Valen’s Vanity Square

Oh no, just noticed some cracks on my bedroom walls and bathroom walls! Eeeeks! I’m not sure if they are paint cracks or cement cracks, but they surely look scary to me.

Don’t know what caused these cracks; is it due to poor workmanship, quality of the paint, or me having the air-conditioner on every night, thus the temperature fluctuation between day and night causing the building materials to expand and shrink, and finally CRACKED?

Hubby definitely need to do something about it. Probably he will have to find some suitable filling materials to fill up the cracks, then repaint the affected walls. We can’t guarantee that the walls will remain in good condition forever though.

If this happens in the kitchen, we might just consider a make-over for the walls with metal tiles, which can create a very modern and retro style interior. But don’t think we want that for our bedroom. Metal tiles in the bedroom is a tad too cold, don’t you think? Bedrooms should have a warm and cozy ambience.

Looks like hubby has a huge home improvement project waiting for him this weekend…

Used to hate shower time while I was in Penang because the water was so icy cold! Even on hot days, okay? May be because we were staying in an apartment. Since we were there for just a couple of years, we did not bother to install a water heater. So, I was always in a rush to get my shower done and over with.

Now it’s totally different in my house here. I LOVE shower time, the water is always warm and relaxing. I can even take showers at midnight and don’t feel cold at all! On warmer days, I also don’t mind to take shower two times a day.

I think I would enjoy my shower even more if I had a bathroom that looks as sweet as this one…

A bathroom with wall painted in blue, installed with selected silver Moen faucet and fixtures, white sinks, white cabinet, white mirror frame… what a Mediterranean feel, right? I could almost feel the breeze from the Mediterranean sea, and the saltiness in the air. I would exfoliate my body with some soothing sea salt scrub as I took my shower, and then let the warm water pour on me, rinsing away my tiredness and sleepiness…

Oops, sorry, got carried too far away. But I do really hope that one day I could have such a nice bathroom at home so that my shower time is always an enjoyable and ‘therapeutic’ one, haha!

I suppose I’m not good at taking care of other things besides my face and body, haha!

I’m talking about plants. I am no green fingers (’fingers of death’ may be), I know. Never really got interested in gardening. My one and only pot of orchid is a gone case very soon. From around 10 blooms on the day hubby bought it back for me in January, to only one flower hanging on a withering branch today, hahaha! Heard that orchid is not easy to take care, should have bought a pot of plastic plant instead.

I don’t think I can even handle knock out roses, which are relatively easy to grow, do not require special care, and are the most disease resistant roses compared to normal ones. Anything green, bright and lively will turn sick, brown and soon dieing after being touched by my ‘fingers of death’. Haha!

May be I should ask my neighbor, how does she manage to keep her plants and flowers growing happily all this time…

I had always wanted to be one of those small-office-home-office people, working independently for myself and work in a very organized and comfortable home office.

Well, I’m sort of a independent, self-employed individual now (read my lips: jobless plus no income, haha!), and I do have a so-called home office (again, read my lips: a room with book shelves and a simple working station). My home office, unfortunately, it’s not so organized at all, haha!

My ‘office furniture‘, hehe, is just a combination of a desk, a swivel chair, a printer and movable drawer units from IKEA. It’s not a successful SOHO office set up, I’m afraid. More over, it’s getting more and more untidy - papers, pens, magazines and note pads are scattered all over the table!

I suppose people who are successful with a home-based business will have their home office set up like this…

Office furniture from www.OfConcepts.com

Well, it looks rather old fashioned, but undeniably it provides ample space for one to work and to keep work-related documents and stuffs. Hmmm, may be one day I can have some thing like this in my home office…

As I mentioned earlier, CNY celebration is still ongoing. That’s why I’m going to have a super busy weekend!

Friends (more than a dozen of them!) are coming over for dinner on Sunday. So, I’ve got a lot of housework and cleaning up to do today. Besides being a CNY get-together occasion, we also consider this as a small housewarming party for friends.

Our house is relatively new (just moved in last November), so there isn’t much home decor in place yet. Our front yard looks very bare, with just two pots of green plants. Don’t think we can ever plant a tree there; we used to wish that we could grow some Flowering trees in our garden, but looks like our wish will only come true when we own a property with a bigger front yard.

For now, this is the only flowering plant we have…

Orchid plant at home as decor

Looks quite nice, right?

The problem is, I have never ever in my life kept an orchid plant before, until now. I don’t have a clue on how to take care of it. Some of its leaves are turning yellow now. I supposed taking care of plants are just like taking care of our skin — we need to know what it needs and what not to give.

Jeeez, this reminds me that I should apply my facial mask tomorrow night before I go to bed. I don’t want to look dried up and haggard when my guests arrive on Sunday! Haha!

I don’t give out Christmas cards, but I have been making Christmas cards for the past few days. Yes, I made my own Christmas cards and Christmas gift tags - to use them as part of Christmas decorations in my new house, or hang them on my Christmas tree.

These cards were easy to make because the instructions and materials came along with the craft magazine called You Can Craft.

You can also make your own Christmas cards, either design them through your own creativity or, if you don’t know where to start, learn from the magazine. There are only a couple of craft magazines, mainly from UK, in the major bookstores featuring Christmas card ideas, so better grab them before they’re gone!

Have you started planning your Christmas holiday?

If you are inviting family or friends over for a Christmas movie night, then you’d better check now that your home theater system is working properly. You don’t want to find that the player or speakers are not behaving when everyone is all excited for the movie to start. You definitely don’t want to disappoint them, do you?

Also remember to check your home theater lighting to ensure that you all will be watching in a cinematic-like ambiance. Check that all the light bulbs and dimmers are working.

After all things are checked (or repaired if required), you can be sure to host a successful and enjoyable Christmas movie night!

We’re really frustrated with our cabinet contractor!

First, we should have had our bedroom wardrobe installed 2 weeks ago, but it didn’t take place due to their internal coordination problem. Then they promised to have everything done for us today and tomorrow, including the kitchen cabinets. However, when we called them up just now, they said they could only start work tomorrow and Sunday! What a bummer!

I was so excited, thinking that I could show a photo of my NEW and NICE kitchen today.

Well, the kitchen is definitely new. To me, it will be nice, since it is my first kitchen with a built-in oven! There will also be a double-sink, but with just an, hmm, ordinary faucet. We saw some kitchen faucets with really cool designs when we visited the contractor’s show unit, but hey, kitchen faucets are not cheap stuffs! The one that we ordered, though simple, already costs 100 bucks!

So you can imagine that, up till this stage, our kitchen is the most expensive part of our house.

Anyway, when the wardrobe and cabinets are in, I will post some photos of my new house here, hehe…

One of the items in our new house that we might consider changing few months down the road is – our TV!

We surveyed plasma and LCD TVs the other day, and were told that Samsung LCD is the top seller recently. I think replacing our conventional TV with an LCD TV is a good idea, hehe. It’s less bulky, and won’t collect as much dust, haha! (LCD TV looks more fragile though.)

After that, perhaps the next thing we want to do is to couple the LCD TV with a nice TV console. Or, even better, one of the tv lifts I saw on the internet. It looks like this:

Where’s the TV? Just press a button from the control piece, a cover on top of the cabinet will open up, and the LCD TV will be raised up. Cool huh?

I think this is a great invention. Not only it helps to keep the TV clean at all times, but because the TV is not out in the open, one actually tends to watch TV less. That’s good, isn’t it?