Chenggal Shelf

We purchased a piece of Chenggal wood from a scrap yard in Sg Buloh when we were renovating our home. This was an impulse purchase as we did not have any idea on where or how we would want to use it.

To us, when we buy any wood pieces, we look for wood grain, eyes, uneven lines, dents, holes as all these bring characters to the wood piece. You do not want a piece that is 'clean' or straight as it would look like any other piece of wood.

This is what happens sometimes when you buy wood pieces, you will fall in love with it, you will find that the piece is speaking to you. 

Someone offered to buy this piece of wood when we used it as a shelf during one of our bazaar sales.  However, this piece was not leaving us!  Overtime, we changed our minds several times on what this piece of wood would be used for, from making it into a bed-end stool to making it into a table for display and finally after 5 years, we finally decided to use this in our loft for my art studio as a shelf.

The Chenggal wood measures 147cm (length) x 29cm (width) and it fitted nicely onto a wall sandwiched by two windows. P/S : Don't mind the air-conditioning hose!

So handyman Hubby fixed it. He made his own shelf holder as the Chenggal wood was very heavy. Needless to say, I am loving how it turned out. It now holds some of my favourite quotes, my plants and some of my craft items.

Let us know what you think, leave us a comment below. You can also follow us on our IG @urbanwood17

Our DIY Shoe Cabinet - Part 1

Living in a home with 5 people, of which 3 are growing up children, there are bound to be lots of shoes lying around!  Shoes for school, shoes for going out, shoes for sports, shoes for work, shoes for walking and the list goes on ... 

So handyman Daddy made us a shoe cabinet.  One that can keep all our shoes.  It will come with a short bench so that we can sit to put our shoes on and a tall cabinet to put our laundry hangers and pegs and maybe some gardening tools.

The materials used for this cabinet are recycled wood from old kampung (village) houses such as the walls and window frames.  The type of wood are Balau and Chenggal, I don't know what are the English names for these woods.

We will leave you with some photos and will update more when the final project is completed.

The green drawers is where we currently keep our shoes,
one drawer for each family member.

The frame is put in place to confirm the length we want.

One of the cabinet doors in the making.

The skeleton frame of the cabinet.

The side and top of the cabinet is put in place.

The cabinet doors are being fixed.

Furniture Refurbishment ~ We found more Chairs

CRAZY US!

We found more rattan chairs and of course we had to have it! Someone had thrown away six white color rattan chairs.  We took only one as the others were rotting.  

Funny how I have always wanted white rattan chairs and now that I found them, I want to spray them bright lemon yellow, and that is just what I did.  This rattan chair will be used in my craft room.

Brought home two rattan chairs but only one was in good condition.
After spray paint ~ the bright lemon  yellow.

The rattan chair in the midst of being spray painted.

DIY Patio

We love the idea of a cosy patio, where we can have breakfast, tea and entertain families and friends.  A patio surrounded by comfortable furniture, lush green plants and beautiful and colorful flowers.  So when Hubby said that the patio will be up before Christmas, I was excited.  Hats off to Hubby who built the patio from scratch.

The wood that we used for our patio is Chengal wood and it is recycled wood.    We acquired some of the wood from a public playground, where the multiplicity council decided to replace wood with high quality plastic, and some wood were purchased from our regular lumber yard, which were also recycled from old kampung houses.

For the roofing, we will be using roof tiles.  Initially, we were contemplating to use glass sheet or poly carbonate glass.  However, we felt that this would not give us that cosy feeling.  We wanted a resort like feeling, and to match the house so we decide to go for roof tiles.  I will save the story of our roof tiles for another blog post.

So here are the chronicles of our DIY Patio ...

Recycled Chengal wood from a public playground.

Our home before the patio

Wood purchase from our regular lumber yard.
We sanded down and varnished the wood.

Hubby cut the edge of the wood for some design.

The wood cut to shape.

The wood is varnished and will be used as beams.

Here Hubby sets the beam.

Beams all set.

One of the pillars is secured to the wall.

The pillars are up.

Another view of the pillars.

Now the beams go up.

The patio is almost done ...
The roof is covered with roof aluminium sheet.
This will act as a cooling function for the patio.

