Dwinsplace

Now! For TB links and reviews! 1. http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z09.2.9.216.IIGsSs&id=38436596358&_u=l1v86i6cccec Cheap and if you look up a post of 2, you will see how 7W lights up the brick wall at night. Even though i asked for warm white, the colour temp would be whiter and closer to 4000K for me. More like Cool White colour that you see on certain energy saving bulbs. The mechanism to attach it on and off the track is also not very good but if since we probably don't intend to move it much once we're set on the positions its fine. 2. http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z09.2.9.279.IIGsSs&id=17719595576&_u=l1v86i6c82cf We used this in our kitchen but I would ask all to stay away from this particular seller. We didn't realise this till the lights were all drilled and installed but they gave me E14 settings instead of E27. Not only that, but the shade enclosure is also very small. So normal bulbs of about 10cm will all peek out of the shade. It COULD add to the aesthetic, but it also means that you have a lot more glare from the bare bulb. Finding a way around this has been the source of much headache for the past 2 days. That said, the shade and fittings all arrived in good condition. Just that the fitting wasn't as promised and I didn't find out till much later cos the electrician just installed it. 3. http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z09.2.9.260.IIGsSs&id=25976044635&_u=l1v86i6c8f8f Edison bulbs are great and all arrived in great packaging. Very protected. Things to note: The light colour is VERY VERY orange. Light colour was really something we didn't pay enough attention to so now our room feels a bit... complex... at night haha! Suggest to get all your bulbs from one source to regulate the light temp and also to have a think about how the rooms will be. Another thing is that the glass quickly turns goldish orange from the burn off of the filament. I think it adds to the beauty of the bulbs but its subjective. 4. http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z09.2.9.233.IIGsSs&id=17165064052&_u=l1v86i6ce260 Bulbs that come with this are a hideous purple white colour. Get your own bulbs. Otherwise light feels very solid. Glass is frosted. 5. http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=38564920425&spm=a1z09.2.9.189.IIGsSs&_u=l1v86i6ce9c7 This link is for the bulb holder only and it works beautifully. Just that the head isn't quite heavy enough to stretch the wire straight. Maybe time will do it.

Was looking for a storage solution for our storeroom and bought this metal shelf from a store in Geylang called JunYu after seeing it on a blog in renotalk. Renotalk is awesome! It was about $190 + $30 for delivery and set up. It was a very simple set up and you can do it yourself, but since I got the 1.5m long model, transportation home was the problem. Simple, metal, black. Perfect!! For those people who would like a close up view of the blinds. Just before we shifted in, they installed the Electronic lock on the gate and I couldn't be happier!! Installation took about an hour but the gate was made with the lock in mind so it all went smoothly. The outside is beautiful and its been a joy to use. The inside looks like this: The buttons on the back have all been disabled so that people can't just reach around the gate and let themselves in. Instead, they give you a little remote like this that you can either hang next to the door, or carry with you around the house as you wish. We placed it inside the house to let ourselves out. I was surprised that the autolock function wasn't instantaneous. Meaning you had to close the gate and hold it closed for about 3secs before it engages the lock. Anyone in our day and age will tell you that's 3 secs too long when you want to be on your way. Thankfully, the installers told me that you could place your palm over it after you close it to instantly engage the lock. We found that this also works when you're coming home and you close the gate. Then we just reach around to the outside and tap the face of the lock to get it to hold. I think the convenience of being keyless when I go out has given me the most pleasure! So much freedom!! A totally worthwhile investment to me.

Its been a crazy ride but we are finally in our flat! We have stayed the first night and the feeling of being home owners is just AMAZING. We kept looking around the house and thinking how beautiful it all was. Not to sound mushy, but a large part of that joy is finally being able to have a space that you can both own and share. Something that belongs not just to you, but the both of you as a unit. All these musings we shared over wine during the first night in our living room, admiring our brick wall. *Of course I understand that this musing is fairly unique to singapore where you can only buy (more) affordable housing once you're married. Enough of that, let me give you what you all want! Pics! Our new sofa! Custom made and kindly sponsored by my parents in lieu of the 5 "dian jin" (5 bits of gold) during our wedding. The dimensions are perfect! Deep enough to sit cross legged but not so deep that you feel like you're falling when you try to lean back. The firmness is ideal as well! Just wish that the legs were less chunky and more sleek. The fabric makes it look slightly brown but i suspect that its just the lighting off the slightly shiny material. Looks great at night at least! The beautiful brick wall that we were admiring from our couch. our kitchen! A very clean and simple bedroom. We have different schedules so it was important that we just sleep there and get out to do everything else so we don't disturb each other. You can also see the pretty blinds! And this is my beautiful study! I LOOOOVE it. Wife won't get me out of it.

