mabaricows

Haa.. Good to hear that the washing machine works well. We actually wanted to get a European brand with a longer history of front loaders but saw that this was on sale, so much cheaper compared to Bosch, Miele, etc.. Fingers crossed and hope this washing machine lasts! Ah, same rainshower! Where did you get it from? Good price? I hope I didn't get ripped again.. Anyways, my initial plan was to get something more interesting for the shower, did some online bidding on Amazon. Won a bid for a Hansgrohe shower panel but seller said he couldn't find a courier. Lost a bid for a Grohe Shower Arc, d@rn I still feel the pain, really wanted that. Winning bid was around 2k+, common sense told me to stop bidding. I hate common sense. Glad to hear your furkid is now king of the house again. I think my maomao will also go through that stressed phase. She has only been out of the house twice to visit the vet, both times she freaked out big time. A 100% house cat. Will have to wait and see how she reacts when we move, will definitely bring along all her old belongings to make her feel at home. Fingers crossed again..

If you want crazy ideas, I could sell you mine for your layout. Imagine this, instead of the dining table, custom make a round wooden pillar. Knock off the entrance wall and door of every room, remake these walls and extend them to the center pillar. Shape it based on a roundabout. Do some carpentry to make everything seamless. Can visualise? Crazy right? With the right budget, it could be.. Nice..

Hehe.. Ye maos.. Night cats.. I think I got decent prices for my lightings, not the cheapest but also not too bad.. The MBR light costs 250 and the MBR toilet light is 185. Got them from Lights Arcade in Balestier, these prices include the bulbs, delivery and installation. Not bad actually.. Go talk to Andrew, he's the friendly and helpful boss.. Many have told us that we have weird taste.. Hahahaha.. So yeah, similiar.. About Ronald, I chose him because after meeting him for our initial appointment, my gut feel told me that this man is responsible. Up till now, I have to say that he really is responsible. Gives good recommendations, rectifies defects, responds to emails/sms/calls.. Thats all I want from him really. On the flipside, he is a busy man and handles many projects. Means you got to remind him about specifics. So far, so good. Tiling worksmanship has been good. Kitchen cabinets good. Some small matters but it has mostly been a positive experience. About IDs/contractors screaming about tile prices.. Haha.. I have seen people walking around tile shops and being told to select this or that tile by pushy IDs who feel that they know best. Ronald just gave input about what he knew about the stuff we selected, not pushy. I like that he knows everyone has their own likes and dislikes, no matter how weird they might be.

Aiyoh, thanks for the compliments.. Paiseh leh.. Which light you want to find out about? Cannot be all right.. So maomao meh?

Good luck with your reno and your DIY projects! A tip I picked up from the guy who came to install my ceiling fan is to tie a little counter-weight on fan blades if the fan shakes/wobbles. What he did was to tie a strip of lead on 2 of my fan blades(total of 4 blades) to make them stable, worked like magic!

You should see maomao after a bath.. Hehe.. Fluffy sweet cutie transforms into skinny bitter cat.. And yeah, we're going for a rustic look in the living room. Woody and comfortable, also going for furniture with a bit of character/history.. Regarding Living Phenom, can't remember the name of the guy who attended to me, it was a middle aged man who seemed quite placid.. This is his signature, dug out the receipt to take a look but can't decipher his handwriting.. haha.. By the way, he made us get 2 x pop-up waste thingies and 2 x bottle traps to go with the basin. Have read from others who complain that they overcharge for these items. Do take note. If you're getting the WCs from them, do some research, those Velin WCs that they are selling for 500 or so can be had elsewhere for less than 400. The sleek pretty Velin WC has a clone from Arino which is much cheaper too. Happy shopping!

Bonus picture of maomao with a duck on her head just for you

Our hallway light, the moment we open the main door, this will be the light we see. Nice and shiny, everyone loves it.. haha.. Posting 2 pictures, the actual light is white, the other one was taken with weird "sunset" feature on the camera phone. Sunset Our 2 other bedrooms are using this simple light, no budget liao..

