My newly customised curtains from Hong Fu Fashion & Design @ Tampines Street 43

After procrastinating habitually, I finally got down to getting full length curtains done up in gold tone for my TV room.

Limited budget
Shopping for curtains with a limited budget was quite a challenge for us given my high expectations as I was notorious for being fussy.

For a change, I have decided not to tap on informative sources such as the forum as I didn't seem to have much luck in finding a suitable fit between our expectations and what's recommended.

I went through almost all the curtain making shops located at Joo Chiat Complex & Tanjong Katong Complex but I wasn't exceptionally impressed by what's displayed in showrooms.  Perhaps my confidence with posh-looking curtain showrooms had been somewhat corroded after reading about complaints of the wide discrepancies in workmanship quality for customisation of curtains.  As such, I viewed most of the curtains on display in these showrooms with a sceptical perspective.

Selecting a curtain maker

I know that many of you out there might just gag or find it a huge turn-off when you observe that the name of the curtain maker is somewhat far from being glamorous... And quite old-school to start with.

 

From my perspective, there isn't anything wrong in engaging the services of a small establishment in the heartland region if they are able to deliver great results. 

 

As such, I would suggest that fellow bloggers, especially new home owners who are in need of curtains, follow through this write-up prior to passing it up.

 

For those who are interested in exploring customisation of curtains with the shop that we have selected, kindly touch base with the lady boss (程珠莲女士) based on the following contact details:

 

Contact number : 6-7896723 / 93201277

Hong Fu Fashion & Design

鸿福时装设计

Blk 475 Tampines Street 43

#01-135

Singapore 520475

(next to the wet market)

 

I chanced upon this curtain shop at Tampines Street 43 while I was visiting my Chinese sinseh whose clinic is also located in the same neighbourhood. I was pleasantly surprised that her curtain fabrics are of very decent quality even though the lady boss herself informed me that they were imported directly from China by herself. 

 

Not that there is anything wrong in China made products but I wasn't expecting to find such curtain quality in the heartland region.  The sewing for her curtains is excellent too!

 

The lady boss is a humble, petite-looking and polite, Chinese speaking PRC national who deals with every detail from taking orders to customising curtains (sewn from scratch or requiring alterations) and alteration of garments.  I never fail to notice how creative she got in widening the girth of a black Punjabi dress when I first stepped into her shop.

To start with, the shop's location is definitely unimpressive as it's located at the exterior of the wet market where human traffic is at its peak during the mornings and weekends.

Our curtain requirements

As we had specific colour requirements for our curtains because of personal preferences, she had been kind enough to import a roll of gold tone dim-out fabric during her return trip to China sometime in June 2013 (this year).

 

Apart from the gold tone for the fabric, we also require a 100% black-out effect which would have cost a lot more should we purchase it from a curtain specialist - I did my homework on that. 

As such, we gave very specific instructions that we require a "double-sided" dim-out curtain to achieve that 100% black-out effect.  Although we would have preferred the fabric to be smooth without any texturizing, the embossed version of gold tone fabric that she had ordered for us was acceptable too.
 

A beautiful outcome
(Due to lighting limitations, our curtains are not accurately depicted in all the photographs where the gold tone of the fabric is concerned)
 

Even though the curtains are extremely heavy due to the double layering of fabric, the sewing is very well done from my perspective as a discerning (and fussy) shopper for our home.

 

Please allow me to share her beautiful workmanship for our gold curtains as shown in the photographs attached below.

 

I do not profess to be an expert in ascertaining what's best with curtains but I noticed that the lady boss doesn't cut corners by piercing curtain hooks straight into the fabric as what I have observed with some heartland curtain makers.

 

For the purpose of demonstrating how she had sewn curtain pleats such that the curtain hook could be inserted without causing any damages to the curtain, I had taken the liberty to pull out one of the curtain hooks and re-inserting it as shown in the photographs below.

