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summersann

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Posts posted by summersann

  3. Posted

    Hi,

    Your house really nice http://www.renotalk.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/good.gif and looking forward to see your post more pic. I notice the vintage chair you get from Logan's retro? I love all thier furniture but quite expensive. Btw, your display cabinet get from Logan? The blue stool you get from Egg3? How much the display cabinet and the lovely stool? Mind to share?

    Thank you for your kind words :) I didn't get anything from Lorgan's. Didn't even go there because the places we went to made us happy enough :D the armchair is from Room of Woods. My display cabinet as in the one in our study that I just posted? That one's from IKEA! :) Blue stool's from egg3, you're right. Display cabinet is about $260 and stool is around $150.

  4. Posted

    Hi summersann,

    Thanks for the tip. U managed to pay only the day works started? Wow, you must be good in negotiating. Not too sure if other IDs would follow suit though.

    In the meantime, the search for an ID/contractor continues.. haha. I am also looking at the various electrical appliances. Aircon, TV, wireless sound system (I don't like wired items. I think it just makes the room messy..

    We didn't negotiate at all actually. We verbally confirmed with our ID that we would use their services, but only paid the cheque on the day works were to start. It's a matter of trust I guess. Find the one you feel you can trust :)

  6. Posted

    Tomorrow is my 1st Appointment. Can't wait.... Ssooo excited. Hope everything goes off smoothly and the seller signs the indemnity form as promised. Else I will also 'Chu' pattern liaoz.

    Meanwhile.... Hv been busy over the weekend looking for reno stuffs and need some advises:

    1) Gas hob versus Induction hob - Which better?

    I'm looking at getting the Taiyo TH-IB229 2 hob induction cooker. I'm not a heavy cooker, usually only stir fry some simple vegs, meat and cook soups for dinner only. For deep fry stuffs, I'll use my air fryer. I'm using gas stove now, but thinking induction will be better for safety with 3 kids about.

    2) Downlights - LED or normal PLC?

    Hub feels that LED is more expensive. In addition, the driver are usually the ones that spoil first and will need electrician to come & change it. Means more $$$ outgoing again cos - driver $30 plus electrician fee = more then $50 per visit. So if the LED driver spoil 1-by-1, simply not economical to keep calling electrician. If not, hv to wait for a few more drivers to spoil also, then call electrician. On other hand, PLC lights r cheaper, the ballast last longer about 5-yrs but hassle to change light bulbs.

    3) LED TV - Samsung or LG? Smart tv or normal?

    Now for TV's. We are quite sure we want to get LED. But which brand is better? Samsung or LG? Then hor.... If I no need to use Internet for the TV, then should just get normal LED TV right? But yesterday, I went to Best Denki, the sales guy recommend us to get a 46" Samsung Full HD Smart TV (UA46ES7500) cos it's on offer now at $2,388 instead of RRP of $4,999. Is this model worth it? Good price? Or just stick to normal LED?

    All advises appreciated. :)

    Here's my opinion (based on my limited knowledge) :P

    1) If you stir fry a lot, I assume things like how fragrant the onion or garlic is matters? Induction hobs will not satisfy in that aspect, because they don't brown the spices as well as a direct fire does (gas hob) does. We don't cook much, and most of our cooking involves making soups, so we went with induction.

    2) Use LEDs for areas that you'll use often. They last longer, and should not run into problems anytime soon. If they do, your lights supplier must be willing to replace for you because LEDs are not supposed to break down so soon. They're supposed to last years. But then again, I don't know what PLC lights are :P I only know of LED vs halogen.

    3) Samsung! There are others who will vote LG, for many good reasons too. Samsung is pricier, but Samsung's technology is faster than LG's. Depends on how into these things you are. If you're just a normal user, and you don't really care about these things, just pick the one that you like the most and think is the best bargain! Don't get a Smart TV unless you're going to use all the features. Otherwise, it's pretty much useless.

    Hope that helped! :)

  7. Posted

    I was reading a couple of blogs from other forumers and just love how their renovations are progressing. One thing I realised is that some of them actually selected their IDs way before collecting their keys.

