I've almost forgotten to share this very important point!

Years ago, when I was staying in HDB, there were many cockroaches around. On and off I see cockroaches in my house, so I spray the insecticide, and put those cockroach baits. When I don't see the cockroaches, I thought they were not around, and happy.

One day, to my horror, I found that the cockroaches are building their nests in my cabinets and some of my bags are full of cockroaches eggs! What about those cockroach baits? Yes, they are functioning, but cockroaches ate the baits food would not die on the spot, instead, they were back to their colony and poison their fellow friends and relatives. This sound good as it killed the whole colony, but guess what I found, a half full pale of the cockroaches dead bodies! Believe me, this is good enough to scare and haunt the ladies better than any horror movie!

From the incident, I have learned that PREVENTION and CLEANLINESS are the two key points in battling with insects. So what do I do now?

I put the moth balls in a small folded paper bin and leave them in all the top cabinets (which I seldom open).

(can be bought from NTUC or any grocery shop at less than $2 per pack.

I still spray the insecticides on the covers to drainage and the rubbish chute, preferably those with prevention for a period of time. I spray the insecticides on a regular basis, about once every 3 months.

I also do a regular check on the top cabinets, which are a good place for the cockroaches to build their houses.

Till date, my house is still free of cockroaches, occasionally, I do see one crawling around (you can control the cleanliness in your house but you can't control it in your neigbours', so no matter what you do, you're bound to see immigrants crawling in your territory) and I'll start spraying the insecticides and checking the moth balls balance......

Note:
Moth ball is a type of insecticide. It comes in a solid form that slowly gives off a toxic gas that kills moths and other insects. It contains very high concentrations of either naphthalene or paradichlorobenzene as active ingredients. It is meant to be used in closed, airtight containers so that the fumes they produce are trapped. The trapped fumes build up and kill any clothes moths inside. If mothballs are used out in the open, they can harm people that may touch or eat the mothballs, or breathe their vapors.
Thus, use it moderately.

I have previously written an article on "Buying Furniture from Malaysia JB". I know many of you are interested in getting furniture from Malaysia, and in my article, it seem to be a good deal to get the furniture there. However, I would like to warn all of you about the risks of getting your furniture there.

One of my friends purchased her furniture from Malaysia JB last year, she did not check the reputation of the shop but put a deposit after a few walk-ins of the furniture shops. After payment made, she was told the delivery can only be made at the company's convenient time, and her furniture were subsequently separated into a few deliveries, one of it arrived her house after midnight! Till date, she has not received all the furniture she purchased, and when she called the shop, the staff there just didn't bother about her complaints and push the responsibilities away.

When I purchased my furniture from Rustica Taman Molek Branch, the salesgirl did tell me the delivery could not be confirmed yet and it depends on the delivery schedule of the company. It is understandable that the company need to arrange their delivery to minimise the transportation cost, but options should be given to the consumers. Rustica did call me every time they had available delivery, but I had the option to reject when it was not convenient to me, and it was pre-agreed when I placed my deposit. Of course, there are shops that go against their words, thus the important point here is not just what they've promised you, but their REPUTATION as well.

Matters to consider before placing your deposit (may apply to Singapore furniture shops too):
1) The reputation of the company (check out renotalk forum, or see my previous article here)
- How long has the company established? Avoid new company
- Go for those with branches in JB, not only for convenience, but these type of companies have better customer service
- Google the name of the furniture shop, it is easier to see complaints on a company than its compliments. If you see complaints from more than 2 persons, beware.
2) Pricing. Yes, we want a good deal, but we are not cheapskate, check the pricing in Singapore before hunting in JB, and do factor in GST and transportation charge.
3) Some shops absorb the GST, but not all, you may try your luck. Transportation charge can be reduced to RM100 net, or even FOC.
4) Delivery time, make known the deadline to them, place your deposit only if they can commit.
5) Bear in mind that it would be difficult for exchange, you might want to check on this point.

