Furniture from Malaysia: No Go

Went with the Malaysian friend to Taman Sentosa, and Taman Molek.

Quite a lot of furniture shops there for viewing, but prices were no-go.

Although the prices of furniture there is slightly cheaper than Singapore (can get a full bedroom set @ RM$1200), there is the 7% GST and the delivery charges (SGD$100-SGD$200) to consider.

As we were interested in only getting
1) 1 queen-sized storage divan (quoted RM$2100= SGD$875.70)
2) 2 bedroom sets (quoted RM$1200=SGD$500 each)
3) 2 mattresses (variable)
4) 1 dining table (quoted RM$1200 = SGD$500)

The prices do not differ much from the prices in Singapore shops (if you know where to go!) after adding in the GST and the delivery charges.

Will be making another trip down to the furniture shops around IFC @ Sungei Kadut to get my furniture.

Furniture from Malaysia?

IN yet another desperate bid to save money, Frank has contemplated hard on whether to attempt getting furniture from Malaysia.

Raja kita, selamat bertakhta...

Ah, yes. Quite our usual favourite getaway for seafood and cheap booties. But furniture?!?

From good ol' renotalk, Frank has gathered information on an area called Taman Molek, which has quite a few furniture shops to look around.

Frank has garnered accolades for his bravery/stupidity in venturing up North where Singaporeans are often sought after in "unaccountable donations" and "long term loan of personal effects" to the local social entrepreneurs, who seek funds or long-term loans using creative means including tapping your car screen with certain large objects.

Local Social Entrepreneur

Whilst their furniture-selling counterparts are not so "entrepreneur"-ish, one must not doubt their ability to remove wool from lambs which are acclimatised to the southern island.

Noting this, Frank intends to bring along a malaysian singapore-PR friend to explore the potential and possibility of such a dealing with our friendly neighbours this coming Sunday 12/10/2008, in the hope that he'll not be fleeced as much.

If there is anyone keen on going for this expedition, please contact Frank @ 93830241.

Some financial statistics

Housing costings
Renovation	$18,000.00
Electrical	$ 6,697.00
Furniture	$ 4,999.00
Curtains	$ 650.00
Tap + Longbath	$ 320.00
Kitchen Accessories	$ -
Store room racks	$ 200.00
Misc(Vacuum cleaner,lock,kitchen stuffs)	$ 500.00
Total Renovation costings (4/10/08)	$31,366.00

Aircon Analysis

There's so much aircon people saying
1. Inverter-based aircon is cheaper in the long run, and
2. Inverter-based aircon is more expensive if you dun use it often,
that we were really stuck in this "left foot first or right foot first" dilemma.

So I took out an excel and did some calculations of our own, with our own estimated variables of projected aircon usage.

If you are considering inverter/non-inverter, you might also want to do something like that. Here's a cut-and-paste of the excel calculations we did, based on Mitsubishi Inverters and non-inverters (we settled on a Toshiba, though):

As we are ASSUMING 8 hours use a day, it makes sense for us to get an inverter as we will have a savings of $541.71 a year for electricity bills, meaning we can recoup the overheads in around 2 years.

Hope this helps. =)

Washing Machine, Hood, Hob, Oven, Fridge, Aircon...

I love Renotalk.com It is so informative and full of tips/contacts.

For the household applicances, we got our stuff @
1. Goh Ah Bee: Blk 210 # 01-247,Hougang Street 21, Tel: 6288 8611
2. Everjoint: Block 159, Ang Mo Kio Ave 4, #01-534, Singapore 560159.
Tel : 64589569 / 64582531 / 64582578 Fax: 64562335

In case you don't know, there's a lot of mention on these 2 electrical applicances shops in renotalk, and we found them indeed commendable when we went over to these two shops. Love love love their prices.

Got most of our stuff from there, except for the aircon.

Our aircon is Toshiba System 3 Inverter, and the price is @ $2480 (with armaflex core insulation). Got it from a subcontractor whom The Contractor recommended. It's not the best price, but it ain't shabby either.

Just for effect, I'm posting a picture of a really delicious fridge here (which doesn't happen to be the one we're buying.) Not sure why I'm doing so either. Hmm.... but here it goes:

A delicious fridge

Oh, and we got our heater and dryer from CityGas
The $730 package for both items.

Lightings.

When God said "Let there be light"... and there was light.








In a similar fashion, KFC needed lights - so K&F went out shopping for some.

KFC need lights
2x for master bedroom,
2x for 2 common rooms,
2x for 2 toilets,
2x for corridor to rooms,
2x for living room,
2x for kitchen.

Expensive display lights are
1x for living room
1x for dining area in kitchen.


Places visited
Balestier
Took 2 weekends to walk through almost all the shops there. Bargained until some sellers angry with us.
Watt Business: Gave us quite good price, around $800 for all the lights.
Strauss Lights: Heard from forums not so good, but we managed to get quite good price from them for the lights. But alas, the good light we eyed was out of budget for us @ $1000 for the total package. It's a really good crystal display light, I must say.
Extreme Lights: Not bad, good service. Even offered to custom modify a bit for the light which we were interested in.

Chinese Garden
Renotalk mentioned of shops (Edison Lights) across from Chinese Garden MRT, so we went there to look. Didn't see what we want in the end.

Jalan Besar
Went from one end to the other, and finally settled on lights @ Design Light.
MUST RECOMMEND HIM:

MR. ALBERT, 101 KITCHENER ROAD, DESIGN LIGHT, 62970168.

He's quite honest and straightforward. No need to bargain he give us very competitive prices already. Then we bargain down some more and finally our lights were settled at $800++.

Main display light is $400++ (after much cajoling). Here it is:

=)

Superfast work schedule

Contractor started on 15/9 and he promise deliver of renovations ahead of schedule on 5/10.
First time I hear got contractor chase house owner to deliver things like oven/hood/hob/longbath so he can do his work fast.

'You give me faster, I deliver faster. You save time, I save money (labour cost),' says the Contractor.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Here's the appx schedule of his works up till now:

14/9: "Start" of Renovations
Actually just a symbolic auspicious day.
Went there to knock knock a bit to signify start of work.
It's Mooncake day, FYI.

15/9: Actual start of work.
Living room tiling begins.
Bases for kitchen cabinets begins.
Bases for washing machine and fridge begins.


16/9:
Living room tiling finished.
Bases finished.
Half height kitchen cabinet wall begins.
Removal of room doors.
Bedrooms tiling begins.
Storeroom tiling begins.
Window ledge begins.
Cement support for kitchen cabinet begins.

17/9:
Half height kitchen cabinet wall finished.
Bedroom tiling finished.
Window ledge finished.
Cement support for kitchen cabinet finished.
Top support for kitchen cabinet begins.
Wall skirting begins.

18/8:
Storeroom tiling finished.
Wall skirting finished.
Kitchen wall knocked down.

19/8:
Top support for kitchen cabinet finished.
Patchwork for kitchen wall.

20~22/9:
Electrical installation
Laying of aircon pipes finished.
Patchwork for kitchen wall.

25~26/9:
Purchase and installation of longbath.
Painting of walls begins.

30/9:
Painting of walls finished.
Cleanup place.
Woodwork begins - installation of cabinets.

New photos~!

Photos taken when Frank and Katy went down for inspection of renovation works are to the righthand side.