Hi ehwee and others,

Would appreciate your opinion.

Below is my standard 20x70 DSL house. About the positioning of the TV, if I put it as per standard position like the 1st picture below, the distance between the sofa and TV seems to be too close.

But if I would to rotate it 90 degree as per the 2nd picture, the distance seems to be better and the passage way from entrance door to the staircase is better too. but in this option, the back of the TV rack is a sliding glass door. Shall I remove this door and make it a brick wall with 2 small vertical windows at the side? then i'm worried that in the future if i have long or big furniture to move in, the main door might be too small.

any other suggestions for a better solution?

thanks a lot in advance

Hi TS,

Here's a challenge to to do some ID works for a small condo 678sq ft.
Since the room is very small, need your advice for the Master Room design to fit a big wardrobe, working / dressing desk and Queen Size bed with some storage shelf too.

Thanks a lot & Happy New Year 2021.

Hi Ehwee,

Thanks for doing this.

Am wondering if you have any suggestions on how to do the lighting. I am planning to do plaster ceiling at the living area except the kitchen. The kitchen will just put a round surface mounted right.

The plan is below, plan to have 5 downlights, and one pendant just above the dining area. I also plan to put a ceiling fan in between the sofa and TV. There is a shoe cabinet just after the entrance. Is it sufficient lighting, or do you have any other suggestions perhaps including other form of lighting.



The kitchen has a glass partition looks like this, so light from the kitchen might also light up the dining table area. Its a rather small 750 sqft 2 BR

5 nos of downlights will not be sufficient if you prefer to have bright lighted living space.

I will suggest you can opt for a concealed ceiling light along the tv and dining wall then having track light over the shoe cabinet.



Also better to have strip lights over the kitchen top hang and some spot light under it as usually kitchen need brighter lighting environment for cooking sessions.



Hope this help up!

Thank you for your valuable reply I really appreciate it.

I am newbie but while awaiting your reply I came out with this. I prefer to stick to a simple recessed light+eyeball+pendant setup as we are tight on budget. While awaiting your reply I have came up with this.



6 recessed downlights, then 1 eyeball each at the TV cabinet and Shoe Cabinet as accent lighting. A pendant at the Dining area and a Surface Downlight at the kitchen. What do you think about this.

I will however do more research on the concealed lights, and strip lights. I have considered placing the fan in the middle but I would have thought it will look weird. I guess it will not be the case as you have recommended it.

Once again I appreciate your input!

Hi,

This is my living room wall where I am going to place my tv (duh), cabinet and shoe cabinet.

Initially wanted to do a normal tv wall with acrylic, glass or melamine or laminate.
Then decided on a design to use porcelain slab for tv wall and the rest laminate .


But the socket placement proved to be a challenge as it is starting from 2700mm and ends at 3500mm.
Laminate/porcelain slab is 2400mm. From there I will have balance of 180mm for a floating cabinet 530mm off the ground.
Tv is 680-710mm off the ground. Meaning there is only a balance of 180mm between the edge of the tv and edge of the laminate.

Another problem would be that the console cabinet would either be going over the socket or be on top of the socket which would be too high.
Spent weeks/months looking for a suitable design to get around this.

Another problem I have with this is that the tv wall will be bigger than the seating area meaning the tv will be off center (to the left) and that means that the sofa will have to be a bit to the left in order for it to be center with the tv.

After searching high and low online for inspiration I found this design that I love very much.



It is flushed. Everything is neat and tidy and tucked away. Everything is floating.
Plus there is space below the tv to tuck away extra chairs as my sofa is just a 2 seater.
My living room is quite small so it would be nice to have extra chairs available that can be tucked neatly nearby.
I thought I could follow the design above and put my decoder in the mirror cabinet.
I thought the issue would be opening a socket for the console.
Only later on I realized that I wouldn't be able to get signal from the remote to the decoder.

So back to having a decoder console hanging under the tv.
However like many designs that I see online, they are not practical (in our country) as we have astro decoder, tv box, etc.
They don't leave a space for decoders. I am guessing they leave it on top of the cabinet (floating or on the floor).

The other issue is that the prices for laminate wall is pretty expensive. Prices quoted ranges from RM7000-11000 for this job.
So I thought I could follow another of my favorite floating design that uses drywall I think.


Advantage of this design is that it should be much cheaper than laminate and also I am not limited by the size of the laminate which 2400mm.
With drywall I could have the hanging wall much longer and closer to the ground to perhaps 350-450mm.
Enough space for tv console compartment under the tv in 1 floating design.
However after 1 day I decided against it as I have a baby.
Drywall is very weak. If my baby decides to throw something against it or touch it, I will need to fix it and then repaint.
It will have some spots unless I paint the whole wall.
Too much work. Too much risk. So I decided against it.

So back to the drawing board with laminate.
One guy told me that he has a longer laminate of 3000mm which would be perfect as I can have it at my desired length anywhere between 2500-2600mm.
After meeting him, he said better to squeeze in the tv console/decoder in between the tv and end of the laminate. He said 150mm for decoder.
So it will look like this

Is the design good?
Price quoted is RM7000.
Is it reasonable?

The design looks ok, maybe you can adding a horizontal feature colour panel as indicated below to make the opening for decoder blend into the whole tv cabine design.

Don't forget to have concealed LED light strips under the TV wall panels, this way will look even better!! 

Hi Ehwee,

Thanks for doing this and I really appreciate your advice on this.

I'm wondering is there anyway to redesign the kitchen and dinning area without knocking off the walls? I bought this house a few years back and the completion of this project is on 2021.
I start to reviewing the floor plan and realise the kichen is really very small... I love to cook and wish to have a full functioning kitchen...
Can you advise how should i go about it?

Thanks again!

Hi I wish to separate my toilet to dry and wet. Put a glass in the middle. Usually the mosaic divider, how tick is it

Thanks for the info boss, will look into it.

BTW another question, about the partition for the shower area to separate the wet and dry part.

Currently I'm using tempered glass, and the watermark after a few years is really bad. Also the mold growing at the silicone sealant is very bad too.

Is there any other easier to maintain material to do this? I don't really like shower curtain, always give me the "dirty feeling" if accidentally touches it after the shower. Would like to see if there's any other better idea to do this.

Thanks

Yes, I think this is a practical and effective design solution base on your needs.

cheers!

not really sure on how to maintain and keep the shower glass looks clean without taking much efforts to clean and wipe it regularly.

May be can look for some water repellent sprays on the market I guess, if anyone here has better ideas or solutions on this, I will love to hear and learn from it also.

Thanks for the input! Do you think I have enough width in the island there to place a microwave and an oven?

Hi, thank you for this thread. I need suggestion on my house layout which we will start to renovate soon.

Im thinking to remove "ruang basuh" area to extend kitchen, but later "utility room" wont have any window. any suggestion?

Depend on how many storage ratio you need under the island really, if you need more drawers or storage under the island then may be just put the build in oven will do and get a portable microwave put on top of the kitchen counter on the other side.