Ok! It's been a while but here are the jap chair and elephant links as promised! Jap Chair: http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z09.2.9.312.Hp4GRt&id=35807933341&_u=l1v86i6c1122 elephant: http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z09.2.9.29.Hp4GRt&id=37365315305&_u=l1v86i6cbc57

Pmed you

Will post the links over the weekend!

Thanks! The steel guys spent two days on it and the results are now good. happy now! Flooring will be completed this evening. Just had the blinds come in and it REALLY changes the look of the place. So beautiful! Will post pics later. But sadly one of the blinds was also wrong. He gave me 2 panels instead of 3 so after a bit of clarification, he will take it back and redo it. I'm happy with their attitude and workmanship though. Very happy with their workmanship actually. Highly recommend them if you want blinds done.

Nah yours would still be cheaper I think. Cos my kitchen, balcony service yard and part of living room are all tiles. I used cement screed looking tiles for easier maintenance. ID says the tiles are within the $3psf range. So I think tiles might be cheaper. But maybe once you add on the workmanship for tiling then it gets expensive. There is definitely something to be said for having skirting. But in the end we are vain haha. Hope it won't be too difficult to maintain! Ooh cement screed kompacplus could be very interesting as a look. Go and play with it. So far I am very happy with the look and feel of mine.

A note on TB items. I will post all my links w an appropriate review on each item after this weekend but I wanted to give a quick piece of advice to those who are still in the process of buying. TB gives you great value for money. But you can always tell the different in quality. So it's great for disposable items like bulbs. And items that people won't pay extremely close attention to light ceiling or pendant lights. I would now personally avoid (as much as possible) items fashioned from wood. The quality and grain of wood varies too much. That said, I would still go back to TB for future purchases. just buy with caution guys!

It's the last week of Reno before we move in and there are still a number of rectifications to be done sadly. Mostly minor stuff except 2 things. The steel wall and a patch on the vinyl flooring. The steel wall was most disappointing. They used silicon to stick on the rivets and it oozed out the sides of the rivets. Why they used silicon in the first place instead of some metal bonding agent is beyond me but they said that they would cut the excess silicon off so that I won't see it. Fine. That was last week. As of last Saturday, the steel wall was supposed to be fully completed. However I go in on Monday to find that they had Cut and SCRATCHED away the silicon, along with the paint. So I see a river surrounded by scratch marks. Like when someone keys your car! AND AND not all the rivets were done. Some still had the silicon! Unacceptable workmanship. The ID's reply to me today was that they had started very last on Friday and worked till 7plus. I thought that was a terrible reply... I don't care how late they have to work. If they hadn't screwed up in the first place, they would have been done earlier. And not only that, they were working on it on Friday. But Monday and Tuesday they didn't come at all. Surely if they had felt that the work was incomplete and left on Friday, they should be back first thing Monday morning to finish up. All this told me was that the steel contractor has terrible standards for his work and needs to be closely monitored and I told the ID as much. ANYWAY, they were there this evening and will be in again tomorrow morning to finish up. Really hope it gets done to a decent level. It's such a prominent feature and bound to be subject to scrutiny. It HAS to be done well. As for the flooring, well, it was a bit unavoidable. We only removed the floor protection recently so I never got to walk over the vinyl to make sure that all was ok. I found that a portion of the floor had a very significant dip. Apparently the levels of the rooms are all different. So when we hacked a wall and merged two areas, even tho the hacked area was screeded over, the difference in height between the 2 rooms was still obvious to touch. Thankfully, they managed to source contractors from another job to come and remove some of the vinyl today. Another set of guys will come in tomorrow to screed a larger area to make the gradient more gentle, and then the vinyl will be replaced after a day for the cement to dry. So things still still be ok for my move. *crosses fingers and toes*

I was advised to use a crowbar but those are difficult to find! I suggest a claw hammer. Which I didn't have also. Lol. But at least those are easy to buy. I used an adjustable monkey wrench to clip the boards and then twisted it to break the wood. After that it was brute force w a gloved hand. Not a recommended method unless you skipped gym and need a bit of a sweat. Lol Good luck w the loot! Hope everything turns out as you had hoped! And post pics!

Both chair and elephant came as is. saved me from screwing it up

Hey there! The tap works great. No piping issues that u hear of from American sanitary wares. Feels very sturdy after installation. As for the link, you will have to wait till the weekend as well sorry.

Hey angel! Sorry my wife posted that link for you to search for the elephant chair. We didn't actually use that link to buy the elephant. I'll post the actual link I used later as promised.

