The Minton: Ideas and Renovation – 21 – Day 9

Our Minton renovation went into a bit of a lull in the latter half of this week after the initial spurt of fast progress – cardboard protection was laid, foundational electrical work was completed, and the craftbrick wall was laid down. Things are still pretty much on track nonetheless though. We went by our designer’s office again to finalize the colors and carpentry dimensions for every item in the unit. Fabrication at the carpenter workshop will take a fortnight starting from this coming Monday, and assuming that it’ll be done on time, the most significant items of our project – the customized bedframes, shelves, desks and the like – will all be then installed into our apartment at around the 24 March. In the mean time and according to the suggested project schedule, the false ceilings will be constructed next Monday and Tuesday, and the electrician returning thereafter on Thursday to begin fixing up our collection of lights and fans.

Speaking about lights. We bounced between choosing fluorescent or LED T5 4 feet long tubes for our cove-lighting. T5s of the latter type are sold from across a huge range of prices, with the cheap ones going at $20, and the premium models at easily 3-4 times that price. The cove lights in the living/dining hall are primarily intended for ambient lighting, so we decided to gamble a bit and chose to go with Philips-brand warm fluorescent T5s (compared to our LED downlights) at $18 each. Saved ourselves a bundle of cash, and those fluorescent tubes, even if not as long-lasting as the LED ones, are at least easily available everywhere and homeowner replaceable.

Ling also found online a nifty shelving idea for the children’s room, and our designer is gamely taking on the challenge of designing and building something similar for their room. Likewise, we wanted a translucent writing board (‘Dinner Menu for the Day’ – hooray! Or ‘Household Chores Duty Roster’ – nooo!!!!!) at the dry kitchen, and our designer will be getting one done for us too.

Pictures again and notes on what we’ve observed.

Even though the renovation has slowed in the last 2 days, we were nonetheless still busy finalizing the various other contractor works. We’ll be installing invisible grills with Legate, curtains and blinds with a Johore Bahru based curtain-maker who is also already doing a number of units @ The Minton, and also our decking options with a supplier of wood-plastic composite.The latter was a particularly hard choice, and we invited nearly half-a-dozen decking specialists to come by our unit for measurements in the preceding weeks. While wood-plastic composites (WPC) were about very roughly similar in per-square-foot pricing compared to most of the natural woods we saw, we’d decided to go with WPC largely on account that while there’s a chance we might scratch the material surface if we drag furniture across it, we were positively certain we did not want to ever have to resand and revanish the decking if we’d gone with natural wood LOL.

At this point, we’ve nearly ticked off all the major renovation items, with just the retractable ceiling-mounted clothes racks in the service yard to decide on. On the latter, we’ve checked out several options but haven’t yet found one that ticks off all the right boxes – apparent reliability and cost.

Next post on our shopping around for furnishing!