Our Second Reno Journey

[3Dyms 1]

Congrats on moving into your new home. Agree with the rest that your home looks really lovely & cosy.

[macuser77 1]

Hi to all,

Thanks for the comments.

The weekend has finally arrived. Can't wait to spend 2 full days at home resting

Edited September 6, 2013 by macuser77

[macuser77 1]

hi,

can share how much is the morroco lightings? Interested to get it for my new home. Thanks!

Hi vivianie,

We got it at about $170 each.

[macuser77 1]

Review of our suppliers

Its the Mrs here, I guess it is timely to provide a review of the suppliers who helped us re-create our home now that we are officially done with our reno.

1. Our contractor Mr K - I will try to keep this short and sweet as my hubby has previously provided a review of him. However, it's hard especially since my hubby and I love him to bits. Though I need to stress that now that we have shifted in we are even more grateful to him for all the minor things that he did out of his own initiative. Also, even though our renovation has been completed for almost a month and monies had been paid in full, he is still very responsive.. Yesterday, my hubby messaged him to drill holes for installation of our mirror and wedding pictures and he arranged for it immediately. (ok, enough said, if not I will sound like a long-winded old lady).

2. Hafary Tradehub Deborah - We had a hard time looking for our wood tiles. We set our mind on getting our floor tiles from the other big tile shop (SBH) as we didn't have a good impression of Hafary due to our previous ID. Also, I always get a headache in Hafary (both the Defu lane and Balestier outlet) due to its dizzying layout. However, as SBH didn't have any of our chosen wood tiles, we decided to try Hafary Tradehub out of desperation. It was the best thing ever. It was big and spacious and didn't have any dizzying layout like the other 2 outlets. The crowd wasn't as scary too. We were lucky to be served by a very knowledgeable sales person, Deborah, who provided us with good advice both in terms of floor tiles and toilet fittings (yes, we got our toilet fittings from them as Toto was out of stock). I love the bathroom tiles recommended by her (non-slip) and the Hansgrohe shower head recommended by her (at least it looks different from our previous "made in Italy" rain shower bought from balestier). Also, Deborah was very responsive and emailed me alternative models when we had to change our toilet bowl (we bought one that couldn't fit).

3. Boconcept - When we started our reno, I pictured my house to be a Boconcept house. The Boconcept catalogue was like my bible and I poured through it everyday. So when the Boconcept sale came, we immediately placed our order. Unfortunately, this was the place where we placed our order first and yet one of the last item to be received. What made things worse, they missed out our order and our furniture had to be further delayed. Of course, we gave them **** (Sarah, if you're reading this, we can be quite nasty customers!) and Bo scrambled to rectify everything immediately. We got our furniture on the scheduled due date and BoConcept actually sent us an apology card with a big box of Royce biscuits. We are now happy customers lol.

Now, re BoConcept furniture, though they may look like Ikea from far, they are nothing like Ikea. They are very very very well made and the furniture is very sturdy and heavy. Price wise, I would say they are very reasonable. I also liked the clean lines of the furniture and felt that these are timeless items that would not go out of style even in 10 years time. If I were to change furniture ever again, it would definitely be Bo. Never mind the long wait.

My current favourite Bo item is the dresser in our bedroom. My TV sits on it and it is the perfect height!

[macuser77 1]

Review of our suppliers (cont'd)

4. Mega discount store United Square Joe- Thanks to renotalk we discovered MDS. As everyone may know, MDS and Parasilk are well known to provide competitive prices. However, we choose MDS over Parasilk cos of the excellent service provided and cos MDS accepts credit card. It is very important for me to use my credit card over cash for our renovation as it allows me to accumulate points to redeem for free trips (we redeemed a free trip to UK previously and I hope to do it again.) MDS sells pretty much everything (even Smeg fridges!!) and like what other forummers said, they charge very competitive prices.

Thumbs up to Joe and MDS for their service! very sincere no nonsense guy and always trying to do his very best in providing good service. As I am a pretty last minute person, I only informed them of the planned delivery date 1 to 2 days before delivery and each time MDS managed to deliver the items on time. One more trip from MDS for my Smeg fridge in Dec!

However, if you're planning to go MDS to window shop, don't bother. The outlets are pretty small and they do not display everything. Also, they are very busy. It may be best to go scout around for the items in COurts, Harvey etc and ask if they can match the lowest price available.

