The Slipper Chair Project

This is something I've been wanting to do since I came to Canada. Having spent countless hours watching HGTV during my first few months in this new land, I was swept away by the slew of shows out in cable TVland that would help you DIY just about anything. Sarah Richardson and the Designer Guys found old furniture and in five TV-minutes, covered, nailed and stained and voila! furniture completely redone, revived and reborn into a gorgeous must-have.

A couple of months ago, I was out indulging in my favourite new passion: thrift-shopping and stumbled upon the perfect candidate for my first real re-upholstery job. It was an orange slipper chair stacked on top of a jumble of other chairs in the Lion's Club Thrift Store in Duncan. There wasn't a price on it so I asked. "It's $10" the lady said, "but if you like, we'll sell it for $8." I said that I liked. And she said, "in that case, we'll carry it out to your car (and in this case, my friend Emma-Louise's stationwagon) for you." A bargain, I'd say.
I finally got my act together last month, in Victoria, and forked out $45 for a whole meter of thick upholstery fabric from Chintz & Co, being too much of a skinflint to buy a half meter more.
And, I know you must have guessed by now, I was half a meter short. Sigh.But I soldiered on with my recovering and the pictures show the result.
The process was pretty easy, using the existing covers as templates for cutting the new fabric. The original piping was in pretty good nick, so that was reused and this project gave me a good excuse to buy and learn how to make fabric covered buttons.




I'm not too happy with the temporary brown fabric covering the back of the chair, but the next time I see the right half meter, I am so buying it.

Every Girl Needs a Little Fountain

The sound of flowing water, especially when you live in a busy, bustling,noisy city can give surprising comfort. Maybe it's something to do with the feng shui of having energy made moving by the trickling water. Maybe it's a gentle reminder of the visceral simplicity of being in nature where the body just knows how to relax.

I worked in a wonderful tropical spa on the beautiful island of Bintan for quite a few years before I came to live in BC. In and around this spa were many places where water flowed. From tilted jars made of volcanic rock to large jars overflowing in a symphony of trickles and splashes. It made the plants look lush and helped the over-wrought people who came to the spa chill and thoroughly relax.

Methinks, I was gonna have me one of them water features.

If I were back in Singapore, I'd know where to get one. The Nature Company was the place where the spa used to get all her water features. They have all sorts. From the rustic to the modern to the air-spritzing kind. In fact, for the cost-conscious, they even have simple DIY instructions where all you need to do is to buy the components to build your own little water feature.

But since I'm now living in DIY country. I had to make one on my own. Also, to get someone else to do it would cost an arm & a leg. And then how could I go on crafting? Nothing for it then but to scope out the rock suppliers and garden shops.

My main problem was where would I get the reservoir big enough to hold the water? Since my water feature was on above ground on a balcony I couldn't dig and in ground reservoir. Custom fiberglass containers were priced ridiculously out of range, and most rectangular containers had sides that were too high. Finally, the demon cat came to the rescue. Her litter tray was, why, it was just the perfect size. Ok, I'm not that gross to use her litter tray as my reservoir, but the pet shop down the road had one just like it.

Next step was to choose something from which the water would spout. An object d'art as my favourite City Gardener, Matt James says at least twice an episode. And I'd the perfect thing. An old clay urn I'd found in a deserted fisher hut on the east coast of Malaysia, which I'd lugged home to Singapore and subsequently brought to Canada.


Drilling a hole in its bottom was a heart attack and a half. I'd never done any delicate drilling before! What if I drilled and then cracked it? Breath held tight, heart beating at full gallop, I proceeded. The gods must have been in a good mood that afternoon because it was a hole in one.


Hoses fixed to a pump & into the urn. Bricks around the reservoir, plants placed to soften the hard edges and river rock in the urn to moderate the fountain. And there you have it. Some flowing shui to go with the whipping feng in this wild west coast .

But more than that. It gives me a small sense of being able to make a thought, and idea, a feeling see the light of day.

And that is a good feeling.