Welcome to part2 of the Lampshade Makeover series. If you missed part 1, click here to read the article. Moving along, we’re going to higher difficulty makeovers now.

The first one comes from the creative and environmental friendly crafting blog, NU2U - displaying steps on how to create silhouettes in your lampshade using transparencies. Click here to read NU2U’s article. Unfortunately, the folks at NU2U did not post any images on the before or after but I’m pretty interested to try this one out someday.

Curbly.com shows you how to get a dirt cheap DIY lampshade makeover done. The article uses the IKEA GRUNDTAL lamp base and a SKIMRA shade and some simple creative cutting techniques to transform a simple lamp owned by thousands the world over to one that’s totally unique. Here’s what your end product could look like:

If you like sewing and lace, then check out Threadbanger’s YouTube video on how to create a DIY lace lampshade below:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1kDlRpmawM]

Let’s face it. Lampshades aren’t cheap. And most of us are unwilling to fork out the money to buy something that looks like it costs nothing to make. This got me thinking on how we could save money when our lampshades look old, drab and weary one day. Naturally, I scoured the net… and found these useful useful tips.

Apartment Therapy’s Lampshade Makeover - features a great (and very pictorial) DIY on how you can transform your old lampshades to look like a designer lampshade. For several dollars, you could have your lampshade looking like this:

Too much work? Brilliant Asylum has the perfect answer for a lampshade makeover - a simple and elegant tutorial on using ribbons to frame the top and bottom of your lampshade to add more character to it, getting it to look like…

to looking like this:

Steven & Chris’s lampshade makeover article covers four ways that you can makeover any drum-shaped lampshade. Of the four DIY tutorials, these are my favoured two - the first, using ribbons and the latter, using wallpaper for motifs.

More lampshade makeovers tomorrow…

Imagesource (from top): Apartment Therapy, Brilliant Asylum, Steven & Chris

Good news for fans of Heckler Design’s OneLessDesk (read about my original post on the OneLessDesk here)! Dean Heckler recently emailed me to inform me of his latest release - aptly named the ‘New OneLessDesk’.

Wait a minute… how is this different from the original OneLessDesk (which has now been given a status promotion to the ‘Limited Edition OneLessDesk’)? FIrst off, the New OneLessDesk comes in a choice of 2 colours- white or silver/grey and best of all, it is now half the price of its predecessor (originally USD1,199), now USD649. In case you’re wondering, the cost is inclusive of intercontinental shipping charges.

A great pat on the back for Dean who has managed to continue to manufacture a thing of beauty and bring down the cost to half the price of the original OneLessDesk. Really, you can’t help but love this table for it’s clean, sleek and elegant design. It certainly is great and functional for small living spaces. I’m so tempted now…

Imagesource: hecklerdesign.com

I should’ve noticed this on unclutterer.com to add into yesterday’s post (Staircase Storage Solutions). It’s called the StairCase by Danny Kuo. The Staircase is currently in prototype phase but it sure excites me with the fact that it is built as a very tall shelving system which ingeniously utilises the bottom 3 shelves to double as a pull out stepladder to access the top shelves. Click here to read more about this at unclutterer.com.

For those of you who are planning to build custom cabinets/shelving systems, this sure is an uber cool concept you could try to get your local contractors to get done. Else, you’ll have to wait to see if Danny ever gets the beyond the prototype phase and mass produces the StairCase to market.

Now this has to be one of the coolest ideas ever… another one of those ‘why didn’t I think of it’ designs - a storage solution which utilises the underside of your stairs! I stumbled upon this on Unclutterer - a brilliant website which is totally anal about staying organised.

For those of you who might be doing major renoworks which could involve relocating or rebuilding your stairs, this would certainly charm your guests and allow you extra storage space. For the woman with too many shoes, this solution could be ideal. In our home, I am only given the bottom tier of our taller-than-me shoe rack. Click here to read about the under stair storage solution on Unclutterer

Now here’s another under stair storage alternative from Freshome - something a little more robust to allow more flexibility in configuring your drawer and shelf size to fit items taller than 6″ vertically. Click here to read more about Freshome’s alternative under stair storage solution

Imagesource (from top): Unclutterer.com, Freshome.com

One of the areas which most people pay attention to when it comes to kitchens is the countertop. This is the area where food is prepared to be cooked and served so it has to be durable enough to withstand scratches, able to withstand extreme heat from woks and pans, and not be a bacteria haven.

