5 (1x18W) PLC rectangle downlights (3 for study, 2 for yard)
6 (2x 13W) square lights (2 for each bathroom, 2 for kitchen)
4 white round halogen spotlights (3 for the study, 1 for the painting)
I actually love these round white lights, they turned out to be the most discreet as the powder coated anodized circlet blends perfectly into the false ceiling. I think my future bedrooms will only have these lights on a dimmer. Interestingly, the boy much preferred square lights, with black internal casings, which looked much more like these, so we wound up with a larger order of those for the main rooms.
11 white w/ black inner casing square halogen spolights (4 for dining room, 5 for corridor and 2 for bedroom doorways)
These lights are double lights, two spotlights in one casing. We needed 8 (4 sets of 2 each) to embed into a narrow black recess that we had gutted into the false ceiling in the living room.
4 black double halogen spotlights for black stripe in living room
1 white square 2x2 box of halogen spotlights for lift lobby
2 black track spotlights (4 halogen lights on each track) for spare BR and utility.
The prices quoted were, in descending order:
$1900 from Lights D Shop in 271 Jalan Besar
$1400 from AF Lighting on 329 Balestier Road
$1107 from Extreme Lighting on Balestier Road
$1145 from Lights Arcade on 321 Balestier Road
At first, we were convinced by the "quality" story, but the reality is, a PLC downlight is a downlight, they don't get all that fancy and in reality, they are all made in Taiwan or China. Almost all stores will use Phillips or Osram tubes and ATCO ballast and to be honest, you wouldn't be able to tell if they didn't.
Yes, there were some stores like Extreme Lighting where the lighting looked a little more cheap and didn't have levered tops (the cover of the light simply opens up, it doesn't hinge open, which can be a pain if you're trying to change the bulb without dropping the light cover) and there were also stores where they pushed their high quality Czechslovakia lighting (AF Lighting) but in general, having spent awhile at the Jalan Besar, we knew what we wanted.
Don't pay too much for your lighting and shop around! For example, the box 2x2 light was Exactly the same in each store we went to (I checked the serial number each store gave us for the light) but we were quoted a price ranging from $92 on the low end and $150 on the high end.
Similarly with downlights, they ranged from $18 on the low-end to $50 on the high end, while the spotlights ranged from $32 to $58. Pretty ridiculous. In the end, we went to Extreme Lighting for the track spotlighting since they were the cheapest, Lights Arcade for the PLC and square halogen lights, since they had the internal black casing we wanted and AF Lighting for the 2x2 halogen light and the black double halogen light, becuase they had all black lights which would negate having to spray-paint them black.
We bought the ceiling fan from AF Lighting, since they had the best price of $85 (similarly, for the same KDK fan model, the price goes from $85 to $98).
The other thing is to always go to Balestier in the mid-afternoon on a weekday. The service is 3x better and the shopkeepers remember you well, which is always useful if you need to change your order afterward. As taken from the Brides forum (how come it's the women who shop around for lights and write about it?) the other good shops are apparently, Light Studio at 592A Balestier Road, A lighting at 463 Geylang Toad, Edison Lighting House at 575 Balestier Road and DK Lighting at 642 Geylang Road.
The people we dealt with were all reasonably friendly and very helpful, they were Alex from Extreme Lighting, Andrew from Lights Arcade and Mrs Poon from AF Lighting, the latter two being where we got most of our lights.
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