I’m back for a bit of a break after the moving and sorting and cleaning madness. Moving house is hard work!

When we got our keys for our first HDB, we thought we would love to DIY and reuse as many items as we can get. That is harder than you think in Singapore. First of all, our houses are tiny so you can’t have a work shed or garage to play around with big boy tools like saws and drills. Secondly, our building code laws are pretty strict. For the unlicensed DIY crafter, you can’t drill or nail wherever you like and you need a license for construction work.

That said, that didn’t stop us from trying to make things out of nothing for that personal touch and character. Finding time to do it was another ball game altogether. There’s just so much to do when you move so it was a few weeks before I can finish these long-awaiting projects.

DIY Office Chairs out of Car Seats

This was a rash decision on our part. Our old Nissan Latio was of a ripe old age and in line for the scrap yard. Out of the blue I decided that we have to keep the seats from the car and make some seating out of it. So we did.

The seats were extremely heavy. The passenger seat was around 20kg and the driver’s seat was even worse. However even after 10 years, they were in very good condition as they are made of real leather and we kept the car clean all the time.

In order to turn them into office chairs, we had to take apart our old office chairs. It was worth the effort though after seeing it all together!

Most of the materials were recycled or reused and we didn’t spend too much. In the end, we spent less than $60 altogether (the labour cost to pay a mechanic to take the chairs out was bulk of it) and we ended up with comfortable real leather office chairs that might last another 10 years!

DIY Bedside Lamps

Inspiration strikes again! For most DIY projects around my house, they were never planned.

So I saw these old tea tin cans at Hock Siong (see post here) and they look like lamp shades! I mean, don’t they?

Yeah maybe I’m weird.

At least I have a husband who can help turn my crazy ideas into reality. In the end, I think I am the only person in the world with bedside lamps like this. (The cool black horse heads were given by my dad who got them while travelling in Germany.)

It is two projects done so far and it’s just only been a month! And you can bet many are coming along the way and I’ll just update this post as I go along.