A New "Baby" Addition to Our Family

We have a "baby" in the family! "Baby" = Car! LOL... Just what are you thinking... :P

Our car hunt is actually very short. We bought it fast and furious. Haha.

We're looking at Off-Peak Cars (OPC) cause it suits our lifestyle and also a car just for driving from point A to point B. Basically, we started off from www.sgcarmart.com and we calculate our finances to determine the value of the car we can afford to narrow down our search. After looking the at options avaliable in the website, we head down to Turf City to view a couple of the cars we shortlisted. One dealer actually tried to pull a fast one on us: He said the price of the car on the website is $2k lesser to entice people to come down to view the car before explaining to them why the price is $2k higher than the website price. Is there such logic? NO! You're just wasting people's time! *angry*

Anyway, back to the car shopping, we walked and enquired a few car dealers in Turf City. We suddenly spot a car which we liked it very much. Price is reasonsable and condition of the car is excellent! We test-drived the car too and it was nice; the engine was quiet and the test-drive was smooth throughout. This car really caught our eyes and nothing we saw after that beats this car.

I asked my dad to help me take a look at the car another day, just to get a second opinion. His review is good! And after much pondering, we decided to buy the car! So, we met the dealer at Sin Ming golf course to sign the papers and collected the car 2 weeks later. Woohoo! Chop Chop! Our first car! :)

Guess which car we purchased? It's a Kia Cerato 1.6A, a mid-size sedan car! Below is a picture of it extracted from sgcarmart website.

We love our car! It comes with a sunroof and a rear mirror auto dimmer! Cool! The next day after the collection, I gave my dad the car to send for servicing and the technician said that this car is very well-maintained. A good buy!

Now... What additions am I going to do with the car.... Hhhmmmmm... :P

The Beginnings of Our Unit in Park Central - Part 3 (Finale)

Hello all! I'm back! In this final part of the story of our unit, I'll show you around our beautifully and yet affordable renovated house; designed and managed courtesy of my Dad, who is an interior designer.. Old School Style.. A job well done and we're very pleased with the turn-out of our unit.. Really what we envisioned...

Company Name
VISIONS 3 INTERIOR DECOR
Free Advertisement for him in our blog! Haha.. Anyone interested? Contact me! And I'll give you his contact for further discussion!

Walkway to Living Room

On the second photo, as we enter the unit, this is a built-in shoe cabinet with glossy white surface.
Let's move on to the living room.

Living Room

This is our living room, which as you can see, is fully furnished. Plain and simple, what we're looking for. We installed reflecting lights at the celling.
Curtains - Fabulous Curtains
Sofa - OM Furniture
Dining Table w/chairs - Star Furniture

Here is the TV console feature wall, which matches the colour tone of the whole house. We also have 3 down spot lights over the TV console for aesthetics purpose. Mounted on the feature wall is our 42" Samsung HD LED TV! Movie watching time!

As mentioned in my earlier blog, we planned to deck only the planter box of the living room balcony and here it is! We chose Iron Wood which is affordable and the most worth it.
Decking - Evorich

And at the smaller planter box near the dining table, we fill it with blocks to built-up to a certain height and added a mixture of grey and white pebbles on top of it.

Kitchen

As HDB doesn't come with a kitchen door, we installed a PD door which slides and swings open inwards to the kitchen. This is to save space and to keep the "neat" look! Entering our kitchen, on the left is our Samsung fridge! No renovation done here. We only installed the lighting for the kitchen.

Wash Area

For the wash area, we installed a tap so that I can do my cleaning duties around the house fast! We placed our Samsung washing machine over here too. (Apparently, most of our home appliances are from Samsung.. Haha..)

Walkway to Rooms

We are heading to the rooms now. In the center of walkway, we installed a spot light at the top.

Bedroom 2

For Bedrooms 2 and 3, we didn't do any renovation for it. We just installed lighting for each room. But for Bedroom 2, there is a planter box. And we decked it using the same material and also the same company as the living room blacony's planter box. We still have to install the curtains we bought from ikea recently in both bedrooms.

Master Bedroom

Welcome to the Master Bedroom! We have a storage bed placed in already. However, we have to wait for the day to "An Chuang". So our queen-size mattress is currently in another bedroom temporary.
On the sides of the bed, we have our bedside table. In the first picture, we also have a dressing table with a mirror for Laopo to doll-up! We installed 2 spotlights at the sides of the bed. We still left to install the wallpaper on to the wall behind the bed.
Bed/Bedframe - Sealy
Curtain - Fabulous Curtains

We mounted our 32" LG LED SMART TV on the wall so that we can surf the net or watch shows in our bedroom!

We also have a reflecting light on the celling on the bedroom.

In the Master Bedroom's balcony, we also decked the planter box. In the second picture, we chose an outdoor lamp lighting for the balcony. Nice right?!

Door Stopper (Courtesy from Mommy)

A cute door stopper from my Mum! Thanks Mommy!

So, that's all for the house! A couple of places I didn't show (eg. Toliets, Bomb Shelter) because really nothing much to show. Hope you find our place nice cause we really love our place! :)

A good job done by my Dad! If you're interested in securing his services, let me know!

The Beginnings of Our Unit in Park Central - Part 2

Hi all! I'm back with my second post! Let me go through the interior of our unit before renovation.. Welcome to our Love Nest!

