'Tis the season to be jolly

We've lived in our new home for about a month now (after discounting the 2 weeks we were away in NZ) and it's only about now that I finally feel this is home.

It may sound strange but for the first couple of weeks, a part of me felt like I was living in a show flat. I would get very flustered when I saw newspapers carelessly strewn on the coffee table or half eaten bags of potato chips lying around. This is extremely uncharacteristic behaviour as I am a slob at heart. Tidying up, to me, is as fun as having a root canal. So it was very disconcerting indeed.

Thankfully, I'm back to my normal, messy self now. This house, however, is turning our entire family into couch potatoes. We've never had cable before (I know, we're stone age) and since my mother-in-law watches Korean dramas, we subscribed to Starhub.

My conclusion is that cable is EVIIIIL. Why? Cos now, no matter whether it's 10 o'clock in the morning or 4.30 in the afternoon, there's always something interesting on. Either Nigella is cooking up something decadently delicious or the folks at CSI are wading through the mandatory 100 red herrings to solve yet another murder, neatly within 50 minutes. Whatever. It's incredibly addictive.

These photos show only Andre but truthfully, all of us spend an extended amount of time in front of the telly.

It's official - I live in the house of sloth. I'm praying that we will OD on food and forensics soon so we can get them out of our systems and get on with our lives.

But after the hustle and bustle in the last quarter of the year, it's kinda nice to just zone out. It's also the first Christmas in our new home and I've found that playing the Glee Christmas album while doing absolutely nothing makes me happy. (It's a very campy album but infectiously jolly).

We've only a few more days to the end of 2011 and we've been celebrating the season with family and friends. Family, friends, food and gifts - all enveloped in the warmth of love and home. There really isn't anything more one can wish for. Looking back at the momentous year we've had, I can only say I'm unspeakable grateful for the journey God has led us on and His tremendous, unbridled blessings.


Blessed Christmas to all of you, my dear friends.

"One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly." ~Andy Rooney

Movin' on

When we first found out that a neighbour moved out with 100 boxes, I laughed. "How can one accumulate so much stuff?" I wondered. Well, the joke's on me because when we called the movers, they estimated that we would need 120 boxes. "WHAAAT!!!" was my disbelieving response.

As it turned out, we didn't have to use 120 boxes... we used 114 (and this is after throwing out lots of things). All I can say is, when you've lived in one place for 11 years, you amass a frightening amount of stuff. So much stuff that nobody really needs or uses, yet we kept buying and hoarding. I kept thinking: we truly live in a world of excess.

We consciously decided to bring most of our existing furniture to the new place because we didn't want to add to the waste and growing landfills. What we didn't bring along, we gave away. Doing our little bit for the planet.

We started packing in a very systematic fashion:

Then as it became apparent that we were running out of time and space, all order went out the window. Amidst all the dust and exhaustion, Lesley-Anne and I succumbed to fever and a bothersome, hacking cough. I really thank God for my maid, she's a gem. Without her, we would never have finished packing, what with us trying to get the new house ready for moving in at the same time.

We had our very own Great Wall in our living room. This was the night before the move - to get to and from the living room, you practically had to jump over a series of obstacles.

The move itself was surprisingly smooth. I totally credit the movers. We used Soon Seng Transport Service and these are by far, the most professional movers I've ever used. Very punctual, no last minute haggling, no grumbles, about 8 guys did the job swiftly and to my amazement, cheerfully.

The furniture was wrapped very well and my piano survived the transit without so much as a scratch. They're not the cheapest in town (slightly lower than Shalom, the other folks we got a quote from) but very reliable. I think it's worth it for stress-free moving.

The last time our old place was so uncluttered was 11 years ago, before we moved in!

Andre in his old room.

Lesley-Anne in hers.

This was the only home my kids ever knew and they both grew up there so we have many lovely memories of the place. It's nostalgic and a little hard to say good-bye but it helps to know we're moving to another great place. I'm sure in time, we will be as comfortable here as we were in our old place.

All we need to do now is to create fantastic new memories :)

Splish splash!

One of the advantages of this house was that the bathrooms were remodelled, so we didn't have to redo them.

There were, however, a few things we didn't like. The wash basins, for instance were made of glass and upon closer scrutiny, there were glue and sealer stains along the edges. Glass is extremely high maintenance.

So we decided to change all the wash basins back to good old ceramic. My brother-in-law advised us to go to Sim Siang Choon as they have lots to choose from. Lots is an understatement - Sim Siang Choon is like a giant Best Denki for bath products. I like that they display all their prices upfront and even have little paper measuring tapes and pencils ala Ikea for you to do your planning.

We chose two ceramic wash basins for the kids' and my mother-in-law's bathrooms, as well as other accessories such as toothbrush holders and toiletries wall stands. The original mixers (faucets) were in reasonably good condition so we retained them. The installation was done by our contractor. I think you can also engage Sim Siang Choon for the installation.

This is the kids' bathroom wash basin before:

And after:

Mum-in-law's wash basin before:

And after:

For her bathroom, we also installed grab bars for added safety, excellent advice by my friend.

