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Revised 3D renderings are out! More in line with what we wanted. All white! So we can focus on artworks, posters, art pieces and photo frames in the white spaces Closer and closer to getting started! Information overload on the things to learn, first plumbing and now to think about lighting. Still think $2250 for simple plumbing and sink/toilet bowl installation is madness, soliciting quotes for a 2nd opinion. Think lights will be Tao Bao for the feature lights but main track lights will be from Singapore (somehow don't trust Taobao to get dimmable track lights)

Hi all, what is the cost of aluminium window grilles for two rooms along corridor? Simple horizontal lines in sliver colour. I was quoted $830 by my contractor and i think its not cheap. Anyone care to share?

Sign up with fabulous curtain at balestier on November 2013. At first, whatever I requested they will said ok, can but after signing and paid deposit, they never bother to call to arrange appointment. I had to keep calling. I did 3 roller blinds for bedroom and curtain for living room. Blinds are done but now waited until feb still nobody contact me regards to my curtain. Not until mid feb they message me said the colour of the curtain I chosen is no longer available. I replied back and said they should have inform me earlier and the salesman just message me sorry and said he was also upset over this issue too and that's it. Until now nobody bother to call me to follow up. After sales service really horrible,thanks to them that I had to live with bare window for months. I will not recommend them to any of my friends.

Just to share on materials tips for reno http://www.nobel.com.sg/WhiteBoard%20Renov...ovationMain.htm Hope it is useful.

Busy with the move last saturday. tired weekend from packing and unpacking. will update with pics soon.

hi they cost me about $50 each for labour. i didn't purchase the tiles - they are spare hdb floor tiles given to each flat.

Hi JW, I think leather care lotion / cream might work, even if it is synthetic leather. Mum's place sofa is synthetic leather, from year 2012. It's still ok now, no cracks. The leather care lotion was just some random purchase from the 'car care' section - lots of products available for car's leather seats.

Dont worry about accepting the goods in Taobao. Accepting them means the money will be release to the seller. So after certain amount of days of goods arrived and no one accepting, Taobao will auto release the money to seller.

Hi Bianzi, I started last wk of march so technically is about 3.5mths but bear in mind that I was travelling for work and there were some changes along the way. From what I gather (maybe the seasoned homeowners here can advice) is reno process is between 8-12 wks. Depending on the amount of work needed eg. If yours is a BTO or a resale hacking involved, electrical wiring overhaul etc. So the 4mths timeline is just my own reno journey. Yours may not be that long:) Saw that you've also started on yours. Wishing you a pleasant reno process and enjoy it!

Architect building up interior designing portfolio Offering. Space Planning+Product & Material Selection.

Hi All, I am in the midst of considering getting a set of retracting clotheslines for my home, not those that hang from the ceiling, but wall to wall. There are two that I am considering: 1) Wally from Ezziliving 2) Extenda or Slimline from Clik Enterprise Just want to know if you have used such clotheslines and whether they are good. I intend to install at my balcony where the sun is quite strong. Please share your reviews. Thank you in advance.

Today we went to the Furniture expo 2014. Sat down with a few ID firms to discuss and hopefully get a quotation thats fits our budget oh we also ordered high end resilient flooring from evorich flooring for our bed rooms, and maybe will extend to living and kitchen i bought this kitchen faucet 2 weeks ago for our new house but some how it ended up in my mother-in-law's kitchen -__- on the bright side, i get to test it out before getting it again (if its good) Kohler K-780-VS Cruette Pull-Down Kitchen Faucet, Vibrant Stainless Steel bought this faucet from amazon and use forwarder Comgateway to mail to SG its an amazing faucet, beautifully constructed and easy to install, the package only have 3 items in it, the faucet (with all the hoses attached), the counter weight and a top plate (to cover 3 holes if you have them on existing sink) and its good! i love it, heres a video i uploaded on youtube that shows you its major functions, namely: 3-function sprayhead (spray, aerated flow and pause), oh it is a pull down design with magnetic docking and pro-motion that ensures your hose doesnt tangle (sounds like i'm their sales executive LOL) oh btw, this Kohler is a USA brand, so obvious its hose size is different from SG's common 1/2" pipe, you need this, a T-Joint connector/reducer (the faucet has hot n cold water function, sadly HDB only gives 1 cold supply) to connect this faucet to HDB supply 1/2" hose, my suggestion is you bring your faucet to the hardware shops to try (i had to go twice as i bought the wrong size the first time -_-), i got it from the friendly owner at Teck Siong Huat Hardware Pte Ltd at blk 28 Kelantan Rd. Just let him know what you want, he will give u solution

