What I Buy When I Travel

I have a long-term love affair with all things fragile and breakable when I travel. There is never one trip where I do not come home lugging back some glassware or china. Why can't I love wood or plastic? That would make life so much easier! 

I love the look of mismatched china, I love drinking out of tea cups and saucers, particularly vintage ones, I love laying out my sweets and savouries on cake platters and stands. And I like eating and drinking tea a lot. I love taking afternoon tea. I love having tea parties at my house. I guess that explains a lot!

Work In Progress

We have been in our little flat for almost 3 years now, it's a cliche but time does fly. Our renovation and upgrading works thus far were:-

a. before moving in, basic and minor renovations - we were very eager to move into our own place!
b. about 1 year + upon moving in, upgraded shower fixtures and replaced the sink in the common bathroom. We had also replaced the stove from the stainless steel one to a glass one and repainted our kitchen cabinet doors from a plain pine to a baby blue and changed the handles. Finally hung up the 2 mid-century space ship lamps purchased online from Holland.
c. very recently, hung up more artworks and created a sorta salon wall with smaller pictures in the living room (I say "sorta" because they were under threat of removal by the Boy but I think they work and he's left them alone since).

However the one area that always felt neglected to me was our bedroom. We finally put double-glazing in and wooden blinds and that improved our sleep quality. But apart from that, we hadn't done much. The space (bedroom cum office) was functional but soulless. We have a couple of nice vintage furniture in it but that still didn't do anything for the room.

So this time round, we are focusing on our bedroom cum office. We will finally:-

a. get rid of the much-hated platform parquet floor in the office area, legacy of the last owner. It was a dumb, impractical feature but we kept it because of the speed we needed to move in 3 years ago. We made it more practical by switching the sleep and work areas, so you don't fall over the platform stumbling from your bed to the en-suite loo in the middle of the night. 

b. flatten the indentation in the 2 big end walls and make them into feature walls. I am the creative director for the bedroom area while the Boy is responsible for the office. Dark, heavy drapes will divide the 2 areas. We will be laying wooden floors on the newly-leveled surface. 

c. hack the wall separating the bedroom/office from the rest of the house, opening up the space. We will however be putting in a sliding door to block off the private space from the dining/living rooms when needed.

So we are now awaiting the contractor's quotation before we give the go ahead and I am excited to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel and have a bedroom which says style rather than just function.

About Shanghai

  There are a few things I really like about Shanghai on our recent trip. Normally work trips to Shanghai are an in-and-out affair. But this time, we combined it with a weekend since both G and I were coincidentally there the same week for work.  

So my love for Chinese calligraphy and painting combined with a dress into wearable art. Here beautiful lotuses handpainted on a charcoal grey linen dress, the cut is simple and doesn't need much more when you have art. Oh yes and that's Snowy peeking out, he is my usual travel companion because he is small, cute and compact. He's not too pleased to be seen in a dress though...

 
 The little individual shops in Shanghai are a delight. As I always say, a mall is a mall is a mall. No matter where you go. Hence I try to avoid malls and hit the little individual shops. This was a Chinese teahouse on an old Shanghainese street. We were slghtly doubtful that it was actually a teahouse because it did appear too funky and modernised and (especially because) it had that capitvating mural of dollies in cheongsams.

 Architecture in Shanghai is an amazing affair. Taller, higher, shinier! The modern buildings are pretty awesome but the old Shanghainese buildings are as interesting if not more. I have walked down the Bund admiring the beautiful colonial buildings, and stopped to read every plaque affixed, telling its history. But this was my first time to the French Concession area which boasts also of the largest concentration of Art Deco buildings. Lovely.

 Cool little bars and cafes on this hip little street we tried so hard to find, and were almost giving up after much "discussion". Yong Kang Road is where all the white people congregate. On that street, you can almost believe you aren't in China. This little bar, with its vintage interior and very clever use of repurposed, upcycled egg cartons for papering over the ceiling for acoustics and aethestics, vintage luggages propping up the bar, definitely won us over easily.

