Qoo Review - Abalone and Coach Key Chain from YuYu

Traditional Braised South Africa Abalone (10 Heads) 古早味红烧南非鲍鱼（10头）& Coach Key Chain Review from YuYu from Qoo10

The delivery from YuYu is extremely prompt and they took the trouble to call to arrange a delivery time and were very polite. 

Purchase Date: 22nd Dec 2014 morning
Delivery Date: 23rd Dec 2014 evening (a day later!)
Timeliness: 5 out of 5
Remarks: Call prior delivery

All the packages are carefully bubble wrapped and there are no dents found on the Abalone Cans. The expiry dates of the Abalone is 2017 and indeed the net drained weight is 160 grams. As promised, YuYu gave a cute calendar as a gift.  The Coach Key Chains look authentic enough but then again, I realised they look different from the one presented in the sales page. **

Presentation: Well bubble wrapped, no dents to the Abalone Cans and Coach Boxes
Note: The Coach design given is different from the ones presented in the website

** YuYu replied that I should mail the Key Chains back to them and they will reimburse the postage fees. However, they have yet to reply whether if the original design on their website is out of stock.

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Portable car cum general purpose washer

Mr diva got himself a gigantic 14 Liters CBS portable pressure car washer (non-battery operated) equipped withair pressure gauge and footpads . Here is a short vid to demonstrate the product I am referring to.

It comes with 1 towel, 1 bear sponge, 1 brush with spary nozzle, 1 spary nozzle, 2 rubber ring, 2 brushes and 2 packs of car wash powder.

I use this car cum general purpose washer to wash the windows, window ledges, toilets and so on. The water pressure is strong enough to perform light cleaning, like clearing away the debris stuck at the hard to reach places at the window ledges (to be done during rainy days though) and washing of our corridor doors.

New home owners will find this useful when they want to perform a final wash after the chemical wash is complete. 

 Pretty handy I must say. ;)

The full blog post details can be found here. 

*Note: This is not a sponsored post *

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Laundry Services

I have complied a list of Laundry Services which provide free delivery in Singapore (some companies require a minimum order before free collection and delivery applies). This can be a useful template for you to perform comparison on which company provide the cheapest laundry services. :) Note that the prices and information are as accurate as of today’s posting….thus you may need to update the prices as you see fit.

Note: Please rename the file to .xls.

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Chosen ID company - GPlan

GPlan won the bid.

Actually, we were deliberating between Khoon Wah from Senz and Kevin from GPlan...

Khoon Wah even proposed to slash the price further at the last minute...

However, my hubby is more comfortable with Kevin...in addition, I also feel that with his entensive network of clients praising his services..he is a much more reliable choice. Furthermore, judging from the quality of flats which Kevin has done up...we have more confidence in him.

Afternote: Senz ceased its operations right after we signed up with GPlan. Heng arh..

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ID review: GPlan

GPlan

Sevices: 7.5/10
Pricing: 8.5/10
Workmanship: 7/10
Interior Design: 7.5/10

GPlan is generating quite a buzz in renotalk and therefore I decided to give it a try after much contemplation. I managed to get Kevin's contact and oh my, he seems to be more kang jiong then me in meeting up. He is very friendly and is kind enough to volunteer showing us his recently completed flats for us to inspect the workmanship of his carpentry works. We met up with him yesterday night and the outcome is totally unexpected.

The Good- He was quite punctual. He volunteered to show us his recent projects without us asking for it.
- He is quite friendly and straightforward. No need to beat around the bush...
- He is quite responsible and makes sure he doesn't 'forget' about us and follows up faithfully.
- The 3 room flat he showed us was quite impressively done.
- He was willing to show us more projects prior to our 1st discussion.
- No hard selling.
- He explained what his company has to offer and head straight to the 2d space planning.
- Our floorplan is pretty odd. Nevertheless, we managed to finally come up with the open kitchen concept to make our dining area look bigger.
- We managed to incorporate the kitchen into the layout of our odd kitchen. Its something unexpected too!
- He is generous and easy to discuss with. Throws in some stuff for free!
- He knows our tight budget and tries to keep within our budget!
- Kudos for him in talking us out in getting those stuff he deemed unnecessary and waste of $.
- We feel that we finally gotten something we wanted at quite an affordable cost.

The Bad- His office is sooo far away lar.
- He has too many customers....kinda of hard to set an appointment with him.

Overall
- Got potential lei!
- We were pretty hyped after the 2 hour odd discussion with him.