Hey angel! I'm so sorry I've just packed my desktop CPU for opennet installation at the new house. All my links are in there. If u aren't urgent, I'll post the links this weekend for you. Otherwise just search elephant chair on Taobao if you have time constraints! Really easy to find. The chair tho... Took my a while.

Hey hellonub! The waiting is exciting. Opening up the boxes with fingers tightly crossed that everything looks the way it should is even better! And then after, when you look at your loot and remember how much money you have saved... Wah priceless. Good luck! Should be reaching you soon! Remember to prep something to help you open the crates.

Yeah clean, minimalist and grey? Nice! I wanted to reply you on TB but forgot. Lucky that u mentioned. I used Oops.sg and they took about 15 days yes. Which I felt was pretty fast.

Just shows that we have the same good taste! Ilari? That's what its called? We wanted it for our dining chairs at first, but then thought that the tolix would be more suited to the theme and didn't think it would match together. So that picture was live and I can say that the finish and colour are pretty accurately depicted. For the price we paid, it's a steal. lol

Caaaan. Can sand down, re-stain and varnish over. But I don't have confidence in achieving the desired look since I've never stained wood before. Coupled with the effort and the mess it will generate, I decided to leave it. Much to the relief of the mrs. Elephant available in singapore in tangs for about $150 i think. Only $40 on TB with shipping. heh.

A few other TB purchases that I could finally unearth from their boxes cos the house is pretty much done: Tolix dining chairs. The finish is lovely. The white one is quite wobbly but nothing a rubber floor protector on the bottom can't fix. A fabric chair that the wife loves. Good stable construction. Wood finish could be finer but its decent. Meet elephunt! Our cheap sculpture. lol And we feel it softens the feel of the house alot.

This will probably be my last update before we shift in. The MyRepublic people are coming on Wednesday for the final internet installation and they want my desktop so that the configurations can be done at one shot. And yes, I still haven't figured out how to update from my phone. Anyway, the work is pretty much all done! Kompacplus top is up and i gotta say, despite the pains, it looks great. Its thin and stylish and just feels nice. The tap is from taobao and I think the granite sink goes so well with the counter top. Only wish that it could have been undermounted so that water/food bits can be easily swept in. Ah well, I bought the sink which was a topmount so I'll live with it. Spent the rest of my time there fixing up a TV console that we bought of TB. I spent the first half hour ripping open the crates and trying not to get splinters (gloves + brute strength = ) and then next half hour just looking at the pieces and trying to figure out how they fit together. No, they didn't include instructions and I didn't specify that I needed them either. Thankfully the wife sent me a picture and I could sorta figure it out. Only small damage was a slight chip at the corner of the glass. Considering how big the piece of glass was, I'm pretty glad it arrived in 1 piece at all. So willing to let this slide. It was supposed to look like this: But ended up looking like this: And I've just visited the TB website again and the guys have JUUUUUST posted a pic of the actual item so you can't really say that they didn't tell you. Still, that photo wasn't there when I bought and I'm a bit disappointed at the obvious colour difference in the wood and the handles. But the rest of it is quite similar. I suppose that's my lesson learnt. There is a huge spectrum of issues when it comes to buying wooden products from TB. Metal is much safer.

Its actually quite painless to change the main gate. I watched them do it and it took about an hour to install. Doesn't affect the main door either. Don't do now la... Do next year. *poison poison* Everytime I go down at night I kept telling myself to take pics of the lights. But currently the bulbs still aren't the ones I mean to have so it will still be a while before the lighting is the right quality. Will post pics when I finally get round to fitting the right bulbs. lol.

Thanks! A great idea by the ID and she actually got separate sources to collaborate. The mesh was from the guys that did the steel door. Haha I'm not sure what goes into organising an open house? But it defintiely won't be soon cos we will need to move in and clear up the inevitable mess first. But i'm glad you like it!

And a slightly wider look from the balcony now that the protective covering is finally removed! (Couldnt take pics from the other angle even though it looks better due to the glare)

this is what the steel room currently looks like. The reinforced glass for the windows was a nice touch we felt. This is the door from the outside. I really like the big long handle. Maybe it's a male thing. If you look VEEEERY closely, you will see hints of silver here and there. That's me just giving the door a few highlights to make it pop a bit and look a bit more worn. If you look even more closely, you might notice that the handle is every so slightly slanted to one side. I measured the distance of the top handle to the edge of the door and the bottom one. 4mm difference. Now I'm wondering if I should get them to fix it. This is the door from the inside. Do you like the push handle? Let me say that this door really feels like a steel door. Solid and heavy. But still swings smoothly. So well done steel guys!