Disconnected

Finally got internet connection at our new home! There was delay because of some wiring problems. Basically, there was a break in the connections somewhere behind the walls!! Sounds dreadful eh?

Our options were:
1. hack through the walls to find the problem
2. saw holes in the ceiling to bring in a new line

*sigh*... not such great options were they?

Well, obviously 'holey ceiling' was the lesser evil compared to 'rubble-y wall'! So, we finally have internet connection, and also three holes in my beautiful, just-painted ceiling!

Now, my shop computer keeps over-heating and shutting down when I try to upload photos! Apparently since it is also my CCTV system, it can't handle too much graphics. Thus I'm having problems blogging sans photos and can't even upload photos on Facebook. I also don't have much time to blog when I'm at home, so can only blog about Chinese New Year activities when my shop's CPU comes back from hospital! Hope it's soon!

Home sweet home

Last night we spent our first night at our new home! The place is beautiful, but we all miss our old house a bit. Even though we only stayed there for around 1 and a half years, we made many happy memories there. Here are some pics I took to remember our ex-home which will soon be rented out to some other family!

Neat freaks might want to skip the next few images! :P


In the end, home is anywhere your loved ones are.

Before/After

I've been mega busy with the renovation works at the new condo unit and we're almost done! We've spent quite a bit on this but it's made soooo much difference to the whole place.

The bulk of the money spent went to changing the flooring. It was originally a yucky coloured red tile (left pic). We spent RM13k just to change it to a wood laminate floor (right pic). They placed the wooden boards like piecing together jigsaw puzzle pieces on top of the existing tiles. We spent ages deciding on the colour, as there were so many shades and grain patterns to choose from. In the end, we went with Siam Teak, which is a light colour, to brighten the whole place up.


One of the first things hubby insisted on getting done was knocking down the wall separating the kitchen from the dining room. It was a great move, as the whole place opened up and seemed bigger and brighter.

There was a big, humongous cabinet along the wall of the dining room and corridor. It made the room darker and also made the corridor narrower. The dining area is already dark, as there are no windows to let in natural light. So we decided to demolish the whole thing. Thus we discovered that the behemoth was actually constructed to hide a fat pillar behind it.

We decided then to make that wall a feature wall and almost put glass bricks on it in an attempt to bring in some natural light. Thank goodness we came to our senses and laid natural stone on it instead, because glass bricks are so 'yesterday'! :) (We couldn't afford to spend too much time over decisions, all this was done at lightning speed, because we are aiming to move in before Chinese New Year, and I suppose so is everyone else!) We also made a row of cabinets and a shelf there, but kept it minimal and not too big.


Okay, the piece de resistance... This is one of the walls at the living room. Refer to the 'before' picture on the left; see that 'cushiony thing' on right? Don't even ask me what it is. The previous owners must have ordered one too many bed headboards and decided not to waste it. So, the mounted it on the wall and called it art!? Hmmm... It puzzles me to this day. Anyway, this monstrosity definitely had to go. Didn't take long for us to decide that.

This wooden, cushiony, wall feature thing covered the whole wall. When we removed it, we found it was constructed to cover two pillars! These guys must have hated pillars. If there's one thing we've learnt from all this is, "condominiums have a lot of pillars".

So, we decided to embrace the pillars instead and incorporate them into our designs. We kept everything simple and fresh. I'm loving how it's looking right now and can't wait till hubby comes home to see it tomorrow!

Sawdust gets in your eyes

I have been cleaning the new condo the whole morning and part of the afternoon! I'm really, really hating sawdust and plaster dust right now. It's amazing how sawdust can fly everywhere and embed itself deeeep into every, single, minute, nook and cranny and crevice imaginable! We have a stone wall feature thingy which is practically made of nooks and crannies, so I think the we'll have a steady supply of sawdust for many years to come!

*Sigh*

Hubby is still away in Bintulu, so I had to leave the kids with Sidekick to become foreman cum Indonesian maid for the day. I had no time cook, or even buy lunch for them, so I asked the maid to cook Maggi mee (instant noodles). I always feel a tinge of guilt when the kids eat Maggi mee, it's like I'm a lousy mum, feeding my kids junk... but the kids sure are happy whenever they get to eat Maggi mee!! (at least Solomon had porridge... in my world of logic; feeding junk to kids is a minor offense compared to feeding junk to babies!)

So, most of the furniture arrived this morning, while I wiped just about every surface in the place. Basically, I had to receive the furniture, clean the never-ending mess and keep an eye on the workers. There were people still installing the laminate floor and some built-in cabinets, thus there was some drilling and hammering. Living in such close quarters like in a condo, we have to be considerate of our neighbours...

Actually, we're not supposed do any construction work at night and on weekends. Technically, this was not construction though, more like noisy installation :) Well, I still got called up by the management who informed me that the next door neighbour was complaining. Hehe.. what else is new?

I'll admit that this time it was our fault for making noise on a Saturday. This is the first and only time. We're sort of in a rush to move in before Chinese New Year. (I'll send the neighbours a cake or something when we're done!)

However, this Korean lady next door has been very unreasonable from the very beginning. She was complaining endlessly, even though we made noise only from 9am-5pm from Mondays to Fridays, as stipulated by the management. She called the management countless times, then went over to scold the workers a few times too. Then there was once she came over when Hubby and I were there. She was rude and totally unreasonable, saying we were making a lot of noise and making the corridor dirty! Ya, uhuh, okay... I'll knock the wall down gently and quietly and make sure I don't produce too much dust in the process, if it pleases you my dear...

So anyway, Hubby gave her a dose of her own rudeness and she backed off a bit. I guess her nerves were already frayed because the unit directly below hers have also been renovating and banging away for the past three months! Anyway, we're 95% done and we only took 2-3 weeks? Can't remember when we started...

Well, our very own, first home is coming along gorgeously. On Monday, the televisions and the curtains are being installed and we're done!! :D Then... comes more cleaning and the actual moving of all our junk from one building to the next!! (at least it's like only 200m away?) I'm not looking forward to the carting part... luckily Hubby will be back by then. He can replace his running and swimming with lifting and shifting heavy boxes! He could take the stairs instead of the elevator! Yup, that would burn a whole darn lot of calories, yes indeedy! Nyeheh :P

Then it's ~~"tong tong tong chiang"~~!! Chinese New Year in our new home!! Yay!

Moving House

I have to apologize for not blogging much lately. We are in the process of moving house, and the 'house' in question currently looks like this! (It looked worse when they hadn't removed the rubble yet!)


We're knee deep in some minor renovations. Anyone who has ever done this will understand the headache it entails. It is exciting yet stressful at the same time. Moreover ours is just a small condominium unit which already has most of the built-in cabinets. I don't even have to worry about outdoor stuff and gardens. I wonder how people handle building a house from scratch!