At some point, wood was fashionable but it didn’t last long as it was not the most hygienic- imagine an old chopping board on a much larger scale! Formica surfaces soon took over and are still pretty popular these days due to the fact that it’s easy to clean, rather hygienic and extremely reasonable pricing. Tiles are also used very much (more so in wet kitchens) as they are extremely durable and extremely affordable. With tiles, you can spray the surface down with water and there’ll be no worry of rotting. However, the key problem with tiles is that the spaces in between tiles, covered with plaster is porous and if not cleaned regularly and properly, promotes bacterial growth.

More recently, almost every modern showroom you walk into has kitchen countertops that are made from solid surface. Solid surface is great because it’s cut to size to fit your kitchen. The advantage of this is that it comes in one piece and therefore there are no joints, hence eradicating avenues for bacterial growth. It is also extremely durable- almost always heat and scratch resistant. Cleaning is also a breeze when it comes to solid surfaces. The downside of it however is the cost- ranging from RM160 per foot run (that’s about approx 1×2ft) to RM300, depending on the brand (local generic brand or LG/Samsung/DuPont). I’d recommend solid surface if you have the budget for it as it not only looks elegant but is hygienic as well (for the kitchen, i definitely rate hygiene over looks).

We use an off white solid surface for our dry kitchen as well. Contemplated a black countertop but that would’ve made the kitchen a lot duller and not let the Spanish wall tiles stand out so much. Fortunately for us, the dry kitchen isn’t very large so we could afford to integrate a solid surface countertop. So far so good- though we’re not exactly hardcore when it comes to cooking so the countertop isn’t really subjected to extreme wear and tear yet.

Here are some examples from Aino Kitchen:

The picture above is taken from their display kitchen at the Zenia@Desa Parkcity showhouse

A great place to check out kitchen ideas is at ‘Better Living @Ipmuda‘ which is located in Section14, near opposite the DUMC church. They have a great range of display kitchens but their prices are pretty steep.

Commonly used solid surface brands:

• Dupont Solid Surface
• LG Solid Surface
• Samsung Solid Surface

If you decide to use tiles instead, I’d suggest Apex Ceramics City in Jalan Ipoh. Click here to go to their official website.

Our dry kitchen isn’t humongous. It’s adequate for the average size Malaysian family. However, there’d be occasions where a group of friends would come over for a cookout and there’d be several hands in the kitchen preparing a meal. This is when we could do with a little extra working space. My father had this great idea to install a collapsible shelf on the opposite side of the kitchen. Here’s a look at what it looks like (you might’ve wondered about it in the previous post- Dry Kitchen Flooring)

And here’s what it looks like when extended. In the image, it sure looks like it’s reaching towards the kitchen top but in actual fact, there’s enough space for two people to pass through side by side. This application can also be applied to apartments as a dining/breakfast table top, in children’s rooms where one might wish to maximise the play area and yet be able to provide the child with a basic study table. If you’re interested, any local contractor/carpenter would be able to get this custom made for you.

We did not re-tile our dry kitchen floor but instead decided to stick with the developer-provided tiles which were from MML. After several months, we noticed that these tiles stained easily because it’s surface was not smooth and glazed. We tried various cleaners and powerful stain removers but could not completely remove all the stains. A lot of force was required to rid some of the stains off the tiles as well. Here’s a view of our dry kitchen with the original MML tiles.

We then decided that we’d have to replace the flooring to something a whole lot more maintenance free (yes, we’re lazy people). The obvious choice would be to retile. The downside to that would be hacking works were required, the job would require at least 2 man days and I would have to take leave to supervise.

The other alternative was to go with laminate flooring- to continue the flooring from where our dining stopped (see bottom section of the picture). The upside to this was that it’d take about 2.5 hrs of work to get the whole place sorted out with laminate flooring of the same grain and colour as our dining. It would also add sense of space and a feel of continuity with our entire dining, breakfast table and reading area distinguished from the living room with the same flooring. The downside was that if we had decided on this earlier when we were doing the flooring for the dining, we wouldn’t be slapped a small surcharge for workmanship- there’s a minimum square footage of flooring before the workmanship surcharge is waived.

Here’s a look at how the dry kitchen looks after we laid the laminate flooring on top of the old stained tiles.

Problem solved. No more stubborn stains. Laminate flooring is also extremely easy to clean. Even if water is spilled onto it, it will not succumb to internal rotting, unlike parquette. Of course, leaving a puddle of water on the floor overnight will have adverse effects but you wouldn’t leave your kitchen soaking wet anyway.
Interested in laminate flooring for your home? Contact me and I’ll hook you up with great prices.

