Showing posts with label The Madeline Standard of Organisation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Madeline Standard of Organisation. Show all posts

Monday, 17 April 2017

Our First Home (7): Living Room

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The living room is often the place with the most displays and technology because it's usually where everyone gathers. It needed to be both comfortable and functional.

[BEFORE] 

The furnishings were very old school so we had to get rid of them and start from scratch.

Old school mouldings and grills
The other wall

The lovely view from our living room:


As with our master bedroom and kitchen, our ID provided us with a 3D mock up of our living room based on our description of what we wanted.

3D mock up by our ID

Our ID was able to incorporate the TV console cabinets that we had already bought from Home's Harmony into the 3D mock up. I thought that was cool so that we can have an idea of how it would look in the space.

In the process of tearing down existing wiring and structures
We paid about $2000 to re-wire the whole house with new wires. Definitely a must if you're buying a resale flat like ours where the last time renovations were done, it was 16 years ago.
We chose a bright blue for our walls, the same blue as our master bedroom. As the hubby loves black and I love vivid bright colours, we compromised with a vivid version of his favourite colour blue.

After the walls were painted, we got Home's Harmony to install the TV console set that we ordered. It was a lot cheaper to get a pre-designed set that still allowed you some level of customisation rather than getting your contractor to customise built-in cabinets from scratch.

Building the drawers that will hold our TV
Measuring and installing the cabinets according to our preferred design. You can also choose the type of cabinets and/or arrange them differently, according to your needs and preferences.
The completed TV console!

This TV console totally works for me because I love storage! I must have lots and lots of storage in my house (OCD you see *laughs*).

We also installed Combi Blinds in our living room. However, because we chose black, grey and white, the living room can't be 100% shielded from the sun. Do consider this when choosing the colour of your Combi Blinds.

[AFTER]

It took a while to get to our dream living room but we did, eventually!


With 3 adults and 2 kids living in this house, the living room was quickly filled with tons of things!

Just so you know, I spent about 30 minutes tidying our living room for the photos in the rest of this post! It definitely does not look so neat ordinarily and this FTWM (full-time working mum) has no time or energy to do anything about it except to close both eyes and hope that I can chant a spell to put everything back in place like they do in Harry Potter!

Our very well-used living room

The kids spend a lot of time in the living room, hence there are A LOT of toys here. The stool cum storage boxes beside the TV console contain most of the toys so that ideally, they can be hidden out of sight when the kids are not playing with it. In reality of course, the boxes are almost always constantly opened with toys overflowing from the edges! It irks the OCD me every time but thankfully, I've learnt to make peace with it.

If you look carefully, I've also squeezed a bag of Lego Duplo under our TV console to maximise space. I like that I can easily clean under the TV console too.

The cabinets of the TV console also allow me to store and display my photos and collection of various things that I like.

The top shelves are for my numerous board games, some of which I have kept since I was in primary school!

I've also got a bookshelf that I had bought from IKEA before my girl was born 8 years ago and it fits nicely into the corner between the windows and the TV console.

It has all my soft toys, nano blocks and best of all, my musical box collection

We also store our DVDs, CDs and Xbox One Kinect in the cabinets. So useful right? =)


On the other side of the living room is our electronic reclining sofa with cup holders (like a movie theatre), an alcohol cabinet, our treadmill, coffee table and my super large ironing board. There's no point in keeping it in the storeroom since I prefer to iron while watching TV. It's a lot more convenient if I have it constantly within reach.

The other side of my living room

I've always wanted the wall above my sofa to be my art wall where I display my paintings such as my Travel Destinations Art Collection. The paintings were deliberately positioned nearer to the windows, rather than in the middle, so as to allow me adequate space to add more paintings on the left. Eventually the entire wall will be filled with paintings and I may have to find another wall to fill when that happens! *laughs*

In keeping with my love for furniture with hidden storage, we got a coffee table that can morph into a full-height table with hidden storage underneath. Super love it!

The table top can be pulled up so that you can sit on the sofa rather than a stool. I use the storage space to store our photo albums and scrapbooks. The 2 grey stools come with the table and are really comfortable to sit on.

Next to the coffee table is my boy's favourite spot in the house: his activity table (bought in USA by his uncle) and kids road map carpet (from IKEA).

My boy loves his table and carpet and spends most of his day when he's not in school playing on it
Recently my boy is very into buses so no surprises that his favourite is Tayo the Little Bus. He's got soooo many buses and counting!!

Moving on to another of my favourites, a built-in floor to ceiling shoe rack for our shoes! As you know, we love shoes and need a big enough storage space for our shoes.

Our shoe cabinet inside and out

I bought plastic shoe racks from CK and Isetan to organise our shoes such that they are extremely organised, maximise the space and make it easy for us to access all our shoes. Yes, I'm an organisation fanatic!

Oh by the way, the stools beside the shoe cabinet also contain hidden storage for socks and floor mats =)

Finally, I have always known that I wanted a way to keep our bicycles off the floor yet still easily accessible. This rod that I bought from Qoo10 gives us a reasonably priced way to achieve this.


