Chunky Monkey

I am using Laufen for my current home. But I can tell you that a Laufen WC is no different from a normal WC. Seriously. The toilet clips for the seats were all in plastic, and guess what, over time, one by one, they snapped. I had to put stainless steel replacements from the distributor, and each pair cost a bomb. In my new home, I will be using American Standard (from Hoe Kee). The model is Acadia. What I like about it is that it is one solid piece. No joints, and therefore does not trap dirt.

mafiawife, the exterior of your townhouse looks fabulous. Which development is this by the way? If it's too private a question, please PM me.

gadgetgal, will you have a solid surface top for your sink or will you be asking your contractor to tile up the area around the sink?

Elemental, thanks for putting the specs here. I am doubtful now that ALL the stones are Destinee diamonds. It's so **** hard to get an Excellent cut on big stones, let alone small ones like 0.06 ct. Something is not quite right here. I hope it is not a misuse of their advertising. For the same price, my recommendation is for you to go to DeFred and speak with any of the salesperson. Just say you were recommended by a friend of their Lady Boss. They do alot of made to order pieces. So bring your design with you and let them know your budget. They will get you the best caratage for your price. I hope to influence you to get 3 bigger stones for your design, than 5 small ones that are not worth very much. A 0.06 diamond is worth about $200 these days. So you can imagine the profit on this ring that Lee Hwa quoted you. All the best. Shopping for diamond rings can be a whole lot of fun .... and agony!

Look for Mr Ang at Twin City Aircon.

Lighting ... may I suggest you check out National Electric on Geylang Road. I think it's 459 - 461 Geylang Road. I was there again a few days ago to make my payment, and to exchange a couple of lights, and I noticed that they have just received some very nice chandiers. Their prices are so reasonable. Sinks ..... I like Hoe Kee. Everything under one roof. No need to run all over the place. And you can ask for discount if you buy alot from them.

No mafiawife. I will not be converting my backyard into a wet kitchen. Our diet does not have a lot of 'cze char' (more roasting and steaming), so I don't see a need to have an wet kitchen. I did think about it (my mum's house has one) but decided against it in the end. Instead, I will hunt for a Weber barbeque. It's my dream to have one. Yes, the aircon units in my house are mainly ceiling cassettes with the exception of the children's rooms, where the ceilings are all concrete, and we didn't want to put up a false ceiling, as we want to have high ceilings. They are all Toshiba Inverters. Pros:- - more powerful - 4 directional cool airflow, more even. - flush with ceiling, and out of sight - Does not take up wall space, so you can max out wall cabinets Cons:- - more expensive - not every aircon service company knows how to service a ceiling cassette - cost more to service Brand ... Toshiba is better than Fujitsu. In case the remote control is out of order, you can use the manual operation switch on the ceiling cassette. With Fujitsu, you will have to remove the ceiling casing to reach for the ON/OFF button.

This is truly one educational and informative post ... all in one place. Thanks for sharing.

I am keen to know too. I have yet to make my roller blinds but have decided that roller blinds would be the easiest, and most fuss-free with children. I have silk curtains in my current home and the my rascals have their greasy fingers all over them by the time they could walk! I have been checking out Karbell (any feedback about this place?). I used to use Jimmy Textiles. Am also wondering if I should just stick with Jimmy Textiles or give my business to Karbell??? There are various types of materials available for roller blinds, and the variation in costs should be quite great.

Yes, Franke is renowned for their sinks. That was their bread and butter before they ventured into cooker hobs and hoods and what have you. Actually, mine's the Blancoprecision. A line only available in the US and Europe. It's not the same as the Zeroline available at Hoe Kee. Hoe Kee ordered my sink in for me.

Oh dear. Sorry to hear what you have to go through.

I like your sink, lifestyle. This is a very well assembled sink alright! The thing I like about Franke sinks is that the silicon is hidden. When the silicon is under, it reduces the wear on the silicon, and water won't seep into the cabinet under it. Good stuff! I so wanted a Franke sink too but there isn't one that is big enough for me. So I had mine custom made by Blanco and it was made in Germany for me. Took them 2+ months to make it and ship it to me.

LOL! You made me laugh out loud, applefreak! Thank you, lifestyle.

LOL! Then there is not much more to say if one favours the branding. You want brand, you pay for the brand. $3300 before discount ...then I think you're right that the stones about probably about 15 points each, give and take. They look like they are of gradually increasing size from right to left though. Nonetheless $3300 is a very good price for TCW of 0.75 - 1 ct. My very first "relationship" ring from my DH in 2001 was an eternity ring of 3 x 0.3 ct and if my memory does not fail me, I think it was a about $3.5K.

Oh. OK then. Here goes .... (Thanks Phantom) Elemental, if you want the best value for money, you should not have to get branded diamonds. When it's branded, you have to pay premium because of advertising and branding. A Destinee diamond is nothing more than a Grade 0 AGS certified diamond with the best grading in Cut, Clarity & Colour. And because of such a high specs, you can expect a Destinee diamond to sparkle like crazy, and that it would actually look bigger than its actual weight. It is not easy to find Grade 0 AGS diamonds all the time, especially smaller ones. So you can expect prices to be steep for Lee Hwa's Destinee diamonds. I never ever recommend friends to get AGS diamonds for sizes 0.5 ct and below. No point. You will only really need to get AGS for bigger stones, as any flaws would then become more obvious when the stone is bigger. So long as you keep the Colour to D-E-F and Cut/Polish/Symmetry to be Excellent to Very Good, you can be assured that your diamonds will blind the **** out of the next person beside you. I suspect that the biggest stone in the eternity ring that you're interested in, is about 0.3 ct or so, with the smallest about 0.15ct. What sort of price were you quoted from Lee Hwa for the ring you tried on? Is the TCW (total carat weight) about 1.10 ct? Have you been to DeFred at Grand Hyatt Hotel? You can actually bring any ring design to them, and they can custom make a ring for you, using very good quality diamonds. You will get a very good ring in the end. The US Dollar is very weak right now. And diamonds are quoted in USD. So there's no better time than now to buy diamonds. If I may give an estimate to the ring you are interested in, assuming it's white gold and not platinum, I would say it should not cost you more than S$5-6K. Just remember that it's small diamonds that retailer earn the most margin from. So retailers can price their rings very high. A small comment about installments .... there should not be any interest charged. Can't believe Lee Hwa wants to charge you interest.

