Vermicomposting... as an added improvement to the HDB!

Oh well, it's not like a 'direct' improvement to the home per-se but I was hoping that having more greens around the home will do some beautification, and improve the overall home well-being with a more 'fresh' and 'organic' feel to the overall household.

While struggling to get my greens up, I realized that fertilizer is so-so-very important to the well-being of the green!!! Without them, all my greens were dying left-right-center.

As such, what better way than 'growing' or 'cultivating' your own organic super fertilizer! Hopefully, this can also benefit and inspire more of my neighbors to activate their green-fingers at home too!

I followed a few blogs, and read about 10-15 pages of web-sites as part of my R&D, as such, I wouldn't say I am a "pro" yet, much more to learn.

In the next few entries, I will share with all of you readers on how I started, what were the mistakes I made and rectification to the process and stabilization as well.

Hopefully with the following entries, you'll be inspired to start your own organic journey of VermiComposting - yes, even in a small HDB apartment, with a baby, and a wife who is super-anti-creepy-crawlie.. :)

This is the end-product, I did a few improvement by adding another layer of 'water-moat', but I realized it's of no use and it's not the best way to keep the worms out.

My R&D Links that you might find helpful:

1. More Information about Composting Worms
2. More Information about the Theory behind Vermicomposting
3. How worm casting is created
4. Making your own bin, a DIY Guide, but I will also offer my version with my explanations
5. Where to get the most important thing - The Worms (this is the most affordable starting point in the places that I have searched as of 2014-Oct. The most ideal is to go to the Singapore Gardening Forum and try to barter?)
6. Another DIY Guide number 2
7. Another DIY Guide number 3

Clarifications:

1. My Goal is to have sufficient and possibly grow the bin to a level where I do not need to purchase fertilizer for my greens.
2. I don't intend to multiply my bin size, nor single-bin concept as there is limited space.
3. I plan to grow the quantity of blue-worms, in the event where it grows to significant numbers, I plan to either sell them at low price to neighbors or give them away.
4. I want to minimize the space and effort taken to clean/maintain and utilize the process.
5. I am not a serious anti-waste champion, in fact, I select my waste and feed them to the worm the past 4 months I have been doing it. So I am not really 'throwing all my waste' for them to compost yet...
6. I started my project with 100g of composting worms (budget constraint), and keeping things low cost... as such, I doubt I can really discard all food and fruit wastes for the worms to clear on time before the other 'friends' of the community come visit and multiply.
7. My goal is to keep a fuss-free, low-cost, easy to maintain  and conceal a green project that can fit in a HDB service yard without as many undesirables as possible. 

That's it! Let's go on with more posts in time to come soon!

Getting an Interior Designer... or Your Own Contractor

We went to about 4 Renovation Expos in 2011-2012. Met with 5 Interior Designers as well as 3 Renovation Contractors.

We were contemplating of whether we ought to get a contractor or an interior designer firm (ID) to renovate the new place.

Let us share with you our thoughts and wisdom (the lack of it), for the considerations:

1. We have never own a home, never done our own renovation. We don't know the ropes nor the process of going through a renovation work.
2. We need an 'seasoned' professional experience to advise and tell us what are the considerations we need to make in renovation.
3. We have no theme in mind, no clues on what we want...
4. We need a 'person-to-blame' if all goes south!
5. We want to find out what is the market like, what is in, what is not, what is everlasting...

As such, we decided, since we have time, we shall do some window shopping to see what our options are at that point in time.

We eventually narrowed down to 3 reasonable quotes:
a) a contractor whom our friend recommended
b) an ID which we can work with, someone relate-able and not too expensive
c) another ID that is quite new in the market, but more affordable than option B

We decided to go with "B". Simply being relate-able and similar taste and 'design-personality', we thought it will turn out better amongst the options we've got.

Total budget for renovation reached about SGD 31,000 including air-conditioning with Inverter, false-ceiling in every room, a walk-in wardrobe, nice Quartz counter top and all electrical/carpentry work in.

I wouldn't say it's the most affordable, but it's decent quality at a decent price.

Satisfaction of my ID - 7/10
Outcome of Renovation work as compared to plan - 7.5/10
Timeliness - 8.5/10
Follow-up - 8.5/10
Number of mistakes or issues that cropped-up - 5-8 items

Will I engage them again to do my second home... That's a good question, probably not, considering that I have now a better picture of how a renovation process would be like. IF I do have the time, I would try to get my own contractors to do the necessary work and manage the project by myself.

The Beginning..

We got our flat in Punggol during a balloting exercise in 2010. I went to seek plenty of advice on this, and I thought these are some of the good ones to consider when getting new flats.

Location

"Location is everything." a friend says. You can change everything in the house, you can even make an apartment on the 2nd floor looks like it's at the top floor of the building. Having said that, you'll never be able to change the distance to the bus stop, the distance to the MRT station, the distance to the bus-interchange around you.

As such, it'll be wise to plan getting a place around the location in which your family will need to commute to and fro daily.

There are a few locations consideration:
1) Location to public transport services
2) Location to amenities such as clinic (wouldn't want to walk too far when sick), food-centres (quick fix for dinners after work), super-market (drinks for friends during a hangout at your home)
3) Location to work-place. You'll travel to and fro work daily. That'll take up quite a bit of time. It'll be good to consider the travelling time taken daily.
4) Location to common travel places - places of worship etc. These are places which we'll travel to-and-fro very often as well.
5) Location to parents home, for taking care of kids in future, for visiting, for helping each other's family.

Storey Height

Every floor height makes a difference to the price of the apartment. For us, we took the 16th storey and as such, we paid an additional 16k (1k per floor) to the overall price.

The higher the floor, the more windy it gets, as such, to save electricity in reducing the use of air-conditioning, we decided to get the top-most available floor.

Some of our friends commented that highest floor may incur more heat from the building's roof. I am not sure if it's the same throughout Singapore and all varieties of apartments. For us and some of my friends at Punggol, it seems to make no difference at all.

What will definitely help is to stay right below the water tank as the structure will help to prevent a direct sun in the afternoon.


Direction To The Sun

This is important to know as the wall or the surface of the house that gets the evening sun will DEFINITELY retain the heat of the day throughout the night. As such, you'll need to be prepared to spend a little more money in time to come for the cooling of the house. If it's your master-bed room, then air-conditioning fee will definitely be higher than usual.


I can't remember of any other important considerations, but I'll edit and update this post every time I remember something.