countrylover

For my study, I'm doing the bottom cabinets in sage green & top cabinets in white with gold trimmings. Initially wanna do entire room in sage green but worried may make the whole room look too dark, cos the room is small. Hence decided on white for top to brighten up the room. Helen has showed me similar concepts in their portfolio, looks very nice.

Actually I would recommend that u do the kitchen cabinets all the way to the top cos it's generally very dusty in Singapore. Unless you have a maid, if not gonna have a hard time with the upkeeping. My kitchen is also very small but I had my cabinets all the way to the top, I think it looks pretty fine. Actually I have a display area above my fridge but we never use it! It's really up to u....but I feel cos the cabinets gonna be quite high up, you may end up not using them very often. What colour is your kitchen cabinets gonna be? Where is Manhanthan furniture? Do you have their website?

Hmm I asked Helen about the French blue cabinet in the showroom, she said must pay extra leh. Cos it's not a standard colour.

Wow French blue kitchen! One of my favourite country colours too! Is this the same one in their showroom which you shared earlier? It's very, very well done and suits your country theme very much. Did Forest charge you extra for the colour? They said they need to charge extra $600 - $800 for special colours like French blue and sage green. I was earlier deciding between French blue and sage green but eventually went with sage green, cos it's a very unique and timeless colour. Has your entire reno been completed? Looking forward to more pics!

You can view my t-blog at my signature below. I'm doing a major revamp for my study room to fix cabinets, drawers, tables etc. Actually cost abt $9k+ but we took away some cabinets & asked for discounts to meet our budget. For curtains, u can try Jimmy Textiles at Tanjong Katong Complex. They have a good collection of country-style fabrics. Prices quite reasonable too. My friend made curtains for her entire home for less than $1k. Last year, I also made new sofa covers from Jimmy Textiles. Cost abt $250 for a 3-seater & two 1-seater. I can PM u the contact if u are interested.

Thanks. I hope everything goes well according to our specs & design. ID just told us may be delayed by 1 - 2 weeks cos the carpenter is swamped with too many projects.

Thanks for sharing. That's lots of stuff you are doing...must have cost u a bomb. When will you be starting your reno? I will be starting mine around 2nd week of June, as I have requested Helen to get everything done before end June. Yeah kitchen cabinets usually cost a lot, as there are more doors and drawers. Forest also quoted me abt 7k+ for the study. Agree that it's very hard to find country-style furniture in Singapore with good quality and at a good price. Do you want to consider custom making from Indonesia? I've custom made a fireplace and mirror 2 years ago....cheap and good workmanship. It's quite a hassle to do the coordination but I feel that it's worth every cent. You can look at my t-blog to see what I've done from Indonesia.

Hey that's fast! You were just sharing with me that day u had just confirmed with Forest. Pls share the photos of your kitchen! I want to see! Forest is also installing the Blum drawers for our study room. We requested to have our cabinets made in a vintage sage green colour. As this is a special colour, Helen charged us $600 extra. But she gave us quite a good discount overall, so it sorts of evens out. So has your entire home reno been completed? Looking forward to see how your country home will turn out.

Hi xiaobudian I've also just confirmed my reno with Forestwood! May I know what are you doing for your home and how much did they quote you? You can PM me. Yes agree too that Cottage Crafts is taking far too long! Chased them for a few times till I gave up, hence confirmed with Forest since they gave me quite a good discount. Then Cottage finally replied after that with a much higher quote. The person I liaised with is the Manager Helen. Try IFC at Sungei Kadut. Saw a few shops selling country-style fabric sofas. There is another shop there called Country Style Furniture, where I bought my bedroom set. Quite nice on display but quality is not too good. Saw this shop online. You may wanna check them out: http://www.couturefurniture.sg/index.php

After considering various quotes by a few IDs, we finally decided to engage Forest Woodworking. Signed the sales agreement with them a week ago. Their costing is more like in the median range, in between the highest and lowest quotes. Our decision was made based on their impressive portfolio for English country-style, plus they are able to give us the sage green cabinets we wanted. My ID Helen also gave us quite a good discount, to try to meet our tight budget. Most importantly, Helen provides very good customer service and follow-up, but not exactly pushy. She communicates very clearly what can and cannot be done, and gives practical suggestions on how to maximise storage areas in the small study room, but not overcrowding the space with too many cabinets. Unlike the other IDs who are taking forever to revert with quotes, she provides/revises quotes very promptly. She also makes a point to follow-up through phone calls to see if we have any concerns or need to make further changes etc. Most of the other IDs don't even bother to follow-up after sending quotes. Last week, my ID came down with her carpenter to make measurements for the study room and dining area. She said she will try to meet my deadline of end June...really glad when she said that they would target to get everything done by the 2nd or 3rd week of June. After some discussions with the ID, we have decided to make the bottom cabinets in sage green and the top cabinets in white with gold trimmings for that vintage look. The top hung display in the dining room will be constructed in ivory with gold trimmings. Helen has shown me photos of homes they have done in a similar concept, and they look really nice! Can't wait to see how mine will turn out after the reno!