 A slice of local life, unpretentious, every day living is always interesting to the outsider looking in, even for a brief moment. Here, residents set up little folding tables and chairs and pass time playing a game of Chinese chess. Others sit or stand around observing, as with this man probably mulling over a move. You see sights like middle-aged men with their singlets rolled up above their bellies sitting around in easy chairs on the pavement outside their houses. I think that is their strategy for keeping cool. Isn't this fun?

Finally, we close with a dress since we started with a dress. Shanghainese tailors are renowned for their skills. The fabric market is another wonderful place to spend many hours, wandering around, fingering beautiful fabrics, flipping through design books, talking to the shopkeepers and tailors. For the price of an off-the-rack shirt or dress at home, you can get gorgeous, tailored outfits. You just need to ensure you have enough time to try, give clear instructions, check the finished outfit, wait for revisions and then you will be the best-dressed person amongst your friends when you get home.

Shanghai - we will definitely be back for another leisurely trip.

Exotic Skins - From Hate To Love

 I firmly believe it is a sign of old age when one starts appreciating exotic skin and prints like snake, crocodile, leopard and tiger. When one was young, one avoids these like the plague, but suddenly you get to a certain age, something comes over you and you just develop a love or even an obsession for them literally overnight, with no warning symptoms whatsoever.

Mine hit me about 3 years ago when an obsession just overcame me and I spent nights surfing online shops for exotic skin bags and shoes. This really roomy clutch (snake I think) was procured from Rozelle Markets in Sydney. I had lost out on another clutch to my friend, C who had seen it first and with the laws of shopping, whoever has their claws on the item, gets first dibs on them until they relinquish it. C did not relinquish and so you snooze, you lose. Hence when I spied this clutch on a subsequent trip to Rozelle with C, I grabbed this immediately. And I use it all the time now.

 And then when I was in a departmental store, I heard these 2 pairs of snake skin shoes call out to me. It didn't matter that they were BOTH a size too small for me. I let myself be convinced by the salesgirl that "leather will stretch". I kinda forgot that even if leather stretches, it stretches sideways to become broader. It is virtually impossible to stretch LONGER. Why I didn't realise that then and also for the next few months as I squeeze my feet into these shoes, hoping for the day they will suddenly stretch to fit, will come quickly. My sister, a government scholar pointed that fact out to me recently, it didn't occur to me for some reason, perhaps I was in denial. I don't think the fact that one of us was awarded a scholarship alluded to intellect. But with this realisation, I think I have to let them go.

I drooled over this little 1950s lizard skin handbag for months before I actually purchased it online. It wasn't cheap and I was telling myself that I was buying it for my online vintage business while secretly wanting it for myself. So I needed to turn a profit on that and like I said, it wasn't cheap. But I finally bought it and it was as lovely as it looked online.

So do you agree that it is a sign of old age when one suddenly develops this exotic skin fetish - almost like a from hate to love type of story?

Millionaire In The Making

Bought my first Singapore Sweep ticket in a long time, it now costs $3, I think the last time I bought one it might have been $2, a 33.33% increase. I think it might have been 15 years ago or more! Anyway this one has a picture of the General Post Office which is now the Fullerton Hotel on it. I have always felt that this was one refurbishment of an old heritage building which was well-done. But I digress. So maybe by mid-week I would be a millionaire.

System For Hanging Art

We deliberately decided to have no window dressing for our windows in the living room. These windows open into the common corridor and we don't usually open them for privacy reasons although I do like to keep the door open for circulation and neighbours invariably look in (and sometimes gawk) as they walk by. Besides we tell ourselves the mid-Century style room has no window dressing and we are keeping in line.

Anyway today I picked up 3 little abstract paintings of oil on linen by Singaporean artist, Tay Lay Leng and had a brainwave that I could actually use the window grills as a display system, using S-hooks and hooking the artworks on them. They could be easily moved around and changed. Bigger, heavier pieces could also be hung this way. Now why didn't I think of this earlier?!

