One of those days

I am so angry over a particular supplier that the term that comes to mind is "boiling anger"! A month or so ago, I went, at an uncle-who-is-in-the-biz's recommendation, to Hong Soon Sanitaryware, at 301 Jalan Besar Road. They had some great clearence $60-100 sales on basins, so even though it seemed to me that the salesperson, Edward, was very disinterested but I was lured in by this seeming good deal and went ahead to place a $100 deposit and reserve a few models.

Big mistake. One of the things I've learnt in spades, is that even if it's a really good deal- walk away if the parties seem disinterested. I should have followed my own advice. Fast forward to a few weeks later, I call up Edward to say that the selection would not work and that we would come back to the store to make changes to the selection.

I went with Contractor T and Designer J and again, the service was awful. He didn't even stop eating while we were in the store and just gestured in a haphazard way to the clearence stock. Everytime we asked a question, he would interject unhelpful, out-of-point replies that referred to basin models that weren't on sale or non-recessed basins. He directed our attention to WCs and to models of WCs that pertinently could not be used in our home set-up.

During that session, we picked two rectangular basins and I recorded that they were $60, though stupidly, I didn't record the model numbers, assuming that Edward had dealt with that. Fast forward to delivery time, Edward suddenly says that he tried to contact me, he has no record of any change made (because he didn't write it down, see, that's proof he says, that there wasn't any confirmation) and moreover, he doesn't know how many basins are available.

In fact, he dismisses me over the phone, saying I don't know what rectangular basin, just come down, just come down, over the phone, hard to talk, I have to deal with customer. So today I took more lunchtime hours off and made the third trip down. Sure enough, right next to the basin showcase, there was a paper catalogue clipped to the wall with the rectangular basin we had chosen, at the $60 price. (When we were on the phone, he clearly had not even checked!)

Although the catalogue says 3 are available (we were after 2 identical basins), neither the store nor the stockroom can find any. Amongst the clearence basins, there was one other model of rectangular basins, of which there were recorded to be 2 pieces, it turns up to be 1 piece only. Another round basin, a last-ditch choice and recorded to be 2 pieces, turn up to be 1, as neither the store nor stockroom, surprise surprise, can find anymore.

What really annoyed me was that through this whole process, Edward persists to ramble on and lecture me about how it was never confirmed because he did not write it down! Finally I said, look Edward, you didn't write it down because you weren't paying attention! We were the only people in the store, spent an hour with you and you were the one who wrote nothing down, despite knowing that we were there to make a change to the order! Don't you feel the least bit sorry for your part in this? His response? It's not written here, so it's not confirmed, it's not a mistake, we have to follow policy- we're a chinese company.

So instead, we had to purchase regular priced basins that were 2-3x and hundreds of dollars over what we were willing to pay (he refused to refund the deposit, saying it was a month ago and was completely useless in suggesting any alternatives, walking around distractedly, pointing to pricey items) upon which we discovered that firstly, their regular priced items are more pricey than other shops, secondly, they intended to charge us extra for waste traps and bottle traps and thirdly, they would charge a delivery fee for sending it to the work site.

So essentially, the whole clearence stock, which they clearly don't keep track of, was a con job and they have no concept of either service nor even basically, being helpful. It's been a long time since I've met someone so disgustingly incompetent, tedious and unashamedly contemptious- I was so tempted to throw a screaming fit, write complaint letters and forego the deposit, except that well, he already so clearly didn't care that he didn't care. This has hands-down, been the most painful and bad-taste-in-the-mouth experience with a store.

And of course, by the time I exited, the pointedly useless and wasteful amount of time I'd spent there exceeded the street parking and I got a fine.

My little jammies

So cutie-patootie, no? I am wondering if I remembered to bookmark which store sold these but who am I kidding, canning and jamming is a little out of my league...

You scream and I scream

Today I need a Raspberry Ripple ice-cream to cheer me up.

Lovely Things, lovely home

I came across this beautiful nostalgic desk clock on Etsy by Vector Cloud, it is laser cut out of an eco-friendly material, ¼” thick bamboo panel w/smooth carbonized finish. The clock comes flat packed and is designed to be easily assembled by pressure fit.



The Jar Light is from Supermarket, fabricated from a modified 22.5 ounce canning jar paired with a custom-designed steel assembly. Weck, one of the worlds leading producers of architectural fire-rated glass blocks, manufactures canning jars engineered to withstand 212 degree F, the sterilizing temperature in the canning process. Along with their beautiful form, a Weck jar’s low cost and ability to withstand high heat makes them ideal for a light fixture application.

Lighting Redux

Thank God for long weekends. We did some shopping this weekend, these are the lighting fixtures we picked out for the place and again, it was a lesson in comparing offers. These were the prices from 4 different lighting shops, all along Balestier Road, as you can see, there is a substantial amount of difference in pricing!

This is the breakdown for specific lights, as well as what the total bill for the house would have been (at the bottem) and the savings from buying the cheapest combination of lights from different stores. Each item has 4 quotes, the first is from Lighting Mart (429 Balestier Road), the second from Lights Arcarde (321 Balestier Road), the third from AF Lighting (329 Balestier Road) and the fourth from Extreme Lighting (371 Balestier Road). Sorry about the formatting, I tried to import an excel spreadsheet but it totally didn't work.

The last time around, we sourced our lights from 2 different shops, PLC lights from Lights Arcade and halogens from AFLighting. This time around, true to form, Lights Arcarde still had the cheaper PLC lighting and AFLighting still had the cheaper halogens. In fact, it has been such a short period of time since our last renovation that the model of halogens is still in stock. Shows the kind of committment I have to a home, unfortunately.

