House Project : Kitchen & family dining

 I was thinking to convert the dry kitchen yang "sekangkang kera" sebelah wet kitchen into a casual family dining room. I like the idea that I do not have to mengemas kelam kabut esp bila orang datang. I have limited time at home, so maybe prior to dinner, I can prepare the food while they could start their homework here. So I could supervise them in between my chores.

I forgotten from which url, but to the owner, thank you for sharing. I love the silver chairs. I have checked it out. The easiest online search I could get is from IKEA. This concept can be materialized if I could stick with it long enough.

Also, I am planning to do the laundry area at the same place where the family dining area is. Pictures of the inspiration later...

I think I got the above picture from blog http://p.s i love this, i think. I so love the white concept and the wooden isle. Nice, homely and giving me a comfort everytime I look at it. ...this is home...surely......

 Kan? Loving this concept. I might get it for the family dining room. Another reason why I should have this concept, the wood table can be used as my laundry folding table. But I need the smooth top so the folding process would be as smooth...

 Just a few concept for the kitchen undermount sink.... it should not be here, but as u will know later, I am too lazy to remove it.

 Ikea. and I want this concept for my wet kicthen.

 The stainless steel island that I plan to have.

 Or something like this.

 Ok. Forget all the above. My wet kitchen should look like this. I am reminding myself to stick with this concept.

 The undermount sink for the wet kitchen. You know how much is the price? I thought I could get it for less than MYR600. It is almost MYR1k. Eat my heart out. To get your dream does it mean you have to do everything and anything?

Family room such as this? workable for my family? The table space is limited for the kids. I need to get a rectangle table. They are very messy and their things are all over the place. I should not get any carpet, they spilled almost everything on the floor.

Nevertheless, it is always fun planning a house concept with kids in mind... how many of you agree?

House Project : Lightings

It's not easy to find lightings that fit my goals. It must be practical and wowable (in my own definition). My hunt for the wall lighting hasn't been good so far. I realized I have good high taste but unfortunately it did not come with "good coordinated design taste" and "sufficient fund".... so that's the problem.

The bathroom lightings should not be just squarish or round shape. You can get more creative. So homework need to be done prior to my visit to the lighting shops. May I won't repeat my mistake ever again...

 Another lessons learnt - if you are not sure, take a picture of the lights and then see if it turns out good on your camera. There you go... if it turns out "plain" , you can strike them off from the thoughts.

 Initially, my mission is to get a simple and modern light such as the above. Even this is hard to find. The nyonya in YET lighting shop told her colleague that I am not very easy to entertain. "orang lain mau design, dia mahu simple, manyak susah"

 This one looks modern and chic. Am I right?

 loving this one as well. If the shop has this and under MYR200, I would buy it right away.

 Dun love this much. But oklah if I have no choice but this I would take it as an alternative.

 

The other problem is, I want a modern concept but everytime I went to the lighting shop, they will show me the antique lights. And to convince me they would say "banyak orang beli ini macam".

Well... why would my lightings be the same as others? They should think of more creative sales pitch like "this design will always fit your modern concept home..." I would be more convinced with my decision then. It will increase 50% more of the chances that I will purchase it.

However, after repetitive pesanan penaja dari salesman, I am having a second thought about antique lights. This after I saw Kourtney Kardashian's house. She is having a normal antique lights at her main entrance. Not so bad actually.

I am glad I still have time to think about it.

House Project : Kitchen

In my plan,  there would be 4 focal areas that I would want to concentrate on.

1. The family media + reading room
2. The family dining room
3. The backyard
4. The Kitchen


So far, we have asked quotations from 4 renovation companies. I googled and adalah few bloggers recommend artak kitchen.

I suka juga chan kitchen cabinet. The old man that draws our kitchen cabinet designs reminds me of our contractor in SG. memang very traditional. Bukan 3D... sebab tu aku ada soft spot sket kat dia...mana ada orang muda akan buat gitu lagi.


Signature kitchen, they will not do the quotation there and then. Must come 1 week later...


Artak kitchen so far the cheapest. cuma aku cuak je la will the 3G is what I imagine it to be. Not all 3G came out similar.... At least dari apa yang aku baca experience orang la kan..... I am comfortable with Chan sebab aku dah nampak sendiri what I want. I want the handlers one bukan handless...


So this weekend we will hunt the homedec 2012 at KL convention center, insyaAllah.


So here is the kitchen at show house. Planning to do a stainless steel for the isle. The removable one. we will see if that ever be materialized or another change of plan later yah!

House Project : Master bedroom concept

I am not sure what to do with the high ceiling.

I am undecisive about the bedroom set color as well. As at today, I am confident it would be ...brown.


Dark brown. Initially I heart white.


Here some of my inspirations.

My headache is.... if we were to put a chandelier to make the room glitters and impressive, does that mean we have to put aircond? yelah, takkan nak letak kipas berdiri tu kan.. langsung tak macam magazine nya concept yer dak? hehe.... We calculated again... for aircond - 6k for 4 rooms at least. :) Geez... it's always going up never down. For 1st phase - we may not. But in the future - certainly. i might have an entry of "house project : putting up the aircond - at last!" :)

 Love the simple curtains. My most favourite concept.

 Sorry I posted twice and lazy to remove it.

 This is the show house concept. Look at the high ceiling. I know it is nice, I am excited, but I need a designer to think for me how to do it best. Problem is I can't afford them.

