6 Modern Industrial Nordic Furniture Flagship Store

I was out hunting a few furniture shops offering modern/industrial and nordic look. Six furniture stores to visit when you have a concept like this in the future.

1. AIR



I was at their flagship store and very spacious and many past red dot awards furniture showcase from Plank living. Managed to see a "Camp walnut coffee table" and at $630 only! AIR was having their Storewide 50% sales and it was really well within our pockets as Camp Coffee table is usually at $1000+ and its a steal for now!

2. Space
While Space furniture does many designers items and their prices do not come cheap, my eyes lit up when i contacted Ian and he adviced me that Louis Poulsen PH 5 Lamp are going at 20% less for year end sales and that caught me in a dilemma of getting 2 pieces but since I have bought my LP Snowball Kugel, i guess I will give that idea up for now, anyway every year is a sales year!

3. Grafunkt
Retro and classic furniture, while it did not give me any feeling of wanting to get any items but it gives me a better perspective of what i will be looking for if i am on a retro theme for my next home.

4. Lush-Lush
Modern and classic inspired furniture, their showroom on level 2 & 3 promises to wow you with many quality inspired designers furniture at affordable price to the mass consumers.

5. Comfort Design
Modern inspired furniture can be found in this three storey building and the range of products is HUGE. Its affordable and less taxing to your wallet.

6. Style Nordic
My heart was set to get the Design Stockholm Work Industrial Lamp and my heart sank when they told me its sold out and will not be imported to Singapore again! I asked for a rough quote if they were to ship, they told me about $600 for 2 silver ones. I left and made my research and ordered online myself instead since I know i just need a parcel forwarder to a US address and their to Singapore, in the end it only cost me SGD$210 for one lamp and I am so happy with my purchase!


At the end of the day, KIV a few items from AIR,Comfort Designs, Lush-Lush for my Coffee table, Chairs and Dining table.

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Matching Netural Colours for my Grey/ Champagne Sofa Theme

I like my cosy home to be in netural color and decided to purchase a Grey/Champagne L Sofa with high back which is more suited for Asian as compared to the european sofa that are low back and I am not a fan of those.

The Nippon and Dulux Paint Catalogue did inspire me on a few colors which can give me the cool and netural theme for my living room and blend my grey sofa well. These are just some of the designs I found which suits my thoughts and concept.

A few things that I might get to softer the look is a carpet and maybe a floor lamp with warm white lights. My Coffee table is still in the hunt and hopefully I can find one I really like in my next shopping spree!

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14 Carpentry Work that you might want to consider for your new home

Everyone of us wants to stay in a furnished house and in order for that to happen, you need to have carpentry work done which includes fabricating your tv console, featured wall to cover bombshelter, customise wardrobe interior design needed and etc...

These are the choices of carpentry which i have shortlisted as a need and also those which are optional as well and run through some items on individual items which i have found on the internet to give a better feel and idea of how we can get it done.

Need for my renovation
1) Raised Platform Bed
2) Featured Tv Wall Living
3) Bomb Shelter Featured wall
4) Kitchen Cabinet
5) Bartop
6) Wardrobe
7) Toilet Vanity/Cabinet
8) Shoe cabinet

Optional
1) Study Table
2) Dining Table co-joint with Kitchen
3) Bay Ledge (Storage)
4) Dresser
5) Featured TV Wall in Master Bedroom (MBR)
6) Book Shelves

At least I just need to do 8 of them out of 14 carpentry wishlist that i have, do you have more than 14 carpentry ideas in your list?

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BTO HDB Opt-In Tiles

If you happen to read this before you have chosen your BTO flat then it will help you decide on whether you want to take up the package offered by HDB using your CPF dollars instead of cash with their "beautiful" tiles offered.

When I first got my queue number and chose my unit in 2008, the officer recommended that i take up the HDB tiles and door package with CPF as it will not burden us further on cash when renovation start, something like partially furnished, without hesitation we signed on the dotted line and took up the package and the nightmare began.

