Tuesday 5 April 2016

Kids Haven Children's Bed

We went to the Kids Haven at 31 Woodlands Close, Woodlands Horizon, #07-11, Singapore 737855. You will need to call them to confirm the timing.

We were served by Vivien and I think she is the founder for Kids Haven (correct me if I'm wrong). She is knowledgeable and is very patient with us. We were deciding between the loft or the normal bed. As our daughter's room is quite small and we want to create some playing areas for her in the bedroom. The only way to do it is to have a loft bed and create the play area under the bed. However, the bed will be quite high, about 1.5 m above the ground. My daughter has a habit of tossing around the bed and we are afraid that she may fall. But my daughter likes the loft bed and we ordered one for her and also a Hello Kitty canopy. The Hello Kitty canopy is quite new and Vivien has not figured out how to assemble it yet. But we like it so we proceeded to order it.

We ordered on 21 Dec 2015. The item is Victorian Lovely Hearts Loft Bed with Lovely Cottage Canopy (includes rooftop, wall pockets, metal frame and curtains) plus castle curtains. The total cost is $1200. We were told that the leadtime is about 2 to 3 months. We were hoping that the bed can be delivered before the Chinese New Year on 8 Feb 2016.

One day, my daughter fell from our King-size bed. We were worried that she might fall from the loft bed in future. We went back to Kids Haven to change the bed and Vivien was kind enough to let us change it. We made some amendments to the requirements and removed the castle curtains as we didn't have the loft bed. We added in the three drawers under the bed. In the end, the cost is $1100. We had paid a deposit of $600 and the remaining $500 will be paid by interbank transfer.

We waited patiently and luckily my master-room bed is King-size, there is no problem squeezing 3 of us on the bed. The week before CNY, I received a call from Kids Haven that the bed will arrive in 2 weeks' time and will arrange for delivery once they receive them.

However, the Hello Kitty canopy had missing parts which were not delivered to Kids Haven. They had to air-flown the parts in and would take a couple of days. Two workers came to deliver and assemble the bed. We were quite excited and the assembly took quite some times. The finished product is quite good and my daughter loves it very much.

The Hello Kitty canopy arrived after a week and we had to assemble it by ourselves. Luckily, I'm an engineer and it was quite easy. There were 54 poles instead of the 60 poles as mentioned in the instruction guide. Anyway, the instruction guide was quite complicated but to an engineer, it was rather easy to read and understand. Just need to make sure and identify all the poles with the numberings.

However, the connection between the poles will be quite loose and the structure is quite unstable if there is any stress on any pole. It will be better if you can glue or secure the connections.

Bed & Canopy from Kids Haven
Bed & Canopy from Kids Haven

Monday 4 April 2016

Growing grapes in Singapore

I have heard of someone in Singapore who grows grapes successfully. It was reported in Yahoo news last year. I was fascinated about this but I think if you were to grow from seeds, it will take very long or in the worst case, the seeds will never germinate.

Last weekend, I was at the World Farm (aka Hua Hng) and I saw about 10 pots of plants with very faint label. Looking closely at the label, I saw it was written "Grapes $6". I was surprised and inspected the plants. I googled on my iPhone and found that the stem was the grapevine cane.

Grapevine at World Farm
Grapevine at World Farm

It was not very common to find grapevine here in the nurseries. After visiting the farm and selected some pots for my Phalaenopsis orchid, I had decided to buy two pots of the grapevine since there are relatively cheap. I selected the two best ones and quickly went home. It was very hot here, almost 35.6 degrees. Strangely that they didn't have the orchid mix for Phalaenopsis. So, I just have to use the sphagnum moss for the orchid.

I asked the worker about the grapevine and he said that it is green grapes. He said that it needs plenty of sunlight and water, also the fertilizer is quite important. He recommended a 5-5-5 organic fertilizer for the grapevine. The fertilizer is $4 per pack.

I was very excited about this grapevine and hopefully the plants can survive at the balcony. I think I need to make a trellis for the grapevine.

Yes, I had made a DIY trellis for my grapevine to climb. It was very simple to make and I had actually made two versions. For the first version, I had used 5 extendable rods from Daiso (3 rods @ $2). I tied them to make a fence-liked structure and attached it to the pot hanger. The second version was much simpler, I bought garden wirings from Daiso @ $2. It is 3mm in diameter and 1m long. I bent and wrapped it around the hanger to create a fence.

Check out my Instagram @tanbk168 for the DIY Trellis.