nickguthe
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Everything posted by nickguthe
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PM-ed the people above Welcome and congrats!! Should be normal glass. -
Wow, good point! cross referencing with the brand's website. All the best! Good luck for your purchases!! Knock-offs are fine if they work well and last reasonably long enough. I have heard of some knock-offs for taps and shower sets not producing consistent water flow, rust easily etc. The other method we use a lot to check if something could be a knock off is right-click > search google for this image. Works especially well for furniture. A lot of product photography were stolen from West Elm, Ethnicraft, Ferm Living etc. And if no one who buys them takes a pic of the actual product, we stay clear of those. Actually this is a very interesting topic! To all Taobao shoppers, what are the methods you use to evaluate a 宝贝 before you purchase and how has that work for you?
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Generally ok for those that we purchased, other than one of the taps having a slight hairline crack covered in the blog earlier. Water flow and everything else seems fine as well. We heard from a friend about his TB purchases from well known brands like Kohler, Grohe, American Standard etc. They were not happy with the quality and suspect the products are knock-off. So for us, we look out for popular China brands' official page (旗舰店) that the locals use... Jomoo, Logoo, Paloni etc. Those with lots of good reviews and negligible bad reviews not related to the product itself.
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Seems okay, other than the usual scratches on a stainless steel sink shown in these pics taken today. No rust issues. The small rust spots mentioned last time were easily removed by Cif. .
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Nope. The rectification was all done as part of the job. No extra VO for those.
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Thanks. Color code for the grey wall is Dulux All, Granite AL20809.
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We have moved into our humble abode for about a month now. It has been great. I constantly feel the need to mop the floor to keep the house squeaky clean. LOL We also managed to cleared out the mess in the bomb shelter and got the shelving racks installed. In the end we went with Sim Win Liang because we wanted full metal shelving and it has a good mix of shelves with different depth options. (A lot of cheaper options but all came with wooden boards as the shelves, and I hate getting splinters when the wood chip overtime.) We got the measurements and pricing on their website which makes it easy to plan and order. In the end we went with a L shape arrangement. Got the silver one cos cheaper XD. 1) 129 x 50 cm for the back 2) 129 x 40 cm for the side Ordered on Wednesday, delivery and set up on Saturday morning. Surprisingly light but very sturdy and easy to change the height of the shelving. All filled up with our junk in no time. Yay! Cushions and arm chair from Taobao have arrived too
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Hey Puggy, we managed to get it pumped at the gas station near our house - those that they use to pump car tyres. We also have this pump at home for the bikes, got it long time ago at a local bike shop. Worked for us. Maybe you are missing the the bicycle pump adapter thingy (I don't know what they call it) . Hope this helps.
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It is made of solid wood. Marketed as oak. Feels really heavy and solid. the sliding part will warp very slightly to make the sliding a little tough over time. But other then that looks and feels sturdy.
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PM-ed
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Congrats! Welcome to Buangkok
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Here you go. When you stand near the regulator, at the normal adult height, you won't be able to see the "dot". It is blocked by the button at eye level. lol
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Bought it at a neighbourhood shop selling household stuff at woodlands. I think I see it being sold at rivervale plaza second floor as well.
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So sorry it was provided by our contractor, dunno the brand name, only know that it is a malaysian brand.
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Hi Ivy, Thanks! We must go claim commission from Hommage lol! We are using solid surface to save a bit here and there to invest in the "aesthetics" stuff.
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Hello Ptopaz, my response below Can I check with you a little about buying from tb and using the OOPS DIY reship service? Just give me Yes or No answer will be good enuff 1) Can I buy something from a seller now (because now got sale), and ask them to send to the OOPS warehouse at Guangzhou 2 months later? - entirely dependent on the seller, you will need to speak to them via Aliwangwang chat. OOPS won't be involved until item is shipped out with the tracking number. And you have to input that tracking number in the oops account for oops to keep track when they receive it in their warehouse. 2) Say if u order a table and a mirror from a seller (A) Do you have to you have to request from the seller 2 different tracking number and register them as 2 different package in the OOPS website? (B) Or does a tracking number automatically gets sent to my email upon a successful transaction with the seller? (sorry, never buy from tb before) - Again depends on seller, depends on how they pack. For small items, they can consolidate into one package. But big items, they might pack as 2 packages. You will not receive an email, have to check via your purchase status in your TB account. Sometimes, they only show one tracking number so if you buy a few big items from same seller and not sure how many packages. Need to ask the seller via Aliwangwang again. 3) Say if I bought 10 items from taobao and all of them have reached the OOPS warehouse, can I hold it there for about 1 mth before I request for shipment to Singapore meanwhile waiting for my reno to complete? - yes you can choose which items u want to prepare for shipment first. But Oops will start charging for storage after the item is with them for 30 days. :/ 4) Say if I bought 10 items from taobao and all of them have reached the OOPS warehouse, can I request to send Items 1, 2 and 3 first (things like sinks and lights where I need during the early stage of the reno)? Then send items 4 to 7 one mth later? - yes. But will bear storage and shipping cost. Not worth it IMO. Each shipment is calculated starting with 1cbm. So 2nd shipment shipping cost calculated separately. We just ship everything at 1 go and store them in the bomb shelter. Hope the answers are helpful Happy shopping on tb!