Went down to the house just now and took some photos of the lights. As with all other photos, pardon the quality, its all taken using our phones. Hehe. All our lights were from Lights Arcade, owner was very friendly and quite helpful. Checked with fellow renotalk forummer cos we saw a similar light and we compared prices, his was cheaper! Haha.. But Lights Arcade did waive the delivery and installation charges and threw in a storeroom light for free. So I suppose it wasn't too bad of a deal. Can check out his shop la, along Balestier but do compare prices before purchasing. Our MBR toilet light! Small thingy with some crystals, cute. Just nice to light up our tiny toilet Can spy our newly done walls.. hehe.. Will update that soon! A closer look at the light and the shadows created by the crystals. Our MBR lights, 3 hanging glass balls with a metallic sheen. They're d@mn dusty now though, need to clean up.. Hahaa.. Our 2 kitchen lights, chose black to go with the black kitchen, very bright! 3 bulbs each.. Lit up

The oven is made in Italy, saw a sticker on it just now. Prior to that, never thought about it before, haha.. Just my opinion, but I feel that good cooks don't need preset functions About L-Phenom, I believe the listed price of that basin is 440. They'll also tell you to get some other "required" items, must bargain and insist that they throw in those things for free, I managed to get everything for 400.

Ah, this basin I got is 100.5cm. Just about 1m, maybe might fit your needs too. They do have other long sinks, but we didn't really look at them because they had holes for faucets. We were only looking at those without holes, d@rn hard to find man. By the way, its one of those chop carrot head shops along Balestier. Can check out their webby for some of their products. The Grohe Rainshower is from the BauLoop series, got it together with a BauCurve mixer for 590 at Royal Fanco. Quite a decent price.

The sale was on 16th to 17th April, 2 days only. At their main office at Jackson Square, think they have it once a year. And the oven I got was not the high end one with tonnes of pre-set cooking programs, just had 5 pre-set ones or something like that. Lower range, it was listed as $799 but was on sale at $549. We like that it has an enamel coating inside, hardy and easy clean.

Paid 1705 for it during the Electrolux sale, original listed price was 2199..

Hey, hope everything eventually turns out fine, you still need them at this point in time. One thing I would say is, don't get so emotionally distressed but instead, get really angry and channel your energies towards getting back at them and getting compensation. Wish you well.

We wanted a nice comfortable sofa for our bedroom, it has to be in our bedroom because of maomao.. She scratches. She scratched my mom's sofa to bits even thought she has multiple scratching posts, sighs. The sofa thus has to be in our bedroom so that we can close the bedroom door when we're not around. Lurked around Harvey Norman (Millenia Walk) and sat on every single sofa they had. When we plopped our a$$es on this, we knew it was THE one Thats wifey getting sleepy on it.. Hehee.. It comes with many cushions, duno 6 or what.. can't remember, its all filled with down, sometimes can feel the feathers poking through but its all worth it. If anyone of you wants a nice comfortable fabric sofa, go try this out, its really comfortable. Its called "Hampton" and it also comes in brown but brown a bit obiang leh. Wifey loves that all fabric covers are entirely removable, husband doesn't really give a sh1t. Haha. Here's our coffee table for our bedroom. To be placed in front of the sofa so that we can sit on the floor sometimes, place our laptop on the table and pah game. Recent nice games we played (totally off topic, we know) - Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age Origins, Assassin's Creed 2 & Brotherhood.. Can't wait for Mass Effect 3! Oh, the coffee table.. Its also solid rain tree wood from Indonesia, we love the thickness of the table top. We got 2 ceiling fans from Elmark for the living room. The blades are made of fabric, weird, we like. The uncle who came to install them told us to use feather duster to clean them because they're kinda fragile. Will update soon, maybe lighting tomorrow

Further updates, Some pictures of electrical appliances we bought and other stuff we bought but yet to post.. We went to the Electrolux sale some time ago and bought 2 items. An induction hob (easy to clean!) with touch controls and a built-in oven. Wanted a dark colored fridge to go with our dark kitchen and happened to see this at Harvey Norman. We thought it was black but actually according to the catalogue its a dark blue. Hahaa.. Also got this LG 7kg front load direct drive washing machine since we were there and it was on offer. After reading about Gimz and Elsie's DIY exploits, we have ambitions of spray painting it black. Haha..

If only I could grab nice fabric furniture like that too.. Haha.. My cat would do a lot of bad things to it.

Congrats on moving in! Nice modern and cozy setup you have there, nice!

