As mentioned previously, the juicer is not available locally in Singapore/Malaysia so to get it means to factor in shipping costs from US where it’s available widely.

Out of good luck (or bad depending on how you see it), the website that I go to get my supply or Krill Oil (I’ll probably talk about that another time) had a Free Shipping offer for almost all their products in conjunction with the infamous Black Friday in the US. And the free shipping applies to international shipping as well.

So thanks to Mercola.com for providing this Free Shipping offer. Effectively I have saved at least SGD100 for shipping alone (well, I have spent like SGD360 on the juicer).

So now, based on the latest delivery status. The juicer has left the US and is on it’s way to Singapore. Will blog about it when it arrives.

By the way, Mercola.com is quite a good resource for health related stuff that deviates from mainstream health recommendations that we’ve grown up with. Definitely a good resource that I recommend to everyone.

The “projects” that we have in mind were always just talk and we sometimes forget about it then talk about it again after a while. So this time round, we’ve decided to list them down in a google document. We’ve just started listing them out and the next thing we’ll do is to prioritize, budget and give these items a timeline.

So the projects we have in mind so far in no particular order are

• Change metal gate to wrought iron gate
• New laminate flooring for the whole living room. Or if budget permits, bamboo flooring (go green)
• Modify kitchen cabinet for better storage.
• Enhance lighting in the kitchen. It’s not bright enough now.
• Add to working top area on top of the existing washer.
• New shoe rack

Of course, as and when a project gets materialized, I’ll blog about it.  Till then..

Personally, I love the dreamy look.

Nope, this is not a painting like some of you may think. It’s a photograph that I took just hours ago downstairs of where I live.

It’s actually from a fake plum blossom flower that someone stuck at a palm tree downstairs where I live. Did some post processing to change the color of the flower from red to a slight tint of pink.

The blur part (bokeh) is of course from my new favourite lens, the Voigtlander 58mm Nokton. Just love the dreamy effect it produces wide open.

Hope you like it!.

For those of you who’ve came to my house during the daytime, you might have noticed that my house is pretty dark most of the time as there is no direct sunlight coming into the house. For that reason, it somehow seems that my house can be pretty damp especially in the kitchen. More specifically the kitchen sink cabinet. Over the year, it seems like it has developed a damp smell that’s becoming rather nasty to me (I have sensitive nose).

I started out using those Thirsty Hippo passive dehumidifier which contains some crystal like particles that will liquify by absorbing the moisture in the air. It kinda worked but it requires replacing too fast in my case. So, coming across the Olee Dehumidifier which is an active dehumidifer that requires power to run, I was pretty much interested.

Olee Dehumidifier.. Notice the amount of water it collected.

It’s got a 500ml storage tank and it can collect up to 250ml per day. The dehumidifier will turn itself off when the water tank is full and that’s when you can just take out the water tank and pour away the water. I currently only turn it on at night before I go to bed and turn it off before leaving for work. So far I have it running for about 2 weeks and I must say it’s running pretty well.

The cabinet seems less moist. It better be considering it has collected about 750ml of water just by having it on at night for about 2 weeks. The funky smell seems to be slowly dissapearing which is a good sign.

The dehumidifier's home at the kitchen sink cabinet.

So if you have a small concealed area that’s damp, I do recommend you do something about it. We surely don’t want mold or what not to develop in those areas. The Olee Dehumidifier is a solution for me so it might work for you as well.

I selected some photos that I’ve taken from my Japan Trip recently (yeah, I didn’t blog about that… ), printed it, framed it with some cheapo Ikea frame and here’s what I have so far.

Assortment of pictures from Japan

Another angle

Well, sorry about the weird lighting. The photo wall doesn’t really have proper lighting yet. Now brainstorming on how to get some lights there to shine at my photos. That’s another project for another day.

We settled on this Kiwi Green Nippon paint and started work immediately after.

Prepping up the wall

Taping the door frame with masking tape.

Nippon Vinilex. Mixed at a hardware shop. Kiwi Green Colour.

The painting begins.

3 coats later.

The finished product.

Pretty decent don’t you think? The Kiwi Green fortunately goes quite well with the colour scheme of the house. So all that is remaining is to slowly hang photos up there.

Well, we didn’t hack them off this time round as well. Just had some people come in to “glue” a layer of decorative flakes on top of the existing tiles.

First off some old pictures of the existing flooring of the bathroom and kitchen. Notice the stains which can’t seem to come off even with the all powerful “Easy Off BANG”.

Doesn’t look all that clean and eye pleasing ain’t it. So here comes the people from Xtoria Marketing with their gear and they start work.

Protected the cabinets with newspaper. Cleaned the floors.

A bucket of the decorative flakes. It’s like sand..

Put a layer of adhesive on the floors and spread the flakes.

Close up of the flakes before lacquering.

Some interesting custom clogs. Used when they are spreading a layer of hard lacquer over the flakes so they don’t have to step directly on the lacquer.

New shiny kitchen flooring.

Clean bathroom.

The whole process took about 6 hours. Most of the time was actually spent waiting for adhesive to dry and lacquer to dry. Basically we couldn’t use the toilet for the whole day and the earliest we could use the bathroom was midnight. Anyway it was fine since we went back to JB right after when they were done and once we were back the next day all was good.

The total damage? $1.8k for the 2 bathrooms and the kitchen. Not cheap, but less expensive and time saving compared to hacking and re-tilling. Did I mention we LOVE the results?

One at the door.

Ensemble on the wall

And lanterns as well

Just some simple deco to bring the home into the CNY mood.

Water Filter Tap (the one on the right)

It was a real pain trying to get the parts needed to connect the filter to my existing piping system. The hardware shop at Punggol Plaza did not have the stuff I need and the nearest proper hardware shop is at Tampines which is quite inconvenient to get to. Took me almost 2 weeks before I finally bought the parts at the hardware shop in Loyang which is near my office.

After getting the part, I attempted to fix the pipes up. After 2 hours and all wet, I still couldn’t get the job done. Took very long because there isn’t much place to manoeuvre my hands under the sink. Worst of all, one the the part I bought (the Tee joint) was defective thus causing some leakage. Fixed everything back and had to wait till I buy the replacement part. The replacement part only came in more than a week later and I got it when I was back in M’sia over the weekend.

So today after work and 1 hour later, finally manage to get the job done.

Diamond-ed Water

So what’s the difference now that I have a water filter? I no longer have to boil my water before drinking it. Will just drink it straight from the tap. Another thing done for my house.

So let’s not waste time and see some pics; the usual before and after pics.

Before.. obviously

Colour scheme matches the house. Nice earthy colours.

And here we present YY the dog, all nice and comfy.

Now that the sofa has come, I’m really in need to start planning for a long overdue housewarming. In a dilemma though; should I hold a one day event where I invite a whole bunch of people in and get catering? Or should I have many small “focus” groups.. eg. my colleagues, peiwen’s colleague, my uni mates … etc.

So what do you think?