5. Etronin Home Appliances (T: 6781 7810 6784 2525)

Got my Joven heater from here as MDS didn't carry it. It is one of those old school neighbourhood electrical shops and has been around since I was a kid. My granddad, who is very astute, loves this shop and even once travelled from Bendemeer all the way to Tampines to buy electrical appliances from him as the price was the cheapest. My granddad also said that he is a very honest and trustworthy person. I should think so as my parents and grandparents still buy from him. I didn't though as they don't accept credit cards.

6. Lightings.com.sg

Not very pleased with the service as we selected this fabric light for our kitchen and the saleman did not even highlight it to us. We had to pay a penalty fee for changing the light thereafter. Also, the bulb of one of the lights spoilt within one week after we shifted in. Price wise we're not too sure as we didn't do much checking.

7. Commune sofa and tv console

Not very pleased with our purchase. It was a rash purchase. The sofa didn't seem as comfortable as it was in the showroom and though the drawers in the tv console had soft closing, it was still pretty hard to open and close compared to Mr K's and BoConcept. Delivery service was top notch though.

Edited September 8, 2013 by macuser77

[James N Joean 8]

Glorious wood tiles !

So far so good. No complains. Very neat laying of tiles and we're very happy with the wood tiles that we have selected. (luckily we listened to K and went Hafary).

Enough said.

Hi Macuser77, can share again the photo of the wood like tiles? Thanks

[macuser77 1]

Review of our suppliers (cont'd)

8. Aircon (Mr K's cousin, Xiao Di - 90046608)

Very neat and nice piping, and prices charged are extremely reasonable. Seems abit blur but lucky we have Mr K to help liaise. Oh yah, very cool about money too. Kept telling us no hurry and to pay only when we have money hehe. It also helps that he does servicing of air con.

9. Design Store by Life storey

Got my beloved Muuto chairs from them. They have since delivered 2, and awaiting 4 more to be shipped in from Europe. Service is super excellent, told them I needed 2 chairs to sit on immediately and they arranged for delivery during the weekend at no extra charge! Don't ask me if the chairs are comfy though, they are so freaking ex that I cant bear to sit on it. Scared we will stain the chairs with our butt.

10. Rinnai hood, hob, oven

Cant comment much as I cant cook. The hubs has been doing the cooking and he seems to love it. (oh he just said it is too early to give comments on it)

11. Foundry beside Raffles Hotel, Nest.co.uk, Scandinavian Design Centre

Other than foundry, the rest are online shops that do international delivery. Delivery is fast and most importantly, they stock furnishings that cant be found in Singapore. Packagings are solid and clean.

As for Foundry, I love it cos of the brands that they stock. Very nice stuff, reasonable price (considering the brand and quality) and knowledgeable sales staff.

12. Francfranc

Very cute nice furnishings for accessorising the house, very very good service

13. Howards storage world

Service at Harbour Front was horrible, I swore not to ever step in there again. But unfortunately, we bought more stuff from them over the weekend.

14. Viewqwest

a lot of screw ups after installation, but now that it is up and running it is very good! You get to watch BBC shows (think nobody here watches it) and also tvb shows live! Now that we have this, I will definitely not get Starhub again. goodbye Starhub!

15. Maxcoil mattress from Posturecare mattress gallery

We had a simmons mattress from the previous round and it was pretty uncomfortable. We wanted something like the Heavenly Bed in Westin and initially wanted to purchase the mattress from Westin online (FYI, the Westin mattress is made by Simmons for westin). However, when shopping around, we were informed by this Simmons auntie that the westin mattress is comfy due to the toppers. Also, we read somewhere that actually all mattresses are the same, the 60% more that you pay for the branded mattresses are actually for marketing. So, armed with a budget of $1k, we got ourselves a Maxcoil king and a topper from Robinsons. Now my bed feels heavenly! Lol

16. Robinsons centrepoint

What more can I say other than excellent service. Very personalised nice old uncles and aunties. Oh they have the most beautiful range of bedsheets and homewares in my opinion. Haha

17. Hong Ming curtains

We wanted Hunter Douglas blinds initially, however thinking of the cost and cleaning involved, we ended up with curtains as they're fuss free / easy to maintain.

Installation was a breeze with minimum mess, and measurements were perfect. Price wise, not too sure as we didn't do any comparison,

Ok finally end of my review!!

Edited September 8, 2013 by macuser77

[macuser77 1]

Hi Macuser77, can share again the photo of the wood like tiles? Thanks

Hi PTopaz

Sorry cant as I think my photobucket has exceeded the bandwidth?? You can see it on Mr K's facebook though (link below). hope it helps.

