Knick Knacks for your space.

"Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker"
-Thomas Watson

Monday, July 22, 2013

Decor Knick Knacks- The Story

I have a sudden inspiration.

To sell beautiful, interesting things (that I love and I think you will love too?!) to have in our homes , which are so H-A-R-D to find in one place in Singapore! *Roars!

What are those things? And Why??

Home Decor Knick-Knacks! 

Definition of Knick Knack: knick-knacknick-nack [ˈnɪkˌnæk]
n
1. a cheap ornament; trinket
2. an ornamental article of furniture, dress, etc.
[by reduplication from knack, in obsolete sense: toy]

I think this word aptly describes my new selling inspiration. They are like toys I love love LOVE!

Im naming it: 
"My Knick Knack Decors"

YES! it's up and you can

Start Shopping at: 
www.facebook.com/myknicknackdecors

ok sorry, maybe it's a little empty now. I promise to add in awesome stuffs very soon!

The story:
I recently got a new place with my fiance. Being the 'Arty Farty' sucker for beautiful and interesting things, I wanted a unique decor, somewhat resembling artistic cafe styles for our home. Fiance included, even though he is not the arty type.

We totally refuse as much as we can help it, to conform to boring Singapore's typical home Renovation styles!
White washed walls
Boring kitchen block cabinets
Dowdy furniture
Ugly bathrooms

WE DECIDED THAT WE WILL BE OUR OWN DESIGNERS FOR OUR HOME.
*(This poses a new set of problems with two different individuals with very different styles having to compromise with HUGE reluctance)

Well, to give some credit, Singapore does indeed have better interior designers now, to up the standards of our lovely homes. AND of course they do not come cheap.
However much unique we would like our home to be, sometimes there exists constraints like one-stop crafters, who can actually understand the illogical designs coming from amateurs like 'us' or budget constraints we face if we use 'professional interior designers'

TO SUMMARIZE me thinks:
Singaporeans are too conformed to a certain 'type' of correctness in most things, and in this case, I'm referring to the design and concepts mindset. Cause in Singapore, we have an abundance of serious corporate workers and a BIG lack of good craftsmen.

For e.g Fiance has difficulty finding a good carpenter to fix our L-shaped design wardrobe.
And apparently kitchen doors are all flat design offered by contractors. I really love the doors that Ikea has, with border embossed trimming around. (Ikea's wood are not as lasting that's why we aborted the idea)

Apparently, external carpenters do not produce these kind of doors on the mass, only by customization.
I guess there is a lack of demand for these. BUT WHY??? To the extreme that we are only left with only one door design option for so many homes???! (BUT I DO KEEP SEEING THESE DESIGNS ELSEWHERE IN THE WORLD)

*YES! IN THE END I HAD TO COMPROMISE cause I'm the anal one on the doors! :(

MANY have NO idea that it really takes a slightly different PERSPECTIVE to SLIGHTLY twitch things around to create a New Design. Which is perfectly OK if many do not see it but to accept this little twitch of brilliance is ALSO DIFFICULT??!! I think too much strict studying has indeed fried our brains.....

I'm not an interior designer but I would say I think out of the box sometimes and would consider myself to be a fairly artistic person. I enjoy these imagination processes going through my peanut brain.

SO, being just fairly artistic, I thought to put 1 simple fixture + 1 simple fixture = 1 cool interesting fixture.
I want an interesting window mirror for my work room.
Simple framing + simple mirror glass= Cool window mirror. RIGHT?
I mean like; how difficult can finding one from Singapore be?

WRONG: I couldn't find any suitable one AT ALL. I do not even have any other options.
I saw one in a home decor shop (which is too big and dissected by too many frames) but that's about it. Nothing else.

-I (have to) and will ship one from overseas.

Next:
Paintworks

We want a 2 block horizontal colour paint for the whole house and pink striped candy cane wall paper for my work room.

Apparently, painters don't do this often and cannot guarantee a very straight line. I don't mind tiny wiggles and a less than perfect straight line. As long it looks OK from a distance. (In the end we will take the risk and go ahead. I'll touch up any overly imperfections myself )
But the point is: Why is 2 colour painting so rare????? I'm not even talking about mural paintings or graffiti art!

And you know what's the funniest part???!! I COULDN'T FIND MUCH SIMPLE STRIPED PINK wallpaper at  the supposedly wallpaper companies. You would think stripes are common, compared to those complicated intricate designs. BUT NO.

I only found 2 at Goodrich which falls under the kids design. (They have simple black and white, green and white, gold and white, blue and white under their normal category BUT no pink and white??!!) and none of the 3 other companies I went has it. I give up. I'm probably settling for the pretty pink and white with blue candy trimmings, kiddy style.

So when I finally make my final choice to pick Goodrich, something unexpected came up;
It's really strange how putting up wallpaper can be such a chore/hassle/trouble.

It is getting on my nerves on how restricted the designs choices (which I thought is the simplest possible) when I already know what I like (in stripes!) and yet so many don't have it?!
And when I finally decide to use one of the biggest company who has my type of design, they tell me my wall has to be coated with ONLY water based sealer and that it has to be plastered.

Why? 

Cause they only have water based glue. WTF. NOT EVERYBODY has got so much extra funds to fit to your criteria like plastering walls and doing all the extras which I seriously don't think it is a definite pre-requisite of wallpapering.
WHAT WITH technology SO F advanced that WE create NEW AMAZING INVENTIONS to cut inconvenience.

Its like telling me, in my beauty profession terms:
You've GOT to have good skin and nice features so then the makeup will definitely look great on you. So in order to achieve that, I'm afraid there is only plastic surgery. Otherwise i cannot guarantee you??!!!!!

IM LIKE DUH???!!!!

So I had to do my homework ONLINE (I love google) just to bust the myth and understand if indeed there really IS only ONE type of ideal wall glue and that is ONLY water based.

HELL NOPE! I read that there are PRIMERS easily available to help glue adhesion. ARrrGHHH!!!!


As much as having this much determination to break out of the typical home designs, it can sometimes be unavoidable. Because of this scarcity, we really do have to make do with the bare basic fixtures one has got to have in the home.

So therefore, this new knick knack business just came into my head where I thought I could help source for really cool and interesting home decor knick knacks in this highly deprived part of the world; Singapore, to add the extra flavour to your home!

JUST LET YOUR IMAGINATION FLY. No rules, No limitations, No boundaries.

No comments: