Bye Bye Flat

The movers came 2 days ago to truck away furniture, electricals, 75 boxes and many extras in 2 moving vans. As a testament to Shalom Mover's professionalism, everything was loaded in 3 hours, arrived in good order and was unloaded in a flash. As of today, only 16 boxes of kitchen related possessions remain unpacked pending the kitchen's finishing touches.
And The Old Flat now stands empty ...

3 Fuss-pots in a Row

Here stands $240 worth of pots, crowned with yellow palms, sitting pretty in a row. The grooved surfaces carry on the horizontal accents of the gate. The pots help to conceal a small stretch of ugly piping and the shadows cast by the uplights at night get you in a resort kind of mood ... Mr Bear calls it the Three Palms Resort.

Turning Green

The 2Bears sped in the Bearmobile to the centre of the floral and landscaping industry - Thomson Road.

We did Hawaii Landscape, Goodwood Florist, Far East Flora, Fun's and back to Hawaii in quick succession.

We hmm'ed and haw'ed over the anthracite-coloured faux clay pots we wanted to buy. It was a lot of money to pay for dark plastic, albeit from Italy. But when we brought them back to No. 3, we were very glad.

We're filling them with simple, and cheap, yellow palms. The yellow palms are one-third the price of their red cousins, and known to be hardy. Since the 2Bears don't have green thumbs, we want plants that give a good fight !

The Car Fits !

Yahoo !

These houses will built in an era where cars, if you had one, were probably quite narrow. Think first-generation Honda Civic or Datsun 120Y. It's still quite a squeeze for an average adult to get out on the passenger side.

See how the tiles match the car - how prescient of the 2Bears.

Where are all my fans ? Part 2

In an earlier link, I described the challenges of fan shopping in Singapore which culminated in the purchases of a 5-blade Unior and 4-blade UFO from a shop in Jalan Berseh. We've since completed the trio of required fans with a 3-blade KDK.

My favourite is the UFO in the living room. It's stunningly sophisticated for a fan. It looked good in the shop but looks great in the living room.

The KDK in the backyard is equally minimalist and sturdy, and complements the billiard table style lights we got.

We are having a bit of the hiccup with the patio's Unior - the pull cords need to be extended - but it's holding its own on the looks front amidst the wooden beams.

A week left in my teenage home

With one week left to moving out, I'm starting to get sentimental about this old place with the weirdly elongated living room, scratched parquet and the contant buzzing of the CTE outside my bedroom window. After all, I've spent most of the past 2 decades here. My possessions are a giveaway of the time I've spent in this apartment. I've got school books and Duran Duran posters to floppy disks and videotapes to junk.

Luckily for me and Mama Bear, the emotional separation from our soon-to-be former home will be a gradual one. The flat will be here sitting empty while the en bloc sale discussions proceed (I was gladdened to see the potential buyer's land surveyors in the car park today). Plus we'll need to pop by to dispose of some more unwanted stuff after the move.

In the meantime, does anyone want to see my "masterpieces" from art class in Sec Two ?

Mattress Testing in Joo Chiat

No no, not at Hotel 81, silly.

The Shophouse, from whom we had bought our bedframe, recommended a shop in Joo Chiat that sold the 183 by 203 cm mattresses the bed would require.

We were not expecting a replica of Robinson's bedding department, but were taken aback at the dark narrow shophouse with its entire left side lined with mattresses stacked vertically and three-deep.

"Er, how do we try them ?", asked the 2Bears.

"Just put on the floor and lie down", the stern lady said.

So, stepping into the most bizarre shopping experience, we dutifully laid down and raised up 3 different types of single-sized mattresses, all on a cement floor in the middle of Joo Chiat.

The environment didn't lend itself to leisurely testing, so after taking quick turns at bouncing on and jerking our bodies atop the plastic encased mattresses to gauge their resiliency, we decided on a firm pocketed spring King Koil, which will let one of us do jumping jacks on the bed while the other snores contentedly.

This Number 3 is No. 1 !

I thought I had already located the nicest house number in raw stainless steel over the internet. I wrote about it in an earlier post. But I simply had to have the USD 19.99 (only !) solar powered anodized aluminium cut-out number I came across 2 nights ago at the website of Matterinc, a San Franciscan design company.

