Alhamdullilah, we held a small and intimate kenduri doa selamat for our new home with our closest families and friends yesterday, just like what we wanted :)

We intended to keep it simple and serve french loaves with chicken curry but our parents and friends brought lots of makanan and kueh mueh as buah tangan so we ended up with quite a feast hehe.

Took pictures of our completed home before the kenduri doa selamat, some of them are below!

Kitchen & Service Yard

Our white fridge in our white kitchen! ♥♥♥

We do NOT regret removing the door and side window panel from our teeny tiny kitchen at all!!! Makes the kitchen and service yard look and feel more spacious than it really is, and we love it.

Our LG washing machine which arrived last Friday! We're quite ghairah to try out our washing machine because...

... our washing machine can nyanyi apparently, someone told me on Twitter HAHAHAHAHA. 

Laki aku berbual macam itu washing machine boleh nyanyi lagu Kpop, lagu R&B, lagu rock kapak segala sak. Seram jugak eh kalau baru habis cuci baju tetiba washing machine start teran "Diaaaaaaa!!! Isabellaaaaa!!! Lambang cintaaa!!! Yang laraaaAaAaaAAAAaaa~" HAHAHAHAHA

Master Bedroom

LOOOOOVVVEEEEE OUR MASTER BEDROOM LIKE CRAZY WTFBBQHWNE9VGFTAWKFW8342RFW!!!!!!!!

Must really credit my husband for the look and feel of our master bedroom because he was the one who suggested build-in bed base and wardrobe (which I now adore like crazy) and he chose the material and colour of our master bedroom curtains. Aku tolong 'ye' kan aje haha.

I was a little skeptical about the material for the curtains honestly, and was worried it'll look too metallic and futuristic lol zaman cyber concept dah habis woi. But the curtains ended up looking really luxe and sexy hehehehehe. Love the slight sheen of the curtains! 

Passageway & Guestroom

Still a little iffy about the door colours being a little too yellow for my liking (not this bright in real life though, in reality the door colours are more light maple than anything) But overall the passageway looks really warm and nice, especially during nighttime. The camera can't seem to capture the true colour of the lights too - it's not that yellow in real life, I promise! Also, jangan tegur IKEA frame masih kosong because... we got no time to print lah ha ha ha

We opted for blinds for the guestroom because we think curtains will be too "heavy". Very very happy with the blind by the way, Rene from Waltz & Windows initially said our blinds will be made up of two separate blinds but somehow she managed to get us a single one that can cover our guestroom windows in its entirety. No gaps! Happy!

Haven't had the chance to unpack my stuff for my vanity table so the boxes are still waiting under our Micke desk heh. You can't see our Billy bookcase from the picture above because we placed it opposite our Micke desk.

And while we're at it, can we all now come together and appreciate how fantastic it is for that freaking Hampen rug from IKEA to be able to fit so snugly onto what's left of the floor space after kita dah letak the desk and bookcase??? Perfect fit, like it was meant to be! :D

(Also, if we buy just ONE MORE thing from IKEA to letak inside that room, I am calling it the IKEA room I SWEAR)

Living Room

The custom made shelving next to our main door and kitchen entrance...

... and my favourite part of the living room!!! It looks a little "warmer" than the rest of the areas because I took this picture with our warm white light switched on. Nak tangkap mood and ambience lah konon lololol

We envisioned a super cosy living room area where we can lepak lepak with friends or have nice warm cuddles while watching TV hehe... so I guess we managed to pull it off somehow?! Can't wait for our sofa, coffee table and TV console from Second Charm to come in now so we can see how all of them look like together! 

Day and night curtains are by the wonderful Windows & Waltz of course, material is more plain than our master bedroom punya but looks just as lovely! Fits the feel of the area, imho. The Lack TV console pulak is temporary for now, we'll decide where to relocate it when the times comes.

Now that the renovation progress is over, I really want to do a recap and mention our home renovation contractors by name!!! Will blog about it soon! (Most probably tomorrow lah)

Konstruction Khronicles: Week 6 (Week 2)

It's been a busy weekend and banyak benda dah berlaku for our new home since I last updated! Can you believe that our home renovation is now officially over????? 6 weeks felt like 6 hours! (Bedek hahaha) 

Will blog more about our contractor and share thoughts about the whole renovation process once our payment to our contractor is settled and I can catch a breather! In the meantime, I ceritakan dulu pasal what happened over the last weekend eh.