After I collected  my key in 2011 and visited my home then did i realise the tiles, skirting and doors were not what we are looking for. My visual of my modern industrial concept home collapsed and after a quotation for hacking and re-tiling with homogenous tiles for the whole house excluding the toilet gives me a total of eight grand without doing my carpentry works and that is too much for now so i decided to stick with the current tiles.

An advice is to ensure you have already decided in the next three years whether you are going to do minimum renovation and carpentry or are you going to have a theme to your home which requires shiny flooring instead of matt ceramic ones.

1) Consult your friends who have bought HDB before.
2) Read more magazine on Home/Deco, squarerooms and etc...


You can head to Soon Bee Huat at Toh Guan and have a look at their Showroom which is Huge with many tile choices to pick! If you leave the flooring option out from HDB and choosing a affordable tile range, it should cost no more than five grand and its what you like which is most important!

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Contractors & Quotation Comparision

I have gone through three interior design events held at Expo since 2010 and normally their sales consultants who entertained me was young and not able to answer many of the questions i have and needs to refer to their seniors who gave me less confidence and worse still, they will ask me to put a down payment of $1000 to plan and design the layout. While they did mention that the money can be refunded but again, the fine prints from ID companies are always "grey".

Instead of relying on events, I moved on to Renotalk Forum which was comprehensive in their review of different ID firms who helped them make their home look comfortable to stay and pleasing to others who visited their home while some gave really nasty reviews and horrendous experience which gave me a chance to "blacklist" some of the ID firms out there. Dropped some PM to the fellow forumers and base on what i need, a high $40k is quoted with 3D design layout which they always mention is "free" but its not since nothing is free in this world.

I moved on to getting referral from friends who have completed their home projects and also friends who have connections with contractors since i already have my a design in mind and thanks to my cousin who have helped me alot in space planning and knowing the fact that she is damn busy with work! HAHA. At the end of the day, 2 contractors came with quotes of $30-$37k range (exclude electrical, curtains and lights).

Doing some final adjustment on what i really need vs what i want and see if the budget of renovation can be at a flat $30k, keeping my fingers cross and in the mean time, I am looking at built in items and required appliances which needs to be bought first for installation together with the renovation.

A list of what i think is necessary to purchased first since works are going to start in Nov-Dec 2011:
1) Hob + Hood
2) Built in Oven/Microwave
3) Washing Machine/Dryer
4) Fridge
5) Kitchen Cabinet Drawer (Ikea)
6) Sink + Basin Mixer
7) Television Wall mounted
8) Ceiling Fans
9) Aircon system
10) Down lights/Cove Lights
11) Baroquet Chandelier

A list of what i can buy when all renovation is done:
1) Sofa
2) Coffee Table
3) Dining Table
4) Bar Stools
5) Shoe Cabinet (might be a built in full height)
6) Queen Size mattress (w or w/o bed frame depends..)
7) Dressing Table
8) Study Table
9) Carpet
10) iRobot
11) Kitchen Appliances

All these items are just within my preferences and anything else can always be optional to many as a want and not a need, in fact we seem to have bust our budget alittle but its all worth for your first cosy home!

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My First HDB in Punggol after 3 Years!

Had a bid in 2008 with my fiancee for a BTO Punggol flat after noticing that we will only make some dough with a BTO than a resale and of course the only down point was the inflexibility of selling it only after 5 years unlike a condo. 

A 4-Room flat standard layout at Punggol with 93 square-meter and I do like the overall layout because its not too difficult to come up with a design and theme for my nest. The only regret that I had was to heed the advice of the sales person and use CPF money to lay the ceramic tiles, timber skirting and HDB approved 3 room door.

Since the keys are here, whats done is done and I have to make a swift decision on whether i want to keep these ceramic tiles or to overlay them with homogeneous tiles which will cost me approx another $5500-$7000 depending on tiles quality i am looking at.

Looking at the carpentry work i am expecting from my contractor's quotation, I am certain that $35k will be reached (excluding electrical points + install, Cove + downlight, Curtain, wallpaper and tiles) so it will just be a matter of which contractor is able to give me the confidence, space planning and competitive pricing.

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