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Entryway: Blending Retro Glass Bricks with Modern Contemporary Design
HomeSelf-designed Kitchen & Dining: from Zero to Mid Century Modern
siaolianeh
A cute family of 3 living in a self-designed 91 m2 Tengah BTO
Self-designed Kitchen & Dining: from Zero to Mid Century Modern
407
- Mid-Century Modern
- HDB (BTO)
- ~1,000 sqft
- 3 br
- Couple Living with Kids
Hi Everyone! I am doing a before & after transformations today. Our house is a BTO.. so the kitchen is as bare as any other BTO. 1 thing for sure, we are so glad that we actually only have 1 beam above the dining area and not 2 beams like the 5 rooms of our project. Husband is adamant in adding a ceiling fan in the kitchen and I want a pendant light. So we are going for both and we asked the electrician to shift the ceiling fan 2 times in order to make sure it does not hit the kitchen upper cabinets. He did the electricals before the carpentry and then shifted it as I was thinking the space is not enough and shifted it again after the carpentry are up. The backsplash we chose for our kitchen are actually tiles! Some considerations for tiles backsplash is that it is not going to be hard to clean, with a lot of grout lines, and if subway tiles are chosen, it is harder to clean. With Mid-century modern theme in mind where tiles are commonly used for the backsplash, we decided to go bold with these flowery BIG 1200 x 600 tiles to reduce the grout lines and add some fun into the kitchen. Love this before photo because it shows the gas pipe run from the top to the middle (behind the fridge) as I do not have any tall unit in the kitchen, then to the left for the gas hob and right for the gas water heater in the service yard. We decided to have a cement base for our kitchen sink as well as seen clearly on here and a 5mm thick cement base for the bottom carpentry other than the space (1m) left for the double door fridge. 
Carpentry are up and oh boy how we love the look! (this is before peeling of the laminates as you can see that there are plastic protection over it. I designed the kitchen myself without an ID, so it is soooo satisfying to see the end product. We decided to hack away the HDB kitchen floor tiles where it ended off in a rectangular shape between the kitchen and the door, we decided to lay these white porcelain tiles over and make it seamless from the living room to the kitchen. It was the perfect idea because it made my kitchen look so seamless and so much bigger without any segregation! The only segregation is the tiles in the foyer are grey and different. 
Initially, we asked the contractor to paint this wall a kind of jade green to make it balinese vibes. (I tried to find a close up photo of it but I couldn't) Husband looked really long and think that it looked mehhhh.. the green kinda clashes with our carpentry and then decided we should limewash it mocha colour instead. We diy the limewash ourselves (as seen in the photo), for 3 walls! the living room feature wall, the dining room wall and the master bedroom wall! IT TOOK DAYS. It was tiring but gratifying! 
We primer over the green like 3 layers to cover the original paint colour. (I'm sorry wall).. Each primer coat needs 1h to dry and each limewash paint coat needs 6 hours (we do it the next day each coat just to be safe) drying in process, and airing of the cabinets in process. Ceiling fan and pendant light side by side! We didn't make the pendant light too low so the fan will not suay the light so much. All our lights and fans come from tampoi lighting, hurray for the exchange rate. We are so satisfied with how the paint turn out and so glad my husband asked to repaint this wall. Add 2 wood ledges from taobao and then our dining table and chairs came from JB! This is how our kitchen and dining look like daily right now. If you guys are interested, I have a detailed post on it. https://www.hipvan.com/ideas/posts/self-designed-kitchen-how-we-make-a-small-space-work-ugwvu3q425xt The things on the ledges changed many times already and this is the latest. An ocean painting from my husband, a moss clock and our display shelf for these small figurines from taobao. One thing for sure, our betta fish tank is there permanently, nearest to the 2 sockets for the water filter and the automatic feeder. Let me introduce this automatic fish tank feeder which is so useful, it connects to the home wifi and feed my fish automatically. I set it to the same time and for 1 time daily. It is my fish life savior when we are overseas haha. We placed some magnet souvenirs from our recent trip to Japan on the fridge and some lovely photos of the family with these magnetic photo frames. We also have a chateau wine chiller, bought it for the retro look, it looks like it's from the smeg brand but much cheaper? We are not avid wine drinkers but we do have some wine bottles as gifts from families and friends. We mostly put our son's UHT milk packets and drinks that guests can feel free to take inside. We are so glad we did not do a cover for the dish drying rack. This is more convenient as we wash dishes daily and some things like pots and pans can be dried with their handles jutting out and the cover could not be closed entirely if we have one. The rack itself is 70cm and the sink is 60cm, will be 70cm together with the cement base. 
This is the busiest corner of the kitchen! We do not exactly have a big kitchen and since we did an open L-shaped kitchen, we do not have extra island too. We also do not have the luxury of a galley style kitchen on the left and right with a lot of countertop space but we made it work! Hosted friends and families with good food in our house with the functional kitchen! Really glad for the panasonic 4-in-1 function oven microwave that has grill and steam function too. It is useful for all the microwaving and heating of food, defrosting and I am intending to bake from it as well! Tefal pressure cooker for any soups, ready in 1h! yums! Another useful new addition to our kitchen, the Mayer airfryer! Hubby like that it is glass and we can see the things being cooked inside and the doneness of it. The mess is 'intentional', this shows the daily life of our family. The cooking pan has porridge in it for my son so it is currently blocking the pressure cooker and the microwave haha.
1comment
sujayaGood job 👍 keep it up2 months ago
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