Completion of counter-top installation

Already blogged last Thursday on how our kitchen and bathroom sink counter-tops are already installed so I'll just share a few more pictures taken last weekend. 

Frame in the last picture is senget, I know, but we'll fix it proper when we've printed the content, I promise! Anyway, we both looove how everything turned out, I'm just a little iffy with the bathroom cabinets' laminate design but Saliheen thinks it looks okay now with the countertop installed. Whatevzzz, me is definitely loving the bathroom mirrors more!!!

Anyway, our contractor helped to do some drilling works last weekend as well so we listed down all the areas where we needed drilling. Nothing much really, just some hooks for picture frames and a clock in the living room. As you can see, we bought the el cheapo S$1.50 plastic clock from IKEA as a temporary solution! Sementara kita cari clock yang kita betul betul suka and boleh afford.

Installation of Storage Rack

Also had professionals over to install our storage rack last weekend! Too many choices in the market for storage rack so we decided to just order from a company that slotted their 10% discount voucher through our door. Since the prices are about the same across the market, 10% off pun okaylah, kita ambik jelah.

Not too fussy about storage rack lah, we didn't care bolted ke tak bolted ke or the planks are wood ke metal ke, so we just told the guy in charge we want 1 storage rack 'N' in grey. (You can ask for 2 racks if you want them in L-shape) He came with another person for installation and it only took them 15 minutes to install the whole thing. Very speedy gonzales.

If you tak cerewet pasal storage rack macam kita jugak, you can call or text Mr Lai at 6441 7809 or 9816 6358. Mungkin boleh try tanya pasal the 10% discount because he didn't even ask me for proof of voucher before he left and said "No need, no need" when  I wanted to pass it to him lolzzz.

Original price for our 4-tiered 56 inch (in length) rack was S$130, but with discount we paid S$117 only. It's bolted, comes with wooden planks, and ada grey or brown colour.

Very happy we got the storage rack installed and settled because that means we can start moving some of our barang barang into the storeroom already! Yayyyyy. Dah boleh start unpack, declutter and shift things out from our guestroom, yang sebelum ni looks like this:

Sekarang tinggal nak shift our our clothes and shoes from my parents' home aje, can you believe it! Berbaloi jugak kita shift barang barang kita sikit sikit sampai lama lama jadi bukit.

Delivery of Mattress from Tilam King

We also got our mattress from Tilam King delivered last weekend!!! Best tau golek golek!!!

We got the Premiere Series, which we ordered 2 months ago. So pleased with this purchase!!!

Kita belum bukak the protective sheet and belum pasang bedsheets segala because we want to get the curtains installed first. Takut berhabuk during the curtain installation pulak.

Besides all of that, we also used our time during the weekend to bersihkan the rumah sikit and made several trips to beli barang rumah omg PENAT TAK TERHINGGA TAU!!!!! Jangan cakap my hands and feet, my hati jantung limpa segala pun mintak ampun!!! Nanti I ceritakan pasal our recent purchases in the next entry eh sebab kalau tak, y'all pulak yang penat nak baca entry ni.

Konstruction Khronicles: Week 6 (Part 1)

JENG JENG JENG. We weren't expecting this at all but our counter-tops are installed already!!! 

Our contractor janji counter-tops will be ready by today or tomorrow so we were pleasantly surprised when we went to our unit yesterday to drop off some barang barang and saw the kitchen transformed. Pictures were taken at night so lighting isn't the best but hopefully I'll get better pictures of the kitchen counter-top and the bathroom sink counter-tops (those are ready too!) this coming weekend. 

Saliheen and I are madly in love with our kitchen now. He was skeptical about the counter-top design at first but I convinced him that this white with black and brown specks counter-top will "add character" to our white kitchen. Character ape pun aku tak tau lah actually, but somehow it works lah kan.

Konstruction Khronicles: Week 5 (Part 2)

Since we knew we were gonna be at the new unit to check out the carpentry progress last weekend, we decided to get some other stuff settled as well - like the delivery of our dining table and chairs as well as appointments with curtain specialists. Whoop whoop!

Delivery of Dining Table & Chairs

That's our dining table and chairs which we ordered from Comfort Design HURRAY!!! We got them delivered last Saturday afternoon and they are the Norya Dining Table and Titus Wood-V1 Chairs in white.