 

The pointed & sharp end of the curtain hook is inserted into a "groove" that had been created by pleats sewn on the other side of the curtain: 

 

The hook is then pushed into the "groove" carefully as shown in the photograph:

 

 

 

 

Getting ready to mount the curtains on the curtain track running at the entrance of our TV room!

 

As both sides of the curtains are made of the same dim-out gold tone fabric, the section that shows the curtain hooks is the reverse side of the curtains which would be concealed by the L-box for our false ceiling.  The pleated side would be visible to visitors.

 

The reverse side of the curtains (Photograph taken during the night):

 

Photograph taken during the day - you could visibly see how the curtain was able to shield the glare coming through the windows of our TV room into the living area.

(In view of the lighting limitations when the photograph was taken, the curtain looks a lot better & expensive looking when seen in reality)

 

A close-up photograph of the embossed texture for gold tone fabric of our curtain:

(due to lighting limitations, the actual fabric colour differs from the actual product)

 

 
More photographs of the gold tone curtains taken during different times of the day:

 

Bronzy-gold coloured, double-faced curtains
Prior to us acquiring this set of gold tone curtains, she had also done up another set of dual-faced curtains for us.

The fabric texture is such that it is reversible and "double-faced" in that both sides of the curtain fabrics could be used.  The so-called front side was a richly textured silky bronzy colour with floral prints & a hint of goldish undertone (depending on lighting) as shown below :

The reverse side of the curtain fabric has a suede-like texture and looks like this:

In view of lighting limitations in my TV room while photograph is done, I had great difficulties capturing the actual colour tone of these bronzy curtains when I hung it up on the ceiling curtain tracks.

As such, the presentation of the curtains in the following photograph isn't a true reflection of the actual product in terms of colour (for the true colour of the curtain fabric, please refer to the photograph preceding to the above which shows the reverse side of the curtain fabric).

Other collections
The lady boss from Hong Fu (Tampines Street 43) has also done up a set of cushion covers for 2 standard sized square pillows for complementing our mustard coloured sofa set.

I left an old cushion cover with her so that she could use it as a reference.  It so happened that the zipper of the old cover opens at the mid-section rather than at the edge (side) and I was pleasantly surprised how the print placement made the cushion so nice to look at!

(Square cushion covers from Hong Fu @ Tampines Street 43; Upholstery & sofa cushion covers from Boey Lee of Lee Meng Huat Cushion & Sofa Maker)


However, I was shocked to see that green zippers were used!  Anyways, it still looked good on the front. :)

The lady boss also customised a table runner for a shelf that was installed right behind our headboard in our bedroom as shown in the photograph below:

Of late, Hubby Dearest extended the shelving length-wise so we would be getting the lady boss to sew us new runners ...

If this blogging entry does interest you, please stay tuned for further updates once they are available.
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Disclaimer:

 

Kindly note that this blogging entry is created strictly for the purpose of sharing my humble & objective views of products and services provided by the aforesaid company.

 

I am not affiliated to any of the persons & companies mentioned in this blogging entry. 

 

Reader's discretion is therefore sought when viewing this thread.

 

Thank you for your kind understanding.

My Newly Re-Upholstered Sofa & Dining Chairs

Hi folks,

Photographs of my sofa which had been re-upholstered recently by Boey Lee from LEE MENG HUAT Cushion & Sofa Maker are ready for sharing now.

Based on the pricing that Boey had quoted us to get the sofa re-upholstered by his company, I was tempted to abandon the idea of re-upholstering & discarding my 12 year old sofa. Prior to being introduced to LEE MENG HUAT, we had scouted around for a new sofa. However, there really was nothing that we fancied after browsing through furnishing boutiques.

Those which we fancied and of baroque styles, couldn't be accomodated in the limited space at our TV room. Additionally, we couldn't bear to let go of our existing sofa which came in the style of a chaise lounge which we bought from Barang Barang 12 years ago as a newly wed couple. There was so much sentimental value that's attached to the sofa. It was too much of a waste to simply just let it go & settle for something less desirable from our perspective.

