Industrial Loft Concept - Bachelor Pad

[June 13]

Keeping my fingers crossed !

[Harriette 42]

It is very fortunate that the leak was discovered. Some years ago, a contractor caused a small leak in the gas pipe in a condo. Eventually the owner's young son died due to the gas leak.

[redder 2]

It is very fortunate that the leak was discovered. Some years ago, a contractor caused a small leak in the gas pipe in a condo. Eventually the owner's young son died due to the gas leak.

OH NO! That's terrible!!

[greglhc 30]

It is very fortunate that the leak was discovered. Some years ago, a contractor caused a small leak in the gas pipe in a condo. Eventually the owner's young son died due to the gas leak.

My contractor told me that horror story too! Must make sure it is an authorised contractor to check gas leakage!

[greglhc 30]

I have been addicted to tb over the past few nights because of a new search term for home decor stuff - Zakka

So much stuff to go through, including vintage-y looking boxes, storage, mugs/cups, kitchen accessories.

Colleagues have remarked that I look very tired over the past few mornings heh

[greglhc 30]

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.247.0LCSqJ&id=25806364638

Crates like these. Cheap too! Can do lots of things with them

[sleepybeauty 18]

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.247.0LCSqJ&id=25806364638

Crates like these. Cheap too! Can do lots of things with them

Nice! I'm planning on some DIY projects with wine crates too after my place is done. Right now is asking my friends to pass me their unwanted crates

[vanessa 12]

Nice! I'm planning on some DIY projects with wine crates too after my place is done. Right now is asking my friends to pass me their unwanted crates

lucky gal! Those crates are hard to come by...mostly because most winemakers have switched to the cardboard boxes...if i am not wrong...only bordeaux are still being packaged in these wooden crates

[janyen 0]

You're right, the term 'Zakka' sure comes up with a lot of nice/cool vintage-y, even parisian-themed stuff.

Greg, not sure if you or anybody else on the forum bought LED L-Box downlights from Taobao, just a quick question (noob at taobao and my chinese sucks):

1) What's the standard size of a LED downlight. Would something like this, 300mm x 300mm be a std size?

2) Would something like this (link below), come with everything? i.e. LED bulb, casing, driver, wires (?!) etc? So I just need to buy the light right?

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z10.1.w5003-1313877675.10.tgu4dr&id=17656219452&scene=taobao_shop

Am thinking of using Peeka's express air mail 7 days service, cos I will likely can't wait for 3 weeks for my lights to arrive.. everything's happening quite quickly all of a sudden. If I'm getting just a bunch of lights and maybe 2 side tables, does anybody have experience on whether Peeka's air shipping costs are super expensive or manageable (for the faster time frame)?

Also, I remember that you mentioned that you found some nice bed side tables on TB.. Can you share the links if possible? Thanks!

[sarah833 3]

Ness create a mailing list and keep us posted on your cooking classes!

Sarah i am not the most tech savvy...dont know where to start to do that!

Hi Ness,

Just took a quick look at your Facebook page CulinaryNess, how about including a small description in your About/CulinaryNess section or your blog to ask those who are interested to be kept informed of upcoming events to email you at vanessa@culinaryness.com? You keep the emails in a word/excel file and email them when you have a new event? You can ask your more tech-savvy friends how to merge the mailing list to the email if the list is long!!

Edited September 26, 2013 by sarah833

[greglhc 30]

lucky gal! Those crates are hard to come by...mostly because most winemakers have switched to the cardboard boxes...if i am not wrong...only bordeaux are still being packaged in these wooden crates

yeah only bordeaux and probably burgundy wines are freight in wooden crates - and still come corked and not screw-cap heh

[greglhc 30]

Hi Janyen,

I never bought downlights from taobao so I am unsure of size

The link you provided comes with everything including the bulb which is either 10W or 8W (price is different)

So just need to assemble before installation

About bedside table, I was looking at this one but have not bought yet

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.160.zhSkX5&id=26159448435

Another nice shop which I am eyeing a few items is this one

http://b-home.taobao.com/?spm=a1z10.3.w1326309-830733807.1.JBVuyB

I've bought two pieces of large-ish furniture from taobao and waiting for it to ship to Singapore. I put in my order about 3 weeks ago and it's taking a while to ship the item to Peeka's china warehouse. I believe the items are made to order. Gonna see the quality of these two items before I decide on buying more from furniture from taobao.

Peeka's air shipping cost is pretty high - they take the higher of actual weight or volumetric weight. If you buy large items then volumetric weight will surely be larger. Their rates can be found here http://buy4u.peeka.sg/rates

Gd luck!

You're right, the term 'Zakka' sure comes up with a lot of nice/cool vintage-y, even parisian-themed stuff.

Greg, not sure if you or anybody else on the forum bought LED L-Box downlights from Taobao, just a quick question (noob at taobao and my chinese sucks):

1) What's the standard size of a LED downlight. Would something like this, 300mm x 300mm be a std size?

2) Would something like this (link below), come with everything? i.e. LED bulb, casing, driver, wires (?!) etc? So I just need to buy the light right?

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z10.1.w5003-1313877675.10.tgu4dr&id=17656219452&scene=taobao_shop

Am thinking of using Peeka's express air mail 7 days service, cos I will likely can't wait for 3 weeks for my lights to arrive.. everything's happening quite quickly all of a sudden. If I'm getting just a bunch of lights and maybe 2 side tables, does anybody have experience on whether Peeka's air shipping costs are super expensive or manageable (for the faster time frame)?

