Circles - Part II

By the time we really wrapped up our discussion at Owl's place, it was almost 3pm. We got out, stopped at Sixth Avenue for a quick late lunch, then headed off to Balestier Road. We had to give Sungei Kadut a miss, because the guys who were supposed to meet us gave up waiting and went off :-(

Owl's car










Pretty nice lor mee at a coffeeshop opposite Guthrie House









All the shops we needed to see for the afternoon were along the same stretch of shophouses. We went past all the lighting shops later, and noted 2 that we would go back to as well - for normal lights, as well as the pendant dining table light. Went to Hup Kiong Pte Ltd (564 Balestier Road) first, to choose granite for common area floors. The granite was displayed as huge square slabs along the walls on narrow shelves. In order to see the different patterns better, we requested for some help to place them on the shopfloor. The shop people had to use a formidable-looking suction pad to pull the slabs off their shelves! They also gave us samples to take away, so that we could go on to the tile shop and make comparisons.

... G603 HKPL & #801 HKPL.











Next, the tile shop - Lian Seng Hin Trading Co Pte Ltd (515 Balestier Road). It was teeming with people, compared to others that were quite empty! Owl told us it's because this shop has very nice tiles. Because of the crowd, we ended up going around in circles in the shop. After the n-th time of circling the few tall shelves to look at shades of grey and cream, textured and smooth, I was seeing stars. Decided to just stand still - and almost got trodden over by other couples and families. So just kept moving, just kept looking out for where Owl had run to.

We eventually spun to a decision, picked our tiles and got the samples.We chose full bodied over porcelain tiles, so that even when the tiles chip, we'd still see the same material underneath. Owl also advised us to select floor tiles before wall tiles, which is exactly what we did. We chose dark floor tiles for practicality (we found the cool greys with uneven colour tones a more natural finish than the warm, even greys), and lighter wall tiles to enlarge the small bathroom spaces (for the master bathroom, we chose a more textured tile for a luxe finish). 

... Master bathroom walls: LSH ZM6613/36
Both bathrooms' floors: LSH ZM6610
Common bathroom walls: LSH ZC6152/36
Kitchen floor: LSH IKOM Negro (Spain)








Our last stop was to look for sanitary wares at Home & Bathroom Building Products Pte Ltd (566 Balestier Road). We found out that they supplied to the clinic at our new place, and even supplied for the doctor's own home. Took a while to find basins that we liked - had to be careful not to choose those without a gradient, otherwise food debris would be stuck there and cleaning up would be quite irritating. Also made a quick decision about getting an exposed rather then concealed mixer - not necessary, especially given the significant additional cost.

...Hansgrohe Metris S exposed bath mixers, basin mixers, Raindance E120 Air 3jets Unica D shower set, Variarc kitchen mixer. Joven JU 35 litres water heater.

The long day closes! But not before we battled our way out of flash floods along Balestier Road. See the floating dustbin? Owl was getting worried that the car would be flooded...