Glass Door and kitchen-living window

Hi everyone, we wanted to share our feedback on the choice of a full-glass swing door for the kitchen-living room door.

Firstly, the kitchen and dinning area is connected by a door. Initially we were following the concept of a design that has a similar longish layout like ours here. It was using a wood frame-glass panel bi fold door. As the design developed, after we decided to introduce a "window" between the kitchen and living room (so we can keep an eye on the kids in the living room while cooking), the decision for the door naturally followed. see our kitchen-dining area concept below

kitchen-dining area concept with glass door

An elevation view of the "window" and glass door. If you have noticed, we put some decals and clear stickers as a few of our first time visitors did not realise the glass door and bumped into it. Using a sliding door would have compromised into our storage space to the sliding pocket and would block the "window". Another option was to use bi-fold doors but we did not like the rails especially in a heavy cooking oil environment.

The glass is made of a full piece of tempered glass, meaning that it has been strengthened by heat treatment so it is harder to break. In any case it is broken, it will shatter into harmless tiny pieces of glass. We have asked specifically for the edges of the glass door to be chamfered to remove any sharp corners.

window and glass door with decals and stickers

The glass door can open in and outwards. This allowed for some flexibility in usage.



glass door swing outwards

glass door swing inwards

Feedback:
Overall we are quite happy with the choice. Specific points as follows:

Plus points
1. effective keeps out kitchen oil, probably like any other systems
2. fits into our design and the adjacent window
3. in-out swing was useful when serving hot food
4. allows light sharing between the living room and kitchen which gets the evening and morning sun respectively.
5. no rails or sliding pocket

Minus points and what we could have done better
1. However, a word of caution is to train babies and toddlers not to plan in the door swing zone. The glass door edge and floor can form a nasty pinch on the little toes, which has happened twice. Besides reinforcing that this it a NO-PLAY zone, we would probaby looking into attaching a soft rubber for the lower door edge to reduce the pinching effect.

2. The glass door swing mechanism is a PH and is still working fine. It was only after it was installed before we researched that Dorma was the best brand. I would insist on a Dorma if I knew earlier.

Does the Refrigerator need a Plinth?

Do you need to create a plinth for the refrigerator? That was one of the "minor" points my ID was trying to play down and convince me to avoid the plinth. His argument was that without the plinth, it was easier to roll out the fridge to clean up the dust behind.

As the end-user, my concern was to address the case when the kitchen floor gets flooded from the washing machine malfunction, it would damage the fridge's electrical circuits. Read about front load washing machines having this risk here. "But that is a 1:1000 chance of happening", he argued back.  I figured he was trying to find the easy way out, as without the plinth, the tiler will have a much easier time. Click here to read the reasoning. Anyway, to cut the long story short, I won the debate, which I now am glad having doing so. To protect the washing machine from the flood, we have also placed the rubber blocks to raise it above the floor.

Fridge on a plinth, adjacent to stacked drier on Washing machine which is on blocks.

Washing Machine on blocks

After moving for 2 and a half years, the "1:1000" incident happened... the kitchen floor was flooded when the water discharge tube from the washing machine was accidentally pulled out of the house outlet pipe.

The fridge on the plinth and washing machine on blocks were safe from the flooding. The only thing to handle was cleaning up the flood. Snapped some photos while moving the washing machine and drier out to clean up the wet floor. All these effort to prevent permanent damage to the fridge and washing machine.... I'd say it is worth it.

1. Shifted out the drier and washing machine
2.  Create a temporary extension plinth to roll out the fridge (using newspapers and plywood shelf board)

Note the concrete tiled plinth on the left. Fridge has a white wheel and black adjustable leg. 

3. Roll out the fridge to access the kitchen outlet.

 4. Clean up the kitchen outlet

Kitchen water outlet was located under the fridge. All the flood water was discharged through this outlet. Also note the back of the fridge (on the right) has a lot of electrical works, vulnerable to flooding.

In conclusion, while making design decisions for your renovation, do consider some worst case situations, especially if they can cause some form of permanent damage to your assets.

Also see kitchen layout

Kitchen Design Concepts and Specifics

My wife and I spent a fair amount of time  deciding the approach to the kitchen design and layout. After weeks of discussion, of which some are less than cordial... here is what we agreed on.