For the master bathroom, we wanted a wash basin with a vanity so that we could store toiletries out of sight. Unfortunately, Sim Siang Choon doesn't carry many of these. So we decided to give Ikea a try, with their new Godmorgen bath series. It's very reasonably priced and like most Ikea goods, looks great. Whether it will last remains to be seen, am hoping for the best!

This is before:

And after:

The final change we made was the addition of a shower screen to the master bathroom. The previous owner used a shower curtain (right pic), which we thought was impractical and somewhat incongruous in an otherwise classy bathroom.

So we had a frameless shower door installed, to complete the look. This is what my bathroom looks like now:

My bathrooms before have always been purely functional and nothing much to look at. It's lovely to have one where I can unwind and wash my cares away. Taking a shower has never been so relaxing!

Window dressing

If there's one thing I learnt about dealing with contractors, it's what can go wrong will go wrong. But in the midst of all that went wrong, a couple of vendors came through with minimal hiccups. One of them was D'Zander, the curtains company.

I discovered D'Zander through the Internet when I was looking for recommendations. The name kept popping up with real users citing their quality, reliability and reasonable pricing. The lady I spoke to, Doris, provides excellent service and was able to give advice on what sort of fabric I should use, which I appreciated.

We wanted a neutral tone for the living/dining area. The walls are painted Barley White, which has a yellow tinge (it looks yellower in the picture than it actually is, due to the lighting). We used Nippon paint for the whole house. It's probably more expensive than the brand-less paint used by some contractors but we think it's worthwhile. We used Nippon paint at our current place and 11 years on, it still looks relatively fresh.

This is the living room:

And the dining room. We used sheer curtains as it leads out to the patio and wanted to extend the look of the area.

For the master bedroom, we also adopted a neutral tone. Doris was the one who suggested having the track all the way up to the false ceiling and tying the day and night curtains in opposite directions for the smaller window. I think the effect is pretty elegant, I would never have come up with this myself.

The wall colour is 8148 Peaceful (I'm noting down the colours for my own record, don't mind me).

We used the same fabric for my mother-in-law's room. Wall colour is 0012 Soft Sands.

For the kids' rooms, it was slightly more complicated. I find that most curtain companies stock very few fun fabrics, except for the very kiddy designs with cartoon characters. According to D'Zander, they're harder to sell, so not worth stocking up on.

For my kids, I couldn't find any design I liked so in the end, I turned to the quintessential fun company - Ikea. Ikea has many lovely fabric patterns - they're quirky and not too expensive. The downside is that they often run out of stock, especially for popular designs, and the quality tends to be inferior, eg. most of their fabrics shrink in the wash. So it's something you'll need to cater for.

Doris was very accommodating - she took the measurements of the windows and told me how much fabric to buy for each of the kids' rooms, then charged me only a minimal sum to sew the curtains for me.

Lesley-Anne wanted a room with blue accents so we picked out this rich blue fabric with white leaf patterns. Her walls are painted 8126 Comfort. It's a lovely creamy yellow, much nicer than it appears in the picture.

When I first asked Andre what colour he wanted his room to be, he told me "orange and fire engine red!" I'm not surprised - it shouts his personality - but I shuddered just thinking about such a gaudy room. So we compromised. I gave him one wall in orange and the others in yellow. The red would be accents in the form of his furniture. (His grandmother commented that she would need sunglasses just to enter his room, lol).

To contrast the orange wall, I chose a white cotton fabric with writing from Ikea for his curtains. It's very cute but it's a thin fabric so D'Zander had to line the curtains. The orange shade is 8117 Zing. Lesley-Anne commented that Andre's room looked delicious and was the "happy" room. It really is cheerful, which is great for a kid's room.

I recommend D'Zander whole-heartedly if you're thinking of making curtains. The number is 6276 9921. Ask for Doris.

Floored by wood laminates

When we received the keys to our new place, the first thing we noticed was that the living/dining floor was not in as good condition as we'd initially thought. The granite had many deep cracks and looked worse for the wear.

Needing a quick solution and not wanting to go through the hassle of hacking the floor tiles, we decided on laminate flooring. Since it's laid over existing flooring, it's clean and easy to install. We also love the wooden slate floor look and ok, we know it's not really wood but it's much more affordable.

After some research on the Internet, we found that many recommended Inovar for its quality and lifetime warranty. It's a made-in-Malaysia brand and it even supplies to other recognised brands like Pergo and Supreme.

As luck would have it, there was a home decor exhibition at the Singapore Expo at the time and Inovar was offering their laminate wood flooring at the special price of $2.60 psf. It's truly a great deal, the regular price is $4 psf and Pergo's would probably go for at least $4.50 psf.

We wanted a light floor to make the room look bigger and we also didn't want anything too patterned in case it turned out too Little House on the Prairie (our furniture follows a contemporary theme). So in the end, we settled for Pearl Teak, a white stained shade.

Some preparation goes into the installation. First, you need to remove the skirting, then patch and paint it. This is a separate charge if you engage Inovar. We got our contractor to do it.

Next, since the floor panels are laid on top of existing flooring, the gap between the door and the floor needs to be widened. Inovar removed the entire door and sanded it down.