As such, we had decided to throw in our bets with LEE MENG HUAT & gotten our 12 year old sofa re-upholstered.

SOFA
Here comes the BEFORE photograph :

The old sofa was emitting a terrible stench & the white fibre material containing the sponge & polyfill are already torn as you could see from the photograph above.
As the TV room has been subjected to plenty of afternoon sun, Boey had recommended a range of material that could withstand weathering & meant for partial outdoor services. The outcome is illustrated in this AFTER photograph :

* The colour ought to be a more saturated tone of butterscotch (missed my old laptop as the borrowed version doesn't allow editing)
** We have requested for Grade 1 high density foam to be used for the long seating cushion as opposed to the recommended Grade 2
*** Please note that those 2 mini cushions in gold tone isn't part of the re-upholstered ensemble.

We love dealing with Boey as he is a very enthusiastic person to work with. Time seems to be the essence for him and he would constantly be on the look out for new ideas & new opportunities. It was a joy working with him.

I would personally like to thank him for introducing us this partial outdoor fabric in a gold theme. We were exceptionally worried how our sofa would turn out in this particular tone of fabric as it's a butterscotch yellow & there's a fair chance that it might just turn up ... the way we didn't want it to.

Anyway, when we saw the final outcome, we were pleased with it because it came across as really classy & designer style from our perspective. We were so excited that we told our friends that we were sitting on stacks of gold bars.

We had some issues with the huge back rest cushion & contacted Boey immediately. I was pleasantly surprised that his after sales service wasn't just existent but he was so prompt in visiting us on the same day of our complaints & rectifying the issue within less than 2 days!

Boey was also thoughtful in highlighting to us that we should avoid velvet material since the location of the sofa would be hot & velvet material has a strong inclination to retain heat. Can u imagine us drenched in perspiration all the time when we sit or lie down on the sofa?

Service is EXCELLENT (10/10)!

We have decided to be conservative over workmanship because it's tough to achieve perfection when it comes to anything pertaining to customisation. Workmanship for LEE MENG HUAT is GOOD (8/10)!

DINING CHAIRS
We love baroque styles & the dining chairs of such genre seemed to be pretty out of our budget especially when the wooden framing of all our 12 year old dining chairs are in great condition.

As such, we sent the dining chairs to LEE MENG HUAT for facelift & it came back better than expected.

Here comes some photographs where our dining chairs are still encased in plastic sheets since the day they were delivered back to our home...
* The actual fabric colour should be a champagne gold with a muted glossy sheen which couldn't be captured in the photograph.
** Grade 1 high density foam has been used.

The removable cushion covers for all our dining chairs are being made such that the floral placement/ floral motifs are being centralised at the same position. And for perfectionists like myself whose fussy to a fault at times, I must say that the dining chair reupholstery is very well done.

Workmanship for dining chairs is EXCELLENT (9.5/10)! - as I have suggested in my earlier entry that there's no perfect score when it comes to customisation.

I know that many of you aren't in favour of such prints as they seemed old fashioned. I was very tempted to use another range of fabric which looked absolutely classy & elegant but was detered by the pricing as it would cost us double the pricing as the fabric is imported from Belgium & requires dry cleaning. We decided to select this other cheaper alternative instead.

From my perspective, my dining chairs still look romantic & I love them!

If you like what Boey has done for us & would like to explore re-upholstery options, including customistion of headboards & wall features, please touch base with him directly at the following contact details:

Blk 3016 Bedok North Avenue 4,
#02-20 Eastech
Singapore 489947
Mobile Number : 9113-5564
Office Number : 6283-0865

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Disclaimer:
Kindly note that this thread is strictly for the purpose of sharing my humble & objective views of works and services provided by the aforesaid company. And not an advertising platform.

Reader's discretion is therefore sought when viewing this thread.

In view of issues pertaining to every individual's privacy, facial identities are witheld from the photographs featured in this thread.

Thank you for your kind understanding.