smartie

Using this post to show how impressed we are with the service at Eestilo (again). <edit 19-May> Removed the contents on the request of Sunny. Whatever he did is a personal favour to booy and me, so I would appreciate if anyone who has read this post previously and intending to ask Sunny about it, pls don't as it is putting him in a difficult position. Will be asking blue_diamond to remove the quote from his post below as well. Thanks! <edit> Eestilo de vida may not have the lowest prices around, but their service is definitely the most top-notch I have encountered so far. Kudos to them!

Our master bedroom crystal light bought from Lighting Centre. booy has been eyeing this since last week

Time for toilet tiles photos Here are the ones we brought back from Hafary. These are from LSH: After some filtering, we shortlisted 1 each from LSH and Hafary. Both are the 3rd option (3rd from left) in the photos. Here's the display of the Hafary tiles at their showroom. Supposed to be from Spain. Original price is $4.20psf but now got 20% off. The display for our shortlisted LSH tiles. Wall tiles will be mainly the beige one. Will use some brown tiles to complement (but still haven't decided how yet).The 2nd photo has our chosen floor tile on the lower left. After more consideration, we most probably will go for LSH. The colours fit the overall theme of the house better.

Universal Union is at 710 Geylang Road (between Geylang Lor 42 & 44) Map

Our Fujioh gas hob is model FG 793 GL. Hood is FX 900. Actually, Goh Ah Bee is still a bit cheaper because their prices are nett whereas for Universal Union, need to add 7% GST. But for convenience sake, I decided to buy at Universal Union instead of making another trip to Kovan. Also Universal Union accepts credit card, so I can offset a portion of the price difference with the cash rebate given by the card.

Yes, the package price is very reasonable. That's why we went for it. The idea of getting Hansgrohe stuff never crossed our mind before Haha... if you have time, go all. We went geylang twice, jalan besar 3 times and balestier don't know how many times. This weekend going down again to Balestier (to see tiles and maybe buy some lights) and Jalan Besar (for other bathroom fittings/accessories). But it's easier for us cos we stay around the area

Their address is 540 Sims Ave #01-01 Sims Ave Centre (Between Geylang Lor 35 & 37) Map can be found on their website: Eestilo de Vida Their package prices are very reasonable. If getting individually, the price may not be as good as places like Poh Joo but no harm checking it out.

Haha... your bedroom 2 really very colourful

Erm.. It's Kelvin, not Alvin Yes, their service is really good and sincere. We didn't commit on the rain shower on the spot as we wanted to go to more places to compare before deciding. Rather than resorting to pushy selling, Gary was very nice and promised us he will honour the discounted price for the rainshower if we eventually decide to go back and buy from them. Here are the photos: The WC & wash basin package we got: The second WC (didn't get package cos we re-using one of our existing wash basin & tap): The Hansgrohe package: Closeup of the shower head:

As promised, here are the photos of the items we bought from S & C yesterday: Coffee table: Dining table: Dining chair: Bedframe: Some of the fabrics available for the bedframe. We chose the 2nd one from the bottom. It's black with a bit of shimmering.

