The Making of Cactus (Part 1)

In march, kevin approached me to discuss on this project. and i saw the artist impression of the shop... it was impressive.. and he ask if i was interested to take it up to create it from paper to something we can see and touch. from then, we cracked out brains on the materials to use, how to build such a massive structures, how to have it flexible enough for changes in the display area etc etc.



Work started in june, from a bare shop, got the electrical wirings up, the air conditioning, the flooring, the roller shutter etc. (Click any of the photos to see a larger version)
Next, it was all the carpentry work to be done at the workshop, massive structures were built up, first it was the display shelves, took up a huge part of my workshop, but looks really nice with all the symmetrical boxy shelves..
The arches at the top of the display section is quite a headache too, had to have it sitting on the display cabinet but not topple over and we need to hide the existing roller shutters in it. actually i find the skeletal frames of arches looking very nice, even before the laminates are up.
Many sleepless nights installing at the shop, can be quite stuffy when they switch off the air con after 10pm.
Wasn't too long when the display section on the 2 sides of the shop was done up, next up will be the lights, the suspended ceiling feature and the runway.

Cactus

It has been a busy month of june. was occipied with a project at marina square, numerous sleepless nights at the shopping centre and after a month of work and many months of planning and discussion, project cactus was completed.

Kevin got me to do up this shop which he and a few of his friends took up, it's a shop where they will rent out the box spaces for anyone who's interested to sell small items. instead of me explaining the concept, maybe you should visit their official site. so when you are at marina sq, remember to drop by cactus @ #03-367 to take a look. i will be posting the process of the renovation soon.. haha

Terminal 3

Yihan went on a trip to new zealand, so me and terry went to the airport to meet him for dinner before he leaves for his holiday, of course we had popeye's, even though the queue is very long... but it's worth the wait, they should expand their counter size.

Before leaving the airport, we took the chance to walk around the new terminal 3, i was really impressed by the glass baricades... the glass panels were really huge, i cannot imagine how they were brought into the building, must have be installed even before the exterior walls were up.. personally i like the use of glass in interior decor, terminal 3 is just fantastic, it really removes the usually structure where transit area is hidden away from the public area, with these glass walls, you can actualy feel yourself in the transit area. I wonder if the boarding experience is different from this terminal, hhmmm when will i have a chance to find out?



I wonder if this weighing mahine is well calibrated.. if it is, then i have to do something about the one i have at home.. cos when i stood onto this one, my weight was 2kg more that that of the one i had at home!!! i have been deceived for the past few years.. it's time to slim down!!.

Current Big Project

Busy with work recently, mainly with this new project
Familiar place? if you have been around commonwealth, queensway area, you would have noticed this building by the road. blessed sacrament church, in the past they display this as damien hall, so some of you, including myself is more familiar with that name.
They just built a new building and needed carpentry work to be done in it.. and i was lucky to have gotten the job!!
Mainly storage cabinets in all the rooms, kitchen cabinet in the common kitchen, and some other carpentry stuffs, i spent quite some time about a month ago drawing out all the required items and looking at the qhole stack of drawings, i actually felt quite proud.. but i know a lot more time will be saved if i knew how to draw with the help of a computer software!! can anyone help? anyone can teach autocad? and also 3d rendering??
We are halfway through the project now and i hope we will complete it by the end of this week, seems a little rush though, at least i hope the majority can be completed. and they need 2 rostrums, anyone came across nice rostrum designs? i need inspiration for simple and elegant looking rostrums, i tried seaching google image but nothing suitable came one.

Final Touches

After a whole week of midnight madness at imm, the place is finally coming to shape6000 sq ft empty place..
lighting got in, ceiling painted white, partition walls errected, walls painted, laminate flooring, ceiling features, roller shutter, entrance facade, storage and display units, products display .. all this in less than 2 weeks!! .. dun you think it's really madness? haha
the place looks so different from when i saw it the first time, with all the vibrant colours in it, it feels as if there's life injected into the once dull and boring place.. now just some final touches before this shop opens for business on sat.. i predict that there will still have some items not ready yet, but business will start cos losing a weekend of business is losing a lot of money.. everything should be all in place by next weekend... remember to drop by and take a look when you are there!!

