Lightings for the Home

11th September 2008

The two hotspots when it comes to shopping for lights are Jalan Besar and Balestier.

Darren and I kind of categorised the place in such a way – Balestier is more up-market while Jalan Besar has a simpler variety. Well, this explains their prices also I guess. But then again, some patterns or design cost almost the same at both places. Anyway, I think Balestier is the place to go if you want more trendy, more arty-farty, more current designs. And Jalan Besar if you want very very simple and don’t mind designs which aren’t very current.

Before we started our shopping, some people told us places like xx company in Balestier sells the cheapest lamps in Singapore. When I found this xx company, I almost died. Lamps nowadays are so bloody expensive la. The worst thing is lamps sold at those exorbitant prices are really nothing near practical – from my point of view.

So a disheartened Suet kind of blacklisted all the major big shops along Balestiers. There will be a few exceptionally big shops where you see a few branches along the same shop. And shopping for lightings are a pain – they cause such strain to the neck and eyes, that exhausts me.

So while we were getting disappointed with Balestier road, we pass by a quaint little shop. It is not very spectacular, but we thought it was no harm going in and taking a look. And guess what, this little shop is a GEM!

The lights sold were at a very very reasonable price. They are not very dated, in fact they have a range of lightings which are pretty simple, modern and suits every home I suspect. Imagine the adrenaline rush when we found a place that we can finally saw “Lets just whack la!”.

So in the end, we left the place a very happy customer. We spent $800++ on 10 sets of lightings – basically for every lamp that needs to be changed are all found under one roof!

Oh man!! this place is highly highly recommended. Jenny served us very patiently – even though her hubby was waiting for her and it was already way past her operating hours. She also dispenses good suggestions – I think it makes a difference because she is a home maker herself and knows where needs more light and where requires less.

Well, where’s this place? This is:

Silic Lighting Centre
509 Balestier Road
Singapore329848
Tel: 63561629

ps: They have really lovely designer mirrors sold there as well and matching lamp shades. Its really great to check out their mirrors too.. though it might be a little pricey. Its about $300++ onwards.

pps: Silic Lighting has been featured by Mr Miyagi too!!

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30th September 2008

After my last review on Silic Lighting Centre, I am now even more convinced that Silic is a really fantastic shop. I mean its a small cosy shop. It is not some big mega lighting store where you find blinding lights hanging above your heads, straining your neck and eyes, just to crack your head over which of the two similar lamps is prettier, and to realised that they cost a bomb anyway. They have a decent range of lightings available which is good enough for any cosy nest. What set this shop different from others is how much pride this lady put in her work and how passionate she is to serve you.

Darren and I put up some the lamps we bought from her the last time just to find that one was not as ‘optimal’ as we wanted it to be. The opaque lamp shade kind of cast a shadow on the ceiling, giving the room a very heavy feeling – which we were not very keen on having. So after much discussion, we decided to go visit Jenny since we needed to change our bulbs as well. The bulbs were perfectly ok, just that the colour we chose wasn’t too ideal.

So we brought up this matter to Jenny and we were pretty surprised that we were not met with much resistance. In fact, she was pretty open our suggestions and tried to see if she could work towards what we wanted. We were really impressed, because we had not expected such swift actions from her. Before entering the shop, we were half thinking that she might ’smoke’ us and give us tons of excuses into not helping us. But she was fantastic. She let us take our own sweet time to see which suit us and served us with much patience.

Finally we got the lamp we wanted and now we are awaiting the lamp to be put up, so that we could see it in its gloriest state!

Seriously, I hope sharing such excellent service wouldn’t encourage you guys to take advantage of her nice-ness and try to be funny if you guys really wanna patronise her shop. Such passion and pride when serving customers are extinct in Singapore. So if you guys gonna go to her shop, be nice.