Preparations before sourcing for furniture

Being well prepared prior to purchasing furniture could saves you time and money and also giving you more flexibility. I believe in being well prepared not only when purchasing furniture, but it applies to a lot of aspects in life. We can’t plan or be prepared for all possibilities but we can try to minimise the uncertainty.

1) Always measure the area and place where you want to place the furniture

- If possible, mark out the area of the furniture to help you visualise the amount of walking area free space available after placing the furniture

2) Do note if there are beams across the wall.

- Most HDB rooms would have a beam across 1 of the 4 walls in the room.

- It is especially important when you are buying a wardrobe as the beam would determine whether you could get a tall wardrobe or the short one?

- Sometimes for feng shui purpose it might affect whether you want to place a bed there

3) Have your floor plan ready

- The original plan, because any experienced sales person would be able to tell you the recommended size of the furniture which you could get.

- It would be useful when determining the size of the cupboard, tv cabinet or a sofa etc.

4) Things look bigger when place @ your home?

- Usually a piece would look smaller @ the showroom due to the amount of space available in the showroom, coupled with the lighting and the high ceiling, the piece of furniture might look smaller than it really is.

- High chance the furniture would look bigger when place in your house and I have heard of people saying “wah the thing look so small when I saw it at where and where, but come to my house it look so big….”

- Personally I would always ask the customer staying in how many room flats and living in which area to have a rough idea of their layout and floor area. I have seen so many customer who like those big and bulky sofa which no doubt looks good and comfortable, but upon knowing they stay in a smaller floor area house, I would always remind them and recommend them to take a 3 seater sofa only instead of the whole set of 3+1+1 or 3+2.

5) Be realistic

- Plan your budget beforehand

- Are you the type who likes to change furniture or the look of your house every now and then?

- It’s always better to give yourself ample time when purchasing furniture for maximum flexibility. You might extremely like a particular design but due to the fact that there is no stock for it, you might have to change your preference.

- Most important is not to hope for the sky when you are paying peanuts.

One real life eg is I ever encountered a customer coming in saying” I’m looking for a chest of drawers, but I have a budget cant expensive.” Thus I showed them the $100+ range, but the response was “but it look so cheap leh” when presented the more elegant and solid type $200+range, “wah so expensive arr” do you guys thinks this couple is realistic?

Everyone like “nice and cheap” but in this world, its always一分钱一分货, though the correlation may not always be 1:1.If you prefer coffee over kopi-o you also have to add another 10 cents right?