Good luck with the reno! Do slowly and nicely more important than ghost month la, its gonna last you many many years.. Remember to note down all the brands and model numbers of things you like, then can just give royal fanco a call and ask them for better price. Haha.. Thats what I did, saved quite a bit. Some shops along Jalan besar is chop carrot head one. Something that sells for 350 they can sell at 600, quite ridiculous one. So, walk around, do your homework and don't get conned into buying from an expensive shop, unless you really really cannot find it anywhere else.

Talked to the fellas over there and they told us that after this weekend, they'll be GST registered. Meaning, 7% more lor.. Its well worth it though, the wooden furniture there is really nice and the prices are really reasonable. Saw your set, thought you'd have gotten one of those thick wooden ones with the curved-down edges.. hehe.. The one you got was what actually caught my eye (online catalogue) and made me travel down there.. Its really nice but the color wasn't suitable.. I got one of those tables placed outside, near the outdoor furniture section. Its a battered looking wooden piece, held up by 2 black steel rectangular-rings at each end as legs. Old looking piece which complements my other furniture nicely.. $480 or so, I bargained till $350! Oh, no pictures, forgot to take.. Once its delivered will take pictures!

Talking about Royal Fanco, its a really nice place to get stuff from. Countless people must have walked into the small shop and left within a minute because the owners were busying attending to other customers. Plus, the shop's quite tiny and at first glance they don't seem to be carrying many items. However all you need to do is to tell them the brand and model of what you want and they will be able to get it for you at a discounted rate, no joke. We got the following from them, - 35l energy saving Joven heater - MBR (Velin) and kitchen (Baron) wcs - Kitchen toilet sink and tap - Grohe Kitchen toilet shower, Nobel mixer - Grohe MBR rainshower, mixer Only have pictures of the rainshower, cuz we could find the pics online heehee.. This is our black granite kitchen sink. Regrettably, from Euro Classic. Here's our kitchen sink tap!

Hello Hafiizh the marble walls and floors in the MBR toilet are turning out fine. We were a little tentative initially and didn't know if the two tile designs would go. Will post pictures and update soon. Regarding people who accept the flat as it is (defects and all), its unfair and its exactly because of this that we're sharing our story. We hope that people going through the same process might chance upon our blog, be inspired and fight for their rights. And now, more updates on our purchases! We got this sink for our MBR toilet We die die wanted a long sink so that we could brush our teeth concurrently haha. It was a arduous ordeal searching for a long sink. We scoured the whole of Jalan Besar and Balestier a few times; we clocked many many hours man, approx 12 hours? The first one that called out to us cost 3k Too much for a sink! So off we went to walk around some more. Ended up at L-Phenom and got this, not like we had much choice haa, it was the only one that fit. Hubby **** good at getting discount Next up, we had to look for decent concealed wall taps to fit with the design we wanted. Needed to get taps that stick out from those holes, haha.. Managed to find a Hansa wall tap on display at Hoe Kee along Jalan Besar that we liked, asked the salesperson and they said it was out of stock. Period. Totally unhelpful. We took the initiative to call up other branches and managed to get 2 of those taps from the IMM branch, only 2 left they said. Picture was taken online from some webby, we forgot to take photos, again.. Wifey liked the taps a lot, very sleek and clean design. The open/close switch is right at the head of the faucet, no ugly knobs sticking out. Haha.. We, like many around here, found this wc quite pretty and we were going to get it. Paid a deposit for it at a shop called Euro Classic along Balestier. When time came for delivery, they informed us that it was out of stock and that we could go back to the shop and pick another wc. We called many other shops and talked to many people, found out that this particular model has been out of stock islandwide for more than a month already and that it was common knowledge amongst them that new stock wouldn't come in just yet. Meaning, Euro Class wasn't upfront with us. Long story short, we won't be getting anything from them ever. Ended up getting this instead from Royal Fanco. Not perfect but not bad la..

Ah, these kind of coffee tables you can find in Park Mall, quite expensive..

Haha.. We didn't think anyone would like our furniture, they're quite a departure from the norm.. Everyone seems to be going for the modern look these days.. Anyways, we got the bench from The Gallery House (along east coast rd beside Wihardja [we went for Katong Laksa!]), shoebox from Bayewoods (stuff there a bit steep), the rest are from a friend in Indonesia