Colourful Works

Works continue at kids mall...
Items are starting to fall into place, owner wants to be able to open ship this thursday.. which is so impossible!! all we can so is rush all we can.. hopefully it will be ready by next week. with all the colourful items getting into place, the mood is really getting there, colourful life of a kid....

Current Project

It's 4am in the morning, i just got back from work, we are currently renovating a shop at imm. noisy work like drilling and hacking must be carried out after 10pm at night, so i was there with my workers to do out part for the owner to have his shop open as scheduledIf you are a frequent visitor of imm, you might have noticed this shop, it's kids mall! they sell children clothings, toys and daily products. and this new shop is so much bigger then the previous one, this one is nearly 6000 sq ft, that's like 4 times the size of my home!
As you can see, there's a lot more work to be done in order for the shop to start welcoming their customers!! .. i'm foreseeing many late nights for the next week!

Artistic Touchup Part 2

Jl was asking for the end result of the pillar that ripple help me paint some time ago. here it is, before and after..
Before: aluminium strips were used at the edges of the pillar to protect the laminate, so that the laminates won't get peeled off or break easily at the corner.
After: the aluminium strips were painted to look exactly like the laminate design of raw cement. now you cannot see the aluminium strips that obviously and this really feels like a big cemented pillar!!

Artistic Touchup for Hygeia

Went to my customer's place at tampanies with ripple on sun cos i needed her help to touch up on a piller, i needed an aluminiun strip to look as if it's part of a cement wall, and the only way i can think of it to get an artist to draw it .. so here's ripple at what she's pro at.. drawing.. It was quite scary for her (to stand on such a high ladder to reach all the way up to the 3m high ceiling) and for me (worrying that she might not be able to balance well and might fall) during the whole 3 hrs of painting. finally when it was done, the result was fantastic, the owner was so satisfied that he even ask if she's interested to help him paint 4 large paintings to be hung in his house!!
She merely used some newspapers as her palette and a sponge to apply the paint.. i was really impress!! .. Thanks ripple!!

Back to Tampines

A day in town followed by a day in tampines.. today it will be tampines and clarke quay concurrently!!! reno for both places are progressing quite well, most of the things are up already. both places still in quite a mess though..

Yesterday was quite a peaceful day, no hic ups, nothing to get anyone fumming up, work has been carried out quite successfully... customer has got no complains... let's hope that today will be as well too!! looking forward to a nice weekend!
Sorry jl, put aeroplane again and again cos i cannot leave the site, after today should be better...

It's a Busy Working Day Again

Yesterday was another busy day, installation was carried out at the central for js gallery. js is a term that appears quite often in my blog, but this js has no relation to that js in case you think this shop is opened by js.. Work was carried out there till 12am at night.. went there to pick up the workers and end up fuming!! we have a china worker, let's call him wang. the following conversation was carried out in mandarin.

[while packing up the place]
jx: since we didn't bring any broom, sweep all out rubbish into the shop and we'll bring a broom to clean it up tomorrow
wang: no need, just sweep it to the side, it will dissappear even before we come tomorrow
jx: i do not want any complains, sweep it into the shop
wang: [still sweeping it to the side, into another shop's area and ignored jx]
jx: can can understand what i'm talking about? sweep into our shop and we'll clear it tomorrow
wang: [continue to ignore and walked away to a neighbouring shop]
jx: [half fuming] hello, where are you going to?
wang: [walks back with a cardboard box and started to claer the rubbish into the box]
jx: [feeling happy] ok good, later we'll throw it downstairs at the rubbish dump
wang: [finish clearing, take the box back to the shop where he got the box and dump the box there]
jx: hey, how can you just throw our rubbish into another person's shop?
wang: they have lots of rubbish there too
jx: but that's their rubbish, how can you expect them to clear for you? what will you do if others throw their rubbish into your pile of rubbish and you have to clear for them?
wang: aiya, dun bother so much lah, it's late, let's just go.. go ..go