Recycled and Reused Crate

There are a lot of projects on the internet for recycled crates and pallets.  So we decided to give it a try too. When I saw this crate, I fell in love with it!  I knew exactly it's purpose and where it would fit in our home. A shelf in our laundry area that could hold all our detergents for clothes, dishes and floors.

It was not in prefect condition, we had to change the base and make a few repairs but other than that, this was a pretty easy and fast project.

The condition of the crate when we first brought home.

Love the text at the side of the crate

Had to remove the foam from the box.

Had to remove the remnant of the foam by using a blade.

The crate had to be repaired here and there.

The broken piece.

A little nail and hammer did the job.

The broken based was removed.

Replacing the base with a thin plywood.

Our little laundry area.

It's up! We now have a laundry crate shelf!

The laundry crate shelf with a hook board at the bottom.

The laundry crate shelf now holds all the detergent.

A close up of the hook board.  It was priced at RM29.00 but
because it was missing a hook and the picture a bit torn,
I managed to get it for RM10.00 AND I suppose
it's a blessing in disguise as the 'missing' hook
is missing at the right place because of the plug point. 

Recycled and Reused Dining Bench

The two Dining Benches for our Dining table is another project that Hubby did.  The bench is made out of Kempas Wood and the legs are made out of two single 2ft louver.  The bench itself is about 7ft long and can easily sit 3 adults.  So our Dining table has two chairs on each end and the two dining benches on the left and right.

These louvers are from old colonial bungalows which was built circa 1880s.  It would therefore make these louvers about 100+ years old.  Kudos to Hubby who comes up with these creative and innovative ideas.  Who would have thought of  making louvers as bench legs.

You can read more about the louvers that we made as an air-conditioning compressor cover in my other blog post here

Like all other wood projects, we had to clean, scrape and sand down the wood.  Once all this is done, these woods were given a chemical treatment.  We would normally varnish our woods but for these benches, we have decided to leave it with it's natural wood color.

One of the four 2ft louvers that we bought

A close up of the louver with it's before clean up condition

Another one of the four louvers

Child labour? Nah ... they just love scraping the old paint out!

Left : A 'clean-up' louver
Right : Paint scraped out and waiting to sand down

Fixing the louvers to the bench

A close up of the wood and the louvers

For extra support and for decorative purpose,
we used the Ikea bracket for shelves 

Completed : The dining bench with louvers as it's legs

The Dining Bench in use!

Recycled and Reused Louvers

For this blog post, I will be taking a detour from the House Tour and would like to share with you on some of the wood projects that we have been up to.

Hubby had his eyes set on some louvers that we saw at a lumber yard that recycles old wood items like doors, windows and woods.  These louvers are made out of Chengal wood and is easily about 100 over years old.  Just lifting a 2ft Chengal louver is heavy enough!

What is a louver you ask?  Well, according to Wikipedia, a louver (American English) or louver (British English) is a window blind or shutter with horizontal slats that are angled to admit light and air, but to keep out rain, direct sunshine and noise.  The angle of the slats may be adjustable, usually in blinds and windows or fixed.

In Malaysia, you can find louvers in old colonial houses like those in Kuala Lumpur, Penang & Ipoh.  However, in newer houses, you'll not find them anymore as modern louvers (if any) will be made out of metal.

So Hubby had this idea of covering the air-conditioning compressor area with the 4ft louver we purchased.  He also had the idea of making the smaller louvers as bench legs which were 2ft each for our dinning bench.

An old colonial house with the louvers above the window shutters

Another picture of the colonial louvers

We were deciding on which louvers to choose.
Initially we thought of the louver lying on the floor with the hold in
middle.  We thought of adding in a Nyonya glass but decided against it
as it would be too much work to do.

So in the end we decided on this louver, 4ft and perfect
for the air-conditioning compressor area.

This is the louver that we bought for the air-conditioning compressor area.

Once we brought it home, we had to take out the planks,
sand each one down as well as the frame.

The planks which had about three or four coats of paints over the years.

After sanding down the frame, hubby varnished the frame
and gave it some chemical treatment.

In the end, this is the varnish color that we choose. 

The planks were also varnished and fitted back.

Here is Hubby fixing the louvers onto the air-conditioning compressor area.

Before : The air-conditioning compressor area is empty and open.

After : The air-conditioning compressor area is now covered up with the
beautiful restored and recycled louver.

After : Another after picture of the facade.