We went to Lighting Mart because Contractor T. brought us there and in spite of having read poor reviews of it online. Turns out the reviews were right, the prices were way expensive- for example, $50 for a PLC light and $40 for a 4 foot fluorescent light! I was reminded of the previous time, when Contractor J. took us to D'Lighting, the pricing for PLC light was similarly outrageous.

Of course, each shop can tell you that their lights are better, made in Czechslovakia or that their bulbs are better quality and while I'm not saying that there couldn't be quality differences between them, in truth, almost all the lights in Singapore are manufactured in Taiwan. Also, during the entire time that we stayed in our previous home, none of the bulbs ever blew, so as long as you get quality Osram bulbs, which are provided by most shops and convince them to give you some extra bulbs, I really think the non-price difference is minimal.

Of course, I've tried to indicate with an asterisk below where there were some fundamental differences in the lights, for example, AFLighting sells a white halogen spotlight that only has a 2 way tilt rather than a 4 way tilt, this is $17 as opposed to $25 average for halogen spotlights. However, I actually prefer the slim design of the one that AFLighting sells, so the lower price is a positive. Similarly, Lights Arcarde's price for outdoor sconces was for a lovely sleek stainless steel, unlike the powder-coated black and whites of the other stores.

I had been to Extreme Lighting many years ago and I didn't remember it as being the cheapest store but they had a big sale banner this time, so I went in and was pleasantly surprised at the prices quoted. Not only did they have a rare ceiling -mounted light which I wanted, they also were the most reasonable for many of the light categories.

The difference from the cheapest to the most expensive is about twice which may not be a lot in absolute terms but when doing up a place, there are already so many bills to pay for that it really does add up. And, in case you are wondering, the house still looks as messy as ever, with no new additions except aircon piping, drainage piping and bathroom piping everywhere. Not exactly great to take photos of, so I'm going to skip Week Three and bring you, hopefully, something to look at at the end of this week, Week Four. The tiles arrived today, so that will be something to look forward to, at least.


(1) Single halogen spotlight, powder-coated white and round:
(A)$33 (B)$30 (C)$17*/$35 (D)$25

(2) Double filament PLC lighting, white and round with glass panel:
(A)$50 (B)$27 (C)$42 (D)$28

(3) Double black halogen spotlights,powder coated black recessed box:
(A)$100 (B)$68 (C)$65 (D)$55

(4) Ceiling-mounted box of 3 spotlights *diff shops quoted diff item:
(A)$170 (B)$185 (C)$95 (D)$70

(5) Ceiling PLC light, simple round:
(A)$35 (B)$20 (C)$17 (D)$16

(6) T5 fluorescent lights, 4 feet:
(A)$40 (B)$16 (C)$22 (D)$14

(7) T5 flourescent lights, 2 feet:
(A)$30 (B)$14 (C)$19 (D)$10

(8) Outdoor up-down sconces, powder coated black:
(A)$130 (B)$110* (D)$60 (D)$60

(9) Waterproof flood light, black 500W:
(A) $60 (B)$28 (C)$26 (D)$25

Total bill from this store:
(A)$4,933 (B)$3,049 (C)$3,041 (D)$2,210

Total bill from mixing and matching: $2090

An impromptu bouquet

Just as an aside, (to escape the dreariness), my next wedding flowers gig is not till September but K. wanted to make her sister a bouquet for her ROM, so off we went to the nursery. I was really glad to see her as it was one of the few times since she's given birth, so we got to catch up on the ride out.

She had in mind a really simple, classic bouquet which I must admit, is the first time I am doing one! Funny how all my brides (myself included) have been solid colour girls and not really of the "fresh and white" variety.

Also, we were only making one bouquet, so we had to be more sensible about the number of flowers included. She picked primarily white flowers, including roses and a white hydrangea, terracotta red freesia and dark red berries, with few leaves (we bought dusty miller but in the end, there just wasn't really room for them). These weren't the traditional berries but some sort of wildflower berries that added great texture to the bouquet.

The other difference is that rather than a graduated arrangement, this was the most perfect round posy that I've made in awhile. We made a couple boutennierres for the men and an extra posy from the leftover flowers, which actually came out really nice too.

Most gratifyingly, K. picked the pleated tan leather strap ribbon that I bought from Mokuba. It is the most beautiful ribbon and really affordable because it was on super sale at the bargain room (the best deal at Mokuba and a serious reason to go, I'm definitely going again the next time I'm in NYC).


What we discovered is that when stretched and wrapped, the leather has enough elasticity to hold on its own, with very little tape and just a few pins to discreetly hold it in place. I didn't have a proper camera set-up but as you can see from this next picture that K. sent, in the light of the next morning, this bouquet looked very pretty.

Week 2: Stormy Weather

This is Week 2 and as you can see, not much visible progress has been made. The place is still dreary, raw and unfinished. There are still many holes everywhere, not least on the ceilings. This week has been spent finalising tile selections while the guys have been building new walls and taking down parts of the air con ducting. This is probably the period in the process where you just want to huddle under covers, listen to Stormy Weather and watch Gossip Girl, rather than take the calls, make decisions on aircon ducting, electricals and other really mundane invisible bills.


This is the first floor area, under the staircase. As you can see, the floor has been cleared to a dusty, concrete surface and it's ready for tiling. Part of me wishes the lovely tall ceiling height that we have now can remain as is!


Week 3 will be spent, hopefully, tiling, doing electrical wiring and settling the plumbing situation. Speaking of plumbing, we had a real mess on our hands after the balcony flooded following the heavy rains we had this weekend. Contractor T. suspects that the drainage was clogged (probably by the debris). Not a good first call to get on Monday morning.


This is probably my favourite part of the house, where we took out a wall on the second floor. Now you can finally see the full height of the house from the first floor and there is light aplenty in the staircase.