The rod is pretty sturdy and has not fallen even once (touch wood) even though the kids like to play around it.

Left: The raised bicycle meant that there were plenty of space to put other things like a kiddy sofa and toy car;
Right: Round the corner next to the store room behind the front door is a rod with many hooks for hanging all sorts of stuff you may need before you leave the house. I decorate it with a photo collage of our whole family.

As you can see, the main themes flowing through my living room is storage, functionality, organisation and ease of cleaning! And that's exactly how we like it =)


 Continue to >> Our First Home (8): Renovation Journey with NorthWest
<< Back to Our First Home (6): Storeroom & Entryway

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This post is part of my series on Our First Home where I'll share our renovation and home decoration ideas and review our renovation company and various vendors.
Join us on our journey as we make a house our home =)


You can also follow me on Instagram via the hashtag #houseofkmjj! =)
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Monday, 10 October 2016

Our First Home (4): Dining Room & Balcony

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Our dining room and balcony are at the centre of the house and it's often the first thing that our visitors see when they walk into our house. Hence, we wanted to make sure that it is pretty =)

DINING ROOM

[BEFORE] 

The ceiling and walls had old school colonial style accents which we didn't like so we had to get rid of them.

How the dining room looked when the previous owner still lived in it

I have always wanted to install boxes onto the wall to create a feature wall where I can store stuff (if you are observant, everything in my house serves a storage function =P).

Empty wall before renovation

I got wall box shelves from IKEA during their IKEA family sale and drew a simple sketch of what I wanted for our ID to install.

My simple sketch of what I wanted

My ID said that it was a headache installing this and I have to say, they did an awesome job!

Work in progress
(photo sent to me from my ID)


[AFTER]

We loved the final outcome! =)


The decorations were mostly bought from overseas and our table and 4 chairs were from Nova while our bench was from Star Living. By luck we managed to find a bench that matches our chairs perfectly =)

Simple dining room with small feature wall

Part of our feature wall houses the hubby's mini bar: i.e. wine chiller, alcohol, glasses and various tools for making alcoholic drinks.

His wine chiller (left) and his cocktail-making ingredients and tools (right)

The husband has always been crazy about alcohol so having his own collection of red wine, white wine, volka, gin, beer, etc in our house has been his dream. If we lived in countries with land such as Australia or New Zealand, we would definitely have a wine cellar in our house. But since we don't, this will have to suffice for now.

We serve so many drinks in our house that we had to come up with a menu so that we don't have to repeat it to guests each time we host them!


Left: The actual printed menu (I will be making changes to how it looks so that it's easier to add/ make changes);
Right: Lee's House Special Cocktail created by the hubby

The dining room to me is a place where people gather to fellowship over food and drinks. Hence, it must look welcoming and be comfortable for people to sit and relax for a longer period of time. Hopefully we managed to achieve this =)


BALCONY

[BEFORE] 

The hubby has always wanted a fully functioning balcony where he can chill, sip his wine and listen to the sound of waterfalls. It was one of the reasons why we chose to buy a 5-room flat.

The balcony and dining room before renovation
Completely open concept, with sliding doors and no windows
(the plants in the balcony was even home to some birds!)

The previous owner did not make any changes to the balcony and left it open with sliding doors to close off the balcony when needed.


[AFTER]

We wanted the dining room to flow nicely into the balcony so we decided to remove the sliding doors and install full windows and grills. Due to the amount of work needed to make the balcony the way we liked it, it was the second biggest transformation of our house after the kitchen.

In the progress of renovation, with all the tiles and grills stripped bare
Left: After laying of the floor tile and installation of panels for the bottom grills;
Right: Installed this right cute light to give a more outdoor feel (even though it is going to be indoors)

As mentioned, the grills at the bottom near the floor cannot be removed due to HDB regulations hence, we had to install panels to close and hide it. You can choose to install sliding windows that can open but we thought it didn't make sense as we won't ever use it.

Close up of the bottom panels and floor tiles

The floor tiles are ceramic but made to look like wood, which was good because this FTWM will not have time to maintain things like "vulnerable" flooring.

You might be wondering why the windows and grills were not installed together with the panels and why the hand railing was not removed (even though HDB allows the removal of the hand railing). Well, it turns out that our ID forgot to apply for the license to remove the hand railing so by the time he did, it was almost 3-4 weeks before our windows and grills could finally be installed in our balcony. This meant that our house was open to birds and rain for the first half of our renovation period (which was 4 months long) since there were no windows to prevent them from entering. It irked me a lot but well, at least I didn't find birds nesting in our cabinets (>_<).

You can imagine how happy I was when our windows and grills were finally installed in the balcony.

The hubby and I have always wanted a mini urban garden in our home so making a trip to Far East Flora to get some plants for our balcony was a must for us.


Bought a bamboo plant shelf from Qoo10 to house our growing garden as well as raise the plants closer to the window for more sunlight

And if this was not enough, we also bought a 4-level shelf from IKEA. And with that, our urban garden was complete.


