lawrenceke

I got my friend staying in China to help, i used hoyoyo and peeka on some bigger stuffs. Tried 65daigou too but service very expensive and they tend to charge you more on the packaging. Overall experience with peeka is the best cos they call you immediately when the goods reached Singapore and got rebates if i do self collect myself. None for hoyoyo and 65daigou. There is another forwarder, Amcon that other forumers recommend to me, didn't try out because i don't have taobao account and if you get Amcon to buy for you.. they charge you $10 per link. So i rather rely on pple to help me buy and send the stuffs to me.

To add on this point, i saw someone selling locally online recently on these chandeliers. No shop overheads and no advertising costs, the fellow actually sold slightly cheaper than the shops. Best part is that he keeps on spamming different fb groups to advertise his products. Really disgusting. Do watch out all your purchases and do your homework before buying anything online. Not all are cheap and good. Can someone tell me if buying chandeliers locally or locally online got free installation and warranty?

yupz, i bought from taobao. Not only balestier shops are overpriced, in fact the whole of SG is overpriced! But kind of think of it, the shops have their reason to sell that expensive. They have rental, electricity, water, workers' salary and delivery charges to pay. Then when they bring in from China, they have to cover the loss if the goods came in bad quality. Who don't want to earn? Well, if you are willing to take all these risks. Then buying online is the best choice.

I got my lightings, kitchen mixer, rain shower and toilet basin plus mixer from taobao recently. Took up peeka service and choose economy method. It took them 2 weeks to arrive and service is good. All my items came in one piece and condition is excellent. Nothing was spoilt and installed already. You can refer to my thread for more information. http://www.renotalk.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=59703

It comes in many lighting modes and a remote control is given to control the lights. Button 1 is to on the LED functions, Button 2 is to on 2 of the energy saving bulbs, Button 3 is to on the other 4 bulbs at the side and Button 4 is to On/Off all the lights. In total, there are 6 light bulbs to light and you have the option to choose how many bulbs you need to lit the room. The LEDs also change colour to suit your mood. Really awesome to install this chandelier, 110% satisfaction as the light did not burn a big hole in my wallet. Found something similar to this chandelier in one of the shops in Balestier. Guess how much is the price? $800!! Well, i got it at $200 plus installation. More than 50% discount! This is the main reason why i wanted to get the lights from overseas! If you dare to take the risk and willing to part off with the warranty... this is the satisfaction that i am talking about!

Faced the most difficult to fix up chandelier in my entertainment room aka the Grey Room. Why is it difficult since i had fixed up 2 chandeliers without fear? The reason is simple. Because my electrician did not screw up some important parts of the chandelier and fixed up the light onto the ceiling. I have to figure out how to fix the important parts which includes using a screw driver to screw the parts without disassembling the base plate. After trying for 30 minutes plus cutting my finger along the process, i got so pissed off that i dismantle the light from the ceiling! This time round, instead of doing the normal way of fixing crystals on top of the ceiling.. we do it the other way round since the light was removed and we got the luxury to fix the crystals on the floor. With the help of my father-in-law and CFO, i managed to fix back the chandelier back to the ceiling with all the crystals. Wow, it is so heavy!! Initial Chandelier outlook. 8 pieces of glass panels to hold glass crystals are not installed. Final Chandelier outlook with everything up Lights up! Looks really cool right? Effort paid off for installing this piece of chandelier. It took us 2 hours plus just to get it up!

The dining room chandelier posed a big challenge. It comes with 60 crystal balls and 82 pieces of square crystal strips. Linking them up took me and my CFO a hour to do so. Hanging them up one by one is another challenge. Have to do it one row left, one row right to balance the lighting plate. Finally completed the whole process in another hour! I bought the 80cm by 22cm version. Looks awesome and relieved that it made my plain looking dining mirror looked so awesome! Lights up! Swee Swee po pi pi!

13 April 2013 Spent the entire weekend fixing up the crystals for the chandeliers. In total, i bought 3 chandeliers from taobao. The price is roughly $700 for all 3 chandeliers including shipping. My electrician fixed up the plates and connections while me and my CFO decided to fix the crystals up ourselves as it looked interesting and challenging. We started off with the passageway light, as we had attempted to setup on Good Friday before, the setup was smooth and we took a mere 30 minutes to fix up all the crystals. Picture of it without lighting Lights up! My plain passageway breathe new life with this simple piece of art 100% satisfation! The effect turn up really good but both me and my wallet.

Shoe cabinet was completed too with the firm red settee, another marble design with classic red theme Talking alot about the toilet vanity with marble laminate finishing and best of all.. my "Golden Basin" . Wanted to create the 金盆洗手效果 so my basin is Golden, Mixer is Golden, even the water catch is Golden. Chosen white top for the vanity, mirror with golden frame will be added to complete my toilet design.

The more I see the feature wall, the more I like it. Modern and classic look. Well Done! The marble effect blends in with the bold red signature bottle which creates the 2 significant effects. Just like a red bottle lying on marble flooring

Carpentry continues today for my feature wall and shoe cabinet. Everything will be complete today. So excited as the design of the feature wall is a combination of modern and classic look. Something that I have never seen in magazines or online. Uncle took a hour or 2 to prepare the laminates and drawers Finally the wall is partially up My red bottle design.. Awesome! Workmanship is top notch for the red bottle. No joint lines are seen. I was told that the carpenter cut the shape out from the laminate to create the no joints effect. When I was discussing with my CFO on the feature wall design initially, all we want is something simple and able to store my vodka collection. Then my ID shown me this creative design that totally blown me away. Thanks to the design and made it happened! I really to your daring creativity!

