I have always advise my readers not to buy furniture from Ikea, but I think most still buy due to the excellent marketing strategy, it is hard to resist if you've visited their showroom.

You can definitely buy the accessories from Ikea, but if you're looking for big furniture like sofa, table or wardrobe, please consider properly. Is it really value for money?

I've bought a bookcase from Ikea many years ago, the bookcase collapsed after I arranged my books on it; when I was still staying with my brother, he bought a shoes cabinet from Ikea and it collapsed after a week of use. So I have always thought that Ikea's furniture is not lasting.

Early this year, when I was looking for a bookcase for my children, my hubby suggested we give Ikea a second chance. He thought, maybe the first bookcase we bought was too cheap and was not able to hold the number of books we have. I agreed with him and we visited its showroom and we set aside a higher budget for the bookcase.

After a few round of 'investigation', we thought this cabinet is more sturdy and should be able to hold the children's books:


This cabinet looked sturdy, it cost me around $130++, for this price for just two drawers, I would expect it to be of better quality.  But sadly, it still broke down after a week.

 This time round, the bottom of the cabinet cracked and warped, as shown in the picture.

A closer examination of the 'wood', can you consider the material as 'wood'? It is more like a hard paper to me, not even the low cost plywood material!

Ikea has definitely ruined the second chance I've given to them, for this incident, I'll definitely not buy any furniture from them in future.

I bought a small bookcase from NTUC (NTUC! Not even a furniture shop!) at just $16 (after 20% discount). It serves the purpose well and I could stuff all my children's books on it without fearing of it collapsing. This is truly 'value for money'.

I'm surprised to see people paying more than $3000 for the curtains for their houses. I'm not exaggerate on this figure, you will believe me if you are getting a quotation for the curtains for your sweet home.

Customised curtains are expensive, and a house can't be complete without nice curtains, so this is normally the headache or even an unbudgeted costs to many new home owners.

I received many emails asking me where to get cheap curtains, I would say if you're venturous enough, try sourcing from JB Malaysia. It means you'll have to drive into JB at least 2 times, to source and to collect your curtains. It doesn't mean you can get any super deal from those curtain makers coming into Singapore from JB, cause they know they can get big buck from you, so why give you discounts?

If you do not wish to go into JB for certain reasons, you can try my method here:

1) I walked into a few curtain shops in those shopping malls, looking at the designs of the fabric that I like, talked to the owner to get a quote.
2) Using the code of the fabric I've chosen from step (1), I went to those curtain makers at the neighbourhood shops, and get a cheaper quotatation.
3) As Living Room and MBR are the two rooms more important to me, I only custom made curtains for the windows in these two rooms. Living Room is important because all my guests and visitors will see it, MBR is important because a good curtain will block away the sunlight and give me a good afternoon nap.
4) For other rooms, I bought those off the shelves curtain from the shopping mall during promotion or Sales.
5) All in all, I spent less than $800 on the curtains for my whole house.

The curtains in my living room. I like its colour combination with my furniture, TV console and wall paper. I believe the first sight is very important, this is what my guests will be seeing when they walk into my house, who cares about other curtains in other rooms?

A closer look on the fabric. Many insist on 100% sunlight block out curtain, or  day night curtains (i.e. one 100% block out + one half transparent curtain), but I chose a 70% sunlight block out  curtain. The reason why I did not choose 100% sunlight block out is because it is more expensive and a 70% can do the job pretty good, why should i pay more to get a total blackout?
 

 For curtains at those corners of the rooms, I bought this type of off the shelves curtain, full length, only about $25 per piece.

 I hope this post will give you an idea on saving cost on curtains :)

I have previously written an article on "Buying Furniture from Malaysia JB". I know many of you are interested in getting furniture from Malaysia, and in my article, it seem to be a good deal to get the furniture there. However, I would like to warn all of you about the risks of getting your furniture there.

