Bargain Hunting...

Saw an advertisement on Saturday papers about Mayer having sale. Didn't really take notice of it as I thought it was advertising the Mayer sale at Great World City where they were selling their display sets for about 25% off. We were at the Great World City Mayer on the first day of that sale (acting on a tip-off from another neighbour) and had almost bought a Ariston Vitroceramic hob. It looked so cool being flat, shiny and all black. And not to mention the touch control pad.

See how cool is that? The retail price was S$1,099 and they were selling it for S$700 plus. Was very tempted to commit but realise that we actually need to change the power plug to one that can support at least 15AMP. The normal power plugs are 13AMP. And 15AMP would only allow you to use two area simutaneously. 30AMP is needed to use all four at the same time. But alas, HDB cannot have 30AMP. I think to the power to 15AMP would cost another $200 plus to $300.

That's alot of money to spend on a hob, especially when both of us do not know how to cook (although my wife vow to cook once she has her own kitchen).

Abit of technical information on the hob, the vitroceramic hobs heat up like normal gas hob (see the red colour circles in the picture?) so you can use any pots and pans and even those corning ware. That would also mean you will burn yourself if you are not careful. There is another kind of hob that looks similar but works in a totally different way. Its call Induction hob. It looks like this:

You can put your hand on the hob itself even when its switched on the max and still do not feel anything. Crack an egg on it and it will not cook. You can even try to play chess on it when its switched on and not get burn. So how exactly is it suppose to cook your food? You would actually need special pots (metal and I think stainless steel) as they transfer energy to these pots via wave. So corning ware would not work here.

If you have one of these hob, do be careful when you are trying to impress your friends by putting your hand on it while its on. If you happen to be wearing metal ring or metal brancelet, it might just heat them up too...

Ok back to my story. Then Sunday came and again I was flipping the papers for sale and a closer look at the Mayer advertisement is actually referring to a different sale. A BIGGER WAREHOUSE SALE!!! I cancelled my golf (P/S: Keith, I cancelled it because it was gonna rain, it has got NOTHING to do with the sale ;P) and ask my parents to drop me off the warehouse before they head for lunch.

Wah that warehouse at Changi damn wulu (meaning far, isolated, deserted...) man... really "bird also dun lay eggs there, dogs also dun go there and shit" kind of wulu place. But there are quite alot of people already. Went one round to scan and see if there are any real bargains and there was the same hob. In fact there were five of them. And they were going for S$599!!!

Excited like a little kid having his favorite ice-cream, I called my wife. Was trying to pyscho her how cool the hob look on our black soild surface, sort of blend in and so stylo (meaning cool). She was abit hesitant on spending that money on a hob but I went ahead (was in impulse buying mood). The price so good how to let the chance go. So I selected the best of the 5 hob and got them to wrap it up... Happy like a bird, I was....

So that was my first applicance purchase. Was thinking of getting a slim hood too but all the good S$99 hood were taken so will look for hood another day.

Next up would be the Comex Show this coming weekend at Singapore Expo and the Philips Carnival the following weekend.

Pole System Wardrobe. The Aluminum War begins...

Halo everyone! Long time no blog, got miss me?? muhhahaha...

Last weekend was our "Wardrobe hunt" weekend. We wanted to find out more about those pole system wardrobe that is highly customizable.

First stop was Alumix (www.alumix.com) at Toa Payoh. Wah (meaning wow) that place not easy to find if (you) dun have car. And so happen I dun have car that day...

The company is call Zhaplin Work Pte Ltd and they actually supply two brands of pole systems; Alumix and Ximula. If you were to see properly, the names of the two brands are actually the reverse of each other. Interesting...

Ximula is their higher range system featuring thinner poles (with 4 ways of mounting it), better customizations (in terms of both length and width of shelves and cupboards) and more range of colours and finishes to choose from. It is also able to hold heavier load (up to 70kg, as oppose to 30kg for Alumix). Of course with these flexibility and chooses comes a price, it is about 70% more expensive than the sister brand Alumix.

Alumix features thicker poles (though some would prefer the more curvy design. Has two ways of mounting it) but one can only choose the length of the items as the width are mostly fixed. Also, there are less options (aka more boring) when it comes to finishings and colours. There are also less aluminum used (plastic are used in place).

Given my wardrobe design of about 11ft, Almuix would cost about $1.5k and Ximula about $2.3k. If we were to include doors and partitions Alumix would be about $2.7k and Ximula about $3.5k.

Next up we went to IMM to check out J-system as well as OM. J-system pole system seems more expensive, about $3.4k for the system and about additional $2.3k more for the doors and partition. Dun ask me why so expensive, we didn't bother asking.