At this juncture, I feel it's appropriate to write about how we finally decided to engage Ah Soon as our contractor. Warning: long post We started looking for IDs and contractors around 3 to 4 months ago. During this 3 to 4-month period, we asked for quotations from 9 parties. 7 of them are IDs, 1 is a contractor who then referred us to a design firm in the end, and the last is Ah Soon. Out of the 9, 2 never got back. Wasted our trips down to their offices (both are IDs btw). Of the remaining IDs who gave us their quotations, 1 really stood out (let's call him K). We met K at a fair in Expo, showed him our floorplan and explained our requirements. Around 2 to 3 weeks later, he not only gave us the quotation, but he also did a space layout plan and suggested designs for our TV wall and MBR walk-in wardrobe area. From that point till recently, I think we have met up at least 5 times. He produced various 2D drawings and a 3D drawing for the TV wall to help us better visualise, and when we suggested the cost of that is too high, he tried his best to tweak his design based on our budget. We are quite impressed with his enthusiasm and friendliness and felt comfortable talking to him. The only thing that prevented us from engaging him is the price. It's not sky high, but it's stretching our budget. So we decided to seek out quotation from contractors to see if there's a significant difference. First contractor we seeked out was recommended by booy's acquaintance. Happens that his name is also Ah Soon, but he's not the superstar Ah Soon. Met him once to talk about what we want, and on the second meeting to see our flat, he brought a 'friend' who actually belongs to a design firm. In the end, the quotation was even higher than K. Disappointed, we tried the original Ah Soon next. As expected, we had a hard time trying to get him, but finally got to meet him on Sat 25 Apr. After that, we eagerly waited for his quotation. The shortlist was now down to him and K. We were getting worried that uncle is getting overloaded, and we will have to monitor more closely if we engage him rather than K. In the end, booy and I agreed on a price difference threshold, i.e. if the price difference exceeds this threshold, we will engage Ah Soon and commit more of our own time to manage and monitor. Otherwise, we will spend a bit more to engage K and relax easier. Uncle flew us aeroplane twice regarding our quotation. The first time he said he will deposit the quotation into our letterbox, but when we went down specially to open our letterbox that night, it was not there. Second time, he promised to get his son to email us the quotation. Again, no email came. Judgement day finally came on 5-May. I managed to contact Ah Soon that afternoon to pass us our quotation that night at our place. I was actually recovering from illness that day, but I still dragged myself and drove to our place with booy. Uncle was late by 2 hours, but we were glad that he finally came. He went through his chinese quotation with us and when he gave us the final figure, we knew that he has emerged the winner. We have sent K an email yesterday on our decision of not engaging him. So far no reply yet (which is partly why I'm not naming him or the ID firm here). Both booy and I felt a bit guilty cos he has really spent a lot of time and effort on us. If $$ was not a constraint, we would have signed up with him. Not sure whether he comes to renotalk, but we still want to thank him for all the things he has done for us. Have not signed anything with uncle yet, but he agreed to send someone to tear down the MBR wardrobe first so that we can go buy our new air con and get the installation done during the beginning stages of renovation which will start 2 weeks later. Uncle asked me to translate the quotation into English and let him sign. I decided to do one in both English and Chinese instead. Supposed to give it to uncle yesterday during the dismantling of the wardrobe but in the end he could not turn up as he was held up by some matters. booy as quite impressed by the bi-lingual quotation though. Haha...

Yes, chinese old uncle. Called uncle yesterday but he was busy. Will try to call him again today.

Yah, sad man. Actually there are 2 scratches if you look carefully at the photo. One long one, and a shorter one near the top. Anyway, after the dismantling job was done, booy and I made a trip down to S & C again. Melvin told us that the Univonna coffee table that we are eyeing is custom made for Univonna, so he won't be able to get it for us because for such cases, he needs to order in batches of 20. So we gave up and chose another one from the catalogs. It's also white with glass on top. Not as nice as the original one, but for half the price, we can't really complain. We also bought our bedframe and dining table & chairs. Will post the photos tomorrow.

Uncle sent his workers to dismantle the master bedroom wardrobe, cupboard and bedside tables today. Bedside tables gone Wardrobe & half-height cupboard gone too The cursed column and beam The workers accidentally scratched the laminate flooring! Heart pain Can this be repaired using some filler?

Oh... yah, it's a column, but there's supposedly a beam running across the top too. That's because the top shelves are also of a shorter depth.

Hmm.. I thought we have the same floor plan? You don't have this beam?

Yes, it's the univonna coffee table. We couldn't find it in the catalogs. Melvin told us he needs to find out the exact model from the next shipment. We will be going back to S&C this weekend. Hopefully he has good news for us.

We were there at around 12+ to 1+. Initially the shop was quite empty when we arrived. But as we flipped through the catalogs, more & more people arrived and Melvin and May were very busy attending to all of us. Not sure if you and your wife were part of the crowd