One of my friends purchased her furniture from Malaysia JB last year, she did not check the reputation of the shop but put a deposit after a few walk-ins of the furniture shops. After payment made, she was told the delivery can only be made at the company's convenient time, and her furniture were subsequently separated into a few deliveries, one of it arrived her house after midnight! Till date, she has not received all the furniture she purchased, and when she called the shop, the staff there just didn't bother about her complaints and push the responsibilities away.

When I purchased my furniture from Rustica Taman Molek Branch, the salesgirl did tell me the delivery could not be confirmed yet and it depends on the delivery schedule of the company. It is understandable that the company need to arrange their delivery to minimise the transportation cost, but options should be given to the consumers. Rustica did call me every time they had available delivery, but I had the option to reject when it was not convenient to me, and it was pre-agreed when I placed my deposit. Of course, there are shops that go against their words, thus the important point here is not just what they've promised you, but their REPUTATION as well.

Matters to consider before placing your deposit (may apply to Singapore furniture shops too):
1) The reputation of the company (check out renotalk forum, or see my previous article here)
- How long has the company established? Avoid new company
- Go for those with branches in JB, not only for convenience, but these type of companies have better customer service
- Google the name of the furniture shop, it is easier to see complaints on a company than its compliments. If you see complaints from more than 2 persons, beware.
2) Pricing. Yes, we want a good deal, but we are not cheapskate, check the pricing in Singapore before hunting in JB, and do factor in GST and transportation charge.
3) Some shops absorb the GST, but not all, you may try your luck. Transportation charge can be reduced to RM100 net, or even FOC.
4) Delivery time, make known the deadline to them, place your deposit only if they can commit.
5) Bear in mind that it would be difficult for exchange, you might want to check on this point.

So far, majority of the complaints discussed online are on those small or shops without branches.

Wish you good luck in your furniture hunt!

These are the companies specialising on Invisible Grille:
1) One curtain - Invisible Grille
Contact: David Phua 97222800 / 64451669
Website: www.invisiblegrille.com.sg
Address: 6001, Beach Road #19-06 Singapore 199589
Email: sales@invisiblegrille.com.sg

2) Legate Asia
Contact: Alvin Ng 9691-2925
Email: sales901@legate.com.sg
Website: www.legate.asia
Address: 7030 Ang Mo Kio Ave 5 #02-39 NorthStar @ AMK Singapore 569880
T: (65) 6242 1911
F: (65) 6846 1922

3) E Marketing & Home Services
Contact: Alvin Chia
Address: 61, Kaki Bukit Avenue 1, Shun Li Industrial Park,Singapore 417943
Email: sales@ehomeservices.com.sg
Website: www.ehomeservices.com.sg
T: (65) 8337 1277 ‎


I got Legate to visit my place and quoted me for my 2 bedrooms, but at the end I got David from InvisibleGrille to do my grille for the living hall.
Price quoted by Legate is $12 per sft, by David is $12.90 per sft (heard that price has increased), but Legate charge $120 for powder coated track while David did not charge this, so I find David's quote slightly cheaper and I let him do the job. In total, I paid $750 to do the grille for my living hall window, including transport and labour charge.

Generally, the service from David was good, he had even cleaned the floor and windows for me. He had also helped me patched the wall after the installation and helped me paint the affected area.

There're many points I want to blog about this, I'll separate them in different header for easier viewing but before that let's take a look of my grille:

Do you find it invisible?

Take a closer look


Why Invisible?
Like many, we do not want to install the conventional grille in our rooms that make us feel like imprisoned, I'm glad that there're others who share the same thinking as us and come up with this idea. However, I do not suggest Invisible Grille in your bedrooms, you'll know after reading my below comments.

Is it really invisible?
It is not really invisible, it looks like wires across your window. There's once my SIL commented are those for hanging clothes? Fainted.
Anyway, to me I find it look nicer than the conventional type, at least those 'wires' are slimmer than the conventional grille, and those friends who had myopia do find it invisible...hahah, em.