Elemental, I just saw your thread. Do you still need help with getting your eternity ring? I have some suggestions to help you get your ring, best value for money if you are still interested in knowing what options you have.

Hi applefreak, it must be attached to the bottom of a wall-hung cabinet. The cabinet doors and side panels of the cabinets are longer, to accomodate the recess part of the Cosario. So if you wall cabinet is already done, you won't be able to fix the Cosario. Basically, the carpenter created a small recess area to install the Cosario, so that it will conceal the top part of the unit.

The compartments in the Cosario can be resized. The dividers can be shifted if the jars that I want to put inside are fatter. I intend to keep my table top clear of cookie jars, pill bottles, etc and would like to store them out of view but still within quick access. When I chanced upon the Cosario, I called up Hettich at the German Centre and reserved them. And they supplied to Classic. If I remember rightly, there are 3 sizes. 45cm, 60cm, and 90 cm. These you see are 90cm's.

12 Dec 07 * The downlight that needed to be shifted, was shifted right away today. * The painters came in today to paint a layer of sealer on the bedroom walls. * The false ceiling guys came back to finish up some box up work. * The kitchen cabinets got its doors, with the exception of the larder units, which are supposed to have glass/aluminium doors. These doors apparently were ordered from a different supplier. * The guys from LG came to measure the size of my solid surface top. I was very amazed at how they used strips of very thin plywood to form the cut-out of the kitchen counter tops and will produce the size of the counter top exactly to the size of the cut outs they made on the stop. Here are some work-in-progress pictures of our kitchen cabinets:- Larders with the drawers fixed inside. I would much prefer to have deep drawers, so I can max out the use of the internal height of the drawers. I intend to speak with my designer to have them rectified. Kitchen Island With the pull out baskets showing (from L:R) (a) Bottle Rack (b) Spice/Condiments Rack © Dry foodstuff Rack The pots/pans pull-out in the middle of the island, under the cooker hob. And here's a couple of pictures showing the Hettich Cosario units. I was told the German supplier who brought in 2 units of this Cosario and they are both in my house! Spot what's under the wall hing cabinet

Yes, it's good to have hot water to your kitchen sink. Makes washing greasy dishes much easier. I am sure most of the time you won't be needing hot/warm water to wash your dishes. But you roast alot or bake alot, hot water is great for washing up. I know this is not relevant if your home is a HDB but just so you know, expats who rent private homes always ask for hot water to the kitchen sink. And landlords of private homes have to make sure this is available.

Kitchen Cabinet Installation - Classic (Tankong Katong Complex) Went to check on the kitchen cabinet installation and we are pretty pleased with the progress. There will be some minor fixing to do though. (a) Relocation of a downlight One of the downlights is too close to the wall hung cabinet over the fridges, and so I will have to get the electrician to shift the light out after the cabinets are all fixed. I don't really have a lot of freedom to relocate this point because there are metal frame supports all over that area. And I know that the new location will not align with any of the other existing lights in the ceiling. It will have to be. (b) Larders Beside the Fridges © Kitchen Island (d) Workman cutting out the die-cut to install the kitchen sink Our custom made *Blancoprecision* Sink from Germany A whole lot of drawers before they were fixed into the cabinets I didn't get to see any of cabinet doors. Wonder if I will get to see them tomorrow?!

11 Dec Our kitchen/wardrobe designer has arranged to meet us on site today at 10.30 am, to go through the detailing of our wardrobes in the master bedroom. Unfortunately it's not so straight forward because my electrical DB is in one corner alongside the wall that we wish to install our wardrobes, and I don't really want to waste the space on top and below it. The ideal outcome is for the designer to box around it. What I am a little agitated with is the delay the electrician is putting up the additional DB. I have no idea where he will be doing this, left, right, or bottom of the current one. I'd asked for the new DB to be done up by Monday. Monday came and gone, and I still have a bunch of messy wires/cables. Sigh. I am looking forward to see the stage of completion of the kitchen. I wonder how much the installers have gotten done from the time we left and till dusk yesterday. More updates soon ....

I bought a corner, stainless steel bath caddy from Equip-Design #05-08 at Plaza Singapura before. I am confident that you can find the soap holder that you want. Make sure you get those that are screwed into the wall. Those with suction pads are useless! Keep dropping!

I think your tilers did a fantastic job. Can see their workmanship, especially the tiling around the door frame. Thumbs up!

10 Dec 07 We went to check on the kitchen cabinet installation today. But we didn't last more than 30 min in there. (1) There were too many workmen, so no space to stand around. (2) The sawdust, noise of the drill and smell of glue gave me a migraine within minutes. I was informed by the factory that my solid surface for my kitchen will only arrive on Wed, and it would be best that I can be present to confirm how I would like the solid surface cut to fit my custom-made stainless steel sink. These were the only photos that I could manage today ... before I started feeling sick. I was hoping to capture all the photos of the installation step by step .... oh well ... Cabinet housing column of ovens Sink area 2 x larders Wall hung cabinet above the fridges Unfortunately, the electrician will have to reposition the downlight. The box-up above the cabinet will block part of the light, in its existing position.