Second Floor lobby

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Lobby?

There was no effective lobby.  The original design simply followed the old traditional design.  When you go upstair, the common toilet will be facing you right on your face.  While this design allow maximum usage of space to turn into rooms (A total of 4), it does not allow ample natural lights to get into the lobby.  Worst still, when someone use the bathroom, it will leave the lobby in total darkness.

Pic: Red box denote the common toilet, which effectively blocked up the common 'lobby', which is purple.

So we did the relative unthinkable.

First, we decided to hack the two front rooms into one master bedroom.  And one of the room will be converted into TWO bathrooms, with one serving the master bedroom, another serves as the common bathroom for the rest.

With that, the original toilet will be hacked down, leaving behind a huge drop down window, allowing lights to enter the dark lobby and facilitate ventilation, hence encouraging natural ventilation !  With that in mind, hopefully that lobby will serve effectively as one in due course.

Work in progress (Photos will be updated from time to time ):

This is where the old common toilet was, blocking away the natural light into the lobby.

This is the rear room, where the extension has been demolished

This frontage room will be sacrificed to give half of its space to become 2 separate bathrooms.  The other half will be part of the Master Bedroom itself.  Pretty unconventional idea for me, but I think that's the only way to create decent lobby space with ample natural light. 

The common bathroom partition is being built.

The Master Bedroom toilet is taking its shape.

Left the remaining half of the room as part of the Master bedroom.

 

Common Toilet door has been created.  The door was shifted about a foot to cater for interior need. That may reduce the size of the lobby, but too bad it has to be done.

The lobby ceiling and roof's down.

Front room, part of the master bedroom.

Walls are up now. This is rear room 1.

This is rear room 2.

Many days later, new roof is slowly being built up.

New roof is being built up.





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Master Bedroom partition finally being hacked down.

Inside the master bedroom, this is the small section which houses a bathroom and a mini walk-in wardrobe.  But...

... the bathroom is really too small !  Now we have to innovate to fit in all the bathroom fixtures.


We decided not to hack anything down at this stage, but rather think of a way to live with it.

Cemented floor of the rear room 1.






























Cemented floor of the rear room 2.

One of the first batch of window frame came in nicely.

After a few days, the frame is in placed.  Here's the wiring track being hacked.

Piping tracks inside the common bathroom.

This is the lobby that wasn't there in the first place.  With wide open window, the lobby can finally see the day light all day long.

Plaster ceiling job begins !

The metal support frames are being put up room by room.  The level is being measured by using a laser device as being shown below !

A day later, the ceiling is up.

Here's the ceiling occupying half of the master bedroom now.

Lobby and rooms are getting their plaster ceiling installed.

Here's how they looked like after a few days of work and patch up job.

Ah Phan the chief Contractor summoned back his boy to install the bathroom sink support and cement top now.  The work has been delayed for a while due to their hectic schedule.


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The master Bedroom toilet has been a subject of discussion among us for quite some time.


Firstly the size of it is just too small to be able to fit all the bathroom facilities.  But we manage to design on paper that it could still be done with some compromise.  I have even convinced my wife that, after years of shifting rooms (rented unit) since our tender age of 18, I have more or less learned how to take things as it comes.  So with no exception, we should be able to live with such toilet size.


Secondly, the piping that protrudes underneath the bathroom serve another big problem for the plaster ceiling downstair.  Our chief coordinator Ah Boy, after days of gazing at the pipes, concluded that it is just too intrusive for proper work to be done without harming the aesthetics of the sitting room.


So after discussion with the boys, we have agreed to modify the existing plan.  From the original small rectangular bathroom, we will extend the side to make it into an 'L' shape, making room for a shower space, leave behind the rest of the space for a basin, toilet bowl and dry space for hanging clothes etc.


Here's the toilet design earlier :

Here's the new design, note that the toilet bowl has been relocated away from the window.

Here's how it looks like before the mod :

Then : Wall down.

New walls are being built up.

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At this point of time, most of the upgrading work is featured in Tiling Chapter.  Do go to the link for more updates.

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Finally the windows are installed.

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 Masterbedroom extended area was built on the original car porch.  So the level is actually lower then the 'ground'.  We have decided to level it by building the wooden support, completely flatten the room for comfort.  Well, one of the corner will actually be elevated as activity centre for the kids.  We'll show how it works at the end.

Tempered glass for the shower room.

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 Here's the built up platform, literally flatten the masterbedroom. 

The wet surface is the Anti-termite treatment.  

Here's the glass partition for the bathroom.  Nice work. 

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The floor was found to be a little bit too flimsy.  So they are dismantled for further reinforcement.

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Almost reaching the final stage, the doors are being fixed in.  It is not the best design in the world no doubt, but it will be made even lower key by being painted white overall !

... and this is one of the permanent fixture appeared in almost all houses in Malaysia !  Metal grill !  The mother of all interior design spoiler.

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