Jakarta, Indonesia: A Furniture Buying Adventure

After visiting Bali in January, Blake and I decided we wanted to purchase some pieces of furniture in Indonesia and have it shipped over to Singapore. We have fallen in love with teak wood furniture and the detail in the carvings make it so unique. 

1st Trip to Jakarta!

We made our first "research" trip over to Jakarta in February. On this trip, we followed the advice of our friends, Heather and Clint, former Jakarta expats, and set off to find what we were looking for. 

Jakarta, City Center

The craftsmanship and detail that goes into the pieces of furniture is quite impressive. I can only imagine how many hours of work go into each piece.

Hard at work carving out a custom order.

Old Rice Grinders

Beautiful Teak & Leather Chair

Gorgeous woodwork on an Antique Javanese Cupboard.

Teak wood and Egg shell Birds...
These live at The Daniels' House now. 

Poor Monkey... I hate when people do this.

Dancing on the street for money

Well, as you can imagine, we returned to Singapore fired up and even more excited about buying furniture and having it shipped over to Singapore. As we continued our research in dealing with shippers for containers of furniture... we quickly learned that this would not be an easy process. Crossing country borders, customs & taxes, language barriers, and currency differences, would be only a few of the issues we would encounter. But, nevertheless, we persevered! 

2nd Trip to Jakarta...

We returned to Jakarta again in March with one simple goal... well, two actually. BUY furniture- and have it coordinated in an effective (and hopefully) reliable manner to be delivered (undamaged preferably!) to Singapore. Once we got on a roll with the furniture buying, we were having a ball. My husband was saying "YES" to anything, because he felt this was a once in a lifetime thing... silly boy. (I want to do this again in Bali...hehe). I will say, it is very hard to buy furniture when you do not know what your next home will look like. So, we just bought what we liked and figured it will all work out in the end.

We also found a furniture maker that would make pieces for you tailored to your specifications. My oh my, how our process had now gone from "complex" to very complicated!! Now, I had to worry about furniture being made in another country and trust they were making it the way we had ordered it... great. Needless to say, we were NERVOUS!!

3rd Trip to Jakarta...

My final trip to Jakarta came in June when I proceeded to go over and "inspect" the newly made pieces and organize the packing lists for shipping. Blake stayed behind to work and put a lot of faith in me to get it down to a fine science. I was filled with excitement and nervousness as my driver drove to the furniture shop so I could see the furniture- I was really hoping it had turned out as we had discussed. Well, after we arrived, MOST of the furniture was as we had requested. I was very disappointed to have to turn down the king size bed and night stands I had ordered- they were not up to par. But, everything else looked beautiful! Success!! Now, I just need to get it to Singapore by cargo ship...

FURNITURE ARRIVES!!

In late June, all of our pieces arrived and fortunately... none were damaged. WOOHOO!!!!! Success.

Settling in with our new pieces.

Vase, bought in Jakarta

Antique Javanese Cupboard

My favorite piece...

Yes, that's a Gong to the right of the cupboard.
Blake had to have it... lol.

Our marble top teak table.
(Chairs are not ours)

I love this table! So thrilled to have a new breakfast table and a round table at that! I plan to buy new chairs when we return to the US. I just wasn't confident in the chairs being made the way we wanted and completed in time for the container to ship to Singapore.

Hand carved teak wood

Rice grinder, converted into a glass top table.

Javanese Instrument

Antique Rice Chest.
Our most original piece and one of our favorites.

Vase converted into a lamp, bought in Jakarta.
Fitted with US plugs too. 

Teak Buffalo Leather Chair

Javanese "Jodang"
Traditional gift in Java to give as a wedding gift.

So, that's just a taste of some of our new pieces and a glimpse into what it was like to try to organize such a feat! We don't regret it for a minute and are very pleased with our purchases. (Don't tell Blake... but, I can't wait to do it again! :) )

What will be interesting is when we move back to the states, buy a house, and try to fit all of our OLD and NEW furniture in the same house! Ha! That should be interesting...