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ID review: Spacious

Spacious
Sevices: 4/10
Pricing: -/10
Workmanship: -/10

We were attracted by the attractive showroom at the IMM buidling. We stood around for around 15 mins and no one attended to us. Around 3 nicely dressed ladies (interior designers or ...???) walked in and out of the company treated us as transparent. One guy finally sensed our existance and asked if we are interested in their services. He introduced another nicely dressed id to talk to us.

---

The Good- She explained to us the pros and cons of using glass or other materials as a backslash for the kitchen.

The Bad- First impression sucks. We are not transparent...are we?

- She doesn't seem very interested.

Overall
- The place seems more like a place for models wanna be.

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ID review: Senz Design

Senz Design
Sevices: 7/10
Pricing: 6/10
Workmanship: 6.5/10
Interior Design: 8/10

We met up with Khoon Wah during the Home Expo exhibition in March. We decided to give him a try after discussing with him. A nice and creative chap...he took lengths to ensure that he is able to meet our requests for the inspection the workmanship of his carpentry works. We also took the chance to take a peek at the interior designs his company has to offer to his clients.
We met up with him on two occassions and talked on a few times.

The Good- He was very punctual.
- He volunteered to show us the different kinds of wall papers and the types of materials.
- He is really into interior design as I can feel the passion he has for this art by just talking with him.
- He is bold and creative in his design and can sketch us perspective drawings within seconds to illustrate his point.
- He explained to us the different kind of materials and textures that we chose will affect the out come of the interior design.
- He swiftly came up with an innovative idea for our foyer area which I really like. No hard selling too.
- He can help us visualize clearly of the kinda of design he has for us...I can almost see the design he proposed in my mind just by talking to him.
- He was not afraid to tell our certain counter proposals do not go well with the theme we wanted. - He brought us to a 4 room flat in Boon Tiong which was completed last year...and wow...we were blown off away by the bold design!

The Bad
- The price is kinda of steep (amount is still an estimate)...But cant be helped coz of the bold design he proposed...
- The workmanship of the kitchen cabinet doesn't seem to be very good upon closer inspection..or was it that the owners were kinda of rough?
- The company is still very new. Barely 2 years old I think.

Overall
- Shortlisted. :)

An update: Senz closed down sometime in 2007 right after we decided to engage GPlan. Its a good lesson to learn that going for young companies does have its risks.

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ID review: Kinzo Design Pte Ltd

Kinzo Design Pte Ltd
Sevices: 7/10
Pricing: 6/10
Workmanship: 6/10

I saw Kinzo's profile in renotalk and decided to email them after browsing thru their website. James, the Director was very fast and prompt. He replied my email right away and sms me soon after that. We managed to fix a time to meet and discuss on both occassions.

The Good
- He was quite punctual...on both occassions he made the effort to meet us on time althou he has prior arrangements.
- The quote given is nearly within our budget. He shared his stories of his previous renovation experience with his customers.
- He explained to us the different types of materials that are used. Candid and engaging...he produced the perspectives for us to take a look on his own initative during our second meeting.
- He clicked well with us and gave us some designing tips for our modern minimalist/futuristic theme.

The Bad
- Not able to take a look at one of the showflats featured on the website. We still find the quotes a bit expensive...nearly 20k.
- I am concerned about the designing aspects...not too sure if his designers are good.
- Not too sure of the workmanship...the sliding doors of the built-in wardrobe looked a bit flimsy lei.
- We saw the renovation done at his customer's place. For nearly 20k...it looks really minimal and bare lei...or are we expecting too much?

Overall
- Shortlisted. :)

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ID review: Cactus Art Design and Furnishing

Cactus Art Design and Furnishing

Sevices: 2/10
Pricing: 0/10
Workmanship: Nil

The designer called me one day and introduced herself. I requested her to email me a quotation for me to go throu before meeting up. She seemed friendly enuff...but then..

The Good- I like her wet and dry kitchen concept.

The Bad- She did not follow up after that call. No email...nothing... I had to sms her to set up an appointment...and she took exactly one week to reply my sms.
- Noone bothered to attend to us when we entered the place. I called her and she never picked up as she was still having her lunch (apparently she has totally forgotten about us).
- She misplaced our floorplan and took ages to find it.
- She passed us the wrong quotation and when she finally gave us the right one, she left out quite a few critical things.
- She did up a budget close to 40k although we already stated that we are looking at a budget of 16k.
- She was still munching on her food and talked to us with her mouth full. My hubby was totally disgusted and upset that he had to drive all the way down to look at such an exploded budget.
- Requests for handdrawn perspective is turned down. Not even doodles...
- Can't communicate the design beyond the 2D space planning.

Overall
- Damn. Wasted our time. :(

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