Country Concept came over my place yesterday to take a look at the study room, so as to be able to give us a more accurate quotation. The boss of the company, Mr Teo gave his suggestions on how we could improve upon the current layout. He proposed to remove some cabinet doors and to have more open shelving instead for practical reasons. From the way he explained, could tell that he is a guru in this area. He has been in this biz for over 30 yrs I think. He was quite upfront & honest too as he told us what can work & what can't, what they could do & what they couldn't do. I asked about doing the carpentry in my fave sage green & he said not a problem! Told me that he used to do that many yrs back as this colour used to be more popular then but said he hasn't done that for many yrs as not many request for it nowadays. Also told me that there are no additional charges! So glad to hear that! . He even offered to spray paint a sample for me when I go down to the showroom next week to discuss the final quotation. Really nice of him! Finally starting to see some "hope" in my renovation after meeting so many hiccups. Hope the final quotation could be within our budget and that they are able to give me the colour we want. If all goes well, really hope to confirm on the ID by next week.

Just sharing the space planning/layout done up by my hubby for the study room:

After a few weeks of gathering quotations, coming out with our own space planning and layout of the study room, we could finally see our reno project moving. So far, we have gotten two quotations - one from Forest Woodworking and one from Country Concept. As expected, Forest's quote came up to be on the high end of the spectrum. Yesterday, we went down to discuss the details with Forest and negotiate the costing. Met up with Helen who felt that we have too many full height cabinets in the study, hence causing the costings to be very high. In addition, as we have a very small room, having too many full height cabinets would make it look very cluttered. After a discussion to remove some of those cabinets, she managed to push the quote down by more than $2k. Actually I was just being very kiasu. Wanted to maximise the space in my study to the fullest so I will not run out of storage space in future. However, I tend to agree with her that there are too many cabinets...practically on all four walls of the room! I really LOVE the stuff that Forest has done, so English country! Exactly how I wanted my room to be! However, all these come at a premium price. I had communicated to Helen earlier that I wanted the cabinets to be in my dream colour - sage green. This is a very rare and vintage country green which is not easy to get. And I almost died when she showed me a sample of the sage green material...exactly how I pictured in my mind! When I saw that, I was so tempted to sign her up on the spot! LOL. However that sage green colour also comes at a premium price....an additional $700-$800 which I find unacceptable. Her reason is because it's a rare colour and efforts need to be put in to use special paints. As she'll be reworking the quotation for our study cabinets and the dining display unit (which may come up to an additional $2-3k), we asked her to try her best to give us a better costing. Keeping our fingers crossed! Very keen to engage Forest as I really love their workmanship & design. However I have this strong feeling that their final quotation will be way above our budget. Just received Country Concept's quotation today and will be arranging to meet them next week to discuss further. We had earlier intended to complete all reno by end of June, but seems like those few IDs I spoke to are unable to commit, as their projects have been fully lined up already.

Thanks. Do PM me your ID's contact. I think no harm asking them for a quote again since I'm still gathering quotes.

Hi When I was renovating my home 3 years ago, I had quotations from forestwood, cottage craft and creations from the heart. I like the quality of the stuff from forestwood and cottage craft but they serve the high-end market and were way beyond my budget. Creations from the Heart's quotation is rather reasonable but I don't really like the boss as I find him rather unfriendly. Think I've seen some forumers here complaining about him too. Ended up, I didn't engage any of them but coordinated my own projects. Currently I'm doing some reno for my study and dining area and may be considering Country Concept. Have obtained a quote from them which is quite reasonable. Will be meeting them for a discussion next week.

Where is Nex's King and King Wong?

Btw I'm back to flood this forum, as I'll be going into Phase 2 of my home reno after a long three years! Yeah!!! We will be doing up our study room and fixing a wall display unit for the living room, as we didn't have much budget to get them done earlier. Currently, my hubby is doing space planning and layout of the study room. Will be looking for a suitable carpenter once this is done....hopefully by end of this week. Watch this space for my updates!

Are you looking to do your reno in country style? Try Country Concept (http://www.countryconcept.com/) or Cottage Crafts (http://thecottagecraft.com/index.html). If you have a tight budget, you may wanna consider Country Concept as I've heard some pretty good comments about their workmanship. Cottage Crafts services the higher end of the market but no harm approaching them too.

Thanks. You are referring to the block of flats just opp. the Buona Vista MRT which has a coffee shop right?

Does anybody know the nearest place to TH which sells mahjong table? Remembered that one of the guys here mentioned somewhere in Buona Vista. Any idea how much the table costs? Pls let me have the address. Thanks.

You got PM!

As promised, sharing some updated photos of my MBR. More photos can be viewed at : http://gallery.me.com/tanvivien/100044

Just PMed you the contacts.

Cool! Can give me the address? I heard from some friends that Genting Highlands and KL also have some shops selling country-style items. Should try to arrange for my overseas country shopping soon. Hehe...

Yes, I really vouch for Picket & Rail furniture! Quality is really good compared to many other shops that sell solid wood furniture. Their prices are very affordable too. You should visit their flagship store at Woodlands, heard that the items are cheaper there and also more variety. It's very out of the way for me, so I've not been there yet. I like one of their fabric range sofas, might wanna consider that for my living room. http://www.picketandrail.com/Living/images...es/virginia.jpg I got the indo lobang from a friend who's indonesian. She and her mum also recently reno their place and had lots of furniture custom made and shipped back here. So I tompan with their orders, to cut down on shipping and freight charges. Think I paid $200+ for both my items, which is very, very reasonable. Already, I'm saving a lot on the cost of the items, cos I was quoted 3 times of what I paid for from a few IDs here. And with the low shipping costs...what more can I say? Hmm...that country shop at Thomson Plaza is not cheap lah. Nowadays I buy from this lady who sets up push-carts at the heartland shopping malls. Her country items are so much cheaper, usually like 20-30% lower. She sells lamps, cushion covers, quilt covers, decor etc. She's currently at Westmall and will be moving to Tiong Bahru Plaza in Oct.