Mum's Vintage Hoarding

My mum is a hoarder. Hence I was exposed to a lot of vintage stuff (they were just old when I was a child as they hadn't passed the 30 year mark of qualifying as vintage then) since I was a child. I remember playing dress-up with a very flouncy, layered petticoat, pretending that I was a Moulin Rouge showgirl doing the can-can dance. I also remember playing with this wire box-purse and had quite forgotten about its existence till I saw a similar bag online and asked mum if she still had hers (why wouldn't she?). But I was really happy and grateful when she found it, and easily too.

Mum kept my first swim suit, a faded green suit with black geometric prints, I remember wearing that to swim at Yan Kit swimming pool, the first swimming pool in Singapore. Now when I hold the little doll-like suit in my hands, I feel how different the material is compared to the softer, smoother fabric they use nowadays.

She also kept a few of her 1960s mini dresses, I love her drop waist green and black dress and her orange scooter dress. She also kept the spangley vest she made herself and she also made me a little dress in the same fabric. I am sure I remember that dress to be too prickly and pokey to be comfortable, but I wish I had that little dress now. Mum's mini dresses were so short I don't know how women those times kept their modesty. Perhaps they walked very daintily and didn't raise their hands and sat with their legs crossed all the time.

All I have been wishing is that she finds my very first watch. It was a Mickey Mouse watch with a red strap, Mickey's hands were the hands of the watch and she bought it for me when I started Primary One. I love that watch and I am sure being the hoarder she is, she would have kept it but that it has been misplaced somewhere and will pop up one day...

Lack Of Superficiality

I am such a deep and unsuperficial person. OK not completely true but I must say the picture of the 1970s book case here will evidence my lack of superficiality. This is a heavy wood book case, not sure if it is teak but it sure is heavy. The finish is really bad with remnants of magazine covers stuck. The top has a veneer that is peeling off.

But we were looking for a book case, preferably vintage, but were also considering an Ikea one which turns out to be way too HUGE. This one cost us all of $30, it fitted into the car so no extra transport costs needed and seems like a good size for what we need. We figured we could easily make it more presentable by peeling off the top veneer. The rest of the paint needs to be stripped off and when we get to the bare wood, we could decide what we want to do with it.

G is now saying that we don't have to strip the paint, just give it a wipe and put books on it. At most give it a lick of paint. That's how unsuperficial we are.

Soup Goes With Bread

Soup goes with bread without saying of course. After resolving to put my new Le Creuset dutch oven to good use soon, I was thinking of making soup to go with it and invite some ladies over for Saturday lunch soon. A very simple yet healthy lunch of rustic home-made bread with carrot and ginger soup perhaps with a dollop of sour cream.

So when I found these 6 vintage little soup/rice bowls with the much sought-after local bunga lallang motif, I was really chuffed. I only have 4 Japanese soup bowls at the moment, 2 were lovely wooden lacquer ones which were a wedding gift from a Japanese-Australian friend, while I bought the other 2 plastic/mock lacquer ones from Daiso to make up the numbers for when we have guests. Now the stars are all aligned for me to get started on the home-made soup and bread-making with this half a dozen soup bowls. No more excuses.

Vintage Treasure Hunter Now Also Seller

I have a new interest which has stemmed from an old interest. Together with my partner in grime, K, we started an online business for all things vintage in March and have started selling retro, vintage furniture, glasses, ceramics, jewellery, bags and other household items through our blog and also our Facebook page. I used to be a buyer and a collector, now I am also a seller. We are really excited to get our new name cards today! Thanks to my talented designer/artist husband for designing them for us.

As I Walked Away

Recently I have been even more active than usual in my pursuit of all things vintage. I have ventured into trying to start a very tiny online business with my partner-in-grime, K to buy and sell retro furniture and also our existing vintage treasures. For me, this means all my ceramics, glassware and kitchenalia lovingly collected over the last 5 years, especially during my time in Australia.