Rate My Space is a concept by HGTV which allows users to put up pictures of their living spaces online for others to rate. In truth, this ‘rating’ concept has been evident online in many forms, most notably the rating of amateur pictures of skimpily clad females in various poses a.k.a babe rating. HGTV’s just taken this concept in a different direction. I don’t particularly find rating someone else’s place amusing or extremely entertaining but I sure am glad I found this site. Why?

This site gives me access to plenty of pictures of actual people’s living rooms, not like some plastic surreal showrooms you see in pictures where form takes priority over function. Have you noticed how most modern homes in pics never have fans in their plaster ceiling? It wouldn’t look as regal or grand to have one but it sure would be useful for most any Malaysian home unless you have absolutely no conscience on your carbon footprint and your contribution to global warming. Having said that, I’m not knocking ALL showrooms- there’re still plenty of concepts and ideas in which you can take away from them. It’s just that they are often designed with beauty and elegance in mind and not functional daily living as the key underlying concept. I sure made use of my time before moving in to visit showrooms of new developments which I could nowhere near afford yet, to take away with me any intriguing ideas and concepts which i could apply to my own home. That’s also when i found my camera phone most useful!
Anyway, back to Rate My Space (I always seem to get sidetracked) …

The site offers a pretty neat search function to help you filter the homes you have in mind. The results for my search on ‘contemporary’ were aplenty and here are some which i find pretty neat:

Title: My Bachelor’s Loft

Comment: Neat, simple, cozy, love the brick face column in the corner. Lots of glass windows to provide natural light.

Title: Asian Contemporary Family Room

Comment: Cozy, mix of asian artifacts with modern furniture. Small carpet ups cozy factor but doesn’t take away the emphasis on tje timber/laminate flooring. TV seems to be hung too high- potential necksores ahead. Good use of large mirrors. If you’re heading to Bali anytime soon, you’ll see plenty of these asian artifacts for sale at extremely affordable prices.

Title: Georgeous Glendale

Comment: Clean, minimalist, SIMPLE. Nice earthy one tone walls to provide sense of space. The place sure doesn’t look lived in if you ask me. However, if you’re ever in the Kota Damansara area for furniture, just go to G.D.O and Lorenzo and you’ll be able to pick up items from these two stores to furnish your home almost exactly to similar detail as the picture above! Trust me, I’m not kidding.

Plenty more where that came from:

Click here to continue looking at more contemporary homes. OR

Click here to go to HGTV’s Rate My Space main page

I do hope you’ll find some interesting ideas for your home from this feature.

Imagesource: RateMySpace.HGTV.com

We recently installed roller blinds in both our 3rd floor rooms to shut out the sunlight and keep the place cozy in the day. Even though the rooms are unoccupied, we’ve put some hand-me-down furniture from our parents’ place to fill it up and make it liveable. Occasionally, my brother will come and stay over on the weekends to watch Barclay’s Premier League matches or play some mahjong, or both. He’s complained about the glare and warmth from the sunlight that seeps in so we decided that for his sake, and to protect the furniture and flooring from fading, we’d put some shades.

Roller blinds was the obvious choice because they are relatively maintenance free, do not gather dust like curtains and due to the U-shaped windows set up in both the top floor rooms, configuration of curtain rails would’ve been more complex. We opted for perforated roller blinds. We chose the perforated blinds over blackout blinds to still allow some light to pass through to bath the room in the cozy glow. It also helps my brother to be able to distinguish night from day.

The downside to using roller blinds for such a configuration would mean that there are some visible gaps in between the sheets of blind, which can’t really be helped unless we used fabric curtains. All in all, we’re pretty pleased with the roller blinds and we can now sleep sound that the rooms’ are protected from constant and direct sunlight and that my brother won’t be complaining about his sleep being disrupted by the glare from the sun seeping into the room.

For those of you who are considering roller blinds, do contact me (click here) and I can hook you up to a contractor whom I know personally to provide you with very reasonable prices.

I suppose for the sake of illustration of sunlight creeping into the room at midday, I should not have taken the above pic on a cloudy day.

Here’s how it looks with the blinds down. Minimal light still passes through. Very cozy for afternoon siestas.

Without blinds

With blinds. Gap in the middle can’t be helped as each blinds sheet has a maximum width and the windows are pretty darn wide.

Similar blinds for the other room on the 3rd floor.

If you’re looking to furnish only a small area with roller blinds and would rather not custom fit them, then IKEA offers a variety of blinds at very reasonable prices.