Is Invisible good?
No. It is definitely not as good as the conventional type. The wires can be cut by wire cutter, thus not suitable for window on corridor and I don't think is suitable for bedrooms too.
Once installed, it is permanent, unlike the iron grille where it can be opened. Thus cleaning could be a problem.
My two bedrooms are installed with the conventional grille, sometimes I do hang my children clothes there for drying purpose, but you can't hang anything on the invisible grille, it'll be loosen. The conventional grille looked more durable.
Besides, do note the gaps between the wires are very narrow, thus it'll be hard to open and close your windows, especially if you're short. For me, I'll need to use a clothe hanger to close the windows....

Costs
It is about twice the price of the conventional grille. Legate quoted me close to $700 for my 2 bedrooms, but at the end I decided to install the conventional type which costs me only around $400.

What should you do before installing the invisible grille?
Clean your windows. Ha, sound funny but mind you, once you've installed the grille, is really difficult to clean it.
Repair your windows if necessary, I did not checked my windows during the renovation, after moved in I realised one of the windows can be closed but cannot be locked, but is very difficult to repair it now as I've installed the invisible grille. Whenever there is strong wind and rain, I'll have to pray that the wind would not open my window and the rain will not get into my living hall, sad.

So, after seeing the above review, will I install the Invisible Grille if given a chance again? Yes, I'll still install the grille in my living hall, as I need it to protect my kids from falling off the windows but I do not want to see myself in the prison like locker. But, before the grille is installed, I'll probably repair my windows first.

In summary, the only advantage of Invisible grille over conventional grille is the cosmetic result, so if you're not so particular about this, why not install the conventional type? Anyway I don't find those in my bedrooms look ugly, you may see below picture or refer to my other posts:

After checking from the internet, I bought 4 fanco ceiling fans for my house. Three 52 inch fans for my bedrooms and one 56 inch fan for my living room.
I bought the fans from Royal Fanco, although his price is slightly higher than the quote I got from an online seller, his 52 inch fans are great buy at $165 per fan only inclusive of the nergy saving bulb daylight. For review on Royal Fanco, click here.
The reasons I chose Fanco over other brands are:
1) Cheap
2) Better design
3) The detachable lights are also in better design and cheaper
4) Generally durable
5) Acceptable R.P.M. (something to do with the spinning speed), all my fanco fans can work on level 1 speed, I do hear complains on other brand where the level 1 give no wind at all, so do check out the RPM speed before buying your ceiling fan, I'm sure you don't want to buy a fan with 3 levels speed but only level 3 can be used.

Here are some photos of the fan in my master bedroom:

I like the design, simple and nice.


The design and colour of the fan match the design of my bedroom very well.

The price for Fanco fan is very reasonable, for just slightly more than $100, you get a ceiling fan in working condition and it is lasting.
Out of the four fans, only one fan has given me problem. It made noise whenever the fan is on, but is my fault not to call the agent immediately, I called the agent only after 9 months of using, although it is still within the warranty, I need not pay for the spare parts, but i have to pay for the transport and labour at $40. The repair man told me I should have called them in the first 3 months, whereby I do not need to pay a single cent to get them to rectify the problem. So a lesson learned here is, problem must be rectified early.
The after sales service from Fanco is good and acceptable. I have called them to my house twice, the first one being the incident described above, where the motor of the fan was spoilt, I paid $40 for transport and labour (as transport and labour is not part of warranty), the second time I called them because I still hear noise after the fan is repaired, and this time round I did not pay a single cent as it was within 3 mths after the first repair. However, the second visit turn out unnecessary as the noise was from the lights which were loose, the man help me to screw up firmly which solved the problem :)
Although the second visit was not because of the deficiency of the fan, the man gave me another slip and told me that the 3 months extended warranty after repair will count from the date of the second visit. I was delighted about this :)
Overall, I like my Fanco fans as they are really value for money.

