Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Availability checking & Google Maps

We have improved our blog to add more things to help booking easier.  We have used Google Calendar to show the available dates so that you can book your place better.  Also, Google Maps is added to help you to get to our places.

Yes, we have added Guestbook for you to write something.  Please feel free to suggest or comment.

Happy New Year!

Sunday, December 18, 2011

New rate for Boutel @ Empire

Due to higher cost of maintaining our unit at Empire Subang, we have decided to slightly revise the rate for 2012.  Only the weekends are affected.  New rates are as below:

Monday - Thursday : RM350
Friday & Sunday: RM450
Saturday, Holiday Eve: RM500

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to everyone.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Silver Purple @ Titiwangsa Sentral

Finally after much delay, our Silver Purple at Titiwangsa Sentral is now ready, and has been rented for few days.  We are quite happy with the color scheme, and it does look glamorous!

This place, we did more with paintings.  Learned that painting in stripes isn't as simple as it looks.  After we finished painting, when it was time to pull the tapes out, the paint came out with the tape as well.  So, it needs a lot of touch up.  As of now, we still haven't finished touching up, cause we were rushing to meet deadline for yesterday's check in.



Certain paints needed several layers, at least 3-4 layers compared to others.  Red & green that we used in our first Titiwangsa unit were notorious, causing more money!  We painted at least 4 layers to finally get it right.  This purple is not bad, 2 layers are enough.

We thought to be more playful by using bean bags as the sofa.  Bought them during our trip to Bali.  Initially bought the beads from Jusco for RM11.90 for 2 pillow sized bags.  Googled a bit and found a factory in Subang for a lot cheaper price.  Hopefully, our guest will like these colorful bean bags.



We also bought some paintings from our Bali trip as well.




We have still yet to put our creative art pieces up.  Hopefully we will get them up in 2 weeks time.  This is an original idea, and we hope it will inspire others.  Stay tuned.

This unit has a good view of Titiwangsa & Genting Highland.


Monday, November 28, 2011

How to enforce No Smoking policy?

Although we have put several 'No Smoking' stickers around our Boutel Loft, there are still people who don't seem to be able to read nor follow simple rule.  If you smoke, and keep the place clean, we are still not that upset, but you left the ashes everywhere!  Even on the bed!

Any idea?

I guess it is quite hard to keep a party place out from the smokers.  We have been thinking of a place which is smoker friendly.  But, then it will be hard & expensive to upkeep that place.  First, the air conditioners will need more cleaning services.  Second, very dirty floor & environment.  It is hard to avoid ashes falling on the sofa, bed...

Let us know if you seriously think such a place is highly appreciated.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Blogger pays RM100 only at any of our venues.

Yes, we are doing this promotion for bloggers.  If you own a blog, and it gets good audience, we would like to invite you to stay at our place for only RM100/night.  Choose any of our 3 locations, Empire Subang, Casa Tiara or Titiwangsa Sentral.  Or, stay at all three to get the different experience.  We only ask for one favor in return, you must blog about us after staying at our place.

Please email us if you are interested.  EmpireTrio@gmail.com.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Titiwangsa Sentral unit is ready, finally.

After much work and frustration with the indon workers, the unit is finally done.  Although not 100%, it is quite up to our standard now.



This time, we have added our DIY daybed, chair, dinning table and more.  We especially love the lighting system we have installed.  It has a unique curtain track that you can move the lights around.  You can adjust the height of the light bulbs to come up with the perfect mood for you.  The lights in the bedroom is also a cheap hack to allow one to on/off light on the bed.  Not yet perfect, we will improve upon with the experience we gain.

This is the first polished concrete kitchen top we have done.  I personally polished the top myself along with others.  Not up to the finishing I like, but I did gain knowledge doing it.  Hopefully the next 2 kitchen tops that I will be working on will be a better one.  Inhaled quite a lot of dusty air while grinding/sanding the top.  Eventually bought a better mask, originally was using the ones bought from pharmacy.


