About Oak, again .. Written by : Reiki Sanctuary Date : Sunday, June 22, 2008

We have decided to drop off the idea of having oak wood for all the bedrooms floor.  After considering the yellowish-orangey matured colour change of oak, and most temperate woods such as ash and maple, we decided to go for a tropical wood Teak instead.

We do like oak cos it is real hard wood, nice and light.  We are in favour of wood of a lighter shade as it will make the bedrooms brighter and spacious. This is an important criteria, other than providing the bedrooms a wood cozy feeling which we both like, we do not want to turn the rooms dark.

Oak before it matures [if only it will stay this forever]:

Solid oak

As teak is a tropical wood mainly native to India, Burma, Thailand, Indochina and Indonesia, Chiauw feels that there will be consistency and non drastic in the colour change down the years.  It will not be as yellow-orange as compared to temperate woods.

The matured colour of oak under our local temperature - which is too much for us:

Oak Matured Colour 2

We will settle for teak.  Guess the next question will it be Indonesian or Burmese teak.  As opposed to lay the longer strip, we will opt for the shorter ones as to keep the smaller uniformity of the different teak shades and grains.  Teaks have different machined showing blotches and streaks of various shades with straight grain, sometimes wavy and texture coarse and uneven ring porous.

Therefore, the wide spectrum of teak with smaller stripes is evenly dispensed.  We intend to keep the floor semi matte.

A picture taken from a friend's place with semi-matte teak - short stripes:

Teak wood 1

[PS:  It is not so dark as we saw it.]

Though we feel that teak may be a little dark for our liking, it would be a better choice in the long run.  Guess, we can only hope for the best.

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.. to The Drawing Board 7 Written by : Reiki Sanctuary Date : Friday, June 13, 2008

I had a long telephone conversation with Chiauw yesterday.  We both felt that there's a lot of detail that needs to be finalized:

01.  The purchase of the island cooker hood
02.  The choice of inner fire cooker hob or an induction cookertop or just an ordinary two burner
03.  The placement, and number of units, of electrical power plugs for the whole house
04.  The confirmed orders for plumbing and sanitary wares
05.  The placement for the cylinder gas
06.  The placement for tank heater
07.  The choiced tiles for kitchen, kitchen toilet and MBR toilet
08.  The choiced timber wood
09.  The inner wardrobe structure for WiW, study area and Guests' room
10.  The wall - colour
11.  The ceiling lightings
12.  The lights switches
13.  The bed frame
14.  The design of suspended TV console - Living and MBR
15.  The tender
16.  The work permit application
etc
etc
etc

We are resuming our weekly meeting this Saturday.  We are looking forward to it.

The Wood Area:

So, we decided to look into the wood samples and narrowed down on our choice.  Hopefully, Chiauw will guide us when we see her tomorrow.

Designated Wood Area

And the choices of wood:

Wood01

Wood03

Wood08

Our preferred choice:

01.  Wood 1
02.  Wood 8
03.  Wood 3

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Wood, wood and more wood Written by : Reiki Sanctuary Date : Sunday, May 18, 2008

*Mirror, mirror on the wall,
let the beauty speak
let it adorn .. "

Day after day, we have been looking at the woods sample and still we can't decide the right one.  As Chiauw suggested, we moist the wood to give it near to its varnished finish.

Wanna help me out?

The wood area in the house:

2D Wood Area

Wood01

Wood02

Wood03

Wood04

Wood05

Wood06

Wood07

Wood08

Wood09

Wood10

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Shopping - Headache no. 4 Written by : Reiki Sanctuary Date : Sunday, May 11, 2008

The sample of woods that Chiauw wants us to 'feel' and choose.  We are surprised with the many choices of light coloured wood.  Chiauw didn't want to pass us the dark wood samples as not to confuse us further.

Each has different depth.

Wood Not Vanished

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