We have been inspired to scour all sources for retro furniture and this petite mid-Century dresser with beautiful pencil legs and mirror intact was spotted on the kerb. I stood there for some time wondering if I could somehow conjure up some form of transportation to whisk it home with me. After running through various options, I figured it would have to be a small removalist van and then I would have to spend money to restore it even though it did not look like too big a job as it was in pretty good condition and all that it needs, is probably new formica put in. But practicality overtook my sense of entrepreneurship. No (easy and free) transport, no storage space, and money and time required for restoration. So I nix the idea of picking up this lovely kerb find for myself.

I looked through my phone book to try to find the contact for the folks who are in the business to give them a tip about this little baby so that they could pick it up, restore it and sell it for a big profit. But somehow that number was not in my phone book. So it was somewhat fated that I had to leave this gorgeous little number sitting forlornly on the kerb as I slowly and reluctantly walked away from it.

Artistic Piles Of Books

We have books sitting in piles along a wall in the home office. According to Apartment Therapy, that is an acceptable way of displaying one's books. Well, all right if the decor experts say so. But I am still looking for a nice retro bookcase.

Today, we went to Likethatone and I saw a few that I like. The one at the

top of my list is technically not a bookcase. I am feeling a bit ambivalent about the tin panel which has replaced the original glass because the glass was a goner. I like the art deco curves and the legs. But G is not in favour as it is not a bookcase.

The second one is my favourite amongst the actual bookcases. The glass keeps dust off the books. But G tells me that in his world, bookcases do not have glass! If there is glass, it becomes a cabinet. He is happy leaving our books in artistic piles on the floor.

As none of them has evoked in me, the "I must have it" feeling, I think I shall wait a little.

Our Retro Armchairs - Second Lease Of Life

Some months ago, we got inspired by an exact same armchair we saw in one of my fave rehabbed furniture shops. Mum has offered me her two 1960's teak armchairs with the sad and tired lumpy cushions. I never thought much about those "ugly chairs" until recently. Wow, there is a lot of life in these chairs once you give them a wipe down, a light sanding and a polish. Then get some new cushions made with snazzy fabric.

I checked out people who could do the sand and polish job and found a man who would do them for $50 a chair. Next we checked out cushion makers and cushion cover makes. These cost an awful lot for really boring fabric. We then decided we would outsource the job across the border, actually quite far up north up the border, to Penang actually. It helped that we have got relatives who were resourceful and knew where to get everything and anything. They found us a cushion maker and a seamstress and with the exchange rate so favourable, we saved about 50% by getting these done in Penang. We bought the fabric we like from Ikea, had them brought over by a cousin who was in Singapore on holidays, with the exact measurements and hand-drawn instructions. Then voila! They were made in a few weeks' time.

Collecting them took a bit longer. We had to wait for our next trip to Penang because the 4 cushions were heavy and no relatives were driving out to Singapore. In any case, as we haven't got the chairs transported over to our new place, we didn't really need the cushions yet. We finally collected them last month while on holiday. Today we finally completed the second part of our move and the movers brought the rest of our stuff over from mum's place. It wasn't as much as we feared.

The cushions finally met the armchairs. All was well. We are happy.

My Etsy Obsession

I've been nursing an Etsy obsession for the longest time but it seems recently that I've been more obsessed than normal. I don't know what it is, maybe it's because I'm moving to a new job in a week's time and it heralds in a whole new horizon. So I think I should be getting more new (vintage - yes irony observed) stuff. Or maybe it's because I'll be earning a wee bit more money so I should treat myself a little. And whatever the reason, I just love Etsy and have been trawling for leather clutches, any other bags and the occasional vintage jewellery.

My current top faves are the 1960s brown carpet bag and the baby blue Samsonite carry-on bag (the one that is slung on the model's shoulder below).

I am still looking for a leather clutch that really speaks to me. And oh, I want a vintage bowling bag too. Why, I do not know and I guess that doesn't really matter, does it?

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade bobogal.etsy.com