On a Cloud

During our stay at the Parkroyal on Beach Road, I loved the bed so much that I wanted to recreate it in our guest room. My goal is to provide a bed so comfortable, our guests will remember it long after they've left. A bit ambitious yes, but I'll try anyway. Hahaha!

The first thing I did while at the Parkroyal, was to check the bed for the supplier of the beddings and found that the pillows and mattress pad were done by Northern Feather Asia. I was able to buy two pillows from them, but not the mattress pad as they only do them as a special order and suggested I contact the hotel.

I dutifully sent an email to the hotel and found that they do not sell their beddings unlike other hotels (e.g. Westin), but helpfully advised I check out Robinsons department store which is where I ended up buying the mattress topper. I've visited other stores and found that Robinsons was not only cheaper but they had more options.

Bed

As mentioned in a previous post, we got the bed from IKEA. We decided on the firmest mattress we could afford as our parents need more support for their backs. Mom liked it, but my Dad (who is nine years older than my mother), said that it took some getting used to as it was too hard. Hmmm...

Pillows

These are called NF Super Soft Pillows and are are composed of 50% down and 50% feather infill at SGD 110 each without GST.

My Mom asked about the pillows (without my mentioning anything) when they were here a few weeks ago. It turns out she really liked them, but could not believe I paid that much for pillows. I think they were well worth the cost since she ended up asking about them out of the blue.

Pillow Encasings

We have two sets of these. The ones in the guest room are from Protect-A-Bed and were bought on sale (SGD 31.20 each) over at Robinsons. The ones we use in our room are from Mission: Allergy made from premium microfiber (USD 18.95 each) that we ordered from the U.S. as they were prescribed by Earl's allergologist. Earl, unfortunately, is very allergic to dust mites.

I'm mentioning this in case someone out there also has an allergy problem because according to his doctor, Mission: Allergy is the best brand available at the moment.

Mattress Protector

This we also purchased from IKEA. It's placed on top of the mattress to prevent it from getting stained and at SGD 15.90, the Skydda Lätt is not a bad deal.

Mattress Topper

Through a bit of research online, I found that it is the mattress topper that makes a bed very soft - as one person posted, like sleeping on a cloud. Originally, I was planning to get a feather topper like the one from Northern Feather Asia, but a sales lady introduced me to the down (feather) alternative and I was sold as it felt softer and not as lumpy as the feather version. The feathers would have made for a cooler bed, but since the mattress is quite firm I decided that it needed a bit more padding. Also, our guests will mostly be under air conditioned comfort anyway so it won't be an issue.

The brand I really wanted, Snowdown, was out of stock in Singapore - as in the entire country did not have the queen sized mattress topper available! So I got King Koil Micro-Gel instead at SGD 279.30.

Note: There are other feather toppers out there that are very soft (composed of down feathers or a combination of feathers and alternative down) but they were way beyond our budget.

The mattress topper was delivered last week and we have visitors arriving this month so I'll have to wait and see what they think of the bed. The guest room, like everything else, is a work in progress as I will only buy things once funds are available.

My next project is to buy bed linens made from Tencel. I saw it in one of the stores and really liked the texture, but it too will have to wait.

Sofa

I had a hard time looking for a sofa due to space constraints - it could only be a maximum of 140 cm wide. I looked at quite a few stores and searched online, but it was either too big or too expensive. In the end, we settled on IKEA:

Solsta two-seat sofa-bed - SGD 179
Stockholm Cirkel throw pillow - SGD 29.90
Assembly and delivery fee - SGD 105 (includes the delivery of the bed)

I must say though that it was not a bad purchase since everyone who has sat on it has remarked how comfortable it is. I don't want to use it as a bed though as the sofa cushions would need to be on the floor. So for our extra guests (those in excess of two), we bought an airbed instead.

Guest Bed

In the short time we've lived in Singapore, I've quickly learned that mattresses and bed frames are rather expensive around here. Another concern was that there's not enough space in the guest room.

And just like other decisions we've had to make when it came to the house back home, this again was a toss-up between aesthetics and practicality. Do we get a trundle bed so that there's more space and we could place a night table with a lamp? Or do we buy a queen bed knowing that most of our would-be guests are married?

So after looking around the shops and with our parents in mind, we got the smallest and firmest queen bed we could afford from IKEA.

And though we decided to go without a bed frame to save on space, people would still need to walk sideways to get to their side of the bed. It really makes me wonder why our landlord used this room as their bedroom and not the bigger one (maybe because the master bedroom gets a lot of sun in the afternoon?). And to think that the bed they used is actually two centimeters wider than this one.

Sultan Aukra mattress base with legs - SGD 269
Sultan Hamnvik - SGD 499

Note: The curtains are owned by the landlord.

Dining Table & Chairs

At first, I was thinking of buying the table and chairs from IKEA, but since we don't have a kitchen counter the table would need to do double duty. The only problem is that most of what they sell have fibreboard tabletops.

I went around a few furniture shops before deciding on the following from the Furniture Mall:

- Mahogany table with glass top (130 x 90 cm) from UnikHome - SGD 716 including delivery
- Four dining chairs from Star Living - SGD 406 including delivery

Never thought that I'd go for a rather modern look, but that's the theme of the apartment so we may as well go with it. This option costs just SGD 32 more than the IKEA version inclusive of assembly and delivery fees.