House Renovation - Before & Work-In-Progress

Saya sangat banyak WIP (work-in-progress) sekarang.

WIP di ofis (of coz, yang ni tak penah abis la kan).
WIP dalam perut (teruskan membesar anakku!)
WIP projek rumah.

Haruslah topik ini berkisar projek rumah. Sebab. Projek kerja adalah sangat bosan. Projek dalam perut ialah sangat sulit. Kita tunggu saja kelahiran budak kecik *sekali lagi, sila doakan kelahiran beliau tanpa apa2 masalah*

Anywayyy...

Projek rumah sekarang sudah berjalan. Petang tadi lepas balik dari library, kami singgah melawat tapak projek. Saya expect tak de apa2 yang berlaku lagi. Tapi, to my pleasant surprise, sudah ada beberapa progres (itu bermakna harus mengeluarkan duit lagi dalam waktu terdekat. Huhu...).

Ok, let's have a look at some of the progress:

1. Ruang tamu:

Sebelum: Ini ialah keadaan asal ruang tamu kami yang comel

WIP: Dah pasang plaster ceiling

Kerja2 yang tinggal:
1. Cat plaster ceiling
2. Pasang lampu dalam plaster ceiling
3. Pasang downlight
4. Pasang kipas & lampu hiasan

Ini ialah kipas yang bakal dipasang di ruang tamu (heart kipas metallic ^_^)

Ini pulak calon lampu hiasan di ruang makan

2. Next, ruang dapur yang comel:

Ruang dapur sebelum renovation

WIP: Tile dapur dah dicabut untuk pasang tile baru

Tile dapur yang baru (tile hitam - senang cuci dan tak cepat berdaki)

Kerja2 yang tinggal untuk ruang dapur:

1. Pasang tile baru
2. Pasang lampu dapur (dah survey kat IKEA - RM89)
3. Pasang semula sinki

Kitchen cabinet sedang dalam pipeline a.k.a. fasa kedua (haruslah kumpul dana semula sebab bajet sudah transfer ke Projek Baby)

Sebenarnya, saya belum decide rupa dan design ruang dapur kami yang baru. Tapi, these are some of the looks that I like:

Black tile, red wall & ceiling, white cabinet and black counter-top. Delicious!

Black tile, apple green feature wall, white cabinet & black counter-top - eye-catching

Black tile, white/cream cabinet, black counter-top - supaya dapurku tak nampak kecik sangat

Buat masa sekarang, kiteorang masih kekalkan jubin dinding dapur sebab rasa rugi pulak dah pasang jubin tapi lepas tu nak tanggalkan. Tapi seriously. Arkitek apartment ni ketinggalan zaman ke apa?? Dah la jubin dapur hodoh dan low quality (kalau tak pasang pun tak pe, bazir duit je), tile dinding pun warna yang tak memberangsangkan & pasang separuh tinggi dinding je.

Sedang serabut kepala fikirkan nak buat apa dengan dinding dapur itu. Haruskah dibuang saja tile nya dan cat semula, atau tambah duit tile sampai siling? *sel2 otak sedang bekerja keras*

Maybe lepas dah tengok ruang dapur dengan tile baru, hopefully dah ada inspirasi untuk ruang dapur yang comel ittew :)

Lepas exam --> kena start packing barang dan concentrate Projek Baby!

Re-activating Project House

Remember that time when we were still childless, boleh lompat2, had oodles of money stashed in the bank (haha!), so much free time at hand that we went on many, many honeymoon trips, and dreaming of renovating our very first property? Yes, that was one year ago exactly. Read here.

So we waited. And waited. And waited for the house to be completed and the keys delivered to us. When we decided that we had enough of putting our lives (and other plans) on hold for the sake of this house, we then decided to move on to our second third big plan - taking MBA. Oh, the second big plan was getting pregnant and that too, took a while to materialise so we skipped to Plan #3.

There's a saying that says, 'Man maketh grand plans, but God has the final say." (Manusia mampu merancang, tetapi Tuhan yang menentukan segalanya). While we view our lives in stages and in chapter by chapter, God does not necessarily makes it that way. This year is a testament of the saying - suddenly we find that Plan #1, 2 & 3 materialised concurrently! So, lesson learnt - always be prepared for whatever possibilities.