The open concept wardrobe is another steal from browsing the web.  Had some problem putting the wall plug in!  After buying the right drill bit, it was piece of cake after.

Now, I need some time to finish the bed frames.

Tell me whether you like our design!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

DIY furniture

OK, I am a big fan of reuse & recycle of unwanted woods, especially pallets.

So far, I have built a few furnitures for my properties.  You can see our Casa Tiara with a few pieces of my work.  The medium high dinning table.  This, I have used timber disassembled from those BIG wire roll.  They are quite heavy, and full with nails.  I had to pull all the nails out and polished them.  Hauling them onto my pickup was another challenge as well.

Here you can see the end product.  Initially was going to use all woods from the wire roll.  Fortunately, one friend paid me a visit and saw all the wood pallets that I've piled up in my car porch, and asked what was I doing.  Told her about my project, she said there are tons of pallets at her office that they throw away all the time.


Here is another genius idea that I stole from the net.  I was looking for the creative use of pallet furniture, and I found this.  Anyone is able to do it.  So simple, and you should try it.  Today, my wife has painted it white.  Still waiting for it to dry.  Will post the finished work when it is done.




This single bed frame is so nice and zen looking.  It was a huge pallet from my friend's factory.  Just cut it to the right size, and whoala, I have a Japanese futon kind of bed frame.


Though you can't really see it clearly, but it is really nice!!  All I did on myself was hauling it up to the apartment from my friend's factory!


I like the DIY art piece on the wall as well.  Very simple.  The hardest part was putting the nails on the wall!  Hammered my finger once, luckily not that hard.


I hope to make as many DIY furnitures & art pieces from recycled wood or things that I can find.  Spending money buying new things will only create more waste, why not recycle and prolong its lifespan?

Monday, August 22, 2011

Trying out PayPal

To make it easier for our customers, we are trying out online payment.  Hopefully, it works out nice.  Will post a link to pay via PayPal soon.  Let me know what you think.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

New rate

After much hesitation, we have decided to revise the rate.  We have to increase it by RM50 for the up keep of the unit.

We now also require the tenant to clean up the place before leaving.  As this is just a pass time hobby, we cannot go and clean the place the same day the tenant leaves the place.  Thus, sometimes, the place is left in terrible condition, and we got a shock when we come to clean.  Sometimes, 2 hours is not enough to clean the place for the next tenant.  That's why, we need you to cooperate to make this a better place.

Do let us know on how to improve, we will try our best.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

New venue, new project

We will be renovating another apartment soon.  Tomorrow, we will go collect our keys, and hopefully, can start operating in June or latest July.

My theme is to DIY most things myself.  This includes, bedframe, dinning table, chairs, sofa.  This time, I want everything in Black & White only.  This apartment has 3 rooms, so, I will have one WHITE room, BLACK room, and a Black & White room.  Got some ideas from watching last nite's HGTV Design Star.

Most furniture will be recycled and reused from pallet and woods.  I already have some ideas on how to do them.  Have done one a month ago for my home.  Hopefully, it will come out nice.  Will be a busy month coming up.

Do you have any ideas?  Anyone good at wall mural?  I actually want to draw a Bruce Lee mural on the wall, but I don't think I can do it.  Lets see whether there is someone that wanna help out.

Some pix of things I wanna do.




Some pallet furniture I saw in a hotel I stayed in Taiwan.  They were designed by some welknown artist from Italy, according to the hotel guys.
I am a HUGE Bruce Lee fan.  So, would be nice if I can have something like that in this new apartment!

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Simple Online Booking Form created

I have created a simple booking form using Google Doc.  Please try to use it to book your dates.  Do let me know if there is any problem or your suggestions.

You can check it out here.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

New Pricing for 2011

We are increasing our price slightly to cope with our cost.  We are really still losing money compared to if we were to rent it out monthly long term.  However, we choose to do something special & unique, hopefully we will be rewarded by you.  :-)

The new price is RM300 for normal days, and RM350 for holidays & weekends(Friday, Saturday & Sunday).

We welcome any feedback & suggestions.  Do let us know, we will try to do it if possible.