Walkway to Living Room
Entering our unit, this is the walkway to the living room. Quite slim (can fit about 2 people) but still acceptable. That is the wooden main door with the entrance on the right side. Now, let's continue walking towards the living room.

 

 Living Room
Ta Dah! This is our living room which is slightly short on the width but its long.
In the first photo, we have 6 sliding doors to the balcony area and another 2 sliding doors to a small planter box. The dining area will be around the 2 sliding doors whereas the other areas will be where the main living furniture will be.
In the second photo below, u can see the round metal thingy on the top right-hand corner of the picture, that is where the bomb shelter is and u can enter through the kitchen (First entrance on the right). The second entrance on the right is to the common toilet and beside it is the walkway to the rooms.

Below is our living room balcony. Big! Wasted space.. Would be more useful if we could convert it into our living room space.. Thanks HDB regulations.. -_-" Nonetheless, we're looking to deck the planter area only due to budget constraints.

Kitchen

To the kitchen area! Sorry for the mess in the photos, no other places to put our barang-barang. Haha. As you can see, the kitchen area is relatively small, 2 person barely can fit the width of it. The second picture, that is where the fridge will be placed (currently occupied by the broom and dustpan).

Wash Area
This is the wash area where the laundry will be done. The equipment hanging on the wall controls the heater, gas and water around the house if I'm not wrong. The clothes hanger (not shown in picture) is above the celling in the wash area, I'll have to pull in down, hang the clothes and then push it out towards the opening on the left of the picture.

Common Toilet
This is the common toilet with non-slip tiles. Don't really fancy the bath screen which is closed using 2 sliding doors. Normal looking toilet with nothing to shout about.

Walkway to Bedrooms

Let's proceed on to the bedrooms. Opps! Look who is peeping over there! Haha..
Entering the walkway, on the left is Bedroom 3, straight ahead is Bedroom 2 and on the right is the Master Bedroom.

Bedroom 3
Welcome to Bedroom 3. A simple bedroom with a short bay window. Not planning anything for this bedroom so no major renovation for this bedroom.

Bedroom 2

Heading on to Bedroom 2. This is a bedroom with a long plater box located at the outside of the 3 sliding windows. It also has a short bay window. The cupboard can't be seen in the pictures but is on the opposite side facing the 3 sliding windows. Again, we're not planning anything for this bedroom so no major renovation for this bedroom. Maybe converting it into a walk-in wardrobe for Laopo!

Master Bedroom
WELCOME TO THE MASTER BEDROOM! Yes, I know. It is actually quite small. It'll be even smaller after our queen-size bed is placed inside. HDB flats are getting smaller and smaller these days.

Hmmm... Below is the wardrobe... the HORROR!! Looks even smaller than the other 2 bedrooms!! How will it fit Laopo's clothes, not mentioning my clothes! Hence, the idea to convert one the bedrooms into a walk-in wardrobe. Haha.

Below shows the Master Bedroom's balcony and planter box. Wasted space again, we could have a bigger Master Bedroom if not for all these designs. As per the living room's planter box, we'll deck only the planter box here.

This is the Master Bedroom's toilet with non-slip tiles. Acceptable I guess. The toilet bowl is on the right side on the basin behind the door. Remember to lock the door when doing your business! If not, you might get hit on the face when someone swings the door open!

In summary, we were happy with our unit. However, the quality is not there sadly. The developer could have done better before handing over. We're not the only people to complain about the quality too, I would say a good 80% people are displeased with the quality.

We had tons of defects too! Below are some of the defects:

1. Rubber sealing of bedroom window came off
2. Screeching sound when opening/closing window
3. Drawers in wardrobe is yellowish instead of white
4. Wardrobe doors are misaligned
5. Wardrobe doors have chip-offs at the top
6. Stain on wood partition inside the wardrobe
7. Chipped flooring
8. Dent and crack on kitchen hood
9. Warped kitchen cabinet
10. Loose water tap in toilet
11. Some kitchen cabinets unable to close properly automatically
12. Main gate needs to touch-up

It really took them a long time to fix the defects and I have to keep pestering them to do it. Customer service.. barely there... But still, managed to get them to fix all the defects eventually.

In my next post, I'll showcase our renovated unit with furniture! STAY TUNE!

The Beginnings of Our Unit in Park Central - Part 1

It's my first post! Whee! It's my first time blogging, let's hope I do this right!

I shall chronologically show the development of our house: Park Central @ AMK. My Laopo have the best eyes in looking out for good deals and I credit this to her for spotting this house! We were very happy when we got it, it's our love nest! And also the beginning of a new chapter in our lives...

Park Central @ AMK is situated beside Jing Shan Primary School and is walking distance away from AMK train station. Fantastic location as both of us are very used to be around AMK area! Near to our parents too, just 2km+ away! In addition, plenty of food around the area.... HHhhhmmmm.... :D_____________

The Walk To Our Unit

Crossing the road to Park Central @ AMK along Ang Mo Kio St52

Here is the indoor carpark for Park Central residents (For our new car! - To be blogged later)

Entering the drive -through

 Heading towards our block and taking the lift up!

 One step closter to entering our unit!

Can't wait to see the interior of our unit?! Wait for my next blog post! Coming up soon! :D