Suddenly we found that our plans are executed in reverse order - Plan #3 (study) came first when we enrolled in the MBA programme, then came Plan #2 (pregnancy) which was discovered after we had registered and accepted the offer. Recently, Plan #1 (home renovation / moving houses) came along, making our lives even more interesting.

So back to this posting topic - the project house. You would have think after having so much time at hand we have planned and decided on our interior decoration ideas, shopped around for best buys of whatever items needed for the renovation and looked up for the most reasonable contractor to source the job to. Unfortunately, being slackers that we are, we left everything to the last minute until the house is ready to move in. By that time, we are heavily pregnant and preparing for final exam. Hmmph.

Tapi sempat jugak pergi survey electrical items and household items and sourced for quotations from contractors! I mean, not that we have much choice since:

A. We already have to pay full monthly installment to our bank upon receiving our house keys;
B. Which means we have to move out of our current rented place to avoid having to pay for two houses;
C. And, we have to act FAST coz the baby is coming!

So, in between revising for final exam, we managed to find the shop selling the most reasonable price for ceiling fan and aircond, bought cheap lightings from my favourite store, IKEA (they costed only RM10.60 each! These are for the bathrooms) and signed on a contractor to do major renovation works such as install plaster ceiling for the living and dining area complete with in-lightings and down-lights, do wiring works and install the fans and lightings, change the kitchen floor tiles so we can install kitchen cabinet later on and install grilles.

Since we now have to keep some funds for the baby and for our studies, we have to slash a big chunk off from the original budget for home renovation and do the renovations by phases (so expect phase 2, 3 & so on until our plan is completed). Sadly, that means postponing the following:

1. Kitchen cabinet - the one our contractor proposed is not exactly up to my expectations, plus it exceeds the budgeted cost by RM1K. We spent an hour discussing our wish-list for the kitchen cabinet that fits our 'comel' kitchen with IKEA kitchen consultant and the price was double the budget - so I am willing to wait and save up more for that kitchen cabinet that will bring more joy and happiness to me rather than just a 'tangkap muat' kitchen cabinet.
2. Bathroom - apart from installing the cheap lighting, we will have to do further renovation at a later stage i.e. full tiling of the bathroom wall up to the ceiling, install shower screen and change the sink. Of course Suami Terchenta will do some plumbing work himself i.e. install new rain shower head and water hose for the toilet.
3. Painting - we have not decided on the colour for our feature wall at living/dining area, kitchen and master bedroom. I am also seriously considering wallpaper but it is costly.
4. The curtains - have to use current one.

Excuse me, I go sleep on the rest of our decorating needs first. Nite, folks!

Shamelessly Exploiting My Unborn Child

On Wednesday night, Suami Terchenta fetched me at office at 8pm. As usual. Now you know why I hate work kan?

I was telling him how hungry I felt coz I had very light lunch for a pregger like me (kaya filled steamed bun). Yet, my body is growing at such an unbelievable rate, while my baby inherits the father's gene a.k.a. the baby's current weight is just 1+kg je!

As we approached the traffic light, it suddenly turned red and Suami Terchenta quickly crossed the red light. We were delighted at beating the light but the delight was short-lived - a traffic police waved frantically at us to stop.

Suami Terchenta rolled down the window and began apologising for his mistake profusely. The policeman ignored his apologies and started to ask for his IC and driving license while mulut tak berhenti-henti berleter. En Suami Terchenta made a sheepish face and I automatically placed both hands on my round belly so our baby did not have to listen to her parents being scolded :p

Upon noticing me looking all pale and tired and HUGELY pregnant, the policeman stopped berating us and closed his summons book.

'Kali ni saya maafkan awak. Lain kali jangan buat lagi.' He ended his mini-lecture. We sheepishly thanked him and drove away. As we drove by other drivers that were stopped, we noticed that some were in the middle of persuading the police traffic not to book them, and some even went out of the car to argue with the police. Luckily we got away with a mini-lecture only! Phew!~

Later only did I realise that I was using the fact that I am heavily-pregnant to escape the law! HAHAHAHAHA! Ok, ok. I know this is not good, babies are innocent creatures and should not be used for evil purposes i.e. to run away from being punished. But still, thank you Pak Polisi, for being sympathetic towards this pregnant, workaholic lady! ^_^