    1. Is this advisable?

    2. When is the best/optimal time that I should start looking for an ID? I am just afraid that some IDs might not even be bothered with us since we haven’t even gotten our keys yet. For instance, I might be interested in this particular ID.. but because I approached them too soon, they don’t prioritise me and give me bad impression and thus I forever won’t go back to them.

    It's good to start visiting IDs/contractors before you get your keys, because the process can be a long one (popular IDs may have their hands full at the moment and can only get back to you later when they've cleared their projects; the discussion process is to-and-fro and can take a while before you settle on ideas; IDs may take a while to do sketches for you to see). We started looking for IDs after we made the offer for our resale flat. That's about 3 months in advance before we were scheduled to get our keys.

    However, I don't think it's wise to confirm on an ID until you have officially gotten your keys. In your case, because you are waiting for a BTO, maybe chances of any last minute crop ups are unlikely (I don't know because we don't have experience with this). But in any case, you should never confirm with an ID and make any payment until you have your place. All the IDs we considered met us many times without any confirmed payment (the ones that used tactics like limited offer and package deals to pressure us into paying first were immediately axed). We only confirmed and made payment on the day works started on our new place.

    There are too many horror stories about IDs and contractors, so always exercise caution. Packages may sound good on the onset, but check to make sure there aren't hidden costs (e.g. having to top up later if you choose to pick anything outside their stated list of materials for the packages, etc.).

    Okay, that was lengthy :P we went through a lot of research and heartache meeting IDs, so just hope to help :)

  8. Posted

    Thanks for the info!

    I tried out this drawer at ikea before, but the drawer is a bit hard to pull in and out, as in not smooth enough. I wonder if it's the display set's problem? Summersann, is yours ok?

    Hmm, mine isn't giving any problems at all. I find it quite smooth. But then again, maybe what you define as smooth is different from mine? :P but it's serving me well, so if you like it, I say go with it! :)

  9. Posted

    Hey, does the table top sit on the ikea drawer unit nicely? Or is there actually a space to pull it out? May I know the length of your table top? Thanks very much!

    Hey bleucheeze :) The IKEA drawer unit fits nicely, with just enough space (not very visible gap) for it to be pulled in and out if we needed to move the entire unit out from under the table. The drawer unit is 69cm tall, and our tabletop is 70cm tall.

    Our tabletop is 2 metres long. Our ID got the carpenter to do it up for us because we couldn't find one of that length out in the market (unless we wanted to get a dining table to use as a study table. didn't do that because dining tables are really wide :P).

  10. Posted

    Thank you rainbowstars :)

    Been looking for a suitable cabinet for mom's room (something that looks like our own cabinet), but nothing's been catching our eye. Chanced upon a cabinet yesterday and decided to get it for our room! So our original metal cabinet goes to mom's room. Problem solved!

    image-107.jpg

  12. Posted

    Hello everyone, I'm very new to renotalk and we recently purchased an EM at Woodlands and will be getting the keys around this month end :yamseng: There's a lot of pages to read here and looked through very briefly. I have some very pressing questions so hopefully somebody can help enlighten me :D

    2) The kitchen isn't exactly big, especially with the toilet in it, so I need lots of cabinets for storage. So my questions is, is a hood really necessary for cooking? I foresee medium cooking on most days with heavy occasionally. I would love to have a hood if it will actually serve it's function well but I've hear horror stories in which hoods just seem to circulate hot air around the kitchen so after some time, people just stop using it. I don't want a hood sitting on the wall looking pretty when I can have cabinets in their place for my precious storage.

    That's it for now and any help will be greatly appreciated!

    We did away with the hood for our kitchen. My own experience with a hood back in my old place was that it didn't do much good for the fumes :P Another ID shared with us that he found his hood (and he used an industrial one at that!) useless and recommends his clients to do away with the hood. Of course, some people still swear by their hoods, so there's really no hard and fast rule. It depends on how often you cook and what type of cooking you do I guess? My guess is, if you really do quite a bit of frying, no hood is useful unless you use those that they use in hawker centres (the humongous ones :P).