The final look of our balcony

With the water fountain running at side, it is a really nice and relaxing place to chill and read a book. Definitely a good corner for praying as well =)

Our home is finally coming together the way we want it =)




~~~~~~



This post is part of my series on Our First Home where I'll share our renovation and home decoration ideas and review our renovation company and various vendors.

Join us on our journey as we make a house our home =)


You can also follow me on Instagram via the hashtag #houseofkmjj! =)
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Monday, 19 September 2016

Our First Home (3): Craft & Study Room

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We wanted our 3rd room to fulfill a lot of functions. It had to accommodate:
1) our computer table (aka multi-purpose table)
2) a craft corner for me
3) a wardrobe to put the kids' stuff
4) a bookcase for our books
5) a place to hang laundry (the hubby didn't want it to diminish the aesthetics of our balcony)

So while I call it our craft and study room, it is really our japalang-whatever-does-not-fit-in-other-rooms-goes-in-here room *laughs*


[BEFORE] 

Unlike the other rooms in the house, this room probably went through the least transformation other than a wall fan and a change of windows and wall colour.

Left of the room
Right of the room


[AFTER]

We used the same window treatment (Combi blinds from Contempo) and wall colour as the kids room to continue the colour scheme and overall design.

Our craft / study / multi-purpose room

The Study Corner

Computer table placed on the right side of the room
with our press features decorating the main wall below the air-con
This is mostly the hubby's corner,
with me only using the pop-out table for my various craft projects.

We got our computer table from VHive and we liked that it had a pop-out table that can be used when we need it and tucked away nicely when we don't.

The side-table next to our computer table was initially from our bedroom and I nearly threw it away because it was all yellow and ugly. Until I got the idea to cover it with wallpaper from Kaison. Now it is so pretty and provides us with additional storage space =)


Storage boxes that I got from IKEA during a sale and properly labelled
(no box goes unlabelled in my house! *laughs*)

The Craft Corner

I have always wanted a craft corner that allows me to access my craft materials easily and conveniently (I don't have to dig through a large box to find what I need!). Hence, I made sure that organisation was the priority for my craft corner! =)

Left: If we need to house a guest temporarily, the pop-out table that I use for crafting can be moved to the wall, which then gives us a big space to put a mattress.;
Right: My craft corner on the left of the room.
Decorated with a map of the places I have travelled to so far, my favourite Tin Tin art that I got from Vietnam, family photos and the certificate of my highest educational achievement (which I never had a chance to display till now!)

I love my scratch-the-countries-I've-been-to map (even though the hubby doesn't *boo*). It shows me how much more of the world that I have yet to explore and keeps me going at work! *grin*

Beneath my displays are my craft materials (and other collectibles), organised neatly in boxes and clearly labelled. Everything in its proper place =)

Left: My art canvases (of art in progress) and easel (all from Art Friend);
Right: Boxes piled in and on top of my pink Kallax that I got from IKEA during their IKEA Family sale. So pretty right? =)
Left: Who doesn't love a good IKEA Raskog trolley for all my art supplies! I can push it anywhere in the house to do my art.;
Right: These cheap and good containers (cost 50 cents only!) from IKEA can be hung at the side for additional storage.

I've always wanted to be more proactive with our family's recycling efforts so I got a black container from IKEA for our recyclable waste.

For those of you who are wondering how you can organise your paint and brushes, you can consider cutting up cardboard and putting them into your container to divide the space into little compartments
(see my tutorial on organising paint for more details).

The Cabinet / Laundry Corner

Since the hubby did not want our laundry to be hung in the balcony, I decided to install our laundry drying stand in the least prominent corner of our house (you won't even realise that it is there unless you enter the room). I love our laundry drying stand as it is so space-saving and convenient to use! Do note that we only hang our outdoor clothes here. There's another laundry rack in the kitchen for other stuff like towels and underwear.

Left to right: Our bookcase from VHive (S$269);
Laundry drying stand from Isetan (S$40);
2-door wardrobe from VHive (S$499).

We actually wanted a darker brown for our wardrobe but decided to settle on this lighter one because it was on sale for less than S$500! It was too good a deal to pass up! I can always change the colour using wallpaper from Kaison in future =)

Left: I'm amazed that all my books could fit into this bookcase, with more than enough space left for more
(not that I'm going to buy since I've got the Kindle);
Right: My girl's "going out" clothes and our growing collection of Lego
We love comics like Baby Blues and Sherman's Lagoon. Not forgetting the soon-to-be extinct manga (this is only 5% of our actual collection, which is in the storeroom)

And there you have it; Four rooms in one! It's such a joy to see my vision of the room coming to pass =)


Continue to >> Our First Home (4): Dining Room & Balcony
<< Back to Our First Home (2): Kids Room



~~~~~~



This post is part of my series on Our First Home where I'll share our renovation and home decoration ideas and review our renovation company and various vendors.

Join us on our journey as we make a house our home =)


You can also follow me on Instagram via the hashtag #houseofkmjj! =)
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