

Delivered! yeah! looking forward to open up soon.

2x 2m long blinds installed. (Thanks to Sun Hup for helping to install.)

They are actually full black in color. The sun is too strong making it look purplish. haha. just nice fit our color scheme of purple, grey, white and black.

Guide to LED Cove Lighting

Today let me share on cove lights! How to do up LED lighting like what I had done for my own place.

I believe this article will be of interest to many people doing their renovations or changing to cheaper long lasting source of lighting.

I'm not an expert and during my schooling days, electrical and power modules are my weakest. Please take this article as only a simple guide. You should always consult your electrician. =)

Cove lighting is for ambience and it's installed at the extension part of your false ceiling or L-box. Normally contractors/electrician will quote you numerous T5 light tubes + numerous light installations + numerous lighting points. These depends on the length of the covelights that you want.

T5 tubes comes in different lengths, hence different power rating. Anyway, I normally see people using the 34" and 46" tubes. So if your covelight length is 6m, then you'll need about 6x 34" T5 tube or 5x 46" T5 tube.
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Length (cm/inches)	T5 tube
54.9cm / 22"	24 watt
84.9cm / 34"	39 watt
114.9cm / 46"	54 watt
144.9cm / 60"	80 watt

However if you want to use LED instead, you can simple replace all the T5 tubes with a LED strip. So maybe your electrician will charge you 1 installation point and 1 lighting point.

LED strips comes in different power intensity. There's 2 versions that was offered to me: 3528 and 5050. I can't remember the exact specs for the strips but simply put: 5050 is 2x the brightness of 3528. Each LED on the strip of 5050 is 2x stronger and brighter. Each reel can contain up to 10m long in LED.

Anyway, each strip only has 2 wires. +ve and -ve polarity. Similar to a battery. haha.

We just need to connect them to a transformer. This transformer will covert our AC current to DC current for the strips. I bought the industrial type of transformer. Big ones that will support my double layered lengthy covelight design. It's able to support comfortably, 3x 5m in length of 5050 LED strips. Your electrician just need to run from the light switch, 3 wires, 1 live, 1 neutral and 1 earth and connect to the transformer. (there's labelling on the transformer)


Viola. It's done. 1 transformer for my yellow LED strip and 1 transformer for my white LED strip.

I got 2 switches for individual on/off on the yellow lights and the white lights. Total used 9.5m of yellow and 9.5m of white for covelighting in my living and dining with 2 transformers (1 for yellow and 1 for white). Total cost less than $400 for these area. I bought lots more for the feature wall, and covelights in mbr as well. hahaha.

Here you can see the cove lighting.

2 LED strips just paste unto those normal white wire trunking and then placed inside the cove light area.

(LED strips comes with 3M tape behind. easy to install!)

Anyway hope this helps whoever that is interested in doing something similar. Here's what mine looks like. forgot to switch on yellow covelights before taking this photo... hahaha. But i think you guys should be able to get the idea!



almost done when i took this picture!


BMS Marble & Granite came over on Saturday to do the kitchen-top installation!

It's a tough job. And really really dusty. Mr Chan and his workers are good! Highly recommended.

The granite slabs are just so super heavy.

(my washing machine still in the box. will be installed under the granite slab which is supported by that wooden pole temporarily)

A sneak preview of the mbr wardrobe, living and dining. =)

 Photo taken from the new main door.

Feature wall and the balcony chandelier.

Super long feature wall has it's ambience lighting up. TV installed by LG, sound system not yet installed.
Chandelier has both LED and normal bulbs on.

Didn't switch on the cove lights of the false ceiling and downlights. If not will be super bright.

Cove lights can be seen below. Showing the ultra bright white LED cove lights. Have also installed yellow covelights inside as well. So got white and yellow options for entire cove. Hence can switch to yellow for the "feel".  =P

Photo taken from dining room corner. Opposite to where 1st photo was.

Can see the partition wall and glass door that was the previous old main door. If got budget and $$, will do up a nice shoe rack for wife. Must learn from Charles & Keith type.... hahaha...

The feature wall bends over to the dining. the bottom still lack the LED lighting which electrician will do up this week.

Photo taken from MBR dresser. Showing the walkway and wardrobe. This area very hard to take any photos. I think the walkway only about 70cm wide.

Wardrobe have the tinted mirrors reflecting the partition wall in the mbr hiding the toilet.

My crystal lights for the entire dresser, walkway and also toilet! super chio. ladies see the dresser with the nice crystal lights effect. all who seen this area liked it.