12 April 2013 Early in the morning I received a call from Tecno, informing me that the hob and hood will be delivered to me today. Really thumbs up to my Mustafa salesman as I called him around 11pm yesterday and he arranged it immediately for me. For most salesperson I encountered in my life, normally after you bought your stuffs from them.. their services will stop after that. Then if you want delivery or other requests, they will refer you to their other departments that deal with these matters. You are just like a ping pong ball that is been thrown elsewhere. I really thank for the excellent service that I gotten from him. That's our Singapore service standard mah!! Hob is installed while hood will wait for the granite top to arrive My free Gift from Tecno or should I say from the Mustafa salesman? Strange that I went Hoe Kee and Mustafa on the same day during one of my window shopping trip. A decent bathroom accessories shop, Hoe Kee have no free gift, service standard is pushy and price is norm where Mustafa, a big departmental store got free gift, service standard top notch and no pushy behaviour. Who will you give business to?

Hi Blue, Nice to see a neighbour here. Great design layout to make the house look bigger. Looking forward to your posts.

Never really done a proper calculations but past the 40K mark already. Reno plus all the things i bought. Still got more addons coming up. CFO confirm me soon..

Always love the feeling of having carpet under my sofa. But I had already overspent on my budget.. So taobao shopping again.. Found this carpet at the price of $70 and many people are buying from the seller. haha, mai tu liao! Photos looks good, not sure how the quality is.. I gotten the 米黄色 1.6*2.3米300D超细丝 x 1 version. Hopefully it is good.

After looking high and low for suitable mirrors and nothing caught our attention... I resort to Taobao shopping again. In fact, me and my CFO did not want to buy from TB cos mirrors are very fragile stuffs. Not sure if the items can tahan the shipping all the way from china. But No risk no gain.. so we went ahead and search in taobao. These are the ones that caught our attention. Dimensions are right, prices also right! Immediately placed a order and added into my shopping list!

Yes, just a simple Philips screwdriver will do the trick.

The unbearable urge kicks in when you done lots of online purchases and is addicted to it. It is so much convenient and lots of similar products can be searched and look at the same time. Best part is the price is also much much cheaper but only disadvantage is you cannot touch and feel the product before buying thus not sure about the quality. But if you are willing to take a risk and choose the most reputable seller to purchase from, you are about to experience the most satisfaction that $ cannot buy. That's Taobao shopping. After the first shipment came in for my lightings, kitchen mixer, basin and rain shower and the quality is so similar to what you get in Singapore at super discounted prices. The temptation is here again when I need mirrors for my toilets. My friends are quite shocked when I told them I bought my home stuffs from china directly. The first question they popped out is .. "huh, you not scared that they come in spoilt or bad quality?" .. "Wah, you are **** daring. Not scared you tio scammed meh?". Well, when you have an ID whose house stuffs are also purchased from taobao. You are more encouraged to try this interesting route that most dare not risk. Ok, enough of wall of texts that bore the thread.. here's another dosage of photos for the things that are coming up for my new abode. Am looking for long mirrors with golden frame to put in my mbr and common room toilets. Went to ikea, Sim Siang Choon and other furniture shops to find but they are either dimensions not good or the frame looks plain. From ikea. Plain and normal just like their prices. Simple and straight forward. Similar to what my dining mirror looks like but price not cheap.

Toilet vanity also partially up. Nice marble feel recommended by my ID. The same laminate will appear for my shoe cabinet as well. Really excited for the whole setup to be completed. My daring purchase of the golden basin and mixer should match the marble style and hopefully not too overwhelming when my "special" mirror comes. Shoe cabinet with settee half done before the carpentry guys decided to rest for the day. Part of the TV console have been setup. As promised by my ID, the whole console will be up tomorrow. I must prepare to bring my collection of vodkas over to test the durability of the feature wall.

My mum's wardrobe has been installed. The colour theme really suits the jade green bedroom. My mum will love me for the setup I had created for her. Comes with a pull-out mirror at the side of the wardrobe. All carpentry comes with Blum railings and colour pvc laminates. My master bedroom wardrobe is up too. Nice white flowery pattern with frosted glass panel door. Glad that the design I chose, didn't disappoint me. CFO kept praising how her selection of wall colours and the colour of the wardrobe brighten up the master bedroom. I can only praise her once the bed is here. Reason is because we boldly selected pure white pvc bed frame for our beloved King Koil Bed. Not sure if the white can stay pure forever!

11 April 2013 Today the carpentry guys came to install the woodwork as early as 10am. By the time I reached home after work, the kitchen was up. Nice lime cool laminate with white cabinets brighten up my vision immediately The other side of the kitchen cabinet which holds my kitchen sink I had gotten the ID to do up a full height cabinet to hide the pipes access point and to store all my detergent stuffs. Tested all the drawers and cabinet doors.. Working perfectly fine! it comes with full Blum System which my ID told me it is lifetime warranty. No wonder the kitchen burnt me a big hole in my pocket. Granite top will be up in a few days time but first, I need to get my Tecno salesman to deliver my hob and hood by tomorrow for the carpentry guys to do measurements.

Perharps you can try out on your BS but i personally felt not safe for my mirror feature wall in dining area when i close the BS door.

Dear Ben, your reno looking good. Hopefully both our renovations do not tire the ID down.

good good. Really interested to see how your house will turn out to be. I am sure the ID did a good job for you as well.

I got my painter to do it but now i have second thoughts about closing the other BS hole. Firstly, i need to use more strength to close the door due to air pressure. Secondly, everytime i close the door, there is a slight vibration to my living room wall and aircon unit. So my CFO feels that having the BS hole open is still better than have it close.