OM's system (www.cupboards.com.sg) looks cool. Again they also have two systems; Illumiflex and Innoflex. As the name states, Illumiflex can have lights embedded in the pole itself. Basically the pole looks like that of Alumix (think curvy) but with the lights in there to light up your wardrobe, looks cool man. This system would be suitable for those looking at doing up a Walk-in Wardrobe.

Innoflex on the other hand is like none of the system we have seen before. It have many of those thin aluminum poles (more like thin bars) and is very customizable. It however more suitable for a closed up wardrobe.

Features I love about OM is that they can customize items of the wardrobe to your liking. For example, I like a drawer with a glass top and having small squares that I can put my cufflinks or ties, they can provide it. Zhaplin is unable to do such customization as they are only suppliers (and they supply only fixed items). However, OM's pole system is mounting from floor to ceiling unlike Zhaplin's system that can mount wall to floor. The benefit of this is if you shift house, you would be able to bring it to your new home (regardless of the difference in the height of your rooms between your old and new home) whereas the ceiling to floor system would be subjected to your new house ceiling being same of lower than your existing home (since they can cut the pole but not extend it).

I have a friend who recommended Eka by Eureka (www.ekabyeureka.com) at Ubi. I might check it out and update again.

Role Playing???

My ID actually proposed a very interesting wardrobe for our new home. His concept was a walk-in wardrobe that is boxed up. We loved the idea. I mean, we were like WOW!

But when we got our keys and had a look at the actual room size, it seems abit small. To better visualise, I actually thought of doing role playing... with newspaper...

Ok this is what I mean...

We plan to hack the wall between the master bedroom and bedroom 3 and seal the door at bedroom 3. We will then use bedroom 3 (the smaller room) to put in our bed and use the master bedrooom to house the wardrobe and my workstation.

I call it workstation because this is where I would likely to spend most of my time when I'm at home and not sleeping.



Now this is the view if I were to walk into the master bedroom. You can see those newspaper on the floor ya? The newspaper on the bottom right is part of the walk-in wardrobe and the newspaper on the top right is actually my workstation. Frankly, if you were to add in a chair (dreaming about the Aeron Chair....), there seems to be little space to walk, or at least the illusion of cramp space.





This is how the walk-in wardrobe would look like. Its like a huge box with two rows of cabinets for the clothings. The center walkway is the mini model "catwalk platform" and at the end there was suppose to be a full length mirror. Ignore the Lays potato chips in the picture, laying those newspaper actually made us very hungry.... hahaha



Now compare it to these two photos where we simulate a L-shape wardrobe. Suddenly the whole room looks alot more spacious. Actually after looking at the newspaper layout for L-shape, we thought this is what we want; SPACE!!! Can lancing langing (means dancing) or play wrestling in the middle ya??

OK, I have to koon already... or tomorrow I will fight Zzz monster again...

Why Coris Sea Home???

My wife ask me why call it the coris sea home?? Actually I also duunno... I was thinking like Benny Hill Show so started naming it The Coris Hill Show...

But there is no hill at our home or near it.... can only see it far far away...

Can see or not?? On the left beyond those apartments? Yeah that's my hill view from my apartment... My neighbour upstair better, got "sea" view aka long kaw (means drain)...

Anyway back to the topic... So no hill cannot call hill lor... Then I thought, Coris seems to mean fishes, beach or sea to HDB, cos they have lots of fish shaped stuff around the apartments.. like these

Basically I'm too lazy to think of a creative name so this will do for now...

On with the tour my our new apartment...

The Floor Plan

Quite nice layout, nice and squarey... though abit small

Living Room

Quite nice, flooring done up (though not very good workmanship) and nice full height windows... Damn those lower grills. Luckily, they can be removed by un-screwing them, literally...

Dining Hall

Kitchen

Kena one big column there, and its out of nowhere... Zzzz

Service Yard

This is a small space waster... See those two pipes behind, they actually eat into the space... And on the floor there is this pipe protruding out. I initially had plans to put those slim washer and dryer side by side but thanks to this pipe, that idea is "up the lorry" (means discarded).

Man, its late again... more pictures tomorrow then...

My First Post

Man, its like 12:00 in the morning and you cannot imagine how many times I click on the "check availability" button only to find the names I wanna use are not available. 199 times!!!

...

Actually I didn't count but it would have been close.

I went from names to cars to food to crazy expressions. No luck. Finally settled on the names of me and my wife...

She was having fun coming out with funky names but got bored of it after all have been unavailable. Well she is in dreamland now...

Guess I have to as well, or will be fighting Zzz monster at work tomorrow...