  13. Posted

    Another thing bothering me...why do some contractor say staircase railing have to be replaced when do re-tiling for staircase and some say can be retained?

    The thing is, my current railing is full stainless-steel and it'll such a waste if it had to be replaced... Thought of doing glass but simply too ex for my budget :(

    We had the same issue when deciding whether to redo our staircase or not. You need to see if your staircase railings are the screw on type, or the embedded in tile type. If it's screwed on, it's as easy as removing the entire railing and fixing it up later onto the new tiles. If it's embedded in the original tile, that's where there's a problem because you can't hack the old tiles without damaging the railing (unless the workers are willing to do it super slowly around the railings so as to avoid damages.

    Ours was the embedded into the tile type, so we chose to overlay parquet strips on top of the original tiles, and retained the original steel railing with timbre top. Hope this helps! :)

  14. Posted

    Thanks Makanology for your suggestion! The current plan is to put up photo frames, but we're trying to see if we can get other ideas :)

    image-106.jpg

    Finally got our balcony chairs today! Placed them side by side to create a sofa of sorts. The dog and cat are enjoying it :D Shall continue to add stuff to the balcony to spruce it up. Suggestions welcomed!

  17. Posted

    oh. i used to keep them in a pup pen. and yes. one of the bunnies jumped out. they can if they really want to.

    now i keep them (also temp) in some DIY wire cage.. those kind u get from Daiso at $2 each. and piece them together with cable ties.

    anyway, we just went to art fren this afternoon.. to look for better DIY ideas and materials.

    things there were like OMG ex.

    a piece of plank cost like $19.90. for 90cm x 90cm.

    so.. if we were to make a cage with Art fren materials, we might as well just buy the $400 cage from Pet Safari.

    we dropped the art fren idea and head to geylang.

    found this shop that sells wire mesh in different sizes.

    we spent abt 1hr there, fighting over what to buy and how the structure should be like.

    in the end, bought everything from there. wooden planks, wiremesh. total $118.

    the uncle cut the wood into the size that we wanted too.

    how nice rite.

    and he also gave us an extra plank.. told us to have it for free... coz animals will make the wood dirty very fast.

    so happy.

    dunno how the rabbit "condo" will turn out. lol. =)

    Sounds exciting! I love making my own enclosures for these small animals. Made my guineas' pen out of those same Daiso pieces & cable tie too :D

    Your rabbits are lucky they found a good owner! :)

  18. Posted

    Most probably buying them here. Crate & Barrel stocks these but not the full range. I heard Howard's storage world sells too but I have yet to check them out. Problem is the products' description is very much based on US size, eg 4 qt is supposed to be good for 5 lb flour but our flour here is usually in 1kg pack. I guess the container on the left of the spaghetti one is the 4 qt?

    To be honest, I have no idea. I just wanted them to store food :D I first saw them in Crate&Barrel, but the ten-piece set is more expensive than on Amazon. Howards has them, saw them at the Harborfront branch. You can consider Amazon if you have someone coming back from the States :)

  19. Posted

    OXO! I'm not sure what size to buy, and they come in rectangle, big and small square bases! Can you share what sizes are you using and what size is good for what? Thanks in advance!

    My friend got me the ten piece pack, so the sizes come fixed. I find it quite useful because it comes in different sizes, as pictured. Good for storing almost anything, but definitely use them to only store dry foods (because liquids can get under the silicon suction cap and kinda get stuck in there unless you remove the silicon for washing). Where are you planning to get them from? The ones I saw in Singapore have been marked up quite a bit.

  22. Posted

    oh summersann, i'm keeping them in the DIY pen now lo. but they can jump out! so i put another fencing on top. just to make sure they remain inside. they are toilet trained.. but they seem to have problems aiming!!

    the pee and poo still all over the place.

    most in the peepen, but still spill out.

    how do u train them anyway? quite auto rite?

    It's more of finding the corner/s they like to go in, then putting a pee pen there (so sometimes you may have to put 2 instead). They like to keep themselves clean whenever they can, so you'll have to clear it often too so that they'll want to use it.

    You're using puppy pen to keep them in? Cuz puppy pens are quite tall! They still jump out?

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