[on the way downstairs]
wang: in this world, there are good and bad people and there are more bad people than good ones.
jx: [very angry] ok then you are choosing to be the majority right? to be a bad person.
wang: [silent]
[downstairs at the road, waiting to cross, red light for pedestrian, the long road was clear]
jx: ok, let's cross
wang: [stand by the road] huh? you crossing? i tot you are a good person, how can you break the law?
jx: !!!!!!!!

any suggestions of how to deal with a person like that?

Super Busy with Work

Have been really busy with work since dec.. a few projects to rush for, all the shops want things up asap so that they can open for business as early as possible... rushing this post brfore going to work now. delivered the cabinets last night till so late that when i was driving home, i was so tired that i missed a few exits, in the end the journey back took so much longer than usual... hai...

If you happen to be in tampanies, do go to telepark #01-01 (hygeia) to take a look... if you are in town, do go to the new shopping centre at clarke quay mrt called the central and take a look at #03-53(js gallery) ... but they won't be ready till next week i guess!!

Here's a peek of hygeia, look at the light at the corner, it's there not to light up the area cos there's already many lights there, it's there for feng shui, that's the wealth spot (cai wei) and there has to be a light shot directly at it.. and auspicious stuffs have been buried in the ground at that spot under the cement on the ground... actually these feng shui stuffs can be quite interesting... will post more when i'm more free... going to work now..

Libing's Room Transformed

Finally decided to post some photos of libing's room, past and present. It has been completed a few weeks ago, but the process was long, because he was always not in singapore.

This was how his room looked like for the past 10 years, and we can see that many things have pilled up in these 10 years, the need to clear things out of the room has helped him with the disposal of old and useless items that had been lying somewhere in the cupboards.

Spent a whole weekend to clear everything out of the cupboards and we disposed off all the old cupboards and bed.
Work started at the factory, the one on the left is his new wardrobe, a super big wardrobe that actually houses the TV as well. The one on the right is the incompleted bed frame.
Installation at the room, see the entertainment section for the TV and his PS? Green curtain just doesn't match right?
Finally, the room is done up and libing's mum gotta switch curtains with him so that his curtain will match the colour scheme of his room..

Got himself a new mattress for the bed too... the next thing to change has gotta be the bedsheet, this one looks like it's from the 90s.

Anyone out there interested to renovate your place? feel free to look for me ok? help me introduce you friends too, if not i no business....haha...

Transformation of a Kitchen

Libing & Liling's place is now under major renovation and for the sake of liling who's overseas, i'll post the photos of their new kitchen...

The above was the kitchen before renovatiom
liling: this should be your last impression of the kitchen right?

everything was removed and new floor tiles were laid, new concrete support for sink was also errected

then the new kitchen cabinet making its way into the empty kitchen

cabinet is up, fitting the doors and drawers, final touch up on the cabinet

waiting for the final touch, the granite table top

presenting to you the new look of the kitchen!!

Difficulties of Renovating a Room

Went over to libing's place to help him with the packing, he's redoing his room, so before i can go tear down the existing fittings, he gotta pack everything in to boxes!! ... HE HAS DAMN A LOT OF COMICS, BOOKS and PHOTO ALBUMS!!!! before we can finish packing, he's already down with the lbr syndrome... haha

So we decided to stop and drove over to salvation army to "donate the old clothes",

Next, it was supper time, we went to this taiwan porridge place opposite beauty world.

please dun go there man!! .. the food is quite ex and not worth it. no wonder we were the only customers for the night. cannot even ask for more sweet potato in the porridge, must pay more... and every bowl of porridge only have a couple of small and pathetic pieces.