CONSOLIDATED POST ABOUT TAOBAO AND TMALL Taobao & Tmall The interest and enthusiastic in Taobao and Tmall has always been high among folks. Most can spend hours and days searching for the ideal item to purchase. Then again, some pre-requisite are required before one can venture further. Able to read Chinese, is half the job done then. The rest, there is always Google Translate. Just to pen down some thoughts and journey went thru. Searching for the dream item is not the hard part. There some many items to of various design, pattern and colours to choose from. Choosing to buy from who is the tricky part. First there is Taobao and Tmall. So what is the difference? From what I understand, Tmall are more of premium sellers. Chances of getting fake stuffs from there are lesser the sellers are more reputable, quality assurance is there as well. Then again, this does not means Taobao has no good stuffs or mainly fakes. Practice some due diligence, if an offer looks too good to be true, then mostly it is. For me I will look for those with 1) sales transaction 2) comments 3) higher diamonds rated seller. Read thru the comments, make sure the comments are coming from different names and also are frequents buyers and not some bogus buyers. Takes a little time but normally shall pay off well. Next, the interesting part, all vendors has a MSN like chat 阿里旺旺, if you are able to type Chinese, download it. You can chat directly with the seller, asking questions of your concern and clarify some doubts such as colour & dimensions (esp for wood grain furniture). And seriously, you can bargain a little as well if you are buying a few items or more, or request free delivery to an address in China. With chatting, the seller can "custom" a link for you to meet your requirement be it the pricing or dimensions. Troublesome you may say but to me, it is part of the fun of online shopping. I always chat when buying big ticket items and kinda get a little discount here and there. I was looking for some rain shower head, found this vendor, chat with him and found out that he is selling bidet spray as well but not listed on his site. So he sent me some pics, ask him about the material so end up buying 2 shower head and 2 bidet from him. He gave me a discount and I got some savings. Now he is offering me with more of his products for my consideration, send me mails with pics of some faucets and taps, will seriously consider if the price is right. Actually there is a small hiccup when buying from him, we both calculated the wrong amount to pay, I paid RMB60 more and the same evening, he refunded me straight away. If you ask me, do I trust them? Yes and no. Yes because the Chinese are slowly moving into the phase of understanding the importance of customer service, word of mouth. Passed were the days where they do guerrilla warfare, whack & run. Sometimes due to the lack of monitoring in QC, one may get a lemon item once in a blue moon. Still it wont deters me from continuing to buy from there for some items are pretty enticing. Like a study table, local prices are like $500 up to $1k or more, carpentry is like $120 per foot run, while in TB/Tmall, you can get easily for approx. $300. Making it more appealing if you are buying 2. Later I will post abit on how and who I used to ship the items. Payment to Taobao or Tmall Paying to TB and Tmall has always been a pain in the xxx. The more direct approach is buying thru agent but then agent charged a fee that sometimes makes the item no longer attractive. Eg. Peeka charges a 5% or min $5. If the item is low value, it is more contemptible to use such service. Not to forget, Peeka allow only up to 3 orders consolidation. (I think so) So another way is to use Credit Cards, which personally I avoid at all cost. This, firstly due to the unfavourable exchange rate and the 3% additional surcharge as well. So what can we do then? We can use Alipay. All you have to do is to register an Alipay account, now Alipay can even accept Singapore mobile. This is a safety security function, when paying, Alipay will send a 6 digit pin SMS to you r mobile for payment. To top up to Alipay, we can use AXS machine, to purchase Alipay Purchase Card, choosing from RMB200, 500 and 1000 to. You will have to enter your email and contact. Receipt will be issued and email sent. The email as follow: Please find your Alipay Purchase Card transaction details below. Transaction Date/Time : 2014-02-09 10:51:29 Amount Paid : SGD $218.70 Card Value : RMB 1000 Card Serial No. : 800300xxxxxxxxxx Card PIN : 2xxxxx Email address : abc123@gmail.com Contact No : 9xxxxxxx Also included are the instructions to top up in Alipay. Sounds easy right? But there are dome shortcomings as well too. 1) Unfavourable exchange rate charged. On this part, one has to do your own math, whether to buy thru agent and pay the fees/surcharge or thru this method. 2) Money top up cannot be refunded. So there will always be balance in the account. So it is better to plan and count how much you need before you top up. Personally, I will still use this method. At least I get to control what I spend, know how much I have; TB account will have record what I had bought. If received a super big lemon, I can deal direct with seller. Thru agent, there is no record unless agent able to retrieve for you but this will involve agent details such as payment, accounts etc. Any refund is also back to payee and not you. Long and tedious I feel. LATEST UPDATE Payment in TB, I understand when nowadays when you sent up a Taobao account, you will auto get a Alipay account. Alipay 支付宝 is the payment platform similar as Paypal. If you did not get the account, suggest you to get set up one Alipay account anyway. In Taobao, after placing an order, the site will direct you to payment page. From there choose this ： 海外其它地区版. From there, you will see Nets payment. Yes, Nets payment. Surcharge is SGD1 per transaction. And from here, I believe the rest is history. So there you go, Taobao made easy for all.