To be honest, when we were at Comfort Design last two weeks, we were very worried about the colour of the table legs clashing with our colour palette. Unfortunately we couldn't find anything else we like + within our budget anywhere else so we decided to just 'kamikaze' in the end. And now that the dining table and chairs are in our living room, we think the table legs memang too dark for our liking :/

We'll live with them for the next few months to see if the colour grows on us but if not, we're considering spray painting them white terus. We'll see how lah eh. But other than that, we're very happy with our purchase!!! Both the table and chairs are very sturdy and very comfortable. We know because we dined at the table with another couple malam tu jugak hehehe

Appointments with Curtains Specialists

I previously blogged about ordering curtains from a shop in Joo Chiat but I got a little annoyed when my calls were left unanswered and not returned. So many players in the industry for me to choose from, why should I wait for you when you cannot even answer or return calls, betul tak? And to think I timed my phonecalls to be at generally convenient timings and spaced out between each other to kasi chance pfft

So I contacted 2 other curtain specialists to get their quotes instead - Rene from Windows & Waltz and Andy from Soon Seng Heng. I knew Windows & Waltz from Shidah (who blogged about them here) whereas I discovered Soon Seng Heng from good old Google search. 

There are so many other curtain specialists hawking their services online but I chose these two based on the simplicity of their websites lololol. So superficial I know, but I follow my gut feeling also hor!!! Andy from Soon Seng Heng was especially impressive with his email replies - very prompt and to the point. Also helps that his quote is much lesser than $1500 (which was the quote from auntie langsir kat Joo Chiat)

But in the end, we cancelled our afternoon appointment with Soon Seng Heng because we decided to engage Rene of Windows and Waltz (who came to our unit in the morning) on the spot! Her quote was $1200 for the curtains and blinds we chose for our 3 rooms, which is below S$1500 too wtf how come the first auntie langsir kat Joo Chiat punya quote sampai $1500 one!!! Mintak kena bedal jadi sambal ke ape siak.

Anyway, Rene was super nice and we really like her! Good vibes. She was also willing to rush our order walaupun sekarang tengah peak festive period. If anyone wants to engage her for curtains and blinds you can quote my name and she can give friend friend discount tau!

Some other stuff we managed to do: More packing and purchase of a whistling kettle! I also won myself a blender from a lucky draw last Saturday! Which means that's two items off our home wishlist yay yay :D

Anyway, here's a quick list of things that will happen this week:

(1) installation of kitchen and bathroom sink counter-tops

(2) delivery of our mattress from Tilam King

(3) installation of storage rack

We're already at the tail end of our renovation and I'm all burned out from all the trips and decisions and bloody packing we've been doing for the past 5 weeks. Gimme my functioning home already!!!!!

I will now end this entry with a familiar picture of my husband vacuuming our house. Again.

I wasn't joking when I said I can compile and sell a pictorial book called "Saliheen Cleaning Things" YOU GAIZE

Konstruction Khronicles: Week 5 (Part 1)

Here we are at Week 5 of our renovation and part paling lama nak tunggu but penting has finally started - CARPENTRY!!! Please excuse me for sounding like an excitable child high on coke for the next few paragraphs because this was what we discovered when we popped over our new home last weekend: 

Our built-in bed base is ready!!! Our built-in cupboard is ready!!! Our customized shelving at the living room is ready!!! Our kitchen cabinet is ready!!! Our toilet cabinet is ready!!!

READY YOU HEAR ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Master Bedroom

Cannot stress enough how in lurrrrrve I am with our built-in cupboard and bed base wtf!!!!! 

I really thought our master bedroom will look super cramped and super tiny once the bed base and cupboard are installed but it didn't turn out as bad as I envisioned seh. Still got enough space to maneuver around the bedroom lah wahlau takut sangat kena jalan on tightrope dalam bilik.

Also,  full length mirror on the cupboard??? Best idea ever hello??? No need to find a full length mirror that will take up space in the room woohoo! Saliheen didn't want any mirror on the cupboard initially but his brother convinced him that just one full length mirror at one side will do wonders. Plus so functional!

I really think our master bedroom looks sooooo cosy and inviting now, imagine how it'll be once furnished with fluffy bedsheets and curtains wtf. Really cannot wait to golek golek on the katil like a literal badak berendam!!!

Okay let us now keluar from the master bedroom into the... toilet. Hahaha. 

