Building my home office

I'm in the midst of building my ultimate home office right now. I went to Ikea numerous times to get an idea what should be in my home office and finally, I've made up my mind. As per my previous post, I've downloaded an Ikea Office Planner, though not complete with all furniture available from Ikea, but at least it gave me an idea on how the final set should look like.

Anyway, went to Ikea last Friday night and came back with:

1. 1 Galant corner table set
   
2. 2 Effektiv wall cabinets & doors
3. 2 Mikael drawers

Total damages so far: RM1820

What left but needed (yes, another trip to Ikea) are:

1. Billy bookcase with glass door (black/brown with white frame for the door??) 
   
2. A curved deskpad (optional, might leave this out)
   
3. Signum cable management tray
   
4. Summera pull out keyboard tray
   
5. Karsten swivel chair 
   

Expected damages for the above, another RM RM1000++.

Started to assemble the cabinets and drawers today and did not manage to finish them yet. Need to go back to the house again to finish off where I left today and hopefully I could start moving my other stuffs bit by bit. 

Last but not least, and most probably will be an extreme combination but will see how it goes .. I'v chosen a black & white combination .. Will update with photos when done!

House is 95% ready to be occupied!

From the above, to:



Finally, after almost four months, the house is now ALMOST ready to be occupied. What we have done so far are:

1. Extended our wet kitchen to the side of the house.
2. Extended the porch to the front.
3. Replaced the tiles for the porch to a much better looking IMHO.
4. Knocked down the downstair's toilet/bathroom and moved it to the side of the house.
5. Extended the small room downstair and change it to be my office and radio shack.
6. Put in a rustic looking kitchen cabinet made of hardwood.
7. Windows & doors grills, for whatever reason, we've decided to have the grills.

Things to do:

1. Furnish the house with furniture , we've none for our living room for now.
2. Bring all whatever furniture we have in our current house to the new house.
3. Furnish the bedrooms and my office, they need new stuff in there .. IKEA anyone :)

4. Curtains!
5. Change the gate to auto-gate.
6. Phone line & broadband, can't work w/o them (oh I've 3G though :)

7. Have a MOVE-IN DATE!!! We still have not decided on when we are going to move in :)

Here is where my new home-office going to be:

 

and this it how it will look with IKEA furniture hopefully:

MFJ-259B bought!

Just an update, finally, bought an MFJ-259B from US and have it delivered to my friend's apartment in the US and have a friend of his to bring it back home. Thanks Nik & Aaron! Operational wise, it is so easy to work it out .. and I thought, hey, is my investment worth it? :) Anyway .. worth every single sen of it .. and as per my previous blog, finally bought it from R & L Electronics for US$259 inclusive delivery. So much cheaper compared if I'm getting it from the UK.

HF portable antenna + looking for antenna analyser now

I've just got the HF portable antenna, the Buddistick that I ordered but I'm yet to try it out. My current QTH is surrounded by small hills and I guess its really restrict me from getting a good reception. I've tried it before with my dipole and what I could hear was only audio from the neighbour country, most probably no band opening on the time I did my monitoring?? Oh well, since I've the Yaesu FC-40, I should go for a long wire way I guess. I will try that later on .. my wife is going to Port Dickson and hopefully I can tag along and have a balcony facing the open sea. 

Anyway, I've received a not so good audio report lately when working out the usual repeater. There was lot of crackling noise together with my audio as what my friend said and usually I received them with load of crackling noise too. So, my base is out of commission right now, I've installed a temporary Slim-Jim antenna, just good for monitoring the VHF band at the moment. I'm really looking to invest on Antenna Analyzer now. I've put my eyes on the MFJ-259B. I was thinking of getting it from the UK, I'm going for a two week stint back at the main office in February but the price there is really killing me. I was quoted a £199 for the unit. Tried to order the unit from Universal Radio and get it shipped to my friend who is coming back in early Feb but I've just got an email saying that they're out of stock and it takes 2-3 weeks to get it shipped out. Guess the best thing to do is to cancel the order .. and my next try is to get it from R&L Electronics... hopefully they'll have it in stock and could manage to deliver it to my friend before he fly home.

New gadget in the house ..

Hey .. hey , I've got what I've been dreaming to get, an HF set! Went to the usual place in Singapore on the 30th November and got myself a Yaesu FT-897D, Yaesu FC-40 and the necessary accessories with it. The damage was around SGD$2002.

I had it set up as my base rig for now but I haven't got time to really install the Diamond Dipole antenna that I bought along with the rig. The antenna is quite long and I have no idea if it could actually fit the length of my house. Otherwise, it will most probably go into a 'to-sell' item in the next six month if I couldn't get it installed. So, I am without a proper antenna to rx on HF bands for now. I did order a vertical antenna from DX Engineering but was quoted a shipping cost which cost 100% more than the cost of the antenna... so last night, I was looking for an alternative and found a portable antenna called Buddistick.. put my CC details and hopefully I could start rx/tx something. Hey, why not just get a long wire antenna?? Yeah true .. but need to do a reading first .. My rig is at second floor and I've got no grounding setup properly for now. I was quoted for SGD$300 for a Diamond vertical base antenna and highly considering it for a permanent solution too. Will see if my budget allows this and most probably will get it during my next visit to S'pore.

At last, we've got the keys!

On the 1st Dec 2007, we're officially the owner of a house no 9, Jalan BRP 2/1B at Bukit Rahman Putra. It was quite a long wait since we signed the S&P back in July 2007. We thought everything will get speed up since we've got a pre-approval from the bank. It seems that the other party's bank was so slow in releasing all the required documents.. hence the delay.

Yesterday, we brought a contractor for renovation. We were told that the BPT will surely won't allow us to do any external extension to our house. My wife called the BPT and was assured that they won't allow any extension, but was told that if it is already built, we might get fined and that was it.. so.. in another word, there is always a 'backdoor' .. build the extension and if we get caught, just pay the fine.. sound reasonable :D

We'll see how much is the quote will be. We need to do some painting too .. actually, the whole house need to be repainted. The outside paint is peeling off and the inside, somehow the developer used a really cheap paint (OR mix with low quality paint). I won't be surprised if the contractor will quote a high price but will see if everything fit our budget, we'll just go on with the renovation.. otherwise, will do the major renovation first.

Canon 20D

UPSR result was out last week and though my daughter's result is not the best around but it seems that she could get hold of Bahasa quite well. She scored As in Penulisan, Maths and surely English but Bs in Pemahaman and Science. Since she has struggled enough for the past 6 months trying to get hold of Bahasa, I think it paid off. Anyway, she wanted a DSLR for her birthday and present for her UPSR.. a new entry level DSLR can set us around RM2400 for Canon 400D with kit lens and accessories .. was interested on going for Nikon, but my camera buddy suggested against that. So .. was looking around for the best deal around town but hey, saw somebody is trying to sell off his Canon 20D, an intermediate DSLR for less than 400D with kit lens. My camera buddy persuaded me to go for this camera instead.. so, finally, my daughter becomes a proud owner of a Canon 20D DSLR .. since I've 50% of my share on the usage .. hey, I'm looking for an upgrade now .. hee.. hee.. not the body, but the accessories. First of, need to upgrade the bag! Will see how it goes .. most probably going to get a Lowepro bag since it is the most affordable one.