Home Of Tong

I have been looking for Ariston’s hood, hob and oven for my new kitchen for quite a while now. In face, when I book my flat last Aug, I have been on a look out. In around Oct/Nov period last year, I remember seeing an ad on the newspaper mentioning Mayer’s (the authorised agent for Ariston brand) warehouse sales. Not sure when my keys will be collected, I decided to give it a miss. How much I regretted that!

Last month, I was at the Mayer showroom again trying to look at some of their current promotion. There were some promotion on the items I was looking at but somehow I did not commit to buy it. Than when it hit Feb 08, the promo was overtook by a new promo, and the hob I wanted was no longer on promotion. The hood I wanted was also out of my budget and we decided to go for the Delizia hood instead to save cost. Then on Wed, I was at Mayer again and almost committed on the hood and oven, and wanted to wait till March for the hob, hoping that it will be on promo then. Again, I somehow decided to hold my horses.

And guess what? On Thursday, Mayer put up a small ad in the classified section informing of their warehouse sales start 22 Feb 08 – 24 Feb 08! Now it all makes sense, maybe it’s God prompting me to wait for this sale. So I hurried down on the 1st day and the hob I was looking at is available, and there is only 1 piece. Even though its a display unit I have no problem with it since it is never used. So instead of paying $499 for the hob, I pay only $330.

Next I immediately hunt for the hood, instead of Delizia, I thought to myself I can now look for an Ariston hood to go with the hob. I needed a 60cm hood and I know it will be available since not many people go for it (most will got for 90cm). 2 models of the 60cm chimney hood is available, one is a current model (and only 1 piece), the other is an older model. Seeing that the price difference is only $20, and for some practical reason, I decided to go for the current model. I saw some dents on on filter and the sales person very quickly resolve it by swapping it with other hoods, so it is like a brand new set! The damage, $359 instead of the original price of $719. Even the Delizia hood I was looking at before this warehouse sales cost $399 on promo price (but of course that is base on a brand new set).

Item no. 3 is the oven. Was looking at the lowest end Ariston oven due to budget constraint. The showroom price was $619 (UP $689). Saw it in the warehouse sales brand new set at only $589. Than the display unit is only $489. Wanted to commit on it already but the sales person asked me to take a look at 1 model higher, which he highly recommend. Reason, the surface is anti finger print, making it easier to maintain, it looks better, has a more sturdy handle, 1 additional function, and most importantly, when you set the timer, it will cut off automatically once the timing is reached. The price of this oven is usually $819 and the display unit is at $619, and the units are extremely new! After some careful consideration, I decided to got for this oven.

Total damage: $1333 (includes $25 delivery charge).

Original total: $2037.

Savings: $704.

Praise the Lord!

Here are the pictures of my new kitchen set (click on the picture for more info on the product):

I was pleasantly surprised at how fast the people at Sembawang Town Council work. I reported my leaking pipe problem on Thursday and didn’t have time to check it out till Sat, and when I was there, the leaking pipe problem has already been fixed. The other 2 problems will only be fix this week, but they are minor problems. So now I can focus on other areas.

Spend the entire weekend shopping around at warehouse sales, furniture malls, electrical malls, etc…you get the idea. We got our first ‘kill’ on Sat when we went down to the Gain City warehouse sales at their Ang Mo Kio showroom. I saw the advert that morning, and under the clearance section, I saw this one liner, “Brandt Top Load Washer, 5kg, UP $999, NOW $699″. Immediately I know this is the continental slim type washer we wanted. So we went round and round the showroom and the car park area to search for it but didn’t found any. Thinking it was sold, we went back to our car and was about to drive off where my wife ask me to just ask the staff to confirm availability before we go.

So I went down and ask one of the staff, he went round and search with me and couldn’t find it, I thought, that’s it. But he went to ask the other staff and he said, yes, it’s available! He brought us to this Brandt washer which on it states, UP $1079, SALE $1049 and told us this is the one. After confirming it cost $699, we immediately agreed to the deal and paid for it. You see, the washer we are looking for to compliment the dryer we already had is this slim type, it it usually cost from $900+ upwards, so to get one at such price is really a good deal for us, even though it’s a display set (since it was never used).

The hunt for a sofa set is not as smooth as those we like are all out of our budget. So the search continues. We are narrowing down to a few sets, with a few more places to visit before we will come to a final decision. Then there is the aircon search, the hob, hood, oven search, and the lightings and ceiling fans search. We have already decided on our study tables from IKEA, and a few other items. So this weekend looks like another weekend of endless searching for the right things at the right price. My leg is still aching from last weekend! But it is a joy to see our house coming together piece by piece. Thank God!

The Home Of Tong will like to wish everyone of you a very blessed, happy, wonderful Lunar / Chinese New Year! May the year of the RAT brings you prosperity, blessing and many many happy moments! Let those special memories last forever!

Last week has been a week of surprises. First, my 1st week of launching my new website SweetLoveStory.com has been pretty good, visitor numbers have been climbing slowly but steadily as I learn from others on how to promote the website. Do visit SweetLoveStory.com today as the contents continue to improve.

Than it was the news that I have been waiting for 6 months! Yes, I finally received my letter from HDB that my wife and I can go down on the 11 Feb 2008 to collect sign the lease agreement and collect the keys for our new home. After 6 months of waiting (12 Feb will be exactly 6 months), this is something that we feel really relieved. Well, at least one thing off our mind right now. Of course, this begin another headache, that of renovation and furnishing the place. We will take it slow this time so that we do not overstretch our already stretch finances. We’ll probably just go with the absolutely essentials first and add others along the way.

On Friday, when I went into office, sitting at my desk was a bag with 2 mandarin oranges. Upon closer look, it was actually from the 4 Malay colleagues from my office. They actually took the trouble to purchase the nice little bags, oranges and pack them and gave to all of us. Siti, Lisa, Wan and Nora, just want to say a BIG thank you to all of you. And may you all have a blessed year ahead. Here I capture a picture of Siti (left) and Lisa. I’ll try to add Wan and Nora’s picture later.

There is one more surprises. I bought some clothings for my 2 boys in eBay the week before, and was wondering if it is too late to order since the items ships from USA. It will take normally about 2 weeks to arrive and we were afraid that it will not come on time. A DVD we ordered earlier took exactly 2 weeks to arrive. But thank God that the clothings we bought from 4 different sellers in eBay, all arrived in about a week! So guess my boys will be wearing them on Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year if you like). Yeah!