Update:
I just found out that Fanco fan provides life time warranty to its fan motor :)

Fanco website: http://www.fanco.com.sg

Like many others, we wanted to save our cost in furniture and wanted to buy something really value for money, we thus went in to Johor Bahru (JB) Malaysia on one of the weekends to check out the price (we actually bought our furniture there on our first trip).
Before we went in JB, we did check out a few furniture shops in Singapore to have a price guide, and also the forum on the shops that had been blacklisted.

Our review on the Singapore shops are:
1) IMM Furniture Mall - there're many furniture shops in the mall, we glanced through a few and like the design of Red Apple. However, the review of this shop is not favourable in the forum, saw many bad comments on the after sale service, we thus give it a miss. Do note another shop with unfavourable comments in IMM is Mr. Deco, but I'll not give the details here as those are not my personal experience and I did not verify them.
2) IFC at Sungei Kadut - we visited the building and found some companies with good design there. But the price is generally high, the most value for money (not the cheapest but I'm talking about most value for $ here) to me is Cellini. They have pacakges where by about $2800 to $3800 you can get a set of sofa with TV console, bedframe with mattress and dining table. But we were not really attracted by the design, some how nothing catch our eyes. We found Lorenzo selling a full leather sofa at around $3k, but because the furniture were from Malaysia, we decided to KIV after our price checking in JB first.
3) Nova - I totally don't like the furnitures in this shop, don't like the design and the quality, totally not in my consideration.
4) Mode - This is the shop we went back to check the price, the design is very nice, but pricing is very high.
5) Defu - Pricing is ok for its quality (middle range), but nothing catch our eyes.
6) S&K type of neighbourhood shop - the order is by catalog, for those who emphasize on quality I'll not advise on getting furniture from this kind of shop.

So, I think many would be interested to know is JB pricing cheaper than SG? The answer can be yes or no. We spent about RM10k (SGD 5k) for just one sofa and dining table set, it could be expensive to you, but i shall explain why did we buy the things there.......

We went a few shops in JB, our review here:
1) Lorenzo (on the Jalan Tebrau before carrefour, you'll see it when you're on Jalan Tebrau)
Address: No 1 Jalan Waja 5, Kawasan Perindustrian Pandan, 81100 Johor Bahru.
Contact: (607)3525515
Website: www.lorenzo-international.com
Review: we find the prices there are very high, a full cowhide leather sofa can cost from RM7k to RM10k, that's about the same price as SG. We then ask the sales girl, she told us the pricing is about the same as SG after GST, unless we're buying full furniture there then she might be able to give some discount. She even told us to check out the model we want from SG first, then give her a call she'll give us the quotation, for those interested you may call Jennifer Goh. We wonder whether is it because they've present in SG, thus they set the JB price very high as well, if not all the Singaporean will come JB to buy right? Just our guess, haha.

2) VanHoden (Ros Merah)
Address: No 30-32, Jalan Ros Merah 2/9, Taman Johor Jaya, 81100 Johor Bahru.
Contact: (607) 3552862
Website: vanhodenfurniture@gmail.com
Review: My friend recommended this shop to me, she said the design is about the same as Rozel (another designer shop) but cheaper price. But i find the price very expensive, design wise not my cup of tea. The salesman quoted a full cowhide leather to me at RM7k++ before transport and GST, and this is just a 3 seater adjustable sofa only. The dining table is around RM2k, don't really like the design and those adjustable table are already shaking, the salesman said probably loose already, I wonder if i buy the table how long will it last....
The salesman then wanted to show me his softcopy catalog, but i told him i need to go can he email me, I can see he's very reluctant but just get my email address to entertain me only, but as I'm just using this as excuse to get out of the place, I'm not so bothered whether he wrote down my email correctly or not, and till date, he did not email me the catalog.