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3 hours!! Awesome! Will stop by your blog to check out the updates when you have them. This also means that you can enjoy your house very very soon. Congrats yay!
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Wow OceanEleven! Thank you for putting in so much effort to review the kitchen. You are really observant! Our door swings into the living area. The only qualms is that when it is ajar, it blocks our shoe cabinet, but we decided that we can live with that. Didn't like sliding and we don't have enough space to slide open the entire width of the door anyway. For the position of the hood and hob. We did have the same consideration at first. We really liked the idea of the chimney hood (purely preference) but having it on the other side means we will have the pipes exposed instead. Hence the current arrangement. Moreover, the original position of the gas and the water point is where it is right now, this means a little less complicated routing within the cabinets if we stick with this configuration. But you are really observant! And yep, we started buying appliances and space is filling up fast. XD. For now a lot of these drawers and casements have yet to find their use. Drawers are more expensive to have so we wanted to save some $$ and went with cupboards. So we will see in future if we have the right combination. For now, we are enjoying our kitchen very much!
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Not sure. I tried using Mr. Muscle Marble & Terrazzo 3 in 1 Floor Cleaner, squeaky clean but scared in the long run will hurt the parquet. In the end, bought Sofix Parquet Floor Cleaner. Yet to try it.
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Thanks! All the best for your reno too!
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Yea we were also offered the flowery/shiny/velvet ones first. We just keep saying simpler, lighter, less pattern also if they have linen type. So the guy got it and helped us source all the simple fabric.Finally chose 3 different fabric for the different areas of the room. 1 light grey the other 2 closer to light cream. One of the cream ones is made of linen. Thank goodness the guy who served us has so much patience. Lol.
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Yea. Haha from Taobao In case anyone wants the link: http://detail.m.tmall.com/item.htm?id=17191466956&fm=detail&sprefer=p23590&id=17191466956 Have yet to take them out for a spin so no review yet. Feels and looks good.
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PM-ed
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Finally, we have moved in officially~! On moving, for this we were more hardworking getting quotes since we consolidated a list of stuff that we wanted to move and sent to many moving services for quotes via email and calls. Only 2 of them requested for site visit before signing. Shalom and Moving Partners. In the end, we went with Moving Partners. Second cheapest out of those quotes we gathered and does not charge by hour. Provided boxes and site visit as well. Really glad we went with them. They lived up to their company motto of being swift and reliable. Our move was done in 1.5 hours. We had a king mattress, couple of tables and chairs, computers, drawers and 10 odd boxes. All furniture were wrapped up nicely. Before move... Everything arrived safely at the new place. Huat ar! okay, now back to the most challenging part... unpacking. LOL. Just want to give a special mention to Shalom, with the additional cost, they do come with very nice features like portable clothes containers so that you don't have to iron your ironed clothes again. And the guy who did site visit is very observant in the things we might have missed out in the list. But we didn't think we will need that level of service. Maybe if I got very expensive, fragile stuff or a piano, I might consider them.
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It has been a while. Between then and now, couple of stuff happened, got the internet and phone line up, curtains added, lights fixed and stuff moved. First up, curtains! We went with MGL curtains because they had a facebook page with loads of fans and customer reviews. Went down 2 times to speak to them. The first time, salesman was quite awkward, not eloquent, didn't provide us with much info. Maybe cos we are noobs and have no idea how to ask anyway. The second trip, we were entertained by Vester. Really helpful and a lot of patience showing us a great selection of materials. Cost wise seems reasonable. We didn't do much comparisons since we got so tired of running around. The fabric we chose were mostly safe colours. very Light grey and with machine wash-able black out backing. Cost a little more to add the black out but we prefer not to have streaks of lights distorting the colour of the fabric when fully drawn in the day. Took about 2-3 weeks for them to get the curtains ready. Installation is about 2 hours. Some of the stuff to consider wre Type of fabric or look, prepare some images. We didn't have and were overwhelmed by the selection.Layersnight + day or just 1 layer. Need black out?we don't have direct sunlight and enjoy a bright living area, so we do away with day curtains and chose a thick fabric with blackout backing.Tracks or bar? We chose tracks. smaller and hidden by curtain when drawnAt which part of the wall do you want to hang the curtains.From ceiling - to get the full height effect? orunderside of the beam protrusion near the window? We chose ceiling, except for living we had to go with the wall due to electrical trunking.Do consider if you would like to add window grilles in future. One of the reasons why we went with the ceiling is so that we give a lot of allowance at the windows for the grilles when we have kids. If you would like the curtains to start at the underside of the beams, it is best to have grilles installed first according to the curtains specialist.We were told that beams at new BTOs have enough space for a track for 1 layer of curtain plus window grilles. This means that it might be difficult to have night + day curtains + grilles. Here are the results. And we decided to add bamboo chick blinds at our yard too! No kids yet, can be impractical a little. Haha.