Master Bedroom Toilet & Common Toilet

To be honest, the carpentry for our toilet cabinets is not something we're very excited about :/ The sinks are of ideal size and shape for us and we're really happy with the mirror and hidden compartments! But there is just something off about the colour of the cabinets? I think we chose the wrong shade lah, tak seamless sangat when seen together with our bathroom floor. Meh. We would've preferred if the lines on the cabinet was horizontal instead of vertical too.

But issokey, we can live with it for now since it's just a matter of aesthetics, but we'll probably change the colour and design by the following year when we have more funds. Just to sedapkan mata memandang.

Living Room

More carpentry in the living room: this set of customized shelves in the living room was Saliheen's bright idea and I LOVE IT LIKE CRAZY!!! The LED lights belum pasang yet but it already looks so nice omg what is this shit why am I lusting after some shelves

So glad Saliheen decided to change the colour from wood to white too, macam seamless kan bila tengok satu kali dengan dapur? We don't know what we're gonna decorate the shelves with yet lah but I guess this is one of the corners that will constantly change to ikut mood and musim :)

Our carpenter pun tolong buat shelving inside the empty kotak near our main door! Macam gini:

To letak kasut kasut so tak nampak cluttered at the entrance. I think most people will do this in their flats kan sekarang? Went to visit our friends-turned-neighbours at the next block and dorang buat macam gini jugak. Our flats are all so tiny now, sayang seh bila ada empty space macam gini so might as well utilize. 

Kitchen

Sooooooooooooooo much love for our kitchen too!!! So white and so pure, just like what we wanted YAY! Was a liiiiittle skeptical as to whether a stainless steel back-splash will fit in amidst all of the whites but I think it looks fine??? Hopefully we won't have to give up 10 years of our lives scrubbing the backsplash lepas masak since it's supposed to be easier to clean and maintain haha

By the way that wooden top is NOT our countertop eh. Our countertop belum siap ler, our contractor said it should be in by next Thursday or Friday if there are no delays. Veryyyyy excited to see the kitchen countertop in its entirety obviously, let's hope our choice will not fail us!!! Kalau tak, aku akan letak rice cooker air fryer segala kat lantai to tunjuk perasaan #whacko

More home-related stories in the next entry sebab my cerita pasal carpentry macam dah panjang sangat. KAN?!

Konstruction Khronicles: Week 4 (Part 2)

Went to our unit yesterday to transfer barang and saw that our bedroom doors are already up hurray!!! Obviously I'm very happy the doors are all installed, cuma now I kinda wish we chose white instead of maple. It's a liiittle too yellow for my liking, I would have preferred something lighter or more neutral.

Saliheen, on the other hand, thinks the doors are fab and is convinced they add to the cosiness of our house. Awww, hard for me not to be happy when he is! I really do like the grain pattern on the doors anyway - very pretty! Shame I can't seem to capture it in pictures.

Konstruction Khronicles: Week 3

I know I aaaaalways sound excited about my renovation progress (that's because I AM) but I think this week was the absolute most exciting for Saliheen and I because our flooring and lighting were due to be up and running!!! Penting k these two! We had a ~pretty~ packed schedule last weekend so I nak sharing lah sikit what happened. Let's go in khronological order eh:

9.00am - Collection of Keys from HDB

Finally received confirmation from HDB that we can collect our key back from them so kita singgah sekejap in the morning! Quite relieved we didn't wait for HDB to lenggang kangkung buat our cement screeding works after knowing how terrible their service was (blogged here). If something as minor as returning our key took them one month and two phonecalls, what more something major like cement screeding??? Tak boleh harap betul.

10.00am - Contractor Appointment

We were the most excited for this OBVI!!!!! So much so that Saliheen and I tak boleh concentrate the whole week and keep whining ASAL LAMBAT NI NAK SATURDAY ASAL NI ASAL NI ASAL BELUM SATURDAY NI y'all wouldn't have wanted to be in the same house as us last week ah basically hahahaha

But you might like to be in the same house as us from this day onwards because our rumah dah ada flooring and toilet doors y'allz YAY YAY

Last picture is of my husband sweeping the floor for, oh I don't know... THE TENTH BILLIONTH TIME

Electrician came that morning as well to confirm the location of our lights and said he'll be done in 2 to 3 hours. Had plans immediately after that so we left, with the intention of returning to make sure the lights are in the correct places and working fine later that afternoon.

