macuser77

Hi sarah,No la we don't have a telly in the bathroom. That's too extreme haha. Speaking of mac, yeah I use mac (wife doesnt) for 2 reasons: 1) it doesn't remind me of work. 2) mac is just too user friendly. It's all about click and drag. For e.g I don't need to run any uninstaller to delete a program. My prior imac lasted for more than 5 yrs, and I think it hung less than 5 times We were also contemplating between samsung tablet or ipad. Ended up with the latter as the samsung doesn't feel as robust, and the google play store gives me a pasar malam feel haha. My s3 is also having problems in charging (even after changing battery and plug/usb cable whatever you can think of). Told myself will never ever get a samsung phone. And we bought a cast iron pan too It's the bestest for making steak ! But maintenance wise could be a hassle as I've heard you got to oil the pan after washing it to maintain its non-stick function & prevent rust. Imagine keeping an oily pan in a clean kitchen cabinet..... Anyway hope your retard is not giving you anymore problems ! Oh before I forget, I used to fry steak using happycall pan. Ended up with a healthy and boring steak hahaha.

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.

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.

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.

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!!

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.

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!

Our freedom VPN is still free for now. But we intend to carry on subscribing it as it beats paying costly scv charges with lousy shows. And yup u need the freedom VPN thing to watch tvb in VQ tv

Oh yes, and my wife said it feels like we're in Hong Kong whenever we watch their live channels. Haha. As though we're watching it in the hotel room.

We have this and we love it to bits! My wife gets to watch her BBC and I get to watch my tvb drama live. Perfect! (rushing to finish triumph in the skies 2)

Hi mrsmerry, The vanity area from our first reno lasted us a good 7-8 yrs(& it was still ok before hacking), considering it was from a crappy ID firm. So I think yours shouldn't be a problem. Anyway we highlighted this issue to mr k and his carpenter when the vanity top was done up(though not as low), and they said the laminates are splash proof. As long as they're not soaked in water (which I think no one in the right mind would ), it''s ok. So don't worry too much.

Hi vivianie, We got it at about $170 each.

Hi to all, Thanks for the comments. The weekend has finally arrived. Can't wait to spend 2 full days at home resting

Hi greg, Sorry if it sounds like a stupid question, but I was just wondering why didn't you request for the track to be mounted on the ceiling ? The door doesn't seem long, so I think it'll be stable. Ours is quite long, and it's very stable.

Don't need theme. Keep the reno simple and basic, and accessorize it with beautiful furniture and knick knacks. My wife said your daughter's paintings wilk make the home bright and cheery

Nice picture! What a talented little girl! This should be the centerpiece of your house!

aiya...didn't have a good sleep as not used to the new mattress. It wasn't that hard when we tried it as the showroom. Maybe they added some paddings beneath it to make it feel softer.

thanks !

Thanks! Lol! Thanks for the welcome!

Thanks By the way we take back our words on you having lots of things. We realized we've got lots of things too !

Hi mrswk Yes we did!

Hi mrswk, your kitchen rug is nice ! Looks Swedish

Thank you projectH! My wife and I are still waiting for you to start your t-blog!

Hi June, Ya. We're on standby mode. Contractor actually handed over to us before 7th mth, and since then we have been slowly shifting our stuffs back. Our theory of shift in = sleep over

Hi diginewb, Thanks for the reply I've checked a number of different almanacs including those online, and today is a good day for shifting. My mum said doesn't mean lunar 7th month is suay to the max. It's actually quite a good month for Buddhists. Discussing with wife now if we should shift in today haha.