Few days before handover

Aircon leakage has been rectified. Winter Cool Aircon said the problem is as what he says, it's due to the glue at the pipe not done well and it's common.

Well.... give and take. Guess we'll monitor the aircon this weekend also.

It's almost ending of the renovation. Now pending for SunHup to do the bracket for washing machine area and BMS marble/granite to do the kitchen top.

Minor touchups along the way.

Above my washing machine will be a nice big granite worktop. Waiting for this impatiently.....

The welded metal bracket will be secured to the 2 solid walls giving support to the weight of the granite top.

It's meant to be slightly smaller so that it can be easily seen from outside as this ara of the granite top is a polished single slab.

Here is the shop front of BMS marble granite.

Hope they do my granite top beautifully.

The boss is Mr Chan See Tang. The coordinator is Ms Mel. Friendly people. The place is really quite packed and granite/marble slabs are all around.

If you can see the wooden planks there, those are the "measurements" they take using planks of wood and stapled together.

Aircon Leakage

It's been about 2 weeks of finishing rectifications... Painting works, touchups, kitchen cabinet finishing, wardrobe finishing.

Just when all seem okie, the Winter Cool Aircon, Mr Chan, finally came to test the unit with me. (installed for sometime but he never come to test it out)

Everything was cool and nice. With cold air blowing strongly remotes, warranty cards given as well.

We tested it out for maybe an hour in the afternoon then he left and everything was switched off. In the evening when we went back to the place, we discovered fluid leaking from the 24K BTU aircon unit in the dining room. Leaking quite badly... The paint on the wall start to absorb the fluid as well.

It seems to come from the back of the aircon unit. Super upset. Saw so several aircon installations before. 1st time engaged Winter Cool as Sun Hup recommended them. 1st time I see leakage problems.

Not good.


How do you all test your aircon unit? Just blast it overnight and see what happens?

Speed Work 2

Speedy Work gives excitment in seeing the house take shape

Thurs afternoon.
Kok called to say that the electrician found lots of broken lamps and shattered glass. Gosh.... was so upset that I had almost wanted to take leave. But I had calmed myself down saying we'll see what happened when we meet in the evening. We had checked all lights and I even played with the lights by wiring them up to see the effect in my room... and they were definitely in good condition when we had placed them in the house about 1 month ago... Maybe we had placed them there too early? Maybe the workers damaged them? Or did the glass shatter by themselves? Doubts and questions just keep popping up.

Thurs evening
The planned meeting of Sun Hup and their "heads" of plumbing and electrician. Met them and surprisingly, it's a short session. Had thought will be long and dreadful. But it's manageable.

The moment I stepped into the place, the plumber & electrician immediately catches me and ask me to confirm the locations and installations... luckily I had been prepared well.  =)

Had earlier prepared plans of where the toilet accessories and lights position.

1/2 of the lights are already up in place.

The cove lights and downlights are on but the switches still not yet connected.

The feature wall is up, only the drawers not completed. I can see the speakers connections and also the open net trunking prepared as well.

The broken lights...

Didn't take pictures of those lights that had been damaged. Those are the 2 common bedroom lights. Identical 4 glass holders on each lamp. Hence 2 lamps which are damaged. Had been surprised to see them shattered and also the plastic plugs for the lamp holders shattered as well. How can they be shattered when it was looking so nice earlier on??

I didn't want to point fingers... One of the electrician asked me if the lights were okie when I placed them there... I said yes... Then his partner came beside us and said, "Yah. last time I open before 1 box, the lamp was alright and not broken..."

Decided to move forward and not waste any more time and money. Luckily we had another ceiling lamp which was an extra... didn't place it anywhere and hence it'll go into 1 of the common room. Then I told the electricians to combine all remaining parts of the 2 broken lamps into 1 lamp. Should have enough good parts from what I see. Then it'll fulfil the remaining room. It's just too bad the common rooms are not having the same lights. Electrician then reply," okie. we'll try and see how to combine them." End of broken lights story... better not to dwell too much. Already stressful enough.

After telling the plumber the positions of the accessories, then Kok started to make suggestions on how to improve things... eg. Kitchen sliding door, he will remove his earlier work and also do a boxup with laminate for the sliding mechanism. He's really experienced but still, he's super busy..... to be able to grab more of his time is good.

Enough of words.... let's see some pics!

Wardrobe Carpentry in MBR

Living Room War Zone (Perlyn in Blue)

Agile in the Kitchen. Good Quality Wood... =P