Edited September 8, 2013 by macuser77

[James N Joean 8]

Sure...thanks

[sherting 5]

what is a topper?

[tobehappy 0]

Hey, thanks for the review of your suppliers. What kinds of problems did you have after VQ's installation? And how long did it take to rectify? Tks.

[macuser77 1]

Hi tobehappy,

Apparently VQ forgot to activate our freedom VPN, and we only realized it when we tested the VQ tv.

Problem was resolved in a day.

[ucypmas 0]

Hi there - could you get national geographic content on VQ TV? I'm thinking of signing up with them instead of the legacy companies but one of the main reason is to get national geographic / animal planet for the kids to watch occasionally when they clamour for the idiot box.

Btw when you got Mr K back to drill the extra holes - did you tell him in advance you might need him to do this? Kind of paiseh to ask him again to come in for various things after the house is handover esp those not in original scope of work.

[macuser77 1]

Hi there - could you get national geographic content on VQ TV? I'm thinking of signing up with them instead of the legacy companies but one of the main reason is to get national geographic / animal planet for the kids to watch occasionally when they clamour for the idiot box.

Btw when you got Mr K back to drill the extra holes - did you tell him in advance you might need him to do this? Kind of paiseh to ask him again to come in for various things after the house is handover esp those not in original scope of work.

Hi ucypmas.

I'm not sure if it has National Geographic/Animal Planet as the available channels are like BBC 1, BBC 2 etc. Will check it out when i'm home.

As for drilling of extra holes, yes he will do it out of goodwill. We casually mentioned it to him when we made final payment though. And since he is doing out of goodwill, Got to accommodate to his timing though.

Edited September 10, 2013 by macuser77

[sarah833 3]

Review of our suppliers

Its the Mrs here, I guess it is timely to provide a review of the suppliers who helped us re-create our home now that we are officially done with our reno.

3. Boconcept - When we started our reno, I pictured my house to be a Boconcept house. The Boconcept catalogue was like my bible and I poured through it everyday. So when the Boconcept sale came, we immediately placed our order. Unfortunately, this was the place where we placed our order first and yet one of the last item to be received. What made things worse, they missed out our order and our furniture had to be further delayed. Of course, we gave them **** (Sarah, if you're reading this, we can be quite nasty customers!) and Bo scrambled to rectify everything immediately. We got our furniture on the scheduled due date and BoConcept actually sent us an apology card with a big box of Royce biscuits. We are now happy customers lol.

Now, re BoConcept furniture, though they may look like Ikea from far, they are nothing like . They are very very very well made and the furniture is very sturdy and heavy. Price wise, I would say they are very reasonable. I alsoliked the clean lines of the furniture and felt that these are timeless items that would not go out of style even in 10 years time. If I were to change furniture ever again, it would definitely be Bo. Never mind the long wait.

My current favourite Bo item is the dresser in our bedroom. My TV sits on it and it is the perfect height!

Hi hi Mrs Dunno

gosh, do you have a tele in the bathroom haha

I am still lurking around, just too busy to post comment past one week since I boughtt a retarded toy lol

Are you and hubby mac users? My best friend called me an apple ambassador in the past coz I had all things apples and was full of praise of them despite their short comings lol. But I have switched camp since last jan from ipad to samsung tab, iphone to bb qwerty phone the q10, and from macbook/macbook pro/macbook air/mac mini to the retarded windows8 laptop I bought a week ago..The only apple products I owned now are the trusted 8-9 years old airport extreme , a wireless keyboard and wireless mouse

Big regrets and the price I have to pay for making an impulse purchase without doing my homework this time haha. didnt know that windows8 is so freaking retarded and unsexy! (very dull colors) Been reading reviews and workarounds to make it more likeable past few days but alas, hit a wall last nignt when the retarded kept asking me to activate the windows soffware. brought it to the,shop this afternoon and the guy suspects it kena virus attack and they had to reinstall windows8. I told him I really doubt so but thats the only option they offered. He thrn asked me to go for lunch while he reinstall windiws8 but allas after jalan for 1.5hrs (and made an impulse purchase of a STAUB cast iron pot and two cute vespa mugs on sales at taka) the installation was only 30%,complete!

My retarded is spending the njght at the shop (best denki), thats why I am free to kaypo here tonight haha

Edited September 10, 2013 by sarah833