Finally, the installation! The floor panels come flat packed.




Polythene sheets are first underlaid as a moisture barrier.

Then the laying of floor boards begin. This is an amazingly quick process, the three Malaysian boys who did the job for us are seriously pros! Lay, align, hammer into place - speedy and with meticulous precision.

After that, they install the new skirting, which comes free of charge with the flooring. They select the skirting that's closest to the colour of your laminate floor.

Finally, they install the capping along floor edges.

The whole process took just half a day. Unfortunately, we discovered that one plank was chipped and changing that took more than an hour. It's complicated to change one plank, especially if it's right in the centre of your floor, because they'll need to remove all the interlocking planks from one side of your wall. It's something like a Lego system - you can't remove one middle brick without removing the surrounding ones.

This is before:

And after:

I love my Inovar floor!

Wallpaper nightmare

What's more painful than watching paint dry? Stripping wallpaper.

The plan was to start the paintwork on our house on Monday and I had envisioned a few freshly painted walls by the end of the day. Boy, was I wrong. The living room area was wallpapered, so before painting could start, the workers had to remove it. And what a time-consuming chore it is.

After 3 hours with only half a wall done (and earlier excitement rapidly draining), we realised it was a sloooooooooooow process. If you think you can easily rip off the wallpaper like a bandaid, think again. It's akin to peeling off a price tag from a non-price-tag-friendly surface. Except this price tag is the size of a cathedral window.

Kenneth discovered that adding water helped the process significantly and to speed things up, we rolled up our sleeves and got into the action. It can be rather therapeutic, especially when you manage to peel off a large piece at a go.

Actually, taking off the wallpaper was easy compared to getting rid of the dried glue. That, my friend, is a real b**** to take off.

When I surfed the Net in a desperate attempt to see if there were secret techniques to this task, I found many forums with large volumes of swear words (worse than mine) directed at wallpaper because of its immovability. Nice to know we're not alone.

That's not all. Andre's room had a full-sized wall mural which was stuck on wallpaper style.

It's pretty but no 11-year-old boy would be caught dead with a monster-sized Mickey Mouse on his wall, so we had to remove it. Apparently, this was some high quality laminate which left a thick impenetrable layer of dried plastic-like substance. Unlike the living room glue, it didn't soften in water and the only way to get rid of it was to chip at it painstakingly as it broke off into teeny pieces of plaster and dust. Enough to make anyone swear.

Finally, after 2½ days, the living room was wallpaper-free. The glue marks, however, were impervious to washing or scraping. Our contractor says he can successfully paint over the marks, so we'll see how that works out. Andre's room, on the other hand, has been half abandoned for now.

If there's ever a piece of advice I could give you with regards to home decor, DON'T USE WALLPAPER. It doesn't stand well to wear, it's unsightly when it starts to peel and as we've discovered, it's a real pain to remove. There are many other better alternatives to dress up your walls.

Meanwhile, we're not disheartened - it's just a little bump in the road. We're still having loads of fun and the kids love to see all the works. Due to the dust in the living room, we had to move our command post to the patio. Of course we have Internet.

And there's always something very special about having a meal in a brand new, empty home. Even if it's just Burger King and prata!

Keys to a new chapter

Back in July, I wrote in a post that we'd bought a new place and will be moving end of the year. Well, we finally got the keys last week and to say we're excited would be a gross understatement.

The place we bought is is pretty good condition and reasonably well maintained but still, there are 101 niggly things that need to be taken care of. I know there are many families who will just move in and take care of these details gradually... but we're not that sort of family. We want everything to be perfect (or near perfect) so that when we move in, we can say "Aaahhh, this is our new home".

Even if this means running around like post-hibernation squirrels, trying to see to every minute detail ("buy extension to Andre's fan cord so he can reach it without standing on his bed"). I suspect there's a little OCD coursing through our veins. There were days when I was so exhausted that I went to bed and was out like a light by 10.30pm, which is unheard of for a night owl like me.

I wanted to record this process for myself since moving house is not something we do often (not for us anyway), so be warned that in the next few weeks, the posts will be predominantly on home and decor issues.

Sorry if you want to read only about education. The only education bit that's happening in my life now is Andre's upcoming SA2, which makes me weary just thinking about it, let alone blog about it. Thankfully, Lesley-Anne's exams are over and anyway, she did all her revisions on her own. Thank God for secondary school!

Back to the house. The first week we spent primarily meeting up with various contractors/tradesmen getting quotes. We didn't want to get a general contractor since we're not doing major renovations so even though it was more of a hassle, we decided to go directly to specialist vendors. Because we tried to get 2 or 3 quotes for every job, I think we managed to get better value in the end.

Of course, the quality of work remains to be seen. Hopefully we made the right choices.

This is our command post aka living and dining area:

The first 3 days were a whirlwind. At one point, we were meeting so many contractors that we almost lost track of who was quoting for what. Hooray for Excel spreadsheets!

Painting starts today. I can't wait to see how it turns out - colour really changes the feel of a house/room. Will blog about the progress, err... progressively.