Thursday, August 21, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
We have a bed
It was made by Lestari Furniture and it was pretty inexpensive. Apparently it comes in a week from now, how exciting! We also had a shoe cabinet made, that's on its way as well.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Blinded by price differences in curtains
There are quite a few kinds of window dressings and the common ones are 1) venetian blinds or most often, wooden blinds 2) curtains or half curtains 3) roman blinds, which are folded cloth vertical blinds 4) roller blinds and 5) ruched window drapings.
After hearing stories of people who'd spent $15,000 on window curtains and getting some recommendations from my friends, I decided to shortlist a bunch of curtain guys to quote for the job. This included a few contacts that I had found by hunting in the void decks of newly-renovated HDB flats.
What we started with was having one guy come in to measure up the windows and quote. Looking back, we should have got one of the expensive guys to come in, since we probably wouldn't need his services eventually, but this guy was pretty middle-of-the-road.
With those measurements, I drew up a quote sheet, like the one shown below, with the choices of window dressings for each window and faxed the sheet out to the other 5 contacts I had.
They came back with prices and I chose the cheapest three to come in to view samples. In the end, my takeaway is that the samples are dead similar for all but the curtains (dead similar means I checked the brands and product codes and many were exactly identical). This makes sense as there aren't that many manufacturers, hence brands of roller blinds and wooden blinds in Singapore.
We decided to put wooden venetian blinds in 50mm white with leather tape (rather than string binding) in the living room bay window, white semi-sheer day curtains in both sides of the living room sliding door windows, white wooden blinds in the first bedroom and black-out white roller blinds in the second bedroom and the study.
This is the variation in pricing that we received:
Stephen Tang Hp: 96751105 Fax: 62592085 GB Marketing, Toa Payoh = $4619
* Only difference is his curtains are better quality for $800 (usual $200) per set
Sunny Hp: 98001211 =$3230
Anita Hp: 92397430 Fax: Asro Interlink, Maxwell Road = $2470
David Hp: 98222292 = $2753
Sam Hp: 96936412 Fax: Window Image = $3244
Ken Tan Hp: 94884456 Kai Hong Trading = $3104
It's still a work in progress. Let's get the apartment cleaned up first.
After hearing stories of people who'd spent $15,000 on window curtains and getting some recommendations from my friends, I decided to shortlist a bunch of curtain guys to quote for the job. This included a few contacts that I had found by hunting in the void decks of newly-renovated HDB flats.
What we started with was having one guy come in to measure up the windows and quote. Looking back, we should have got one of the expensive guys to come in, since we probably wouldn't need his services eventually, but this guy was pretty middle-of-the-road.
With those measurements, I drew up a quote sheet, like the one shown below, with the choices of window dressings for each window and faxed the sheet out to the other 5 contacts I had.
They came back with prices and I chose the cheapest three to come in to view samples. In the end, my takeaway is that the samples are dead similar for all but the curtains (dead similar means I checked the brands and product codes and many were exactly identical). This makes sense as there aren't that many manufacturers, hence brands of roller blinds and wooden blinds in Singapore.
We decided to put wooden venetian blinds in 50mm white with leather tape (rather than string binding) in the living room bay window, white semi-sheer day curtains in both sides of the living room sliding door windows, white wooden blinds in the first bedroom and black-out white roller blinds in the second bedroom and the study.
This is the variation in pricing that we received:
Stephen Tang Hp: 96751105 Fax: 62592085 GB Marketing, Toa Payoh = $4619
* Only difference is his curtains are better quality for $800 (usual $200) per set
Sunny Hp: 98001211 =$3230
Anita Hp: 92397430 Fax: Asro Interlink, Maxwell Road = $2470
David Hp: 98222292 = $2753
Sam Hp: 96936412 Fax: Window Image = $3244
Ken Tan Hp: 94884456 Kai Hong Trading = $3104
It's still a work in progress. Let's get the apartment cleaned up first.
New pictures of the apt!
Wardrobe, Glass door to Study, Living room with Random light in. The spare bedroom came out yellow in the light but it's actually a warm cream.
More on Lestari Furniture
This is the best find. http://furniture-export.20m.com/index.html
My shoe cabinet is, as A. said, very solid! But, she and some other friends have made some truly gorgeous furniture at rock bottom prices. I don't think we paid over SGD$200 for any of these pieces nor over $300 for any of the beds. The chairs and dining table chairs were SGD60 apiece.
It is unheard of in Singapore, trust me, I've looked at enough furniture shops to know and the amazing thing is that their upholstery is as smoking as the woodwork. Trust A. to have the impeccable taste and resourcefulness to have found this contact.
Again, LESTARI EXPORT FURNITURE
Painted French Furniture, Classic Furniture, Teak Reclaimed, Garden Furniture & Colonial Furniture
Office / Factory: Jl. Abu Hasan No.163 Mindahan Wuni RT.3/1, Batealit Jepara Central Java 59461 INDONESIA
Telp: +62 291 3339584
Priority Call: +62 813 25630757
Fax: +62 291 597221
Skype Id: lestari.export
To see their finishing colours, http://www.lestariexportfurniture.com/finishingcolor.htm
Am doing a follow-up order for some of the items we somehow didn't plan on needing. Bedside tables, a tufted stool and vanity (from Restoration Hardware's Westwood line, featured in earlier post), the tufted bench for the lift lobby and a high but short coffee table console.
Only problem is unless I can find more people who want to agglomerate orders, I might be waiting awhile for another container load to head to Singapore!
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