Concepts:
1. Who has the Ultimate Say? My wife, being the primary user will have the ultimate say in the choice of layout for funationality and material/colour choice for outlook. For the new couples working on the renovation for your new home, it can be a lot of tension while making decisions along the way. My personal experience is always good to give and take.

2. Do we believe in FengShui? Yes! From my limited memory, our FS master dictated the Stove direction, refrigator facing direction, and insisting on avoiding clashes between the "hot" and "wet" elements are a few key parts. "Hot" elements are like stove and oven. "Wet" elements are prepresented by toilet door, sink and washing machine. We did some research work to check back. But if you want to take into consideration your GUA number, you may consider engaging a FengShui Master to help you early in the design stage. These FS guidelines will form part of the controlling parameters to guide your decision making.

3. Do we actually cook or bake regularly? Yes and quite a fair bit! Thus, to isolate the stir-fry and deep frying fumes from spreading to the living room, we decided to keep the kitchen "closed" aka non-open concept. From the above,
a. The choice of stove and oven was clearly important.
b. To reduce cleaning, we decided to choose a high performance hood.
c. We chose to introduce a glass door to isolate the kitchen from the living room while cooking. A glass door was chosen so we could keep an eye on our children in the living room.
d. Tabletop space needed to be increase for baking and food processing. These extra tabletop doubles up as a breakfast table.

4. What kind of theme do we want? We both wanted a neutral theme, but it has to look spacious. Thus we adopted a "white kitchen" concept. There are other themes like cottage or 2-tones. Some of our research references are here. Looking at photos helped us visualize and decide what we wanted. Communication with the ID is also easier with photos.

5. What is the Storage plan? After visualising how our movement would be like while cooking or baking, the wall mounted cabinets, tabletop cabinets where added around the stove, ovens, sink and refrigators. For more details, most of our ideas care from here. My wife wanted the following:
a. Sliding shelves for stir-fry sause beside the stove
b. Commonly used staff to be at middle level for ease of access
c. Staff that is seldom used a should be a at a low level, so the user will not need to squat or bend over too often.
d. Staff that is required once in a bluemoon is stored at the highest level. A stool may be required for access.

A glimpse of the completed kitchen layout as follows:

Also see
Glass Door and kitchen-living window
Does the Refrigerator need a Plinth?
Pre-renovation Preparation

Wet Floor Toilet Design

Its been 2 years since our renovation has been completed. If you have been following on our choice of "Improved Toilet Layout", we chose to have a common standing area for the sink and bath zones. Thus our toilet does not have a Dry or Wet floor area.

The floor is always wet. Unfortunately, we have also not picked a floor tile that was sufficiently rough. As the result, the floor is slightly slippery when wet. "The solution was simple", I thought. Just get a floor mat!

My first mat choice was a perforated foam mat, supposedly made in Germany. It seemed to have a lot of friction when I tried it at the hardware shop, which obviously did not have a wet floor. But after the first trial, where I simulated a "slip" under wet conditions, it proved to be still slippery. No Go.

My second attempt was a mat made from hard plastic strips. it worked! Paid about S$40 from Homefix for a standard size.

Why it worked: I supposed the reduced contact area from the black strips allowed water to trickle through. In addition, the reduced contact area created a larger friction force against the black strips and the wet toilet floor. To verify this, a control test was done by pushing the mat on the wet floor with my hands, it slipped. I tried the "slip", that is with my body weight on the mat, which passed with flying colours. You may be interested to know that for the foam mat, the results were the exact opposite. There you go Physic fans!

After the toilet wash, we would stand it up in the corner of the toilet to allow the water to dry off completely to prevent floor staining. From the following photos, you can see the black strips that provides good friction against the wet floor.

Also see Improved Toilet Layout- Costing of Renovation
Also see Improved Toilet Layout- Feedback
Also see Improved Toilet Layout

Making a Long-shaped Living room feel Spacious

Our flat layout is a long rectangular shape.
Thus, it feel narrow and long, more like a corridor than a living room.

This particular layout was one of our main concerns before signing on the Option. But my wife likes the location so much and I thought maybe we can figure out a way to re-design the layout so it feels more spacious. Indeed, this has become one of the most challenging issue in our renovation.

Together with our ID, these following methods were applied to create a more squarish spacious feel to the living hall.

1. Colour Scheme

Found some useful resources  paint supplier's website. There is also a simple video commentary of the effective use of colours. The following is a summary.

How to raise ceiling?