This is Kendal Kardashian's bedroom. Imagine a teenage bedroom outwit adult master bedroom.Kan?

Not bad. But the size and the door more suitable to my dd's room. I love the book rack. But will she read anyway?


Excited yet? I am! Just sooooo excited. mana2 blog yang cerita pasal pindah rumah baru, semua pun excited. Semua pun nak buh picture. Bukan nak menunjuk, aku paham la perasaan derang tu kan.... sebab excited!

House Project : Lightings & house fan

New house means spending money.

Our first plan was just masuk kosong. Lebih sanggup gitu dari hutang...


Then, we have a second thought about it. We bought this house to solve some of our problems. Namely - the sleeping arrangement, laundry systems, kitchen and wardrobe systems. that will costs us a mountain of money if we do not start now.


So I started the "booking and installment" programs with various shops. Some shops allows this. Pay booking fees and pay them bit by bit up until the delivery date. At first it works well. Then... came topics such as "how about grill and security?", "should we tint the house if we were not to do grill?".... "alarm systems as an alternatives?".. "what about our laundry systems?"


And the headache begins.


Lepas tu baru teringat, if we do not tint the house, and we do not plan to put up curtains.... how should we sleep in the house without strangers peeping on us?


The journey to ask for curtain quotations begin... and so far cheapest is 5k whole house.


I came up with another ideas. We should buy the necessities first. We could not possibly stay in the house in the dark... so with whatever cash left last month, we should buy the lightings and house fans.... We calculated - 1k for the fans only.


At the end, I bought 6 lightings but only for our bathrooms. There are 7 bathrooms altogether in the house. If I am not mistaken the master bedroom is already equipped with lighting. Oh well.. the hunt still continues for other rooms lightings. I learnt that I have to do my homework first prior to set my foot in the shop. I need to know my concept and what best suits it. That would save some money and.. time!  I made another mistakes in making my purchase. I googled and I was informed the house of lightings in Puchong was the cheapest. I went to the shop but I couldn't find what I like. I was just blinded with a lot of lightings I guess. I went to another shop and get exactly what I need. After all paid, went to house of lightings and baru tahu, kat situ pun ada design tu. My kerugian is about RM69 in total. I can buy another lighting with this money. There you have it. Mistakes after mistakes.


The master bathroom picture.

House Project : Oven

My old oven is indesit. It works well up until today. I am not sure if my tenant use it, I hope they do not use itlah. Tak susah nak samak nanti.



I basically love my oven because it did not give me any problem. Bak kata orang, masuk oven, keluar best aja... dan walaupun conventional oven, panas top, bottom, both top bottom, fan semua ada.



The logic is if 12 years back the technology is so good like that, if they improvised it, it will be better right? And so I thought. When I booked my Pacifica oven, I did not know that nowadays this oven is called "conviction oven"....


I just discovered about this nightmare. And it is 1 of many mistakes I did during this project process... Sometimes I asked myself. How did this happen. I googled a lot. I learnt a lot from other blogs and I still made mistakes??? Rasa nak nangis tau.



I did not take long to decide on my purchase 12 years back. Indesit is not really a good brand at that time. Geez..... so be careful of 6 functions - that is the lessons learnt in this journey...

I should just go with my instinct - electrolux. but at that particular time, the salesperson was...... not trying to sell. She was lacking the enthusiasm. She is not highlighting the best features of electrolux, surprisingly was telling us on the downside of the product and the installation technician. So... that lead us to Pacifica.........

House Project : Letters from developer

As at now we have received about 4 letters. And we are on our second disbursement from the bank loan. As happy we are to get the keys, we are not that excited to pay to the bank. heeee! :P

 Anyway. This will be our first house in Malaysia. Our very first marital house is the Singapore one. A HDB 4 room flat type NG. We bought that house for SGD206k. That was back in 1998. During my engagement to my then fiance, he booked a brand new flat. But due to the long wait, we cancelled the booking and bought the 2nd hand house instead. I remembered we aimed for a 5A room flat and very fussy about our selection. Sampai agent tu nak muntah layanlah. Tiap2 minggu asyik tak close deal, viewing dah berpuluh2 rumah.


And my hubby's house criterias lagi susah.. Nak kena dekat dengan mosque and that was a very challenging one. Not all 2nd house flat yang dekat dengan mosque in a good condition. Until months later, my parents came to Singapore and we brought them along for house viewing.


For some reason, my father made a comment about that house that makes us decides this could be the house. I like that the living room is unblocked with no possibilities of blocking in the future, and the kitchen is also not blocking as in very far away from the other house. So that is what made us decided it was the one!


The renovation of the house was a process full of disaster. We took such a long time to decide either. Both of us have different ideas. At the end, when my MIL came to visit, her comment was "satu singapore satu malaysia" haha! I was working at science park and our place is in Jurong East so every lunch time, I will surely came to visit the progress..



It was not a wonderful experience dealing with the contractor but it has became one of the sweetest memory now. Our first house... aahh!


Now the house is rented to Vietnamese students.


 Anyway, yesterday I found another developer's letter in our mailbox. It said to pay for the quit rent, water and electricity deposit and the likes. Amount is about MYR700. I expected MYR1k so that was nice. Below our budget. Will settle this by this weekend I hope if I am not that busy. I need to see the manager. There are a lot of mistakes we done, even after doing research about buying house in Malaysia. This is one of our mistakes.


Let's end this entry with this picture...It's the show house of our unit.