Saturday's findings: - Dozz Mattress @ Toa Payoh They had a pre-opening sale and we went there not expecting much. Probably because it's at StorHub so we were expecting some warehouse type of shop. To our surprise, the place was quite well done up and very spacious. Salesperson was also professional and friendly. We shortlisted Simmons Beautyrest Horizon and Slumberland Royal Princess. - PostureCare @ Macpherson Tried more mattresses. In fact, I could not remember exactly what mattresses we tried at what places Think we tried Sealy Ivory Award and Royal Princess again. booy seems to like Royal Princess a lot, but the price also exceeds by our budget a lot. Haha. - Silver River @ Paya Lebar They have 6 storeys of furniture, but I don't remember anything that caught our eye. - Lush lush @ Paya Lebar They have some sofas on offer but the sofas are mostly too long. Except those on offer & have red tags, the rest of the furniture are too costly for us. - Bed & Bedding Centre @ Paya Lebar More mattress trying! Tried a few Sweet Dreams mattresses here but somehow the feeling is not as good as the Slumberland, Simmons & Sealy mattresses we have tried. - Enterprise One @ Kaki Bukit (Navinzi, XZQT, Ackerman) Navinzi is having a sales on some of their sofa models. The Duncan model is quite nice and is selling for $1490. Here's the photo we took of the sofa: There's almost 30 colours that you can choose from. Only problem is that the length is only 2.2m which is slightly less than our ideal length of around 2.4 to 2.5m. XZQT prices are Enough said Went to Ackerman and tried to find the Beautyrest Horizon mattress again to try. But couldn't find it, so left the place and proceeded to Expo. - Homes 2009 Exhibition @ Expo We siam the IDs and went straight to those selling furniture and mattresses. First stop was the Sealy booth. We tried Knightsbridge. Quite nice and the price was also decent. Then we went to the Slumberland booth. Tried a few before hitting on our jackpot: the Royal Regency. Though not as nice as the Royal Princess, the feeling was close enough and more importantly, the price was significantly lower. We did not commit immediately. I'm the kind who wants to do more research before I commit. During dinner at Burger King, I whipped out my phone and surfed the net to try to find more info. But alas, cannot find any info on this model. The saleslady earlier mentioned that this is a launch price and so far only hotels have been using the model. In the end, I gave her the benefit of doubt and since the most important thing in a mattress is that we must feel good lying on it, we went back and bought it after dropping by the Metro Expo sale Anyway, a side story of our adventure in Expo. After we first viewed the Slumberland mattresses, booy went to toilet and I sat down on a sofa in a booth by Westpoint Design to wait for her. When booy came back, an uncle from Westpoint came and recommended some sofas to us. There was this 2-module rotatable sofa which looked a lot like the Calypso sofa by Cellini but with a higher back (according to booy). We were stuck there for quite a long while uncle demonstrated how nice the sofa is. We ended up quite tempted but we were afraid that it will look too big in our living room and of course, the price exceeded our budget (again ). We told uncle we will consider, but uncle was quite persistent. He finally let us go a while later when we said we were hungry and needed to go for dinner. We did went back after dinner and uncle resumed his sales pitch again. He reduced the price and absorbed GST and said if we come back the next day, he won't be able to absorb GST (as if I believe ). In the end, we decided not to buy on impulse. Phew... I admit I was quite tempted last night though.

Orh.. next time will try our best to remember to take pics

Haha, booy was also very tired. But to me, it's very fun to go 环岛追追追 to different places

Friday's findings: - King Furnishing @ Jalan Pemimpin The coffee tables are quite nice and prices are decent. But nothing can beat the one we saw at Univonna so far. - S & C Furniture @ Ang Mo Kio Really lots of catalogs to flip through, and their prices are really attractive. Asked them about the Univonna coffee table. It could not be found in their catalogs but they promised to find out and let us know next week. - Furniture Warehouse @ Upper Thomson Went there because of the newspaper advertisement on the opening of a Bedz store there. Tried a few mattresses but we were not impressed by the salespersons there. Seems like they do not know their products well because they couldn't answer some of our questions. - Sungei Kadut (Castilla/Montage Gallery, Avanni, IFC, Mode Studio, Inch) Our original purpose there was to go to Leefon (another mattress shop), but the place was not open. So we just went around and visited other shops. There are a couple of nice leather sofas on offer at Castilla, but too bad they are mostly 3+2 seaters. Avanni also has some nice sofas. We then went to IFC to grab a quick bite. Since it's our 2nd time there, we didn't really stay long. Just tried several Simmons mattresses at the Simmons gallery there. We liked Lakeview and Arlington Plush but too bad, they are beyond our budget. - Morris @ Woodlands Don't remember anything that's of interest to me at Morris.

Haha... nope, forgot to take picture

The past 2 days have been very hectic for me & booy. We went to many places to look at furniture and mattresses, and we finally made the first purchase for our house today! It's a Slumberland mattress that we bought from the Homes 2009 exhibition at Expo. After trying out so many mattresses, we finally found one that we both like and does not bust our budget by a lot. Hehe... really happy that we have settled this (though there's still a long list of other things pending). Anyway, here are the places we covered the past two days: Friday - Journey to the northern side of Singapore: - King Furnishing @ Jalan Pemimpin - S & C Furniture @ Ang Mo Kio - Furniture Warehouse @ Upper Thomson - Sungei Kadut (Montage Gallery, Avanni, IFC, Mode, Inch) - Morris @ Woodlands Saturday - Journey to the East: - Dozz Mattress @ Toa Payoh - PostureCare @ Macpherson - Silver River @ Paya Lebar - Lush lush @ Paya Lebar - Bed & Bedding Centre @ Paya Lebar - Enterprise One @ Kaki Bukit (Navinzi, XZQT, Ackerman) - Homes 2009 Exhibition @ Expo Will talk more about the more interesting bits of our 2-day journey in a subsequent post.

Today is Tuesday, not Monday. So it's correct that you saw it open mah Anyway, here's the coffee table that booy is talking about... We saw this at Univonna. Hope to find the same one in S&C at a cheaper price.