Posts from — December 2008

Sasha’s blog, Renovation Voyeur features a very detailed and interesting telling of how she transformed a drab looking 70msq apartment into a very modern abode. Lots of pictures from start to almost finish. Very interesting read. Having lots of pictures makes it read like a flip book.

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I found some interesting wall decorations over at DeeplyMadlyLiving recently. The site’s design really is eye-candy and their offering, though mostly expensive, are extremely modern/chic/cool/contemporary. Plenty of nice accents for one’s home to be found here.

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Found this on one of my fave sites, ThinkGeek- an LED blow on/off candle. How cool is that? You can simply blow out the candle to turn of the electronic source of light within it and strangely, to turn it on, you blow on it as well.

Statistic: 80% of household fires are caused by human negligence. Cigarettes, irons, kitchen appliances, and candles are amongst the more common root causes of household fires.

So really, this is an uber cool gadget to get your hands on if you’re really into candles and actually like lighting them (most people just buy them in various sizes, shapes, and colour and have them as decorative pieces- never lighting them, EVER. I’m one of these people).

The best thing about these LED candles are that they’re made of solid wax and the electronic light dances and flickers just like the common candle does. Each candle comes with the option of turning on a cool blue or fiery yellow flame. I guess they thought of people with mood swings when they designed this feature. The candle can emit light for 300 hrs on a single button battery! Psyched? Well, most important factor coming up- price. It goes from 11.99 to 14.99 USD. Considering how much some candles cost these days, this isn’t exactly overpriced like many of the other novel items around.

Head on over to ThinkGeek’s LED Candle page now for more details and if you’re sold to the idea, buy it.

If you’re not yet convinced that LED candles are the way of the future and wouldn’t mind risking a household fire. Here’s a link that might be helpful for you: Discovery Channel’s ‘How to Survive’ series- and this episode is aptly titled, ‘Escaping Fire’. Enjoy!

Imagesource: ThinkGeek

I was blown away by the awesome design of the Monolith Table by Gioia Meller Marcovicz. This brilliant stainless-steel hourglass structure looks like an opulent console table which would be marvellous to partition off any area in your home.

Lo and behold, simply amaze your guests when they come to dine by unfolding top of the Monolith to form an extended table top and simply pull out each of the 10 chairs neatly embedded in its sides and unfold them to become regular sized seats.

For more information: visit gioiadesign.com

There’s no word on pricing but I’m guessing that this would be out of the average joe’s pricerange.

However, this concept has given me a great idea for a study table- one which has a flat back, and a contoured front if you like and instead of making chairs to fit the entire hollow of the table, make perhaps 2 chairs (half of the table length) and then two more consoles which double as shelves instead. Not going to be easy to describe to your carpenter but I’m certain he/she will be able to do it. Stick with geometrical shapes and it’ll save you some money as they’re easier for woodworkers to create. Brilliant for homes without a dedicated room to turn into a study.

Imagesource: gioiadesign

Remember my post on the unique hanging fishbowl? No? Click here to read it.

In my most recent trip to Bangkok, to my surprise, I saw the hanging fishbowl being sold at the Chatuchak market! It starts off at approx RM70 but I’m definitely certain you can bargain for it to at least RM50 (the more perseverance and patience, the less you end up paying).

Chatuchak market is one HUGE market selling everything from the usual market stuff such as clothes, food, fruits to homeware, livestock, exotic animals, books, military equipment. It’s so well frequented by locals and foreigners that there’s a section for freight services- to send your purchases back home to you, anywhere in the world (for a fee of course).

To find the hanging fishbowl, look for a little store called the ‘In House Shop’ situated in section 3.

Just when you thought that casette tapes had no use in the world, along comes Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s countryman, Patrick Schuur, with the cassette tape closet. Patrick used 918 casette tapes and screwed them all to the wooden frame of his storage device to create a colourful, quirky, contemporary piece of furniture that is pretty darn unique I must say.

For more information, click here to go to Patrick’s site- Creativebarn.

This is a really creative way of sprucing up an old cabinet or storage device with something that’s- from a technological standpoint- old too. Go crazy and have fun plastering your casette tapes over the doors of your old cabinets! The word that comes to mind right now- retrofitting.

You know, this just gave me an inspiration to brighten up my dull grey electrical console/box in the house. I always thought i’d find an art print, cut it to size and glue it on and around the lifeless casing of electrical console (yes, the artist will be utterly disgusted that i desecrate his artwork this way… I wasn’t planning to buy an expensive print for this exercise anyway). But thanks to Patrick’s idea, I might just retrofit my electrical console with casettes now… tee hee.

Oooh, it’s getting ever so close to Christmas now where we celebrate the birth of Jesus, a time of gift-giving and receiving, and we marvel at the innocence of little children who get overexcited at the very mention of Santa Claus.

This year, IKEA will countdown the days till Christmas, starting from 1st December by introducing two products each day at promotional prices. Here’s the brochure for more details:

Click on the image above or here to view all products that will be on offer.

11% sure is a dismal rate. This translates to only every one in ten person you know who would actually make the initiative to give a gift. Let’s make sure the percentage is raised this year- the more you give, the more you will receive.

I am absolutely certain that one of you reading this right now is thinking ‘does giving a gift to myself put me in the 11 percentile group?’

Come on…. get real- go out there an buy someone a gift and spread some Christmas cheer.