So far, majority of the complaints discussed online are on those small or shops without branches.

Wish you good luck in your furniture hunt!

Thanks to all of you who clicked the advertisements on this page, my adsense account will be sending a cheque to me soon!

Ok, so now I'm going to share my top hung glass door which I 'owe' all of you for a loooong time......
I've previously posted my glass door review here.
Some are interested to find out more about the sliding glass door in my kitchen. It is a top hung glass door, the track looked like this:

The glass door will be hung like this:

With a lower holder like this:


The door is a bit hard to close recently, I suspect something is stuck at the top rail. I find that glass doors are more problematic than normal wooden door and once there's problem the repairing cost is not going to be cheap.

For cost and review do visit my older post on glass door here.
If you're interested on my wooden doors, click here.

My 2 year old girl scribbled on my TV console while I was busy with something. To my horror the scribbles were by pencil and pen and covered a very large area of my TV console. As my TV console was in white glossy laminate, it was extremely obvious!
I couldn't use any strong detergent or rough sponge to wipe the marks for fear that it would scratch the laminate. I tried using tissue paper with a little water but the marks was too stubborn to be removed, while I was almost giving up, I thought of the UIC soft srub which I normally use for washing my stainless steel pots. I use UIC soft scrub to wash my stainless steel pots as it is not a strong cleaning agent and will not scratch the surface of my pots, and now I discovered its usage other than washing the pot, ahah!
I'm surprised that this UIC soft scrub worked extremely well when used to clean my glossy laminate, I just put a small dot (about the size of a 5 cents coin) to the wet tissue paper and wiped across the pen and pencil marks. The marks disappeared with just one wipe, no strength or whatever hard work was needed! I will definitely use it to wipe my glossy laminate in future, especially those cabinets in the kitchen which are oily after the cooking :)
This UIC soft srub can be bought from NTUC at S$1.55 only:

Just been to Metro this morning for the cardmember preview sales, 20% storewide sales and many items are 20%+10% or +20% discount. If you're looking for kitchenware, utensils, bedsheets or even Christmas present, snatch the chance to save cost now!

First of all, let's take a look of my kitchen before the renovation:



Entrance to the backyard:

Not that bad, I was once thinking that no need renovation, but I'm glad that I've revamped it and gave it a new life.

My new kitchen look like this now:


Some pictures of the accessories:



I'll post out the cost of these accessories at the lower part of this article.
One point to note, you may want to consider fixing your powerpoints nearer to the table so that you'll not be seeing all the wires hanging on top of each appliances.

The rice cooker and pot will hide the powerpoint, they're purposely moved aside so that I can show you where the powerpoint is.

If you would like to see my sliding glass door to the backyard and sliding glass door at the entrance of my kitchen, click here.

The costs:
1) Supply and construct walls and floor tiles, cabinet base & patch up 2 door ways $2,800, for quotation on my renovation, click here
2) Top and low cabinets, solid surface, stainless steel backing $$3,375. Click here for my cabinet quote.
3) Rinnai hob and hood $980
4) Baron sink $380
5) Fork and spoon holder $35, Dish rack $75, click here to see my purchase from Royal Fanco.

Base on the above, the total cost to revamp my kitchen is around $7,645, and this does not include cost like hacking the existing tiles and re-wiring cost.
If you were to take into account the cost of those electrical appliances, it would easily hit $10,000!

To me Blum system is not necessary, how many times do you open and close your cabinet?

My only regrets in the kitchen are:
1) Use of black colour solid surface, click here
2) Did not build the base for fridge. The base is around $100-$150, but I did not build it thinking it is unnecessary, some forumner commented the base works as to higher up the fridge, so it'll be easier when you wash your kitchen floor. I thought I would never wash my kitchen floor, thus I did not build the base, but the base does not build just for this reason, it is actually higher up the fridge so the door will not hit on your toes when you open the fridge. Thus, many times my poor toes were hit by the fridge door when I opened it.

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