Your most welcomed! Anyway, today I visited Heritage Bathroom and am very satisfied with my purchases. I walked several shops comparing prices before finally settling down at Heritage and indeed their prices are not only cheaper than Jalan Besar & Balestier shops, but also cheaper than all the other shops selling Fujioh Hood + Hob and Carysil Granite Sink! So here's what I bought: The different models of Carysil Granite Sink (Pls note prices indicated is not the actual price) In the end I only paid SGD$190 for the Big Bowl Black Granite Sink - super cheap cause they are having 40%-60% discount ends end July so I quickly went down! Top mount single bowl granite sink! Steal price cause in Jalan Besar other shops quoted min of $300+ Apart from this, I also purchased Fujioh FG772SVGL (2 burner, glass top) and Fujioh Hood FX900 F/V as well as an Ariston Oven 52litres @$550. Do note that these prices I purchased INCLUDES GST. There were other shops they quote me same or more expensive prices but when they are invoicing, they added another 7% GST which means prices were not nett. At Heritage, the salesgirl Sherrine who served me was really really nice, patient and helpful. She gave me all prices including GST and discounted further when I bought more + followed up with me via Whatsapp. If you go before July, you should ask Sherrine to serve you! (By the way beside Heritage got a shop selling exactly the same thing and their shop size is x2 and after an Auntie served (feels like the boss) me say their price is the best etc etc but when I went over to Heritage I realised the Auntie wasn't being competitive with the price even though she seemed to give me a lot of discount) Thankfully I compared before going Heritage!

Brick wall in living room is up! That's Foo's dad hard at work The other side of living room MBR wardrobe Wardrobe interiorHad wanted a WIW in the beginning but considering cost and practically of one, opted for the full width wardrobe. Definitely enough space for my clothes, makeup & accessories with room to grow KitchenStill work-in-progress, waiting for the caeserstone countertop and glass backsplash. Not much of a chef but definitely looking forward to making some nice warm meals in the future!

hello, how much did you spend each at MBR toilet & Common toilet to overlay floor & wall tiles plus labour?

Hihi, pmed you

Maybe you can call Fullsun or Heritage to check what is the replacement for this model?

Thanks kstoh for the useful info.. and the TOTO CT940 Info. I checked in Toto website, they don't seem to have this model listed.

Hi, some of the other brand like Vision ,pyrex ,corningware look good.. you may take a look at Walmart.com also selling alot. If you interest to buy,let me know,we can buy together to enjoy the lower shipping charges .Amazon did not ship international for certain product. i am using some service provider services, we can share the cost if you want..I am looking to buy by end of aug as my new house will ready early of Sept .Do pm me if you interest.

Hello! I am renovating my house however, I bought the wrong size of the track lights. I am selling it at $15 each. I have 12 pieces for sale. Please email me if you are interested - y2cling@gmail.com

Do not get curtain from Mr Chew. Major attitude problem. Fixed a date with us to put up the curtain (we gave him more days than he asked for) but then when we called him recently, he told us he's very busy and need more days. When we try to reason with him in a calm manner, he just gave us attitude and say will try to rush for us, and hung up the phone. Very pissed off with him. Not recommended at all!!

What is an electrical cabinet shoe rack?

Hi Guys I recently had my bathroom and kitchen walls screed. I love the look but am worried about the bathroom walls. I read it screed walls absorbs water and must be finished with a oil based or water based coat. Does anyone know any contractors or painters who has experience in this? Please kindly advise. Thank you

Hi people, Do you know any professional curtain sewer?

Hello all, I recently purchased a hansgrohe tap from amazon and had the same problem as some of you i.e. the piping from my wall is 1/2" while the tap came with the standard U.S. size of 3/8". After much searching, I found the required part which is a reducer that is 1/2" female going to a 3/8" male (U.S. spec). You can get this part from Teck Siong Huat Hardware located at Blk 28, Kelantan Road, #01-137, Singapore 200028, TEL 6848 4848 The chap there is quite friendly and knows exactly what is required. Hope this helps!

Feedback on using HCL89 I used it on my homogeneous tiles ruined by bleach. Unfortunately, it didn't work. However, it helps to make the grout lines white.

Hi, May i know where did you get the toilet and kitchen sign from? Thanks!

Guys, among all the shops listed here (Lite Fushion, PJ, Heritage etc), do they sell brands like TOTO, Duravit sinks/WCs etc?

try **** or yueng tat (sounds like that, can't remember)