Colours can be used to change the size of your home. You may use 3 different shades of colour to make a low ceiling appear higher. Simply use the strongest shade of colour on the base of the room, then paint the medium shade of colour for the walls, and finish off with the lights tint of the colour for the ceiling.

Choice of colours in Living Room

We chose the 3 different shades of Cream for the florr Magnolia yellow for the wall and white for the ceiling. We wanted an earthly version of the european classic feel. What do you think of the effect?

How to create width in you hall?

A long narrow hall will appear shorter and wider if the end walls are decorate with a dark or warm shade of colour, and the side walls with a light or pastel colour.

Choice of colours in for the End Wall

The end wall was painted with a Dark Cocoa colour to try to make the living room feel wider.















2. Feature Window & Glass Door between the Kitchen and Living Room
Our ID guy proposed this glass door and feature window to allow break the long walls of the living room.
It also allowed for visual communication for the people in the kitchen and the living room. My wife agreed to the idea saying that it will allow her to monitor he helper cooking while she is in the livving room.

3. Floor Tile orientation
The tile chosen was a creamed coloured homogenous with light brown streaks running in 1 directon.
Our ID recommended that the brown streaks run across the width of  the living hall to make it look wider. But I feel the effect was not obvious as the brown streaks were too faint.


Also See
Kitchen design concepts and specifics
Choosing right fan for your room
Glass door and kitchen living window
Chandelier Lights

Improved Toilet layout

For the toilet, we wanted a spacious "hotel toilet" feel. Perharps a lot to ask for on a tight budget.
Our ID had some good input by proposing the following:

1. Shared shower-sink concept.
This concept starts with the removal of the traditional shower glass partition which isolates the space used for sink and shower. Instead the sink-user and shower-user share the same standing spot. The saved space goes on to allow for a large vanity top. To prevent the vanity top from getting wet during shower, a shower curtain is installed.

Old and New Toilet Layout

Previous toilet with Glass Shower Partition

Toilet after renovation (with Vanity Top and shower curtains)

2. Vanity top with sink
The vanity top gives a the sink area a spacious table top and hotel feel (a cheaper version that is). This is in comparison to a tiny sink, usually typical of HDB toilets.


3. Full wall mounted storage cabinet
The wall mounted cabinet provides enough storage to keep the toilet clutter free. ID guy also suggested that the cabinet doors can double up as a mirror. these helps to make the toilet feel more spacious.

Wall mounted Cabinet provided Storage Space

Mirror finished cabinet doors

Also see the Improved Toilet Layout- Feedback Dec 2012

4. White colour was chosen for the wall and floor tile to make the toilet brighter and feel more spacious

5. Installed a cove light under the cabinet for a "hotel feel" (cheapo method)

6. Classy looking toilet bowl:
We chose the Baron Toilet bowl for its classy look (look-a-like TOTO, but at a fraction of the cost), water saving features and position of down-pipe (aka "size" in the dimension below). will do another write up about the toilet bowl "size" as I have learnt a lot the hard way and wanted to save you from the hassle.

As a feedback to all, after several weeks of use, we found that the original toilet seats does not provide comfort for long sitting, probably due to the curved profile. But we decided against changing the seat as it was too much trouble.

Also see Feedback of Water Cabinet Baron W303- 4 years and
Changing Toilet Bowl Seat Cover- Baron W303

7. Other toilet accessories
Purchased most of our toilet accessories from Heritage in Geylang. We were very impressed by Irene's service and knowledge. The other thing we liked was that they offered a best price straight away. No bargaining was entertained. when we compared against other shops, we can only get the same price after a long bargaining session.

Stainless steel toilet bin @ Heritage

Shower Head and holder @ Heritage

Simple Bidget $22 @Heritage

Also see toilet related posts:
Wet Floor Toilet
Improved-toilet-layout-feedback-dec-2012
Feedback of water cabinet baron W303

For unique Renovation ideas, see:
Kitchen Design Concepts and Specifics
Making a Long-shaped Living room feel Spacious
False Ceiling and Lightings

Shopping for Lightings

We had a simple lighting plan. These are those we selected.

Simple energy Saving Bulb with Holder for Toilets and Store Rooms

Cubic with yellow lighting for corridors

Ceiling hung Chandiler

Ceiling fan with lights

Also see
Lighting Concept- cost saving
Lighting Concept- Living Room
Choosing a ceiling light- How to ask for good quality
Ceiling fan comparison chart