Posts from — October 2009

Looking for art for the home? Here’s an avenue:

Why, she did the most sensible thing of course! She spent USD325,000 (approx RM1.1m) on a 2-floor mansion for her pups. Now Tinkerbell, Marilyn Monroe, Prince Baby Bear, Harajuku, Dolce and Prada all have a luxurious place fitted with Philippe Starck furniture and a grand chandelier to call home.

Suddenly, the word kennel seems to sound almost vulgar in this context.

Read more about Ms. Hilton’s pink mansion on peoplepets and luxist

imagesource: peoplepets

The last decade has seen and experienced a generous amount of interior design trends, as evident in magazines and media outlets around the globe. Although these trends became a staple in homes and establishments alike, few emerged as the leaders. The top ten are outlined below.

Bold Patterns

The dawn of the 60’s and 70’s fostered the idea of patterned fabric, but not until the last decade has this trend exploded. Modern geometric shapes, animal prints, and art nouveau influences have taken grandma’s old flower sofa to a whole new level.

Feng Shui

This term has become a household name in recent years and it is synonymous with calm and peace, and a “zen-like” atmosphere. The premise states that the avoiding or blocking of negative energies with the placement of furniture and accessories can create a healthy mental atmosphere in your home

Going “Green”

The last 10 years has seen a major impact on the planet with the development of eco-friendly and recycled materials. Organic and sustainable supplies, such as soy, hemp, and bamboo are widely available today, and this trend is slowly becoming and will continue to be one of the hottest of the decade.

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It’s amazing how many new people I get to know through How’sHouse. The online medium is a wonderful way to build real relationships in the virtual world. From the time I’ve set up How’sHouse until the present, I’ve made numerous friendships along the way – most asking for advice on their homes; many paying their compliments (it always feels great knowing I made someone happy reading my site); and others who are site owners themselves who drop by to say hello.

However, my most recent friendship was build in a different manner than the others. I got to know Johan Karmen, from Archie Grand – the Notebook Corporation, when he sent me an email telling me how much he liked How’sHouse and that he wanted to show his appreciation for my work by giving me one of his famous little notebooks. If you’ve been to his site, you can surely guess which title he sent me – ‘Designers I Met and Liked‘. I have to say, I’m delighted to have received this little notebook in the post a few days ago.

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Live It Up! @1 Utama will be holding a kitchenware warehouse sales from 30Oct – Nov

Products Offered

• Imported Non-Stick Pots and Pans
• Pressure Cooker
• Stainless Steel Cookware
• Cutlery
• Porcelain
• Stone Ware
• Glasses
• Household
• Kitchen Utensils
• and more

Location

Live It Up

LG306 1Utama Shopping Centre (New Wing)

Bandar Utama

via ShoppingNSales

Yes, the new IKEA 2010 catalogue is out and you can view it online now! Here are some of the ideas and concepts that I can extract from this year’s catalogue:

1. Using EXPEDIT as a partition

Found in: pg 16-17

Both functional and aesthetically pleasing. Although it may take up a wide footprint, the partition now serves more than its original purpose – it can now be used as a shelve to house ornaments or if privacy is required, blackout using EXPEDIT drawer inserts or EXPEDIT insert with doors (see pg 78-79)

2. Bend it like BEKVAM

Found in: pg 130-131

This item sounds like that famous footballer who’s always craving for publicity except that the BEKVAM is quite the opposite – a low profile, quiet achiever. A workhorse and one of the best deals you can ever get at IKEA. I use this to reach the tall cabinets, to change lightbulbs, as a stool to watch TV. Its more permanent role in the home is being YinLeng’s dressing table chair (for RM59, it’s a heckuva deal I’d say!). I’ve been thinking of retiring the old chap and turning it over and doing a bit of a hack to transform it into a respectable bookshelf (ahh, that’s a blog post for another day I suppose).

Give your BEKVAM a bright coat of paint and it’ll be a worthy accesory in your toddler’s room too!

3. Store your magazines unconventionally

Found in: pg 86-87

Who says you need to store your mags and on a mag rack? Throw ‘em into a serving bowl by the side of your couch instead. A mag rack probably costs you more than RM45 so how about getting the BLANDA serving bowl instead? Be different

(a more cost-effective alternative: SMARTA serving bowl [pg 88-89])

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The developers of Desa Parkcity now hold ‘Green Day‘ once every two months to encourage its residents to recycle. A very commendable effort indeed and it sure is great to know that I live in a place where the developers do their bit for the environment.

The next one is going to be held this weekend, on the 18th of October, from 9am to 1pm, at the Waterfront Carpark II (just opposite Zenia)

Anyone who is interested can contribute, not just residents. So go do your part and go GREEN. I know I’ll be there!

Find out more here

What/Where is Desa Parkcity? Find out more at their official website

YinLeng and I have recently agreed to get a bookshelf in our first floor living room for the books that we currently have that are scattered all over the place. It’s not a lack of respect for books – mind you, we dust them off very often – but I suppose because we’ve gotten so used to putting our books this way, thinking that one day we’ll do up our study and then migrate these books over, that we never ever gotten to organizing them.

Now that baby ryan has learned to crawl, he’ll be all over the entire house and we don’t exactly want these books to impede his path. Neither do we want him chewing all the valuable books we have. It’s now high time we got ourselves a bookshelf.

Quite fortunately, I came across the brilliant Einfach modular shelving system via hometone.

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Remember my article on those brilliant little things called GelGems which I got from Bangkok a while back? No? Take a read at the ‘GelGems’ article here if you haven’t read it or can’t remember it.

Recently, whilst shopping at Daiso, the RM5.00 Japanese outlet at the Curve, Mutiara Damansara, looking for plastic balls for which baby Ryan can play with, YinLeng found GelSeal which are exactly like GelGems but cost so much less! (I think we bought our  GelGems at 200Baht or RM20 equivalent). Head on over to Daiso if you’ve been searching for glass stickers for decoration or to amuse your little ones!

The ‘notice’ on the packaging reads as follows:

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Most living rooms these days have a TV, Astro (satelite TV), home theater system or DVD player. It is safe to say that the minimum number of remote controllers in any living therefore is 3. I have remotes for my air conditioner and fan as well so that makes it 5 remotes for my living room alone!

Boy, do i hate remote clutter. But yet, I don’t want to go around forking out sinful sums of moolah just to get my home fitted with one of those all-in-one remotes which controls the A/V equipment, lights and fans. Unless you already have one and you’re thinking I’m a cheapo for not doing so, you’re probably agreeing with me right now.

Fortunately for us, Lifehacker has a ultra cost-saving solution for taming remote clutter – to ensure that you always have your remotes in a central location.

via lifehacker