Home improvement in Beijing?

[nephridium]

Hi folks,

I have lived in Beijing for about two months now, but I'm still looking for a place (like a department store) that sells materials and tools to build stuff. I'm sure things like wooden boards, water pipes etc. are dirt cheap in China, - would be nice if there was some place that would cut it to the right length as well.

Can anyone me with that? I live near Wudaokou, hope it's not too far from there.

Right now I'd just like to build a table (that fits right into the niche I prepared for it) and an aquarium (sort of), but I'm sure I'll get dozens of new ideas as soon I find the place I'm looking for..

Thanks.

[trevelyan]

金五星 -- one subway stop north of Xizhimen.

[nephridium]

Thanks I'll try it this weekend.

[SamanthaTea]

Trevelyan is right about Jinwuxing. On the north side it's got an awesome construction materials area and if you get off at Dazhonsi, you can walk to it easily.

Another thing you can do that might be easier is to go to any Wujin Jiancai Dian 五金建材店

These are all around the city and you can find someone there, show them what you want to build in your apartment and they will give you an estimate and then do it without a lot of hassle. Go with them when the buy the materials and you're good to go.

Another thing that helped me when I was putting in cabinets and a bar in my apartment was the new Insider's Guide to Beijing. They've got a section on 'zhuangxiu' (renovation) with tips and such and in the shopping section they have an awesome list of (re-)decoration companies, fixture companies and such. Plus I got all my furniture from stores in their book.

Hope that helps.

ST

[prolyfik]

I deinitely enjoy perusing the large local home renovation malls all over town, but if you're looking to do-it-yourself, you'll probably find a lot of things you need at one of the B&Q shops in town - they're pretty close to being identical to Home Depot shops (lots of selection, decent quality & in dealing with home repair, the ability to return items can be very useful!) - check out this map for the location nearest you: http://www.bnq.com.cn/website/BnqEnglish/default/map_beijing.asp

Good luck!

[nephridium]

Thanks for the posts, they were very helpful. B&Q had most of the things I needed at one spot. Wujin Jiancai Dian was a bit too big for what I needed, with too many "finished" products, but a huge selection nonetheless.

I'm still looking for a way to build my aquarium, haven't found tubes and seperate water pumps yet.. But it's not that urgent anyway.

My table here enjoys itself in its niche - I had the boards cut at B&Q and (although they screwed up once while cutting) it now fits exactly into there.

[sebtrois]

there's a Leroy Merlin together with the Auchan (same french distribution group) somewhere on the west second ring road, or is it the third ?