3) Rustica (Ros Merah)
Address: 33 Jalan Rosmerah 2/8, Taman Johor Jaya
Contact: (607) 3516689
Website: jj@rustica.com.sg
Review: There's also one Rustica just behind Lorenzo, but as we're heading to Johor Jaya direction we visited this one instead.
The full cowhide leather sofa can cost around RM6k to RM12k, but i find the design here nicer and match its price list. We bought a L-shape sofa about 9ft long with full leather for RM5,980 at promotion price. Transport cost is RM100 (for purchase below RM6k is RM200, but the sales girl charge us RM100 as our price is close to RM6k) and GST 7% (to be paid to SG custom). Total in SGD is about RM6,499/2.3 = S$2.8k. I would think this is value for money as the size of the sofa is very big (just nice for our living room) and the material is good. For this kind of material and quality, we're quoted more than S$3k in SG and the design was not as nice. So we quickly confirm this purchase.
We then shop for dining table there, for tempered glass dining table with 6 chairs, chrome legs, it costs about RM1400 to RM2000, I find the price very cheap and design is nice, for the same kind of quality and design, SG is selling about SGD998 without the chairs. But my husband wanted the RM3990 black tempered glass dining table with 6 chairs, full stainless steel legs. We hesitated for a long time there coz this will convert to SGD1800 which is very expensive to me. After much consideration, I gave in on this purchase as my husband really like it, anyway in terms of SGD we're just paying a few more hundreds to get the better quality. The next day we went back Mode in SG to check out stainless steel dining table and found that just the table itself already costs S$1600, and each chair is $169, we glad that we made the purchase in Rustica.
I do see some bad review on Rustica products, say like not durable, but I'm not sure whether the forumer purchased the PU sofa or genuine cowhide sofa, as he did not state so. Anyway i'll try my luck and when I received my goods, i'll update again.
For picture of my purchase, pls see very end of the article.

4) Gucca Italy(Pelangi Indah)
Didn't get the contact details but you may refer to this website for information: http://www.guccaitaly.com/storelocation.aspx?page=storelocation
Review: I find the pricing is very high, same as Lorenzo. The dining table cost above RM4k, sofa about RM8k to more than RM10k. So I didn't check out further.

5) Soon Lee Ann (few shops away from Gucca Italy)
Saw many forumer bought from this shop, the sales girl told me they charge 18% on top of the price if deliver to SG, I find the cost expensive coz Rustica only charge a flat rate of RM100 + 7% GST on the product. However the price of their product is very cheap, a marble dining table set is only RM1900, sofa half leather also about RM1.5k onwards. However they're more like family business thus design is not as high class and limited.

In conclusion, for those who're interested in going JB to buy your furniture:
1) Do not expect their pricing are bottom rocking price, u must compare apple with apple. If you're getting furniture like our neighbourhood shop there, the price is definitely very cheap, but if you're getting designer product, the price is just slightly cheaper only after the transport and GST. However, a same price paid there, you'll get more items, and better quality, e.g. their price for dining table normally include 6 chairs, and size slightly bigger than our showroom here, most of them do full cowhide leather for sofa.
2) Generally you'll need to pay 7% GST on your purchase, plus RM100 to RM200 of transport fee (inclusive of levy and everything)
3) You'll need to pay 30 to 40% desposit upfront, and balance to be paid 1 week before delivery.
4) Most established shop display their price in nett, no more discount, but can ask for free gift, like for my case i got free leather care cleanser, 2 sofa pillows and a hamper. But to play save, just ask whether they can lower down their price, no harm trying :)

Here's picture of my purchase:

(The L-shape full leather sofa we bought from Rustica, but in black colour)


(The sofa from another view)


(Promotion price b4 GST)


(The stainless steel dining table set that costs me RM3990 with 6 stainless steel chairs)
(update: no, it is not stainless steel, we got cheated)


(The chairs are also made of stainless steel with PU leather wrapping)


(Although we kept saying the price is high, the salesgirl insisted it was cheap as it is under promotional price)


(The hamper we got as one of the gifts, inside has plates, cups, teapot, and pots, very heavy; other than hamper, we were given 2 sofa pillows, leather care cleaning kit and a few lucky draw tickets)