Also, I remember that you mentioned that you found some nice bed side tables on TB.. Can you share the links if possible? Thanks!

[June 13]

I think I'm one of very few people on RT who have never bought anything from TB. I was tempted like everyone else but my first attempt some time back failed miserably. I placed an order for one dining chair to see the quality of the product. I chose a seller with very good reviews where people said the actual product looked exactly like the pix. The chair has an industrial design, with metal frame and wooden seat. I don't expect the wood to have beautiful grains (for that price, i know i cant expect nice wood). In the pix, the wood grains were not obvious, which was perfectly fine with me as the chair looked nice overall. But after the chair arrived at the china centre and peeka sent me a pix of it, I was shocked to see that the wood looked nothing like that in the pix. The wood grains looked like the strips on a leopard! While I know no two pieces of wood would have the same grains, the difference in this case was simply too big. To make sure that i was not overreacting, i showed the pix to my frens who bought from TB before and all said i should not accept the product.

The peeka staff in china was very patient (at least in our online conversations). Initially she was

defending the seller and said no one could say for sure how the wood will look. To get my point across, I

decided to type my explanation in mandarin (which is really tedious) I said it was not the first time I

bought wood products from online stores but this was the first time that the real product looked

so drastically different from the pix. I typed 木纹 变豹纹! She immediately said she would reject the

product but I still have to pay 40$ for domestic transport, which was okay with me.

Subsequently I checked all the online stores that sell the same product and I realized that many posted the same pix or other similar looking pix online. My guess is that they lifted the pix from somewhere on the Internet.

Though my first attempt failed, I have to say that peeka really has very good customer service. Instead of

asking them to transfer back to me the balance of the payment i made, im keeping the amount in peeka

in case I decide to try my luck with TB again. Its hard to resist those pretty knick knacks!

Sorry for posting this long story in your blog. Just wanted to share my first experience with TB.

Edited September 27, 2013 by June

[vanessa 12]

Hi Ness,

Just took a quick look at your Facebook page CulinaryNess, how about including a small description in your About/CulinaryNess section or your blog to ask those who are interested to be kept informed of upcoming events to email you at vanessa@culinaryness.com? You keep the emails in a word/excel file and email them when you have a new event? You can ask your more tech-savvy friends how to merge the mailing list to the email if the list is long!!

hmm...will try that...it is gonna be tough juggling maintaining the list and a job LOL

[greglhc 30]

Thanks for sharing June. I am very curious how the leopard striped wooden seat looks like! haha

On a more serious note, buying anything online without being able to touch/see the actual product is riskier than buying from a traditional bricks & mortar kind of shop

The risk is probably higher with taobao as a lot of sellers may not have as much finesse in making the product i.e. not as much attention paid to details as we expect

In order to mitigate this, I only buy items which are uncomplicated in design.

Yes there are a lot of sellers on taobao who copy from other taobao sellers. This is very obvious since for some products by different sellers, the pictures are all the same! Even with the previous seller's branding of logos and whatnot.

My recommendation for safer taobao purchases are lighting, sinks, faucets, chairs. If you can, stick to replicas where the dimensions of the product are already known as well. I tend to avoid wood pieces as (1) variation in the wood grain as you pointed out, (2) we are not exactly sure how the wood is treated

Having said that, I did buy a furniture item with some wooden panels but I did so with full knowledge that I might have to trash it in 6 months.

June, will you be able to share the link on taobao which you wanted to buy the chair from? At least it will help reno-talkers to avoid this seller.

I think I'm one of very few people on RT who have never bought anything from TB. I was tempted like everyone else but my first attempt some time back failed miserably. I placed an order for one dining chair to see the quality of the product. I chose a seller with very good reviews where people said the actual product looked exactly like the pix. The chair has an industrial design, with metal frame and wooden seat. I don't expect the wood to have beautiful grains (for that price, i know i cant expect nice wood). In the pix, the wood grains were not obvious, which was perfectly fine with me as the chair looked nice overall. But after the chair arrived at the china centre and peeka sent me a pix of it, I was shocked to see that the wood looked nothing like that in the pix. The wood grains looked like the strips on a leopard! While I know no two pieces of wood would have the same grains, the difference in this case was simply too big. To make sure that i was not overreacting, i showed the pix to my frens who bought from TB before and all said i should not accept the product.
The peeka staff in china was very patient (at least in our online conversations). Initially she was
defending the seller and said no one could say for sure how the wood will look. To get my point across, I
decided to type my explanation in mandarin (which is really tedious) I said it was not the first time I
bought wood products from online stores but this was the first time that the real product looked
so drastically different from the pix. I typed 木纹 变豹纹! She immediately said she would reject the
product but I still have to pay 40$ for domestic transport, which was okay with me.
Subsequently I checked all the online stores that sell the same product and I realized that many posted the same pix or other similar looking pix online. My guess is that they lifted the pix from somewhere on the Internet.
Though my first attempt failed, I have to say that peeka really has very good customer service. Instead of
asking them to transfer back to me the balance of the payment i made, im keeping the amount in peeka
in case I decide to try my luck with TB again. Its hard to resist those pretty knick knacks!
Sorry for posting this long story in your blog. Just wanted to share my first experience with TB.