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Thanks! We shortlisted Greenology and Vertical Green but went with VG because their system looks better and takes up less space. Greenology also need about 3 mths to grow the plants on the wall at their nursery first before installing, while VG just plants them directly on their installed backing. VG also offers one time complimentary maintenance, as mentioned before. Cost is approximately $750 per sqm. Will need to top up for tank or tray, depending which type you choose, and the growth lights also. Ours cost $3300 (~4 sqm) excluding the required plumbing and electrical works. Hope this helps!

Vertical Garden Part 2 - Installation & Planting Go here to read about Part 1: As excited as we were in getting the vertical garden, it turned out to be the biggest HEADACHE for our renovation. When I first contacted Vertical Garden, I spoke to two different staff and was very happy with their service and the information they gave me, and that was why I convinced the boss to pay for my garden. The salesperson, Mr A was very friendly and would happily reply my messages when I have questions. The project manager, Mr M, who is from Bangladesh, did not speak very good English and he was the one we and our ID had to liase with. I don’t want to sound racist or xenophobic so please don’t think of this post as something complaining about FT or FW or whatever, but OMGWTFBBQ Mr M was a pain to deal with. He came down a couple of times with my ID to co-ordinate the plumbing requirements and he kept saying different things which resulted in the delay of vertical garden backing installation because the pipes were not done in the way he liked. Made our plumbers very unhappy also because had to trouble them to come down and change the pipes. This is an example of Mr M’s poor communication: The one in blue is what he sent to my ID. The pink one is what he sent to me after I whatsapped Mr M to clarify further. It came to a point that we could not move in on time because the iQuartz countertop measurement was dependant on the vertical garden backing and frame to be up, but that got delayed. Mr M was also busy with other projects, but he didn’t even inform us about his other projects, he just says that he cannot come on this day. (This one also partly the fault of my ID, he didn’t co-ordinate the vertical garden earlier when the carpentry was being manufactured. There was minimal work done during that period so this should have been settled earlier) And then there was the lights. When we signed up and paid the deposit, we specifically asked for recess lights as there is an existing false ceiling and we wanted the growth lights to be as unobtrusive as possible. The salesperson said he will order 2 x 40W lights for us. LED 40W recessed light Mr M just told us they don’t have the lights so they cannot install on the date we wanted. My husband was so angry, he called up Mr M and SHOUTED at him. I messaged Mr A to complain and he acted promptly and arranged for us to get a 150W halogen light (which is more expensive, at no extra cost). Backing, frame and drainage tray done. The brown stuff are felt pockets which will hold the plants and their media, while the white part is the absorbent layer acting as the water source. Finally we pushed them to get the backing and frame installed. The rest of the renovation could then proceed. The planting is to be done after renovation works. One fine day we decided to test the drainage tray to see if the water will flow out passively, and we noticed that water pools on the other side of the tray because they didn’t install the proper gradient. SIGH. Water pooling on the right side. The outlet pipe is connected on the LEFT. On planting day, they fixed the tray and I insisted they show me if water will flow out properly (it did). The two workers then planted the plants according to the design we had confirmed with their designer earlier. So even though they don’t speak very good English, they were quite happy to get feedback from me and planted more of those plants which I preferred. Even gave me two extra pots of ferns and money plants hehe. There was a designer who did this up for us after asking us what we liked. I don't really know any specific plant species so these were all chosen for us. The pre-grown plants brought in from their nursery. Planting in progress... Tidying up In spite of the drama, we are very pleased with our vertical garden!! (Left) Immediately after planting. (Right) One week later - the ferns are less lush but the rest looked like they're grown, especially the red ones! Some of the plants will take some time to adapt and may die, but Vertical Green provides a complimentary maintenance visit at one month to prune and to replace the bad/dead/dying plants. So far the garden is doing rather well (2 weeks post-planting), only 5% of the plants are not doing so well. We’ll see in another 2 weeks’ time how many need to be replaced. The light is super strong, at first we asked them to turn it on in the daytime but that was a bad idea as it made the dining area very obnoxiously bright and hot. We got them to change it to night time and it’s much better! The water turns on itself twice a day for 3 minutes, and we just need to add liquid fertiliser into the fertiliser tank once a month. In summary, despite the bumps we encountered (mainly due to communication issues with some of the Vertical Green staff), we are still very satisfied with the end result and have no regrets.

Doors, Main Gate & Digital Locks We went to My Digital Lock/One Last Hope after we saw this gate on their Facebook page and I really wanted this wire-mesh gate because 1) Industrial-look 2) Very practical for pets especially cats or small dogs Their company specialises in digital locks and they offer very competitive prices when you get them together with their gate and doors. I wasn’t planning to get digital locks as I am very old-school and prefer normal lock-and-key systems but husband was convinced to because they cost just extra $300 versus a conventional mortise lock. The fire-rated 4x7 solid veneer main door costs $1350, while the mesh gate with laser-cut unit number is $1080. Add $120 for sliding arm door closer and $600 for digital locks for both main gate and door. Can choose many colours for the laser-cut part of the main gate. We got #55 - Navy because that's the boss' favourite colour! Epic Digital Locks. Choose card+code type. Can use remote to unlock both at same time, very convenient! We also got solid core veneer doors for the bedrooms ($299 each), and top-up ($45 each) for black lever handles. They have laminate doors too, but that will be $100 extra per door. Chose this veneer pattern for all bedroom doors and for main door. Had to top-up for black lever handles for the bedroom doors. That said, their service is pretty good (everything installed in one day by 3 different teams) and we’re very happy with what we got! Fire-rated veneer main door with stainless-steel strip (supposed to add $100 but salesperson forgot to write down in the invoice lol - maybe cause we add-on too many things) Our lovely industrial gate! Bedroom door! Love the veneer colour! Roller Blinds We got our roller blinds from One Last Hope as well. Mainly cause too lazy to look around. We were served by Norman who personally came down twice to let me look at the samples, really nice guy! The cheapest price they had was $5 per sqft and I thought the $5 range actually looks pretty decent. Chose a non-black-out type (dim out) for the living room full height windows and black-out for bedrooms. Also went for the pelmet type: Chose this $5 psf dim out light grey blinds for the full height windows in the living room. $5 psf black out blinds for bedrooms. Alas, no stock available!! We have about total 8.7 feet wide of full-height windows and about 12 feet wide of half-height bedroom windows and the total cost quoted was $1200. Not too shabby, I thought. Sadly all the $5 black-out stocks were not available and Norman was very apologetic. I end up choosing the $10 black-out range (the other options were not impressive) but Norman gave me a discount so had to top-up $300 more. All-in-all $1500 for blinds. $10 psf which I chose after the $5 psf ones were not available. No regrets as they look great! Living room blinds Bedroom blinds - quite like the understated pattern. Not too sterile/boring. Pokemon-approved!