Tag: house decorating malaysia

Eleven inches too many.

The house is nearing completion and it’s driving me crazy. Yesterday, we decided to pop by the house at 2am to measure our kitchen counter top because I was about to have a mental breakdown. As it turned out, it was indeed 11″ too long, which screws up the entire design of the kitchen cabinets. ELEVEN FUCKING INCHES! There’s no way we can’t demolish the beautiful structure and start over :(

# – My counter top. I was so happy and now I should probably start detaching myself emotionally. Chants to self: It’s only an inanimate object x 500.

Then we noticed that the electrician has completely forgotten about a powerpoint in the backyard for the washing machine. I nearly hyperventilated to death thanks to this nugget of information but fortunately, it’s only a small matter.

Well, don’t get me wrong, I love my contractor, he is honest and amiable, which truly are hard to come by qualities where contractors are considered. But besides that he’s every bit a typical contractor, and by that I mean his working style. It drives me completely over the edge. Dude doesn’t take down notes or worse, ask questions. “Just tell me, I can remember one”, sounds familiar? Everything has been great so far except for the funny episode of paint mixed-up but this kitchen counter top issue, GAWDDDD!!! The kitchen is MY domain, I AM SUPER ANAL. I hate myself. I need therapy.

/Breath in /Breathe out

Okay enough of rantings, lets move on to the good news. The upstairs floorings are in. We chose American Birch and they look great! Very pleased with our choice. The paints are almost done too except for the house exterior and thank goodness, they’re exactly how we want the walls to look, maybe better :)

# – Our masterbedroom has flooring now!

Man, I need to fill myself with positive thoughts and good karma these coming weeks. I gotta be a grown-up about this.

Boring house stuff.

So we visited the house again this morning and found that all the power point plates and switches have been installed. Such a happy sight!

# – One set of the white Clipsal switches & points which are installed throughout the house.

And our wireman is also currently installing the outdoor wall lights. I’m so happy with our choice :D

# – This is one of the outdoor lights. We’ve got 3 installed along the porch wall. I was sold by the clean lines (cause the entire house has no organic designs) but it’s giving out an unintentional Japanese feeling, don’t you think?

The Unifi sub-contractor also came and surveyed our house for concealed wiring and about 15 minutes ago he’s informed us that it’s done. All we need to do now is move in, activate the account with TM and we’re good to go.

By the way, installation is free for now (till end of the year supposedly) but if you want concealed wiring, you have to pay for the workmanship depending on your house. This cost us RM800 (for fibre optic cable, cat5 cable, some customised telephone splitter etc and pulling them all across the roof bla bla bla) and we have no idea whether it’s reasonable or not but I’m thinking you don’t really have a choice because the party doing it must be licensed by TM.

All’s left now is for the damn kitchen sink to be delivered (was promised today but they called and said not enough deliveryman -_-) so that the kitchen countertop can be finished, kitchen cabinets, downstair lightings, water heaters, aircons, fans, floors, grills and finally paint! After that will just be further hemorrhaging of money for soft furnishings.

Broke max, thank you very much. That said, I’m only paying for kitchen stuff (cause that’s my domain) and I emphasise on the word “stuff” because what I’m paying is not inclusive of the tiling, counter top, wiring and plumbing. Oh fuck, and lightings :P

Yeap, I owe my man a lot of [censored] for on top of paying and buying everything else, he’s also subsidising me RM2000 for my “kitchen stuff”. Oh my gawd, I love my man.

House Renovation Update #5 – Bathroom tiles are done and kitchen dilemma.

All 3 bathrooms in the new house have been tiled. The last time I saw them, only the walls were on but now with the floors completed too, we can confirm that our choice of tiles are spot-on.

It’s quite scary at first because without a 3D-render (we’re operating on shoe-string budget here), the design may look good in our heads but might turn out bad in real life. So we’re really relieved that the bathrooms are looking exactly how we want them to be and better :D

Some pictures of our master bathroom:

# – ST is happy because he won’t hit the ceiling washing his head anymore.

# – I’m just happy that I don’t need to shower over a damn toilet bowl now.

Next thing to choose will be the sanitary-ware. We went to Houz Depot last week and was shocked at the sheer amount of things selling there. From tiles to various kinds of floorings to lightings to paint to furnitures and down to the smallest knick-knacks. The stuff sold there are mid-range to high-end brands at considerably lower prices.

Have heard comments that Houz Depot is considered a poor man’s Ikea, but I beg to differ as that place stocks items from various brands, many which definitely have better quality than Ikea’s overpriced proprietary stuff. I suspect they’re able to sell them at such prices due to bulk purchasing but then again I haven’t found out the costs of installation and delivery yet, so it may not be that cheap when all are added up. That said, it’s a great place to see everything all at once and to compare prices. We’ll probably be choosing something from their range of toilet cabinets and sanitary-wares.

Now that the bathrooms are almost done, the next thing to worry about now is the kitchen. For the life of me, I can’t decide on what to do! Even the wiring is not done yet because I can’t decide on where to put the built-in oven and whether to make space for a dishwasher machine. A good friend who is a kitchen designer is helping us but being the fickle minded monster that is me, I still can’t decide. And it’s all because I can’t decide what tiles to put in yet. I love a cosy with a tinge of industrial look to my kitchen but I’m afraid of turning the house into looking like a factory.

And then there’s this issue about the hob that’s been bothering me to no end. We’ve been visiting countless kitchen and electrical shops and all I’ve been seeing so far only have a maximum of 3 burners. But I want 4 or more!!! I know I’m not cooking for a party of 16 everyday but there’s just something about being able to boil, warm, steam and stir-fried all at the same time that really turns me on.

I mean, just check this monster out…..

# – 5 burners with cast iron grids. I’m creaming my pants!!!!!!111

But guess what, they don’t sell it in Malaysia :(

So what to do…I have to continue seeking for my one true hob. Wish me luck!