11.30pm - Purchase Dining Set from Comfort Furniture Design

Returned to Comfort Furniture to confirm our purchase of dining table and chairs! We went with our first choices - Norya for dining table, and Titus for dining chairs. Delivery will be in 2 weeks' time, which means we'll have our dining able and chairs ready for when we move in! This was quite important for us because we wanted a proper table that we can eat and work on.

We know we could have gotten similar chairs at a cheaper price elsewhere but we wanted the convenience of buying everything under one roof, we preferred Comfort's version (in terms of quality and ergonomics) and we really aren't willing to go through the online route. But in case anyone wants chairs like these but at a cheaper price (and by cheaper, I mean half price), you can get them at Star Living here (S$49.00) or Forty Two here (S$45.90)

1.00pm - Confirm Furniture Order for Second Charm 

Since we didn't get lucky when we went to Second Charm last week, we attempted one more trip down to its warehouse to confirm our order for furniture. We spoke with Sharifah, the owner herself!

She was in a bit of a rush because she had to attend to three different sets of customers but we didn't mind because we already had time to speak to another guy Azmi and we've already considered the prices after our first trip to Second Charm. It was much quieter then. If you want to have a more relaxed visit, go on a Sunday afternoon instead of Saturday!

Second Charm will be customizing 4 pieces for us - two-seater sofa, one-seater armchair, a coffee table and a TV console! We opted for fabric instead of PVC for our sofa and armchair and the above swatches are the available colours, can you guess which colours we're going for?! Actually got more lah but this collection was the one yang memanggil kita hehe

Our orders will take about 6 to 8 weeks to process, which means we might have to do without any of those until end December/early January. Which is okay lah, duduk lantai pun tak mati pe. Unless your lantai ada onak dan duri ah then maybe you should reconsider your choices in life.

3.00pm - Lunch, Lights and then IKEA

Went for our lunch at Bagus and coincidentally Sham and Aisyah wanted to have lunch and come visit out unit if we were available. Since we wanted to go back to our unit to see the installed lights anyway it was perfect timing!

Tested (and squealed over) the lights then after dah lepak lepak for about half an hour, we made our way out. By pure coincidence, all of us wanted to IKEA after that so off we went lo! Aisyah saw and pointed out this LACK TV bench to us whilst there and we were very happy over this find lah!

Saliheen wanted to have a temporary tempat letak TV while waiting for our TV console from Second Charm, you see, and we also want to have an el cheapo bench to letak luar rumah. So I pun suggest - apa kata we purchase this LACK bench, use it for our TV then once our actual TV console arrives, we transfer the bench out to our corridor and buat as bench untuk orang duduk pakai kasut lor! It costs S$19.90 anyway, kalau disintegrate after a few weeks out in the corridor pun kita tak akan rasa sayang sangat.

10.00am - Late Night Visit With My Family

We wanted to return to our unit one more time after our IKEA trip because kita kemarok kita nak testing the lights again and see how our unit will glow at night pulak. Picked up my family first so we can show them our new home too :D

Soooooooooooo much love for our home during the night!!!!! During the day pun love jugak lah, this love for our home at night is a different kind of love k. Suuuuuper cosy, just like how we wanted it to be :D :D :D

No more major updates until next weekend because our contractor dah preempt yang carpentry will take some time. Pintu bilik might come in this week, though! Dah boleh main ketuk ketuk.

Anyway, just wanted to mark this next mini milestone with a mention: We've started packing our barang barang last Thursday! It's a little early but we'd rather slowly sieve through our belongings and decide which ones to throw or bring to our new home than to pack everything within one to two days. Hopefully the penat tak rasa sangat kalau buat slowly.

And talking about rasa rasa ni kan, friends have been asking if I dah start rasa emotional about moving out! Honestly, I still don't feel emotional or whatever, might be because I'm still too focused on the logistics of moving out to truly realize the implication of this next step I'm taking in life. We'll see how I fare on the first day away from my family and the very first place I know as home eh? (My parents tak pernah pindah rumah)

Mungkin my emotion receptor lambat activate lah, macam time I nak kahwing dulu. I didn't feel nervous or stressed during the weeks leading to my wedding but the minute I nampak my vendors masuk rumah 3 hours before the nikah, that's it, the gemuruh naik ke tengkorak masuk tekak lah siol.