I had been surfing for a solar powered light to illuminate the house number in the evenings, but this kills 2 birds with one stone. It'll look just fab against the glass surface of the perimeter wall.

They are coming !

It's going to be an exciting week next week. We'll have the following delivered:

• The Teak & Mahogany Dining Set (dining table pictured)

• The Shophouse bed

• Mama Bear's Wardrobe
• The filing cabinet cum TV console for the study
• The Kitchen Culture kitchen and its accompanying hob, oven and dishwasher.

We are aiming to move by November 23rd, over 3 months after the renovation started. This week's focus is getting the curtains commissioned and tracking down the right size of king-sized mattress.

Did I hear something crash ?

The Dimwits called Mr Bear with the bad news that they had broken 2 of our lights ! Imagine, 2 of our painfully sought-out lights.

My first reaction was to pat myself mentally for not buying expensive lamps. They've undertaken to replace them - it shouldn't take more than $200 to get a fresh set of the two lamps - but the shoddy installation practice baffles the 2Bears.

We should take a cue from our bear friend Hardy from the Conrad Hong Kong and wear hardhats all the time in case of falling lamps (and other things). He wanted to help out in the project but he can only speak Cantonese ...

Furniture Shopping Hotspots

To share the hard-earned (and hard-spending) furniture shopping experience accumulated over the past 5 months, the 2Bears recommend:

• Resort-type furniture: The Shophouse, The Home Merchant, Rustic Empire (Park Mall), Originals (Lock Road, above The Turquoise Room)
• Contemporary Furniture and Lighting: Lifestorey
• Reproduction Retro Furniture: Lorgan's
• Study Furniture: vHive
• Outdoor Furniture: Teak & Mahogany
• Lighting: Lightcraft and D-I-Y Lighting (Great World City)

We made at least one return trip to each of them, with the exception of The Home Merchant, which had the dubious honour of the longest delivery dates but nice stuff, nevertheless.

Closet Fantasies

No space for a walk-in wardrobe, so I made the most of the bedroom configuration and got the Awesomes to install a L-shaped closet with sliding doors. I selected a glossy white out of the laminate catalogue and then started having pangs of fear about a cheap-looking result. My crisis of confidence proved to be unfounded as the wardrobe emerged modestly shiny. The internal fittings of walnut brown shelving affixed to aluminium poles turned out fab as well.

I'm going to have a good time filling it up !

Choosing LCD TV over Plasma

It was a tough decision.

Plasma put up a big fight, especially since there's a great offer on a Panasonic Viera which would have made a 37-inch plasma TV cost less than $2,000 after taking the free shopping vouchers into account.

However, after considering LCD's lower power consumption and longer life, LCD won out, and we are now proud owners of a similarly-sized Samsung (pictured, $2,499 from Courts with a free entertainment system thrown in).

I brought Mama Bear to see what we'd purchased and I think she's already looking forward to the pleasure of viewing Discovery Travel & Leisure on the big screen.

Before and After

Behold the transformation - the external makeover is almost done!

The only things missing from the "After" picture are:
(1) the patio ceiling fan,
(2) a lamp for the balcony, and
(3) potted plants.
Not forgetting a grinning 2Bears waving from the driveway. And perhaps a Christmas tree !

(1) and (2) are being installed this weekend, and we plan to pop down to Hawaii Landscape shortly before moving in for a few pots of greenery. Ms Bear's brother, who has a resort-style home (complete with bale and water features), thinks the overall effect is quite plain. But I like my surroundings uncluttered. My "landscaping" will be the equivalent of creating a Zen rock garden - a limited number of large and interesting pots on a background of grey tiles. A splash of colour will come from some orchids in the backyard kitchen.

Raising the Bar

The white autogate arrived today ! We were not original with the design - it was inspired by a gate we saw in Fidelio Street during one of our autogate recce drives.

It continues the fresh-freshed look we wanted for the front perimeter wall and gate. We brightened up the concrete wall with a layer of frosted glass, and the horizontal bars visually widen the remaining driveway entrance nicely.

Our new neighbour asked to be given the old rust-brown gates we had intended to trash and we saw no reason to refuse. It was scant compensation for the din we had introduced into his life in the past 3 months. The Awesomes didn't think that Mr Neighbour knew what he was doing though - they doubted the gate could fit into another house without alteration - so we hope we didn't cause too much disappointment.