My master bathroom

The master bathroom in our new house comes with a double sink, so we wanted to have a large mirror that is wide enough for both me and Pei Chyi to use at the same time. After looking at countless bathroom accessory shops, getting quotes for custom mirrors we decided that we would settle for the IKEA HOVET mirror.

The HOVET mirror is a beautiful thing with a sleek aluminum frame, and is suitable for use in high-humidity areas like a bathroom. Perfect! At RM349 it was still cheaper than a custom mirror too. So we purchased the mirror and had it delivered.

When it arrived we admired it and were so excited that we were going to have such a big mirror in our bathroom. Because you know, it’s huge!. So big in fact, that it was too wide for our bathroom. Facepalm!

Earlier this month I was invited to a behind the scenes tour at IKEA Malaysia. This was part of their blogger program me which I was invited to be part of as well. The picture above was taken at their very cool office. See more on their Facebook page. I also learnt some cool facts – IKEA Malaysia sells 590,000 meatballs and 300,000 curry puffs each month. Mind boggling!

There are a few brands that I would gladly associate myself with without hesitation. The first would be Apple – no surprises there. I also really love WordPress. And the other brand on this very short list would be IKEA.

The first major piece of furniture I bought was from IKEA. Incidentally, this TOMEILILA sofa is still in great shape and is part of our new living room. Try spotting how many IKEA stuff we have in our new home – it’s like an IKEA showroom!

The IKEA Way

IKEA preaches taking responsibility for people and for the environment as a prerequisite for doing good business. From my visit to IKEA I could see that they don’t say this to blow smoke in our face, they are serious about it. All their employees are trained to recycle to the point that they don’t even have trash bins at their desks – they have to pick up and deposit their trash in a common bin. That’s definitely a good habit to inculcate because I regularly see Malaysians chucking trash out their car window.. aiya!

Steve Jobs
1955-2011

Dear Steve,

I’ve never met you in person, but I feel that I know you. You’ve influenced so many things around me – this MacBook which I’m typing on, my iPods, iPhones, and iPads. Zachary will grow up trying to manipulate objects on every screen he finds because of you.

In July I turned 30. It’s a big milestone to pass as I’m now in my 4th decade. These are some thoughts and personal reflections of where I am in life now.