the daily grind

'Official' Move In

2006-07-27T12:09:00.000-07:00

Its been quite a while since the last post... we've been really busy with so many things! There's work, reno, wedding, furniture shopping and mount K.

Sidetrack a bit to Mount Kinabalu... it was absolutely the MOST tiring thing i have ever done... Hmmm.... i don't think i will ever go do Mount K again. Seriously, i didn't think that the rewards (i.e. reaching the summit) justified all that PAIN and SUFFERING that we went through!

Ok, back to the house... well, nothing much has happened, we got the quotations from all three parties, Briana, Keith and Winson. Briana came in at the most expensive, almost 25k. Winson was next at close to 15K and Keith was the cheapest at 11K. Yes, the price really differs! Keith, despite being the cheapest didn't inspire much confidence with the way he did the quotation. He left out way too many things. Winson seems to be the middle way out, i.e. not too expensive, yet seems trustworthy enough.

However, i think we should really try to push the price down a little bit more. We still need to do the electricals and the lighting points separately. For now, we have decided to go with the bare minimum. Redo the master bathroom and change the kitchen top. Also, change the doors of the kitchen and the master bathroom. Sigh... well, what to do? Money is an issue. I am stony broke and HB is not exactly rolling in cash either.

On a brighter note, we did the 'official' move already! Hehe, one day before the start of 7th month! :) Well, what happened was we consulted a feng shui guy who picked a few auspicious days for us and who also advised us on what to do when we "move in". We were to move something that was constantly moving into the house (e.g. a fridge) and we were supposed to do some hammering of nails or something. So we took this opportunity to press to HB's parents that we have officially "started" renovations and hence, can renovate during 7th month!!! hahaha...

Anyway, the 24th of July 2006 is supposedly an auspicious date for HB (yes, no mention of ME! :P). So on monday, we brought the fridge over, took a drill and made a hole to hang a new clock and boiled water... wah, i have never done anything so symbolic like in my whole life. But hey, if it keeps everyone happy, then ok, i will do it... HB's dad brought a charcoal stove that was supposed to represent some kind of life energy or something. It was really funny because the stove was so hot and smoking so much that i was afraid that it would set off the fire alarm in the lift!!

Reno decisions

2006-07-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

Wow, i never thought that making renovation decisions were so difficult. Everything that looks tolerable, like we could actually live with started to look as though it can do with a bit of renovation... haha... after a lot of home deco magazine browsing, i was so tempted to redo everything! :P In the end, the prohibitive price of renovating the whole place brought all those day dreams crashing down to earth.

Lets see, here is my wish list:

Redo the master bedroom's bathroom - i'd love to majorly revamp this, hack away the wall and move the doorway nearer to the window, get a nicer bathtub, the works!
Redo the guest bathroom, at least in a simalar style to the master bathroom
Replace the countertop of the kitchen and the kitchen sink
Add a sliding door to my kitchen
Put in mirrored walls in the dining room
Put in a display area in the hall closet
Change the tiles in the yard area and if possible the kitchen area
Custom make a master bed
And the list goes on....

In the last week, we had this reno guy come take a look at our place. Unlike Briana, Keith thinks its difficult to remove the counter top in the kitchen, and he cannot guarantee that the kitchen cabinets will not get damaged in the process... so now, we have to decide if we want to keep that old (and dirty) looking countertop, or have it changed, and risk getting the cabinets damaged (which means we will have to spend money to redo the whole place). He also thinks its a "waste" to remove the doors in our house because they are made of good wood! haha...

HB's parents came for a visit as well... uh oh, not good, first major opinion clash :P they reckon that there should not be any renovations AT ALL during 7th month! Worst still is the fact that there are TWO 7th months this year! So if we are to go by that constraint, reno can only start in late september and i'd have to wait till mid november before i can get my new home. This is IF there are no cockups with the renovations (there are usually MANY cockups with renovations)... Add to that, i will have to monitor all of the reno works on top of going to school and doing my projects, October is always a peak project month for me... :( :( I am now hoping and praying that i can convince them to allow us to reno during 7th month. Convincing is always better than forcing my way, which i CAN do lah, but that would be ugly...

Mummy finally got to visit the house :) i am glad she likes it as much as i liked it. Its strange, but it makes me feel better that my mother likes the place that i have picked by myself. I guess its something like a validation of my good taste (ahem ahem) perhaps? i don't know, mother and daughter relationships are difficult to fathom :P As i have rightly predicted, she is full of ideas about the house, which is good, because HB and I are in a rather 'anything goes' kind of mode :P

Mummy forced us (well forced is a bit strong, but more like motivated us) to get started on thinking about things like electrical outlets and lighting points. So today, we spent the evening counting electrical outlets and trying to decide where to locate the outlets. We also thought a little about lighting and i educated everyone on lighting (knowledge gleaned from this terrific book called "Contemporary Lighting" by Sebastian Conran & Mark Bond - very cool!). So now we have added to the reno list to have recessed lighting installed in the false ceilings of the master bedroom, dining area and living area :P

Tomorrow, we will meet the 3rd and final reno guy (how many is enough??) . Mummy suggested going early to the house tomorrow to clean the place. Aiyo... trust her to come up with that! But i am grateful, because i think cleaning the place all by myself is a nightmare!! i guess i better get used to it though, i cannot be getting my mom to clean my place for me all the time right? :P But, sigh... in order to get my house cleaned, i have to wake up at a very ungodly hour of 9am tomorrow (its a sunday leh!).

First Day Pics

2006-06-24T14:22:00.000-07:00

Ok, some people document the first steps of their babies, we document the first day of our new home...

One of the main reasons for buying this place, the "lakeview"!! :)

View of the living room from the dining area.

Windows in the master bedroom
Kitchen...

Homeowners!!

2006-06-24T13:33:00.000-07:00

Yay!! We finally got our keys!! :) More like we finally got our access cards and keys!! The condo comes with pretty nifty security devices, you need a access card to be able to get the lift to move to your floor...

We actually got our keys on the night of the 23rd of June, obviously we went there to celebrate us being homeowners lah... took some pictures of the nice and empty place...

So there you see us both taking photos of our new home :) HB is standing in the living room, with his back towards the windows. What he sees from that angle is shown in the photo of me standing there taking a photo of our lift door :P The dining area is behind me...

Sigh, my poor camera, something is very very wrong with my battery :( it keeps complaining of no battery even though i charge it for like 10 hours...

Today, we went back to the house to show this interior designer around. She was there to look around our place to see what she can do with it. Briana (not Briyani!! :P) looked pretty credible, so hopefully she will do a good job and give some good ideas at a good price... I think what is important to me at this point is definitely the bathrooms. I spend a lot of time in there, so its gotta look good :P The rest of the house looks really good, I am glad that the previous owners kept the place well, i only hope that we can keep it as well maintained as it is now...

Am still mulling over what i should renovate. The kitchen and yard have floor tiles that are a little bit old fashioned... So the question here is, can i live with it? Also have to decide if we want to do any extensive reno to the kitchen area, i.e. hack the wall and create some sort of glass wall so that we can see what is going on inside... hopefully, this will also allow HB to watch TV while cooking :P

We had our first visitors today :) i am going to keep a list of people who have visited us so far...

List of Visitors:

Alvina
Briana
Karen & Eric
Cecilia (housing agent)

Not too shabby for first day of homeownership, i reckon! ;p