DP#4 (27/05/2013)

the main guy came in today. he has started clearning off the pebbles at the courtyard. he's going to tile up the area and install pebble wash borders to match the porch (i cant for the life of me recall how the porch looks like - i gotta find some pictures).

 

he'll be closing off the balconies in all the rooms. once that is done i can call the wardrobe people to measure as i'll be putting the wardrobes where the balconies are. he will also install plaster ceiling at the living and dining as they currently open up to the first floor. by putting up plaster ceiling we can use the space upstairs for storage. we decided to have a linen closet at back, above the dining room, and a bookshelf in front, above the living room.

he will also close off the fish pond outside and put up a deck. this is not a permanent deck as we may open up and utilise the fish pond later in the future.

these are the main areas he will be looking into...

DP#3 (26/05/2013)

its been 10 days. the first person have gone in and almost gone out. he was supposed to finish everything yesterday but he said he was waiting for tiles to arrive. so he's requested for another day to finish off the tiling work where the door towards the wet kitchen have been closed off, tiling work around the border of the breakfast area and paint work at the ceiling of the breakfast area (as it was initially another room, now it has to match the kitchen as its part of the kitchen). so yeah...one more day for him to complete.

in the meantime, the main guy will start work tomorrow. he says he wanted to start with closing off the court yard but i thought that should be done at a later stage and his workers will be moving in and out through the court yard. i would prefer if he starts with closing off the balconies so that i can get the wardrobe and curtain people over to measure and quote.

the dry kitchen, at various stages...

almost-completed, as at 25/05/2013

DP#2 (15/05/2013)

the first of the two will commence his work today. he will concentrate more on the dry kitchen as for now, only the dry kitchen has been finalised. the wet...well, we need to discuss that further.

my first vision was to have a full kitchen in the dry kitchen - preparation, cooking, cleaning all in there, with an island (i can't miss that!) and my must-have for this one, a breakfast nook. it wasn't easy convincing everyone i wanted a breakfast nook. first, a wall had to be knocked down and knocking down a wall scared everyone. and then budget needed to go up - knocking down, breakfast counter, retiling etc - all costs money. but i managed to rally support and i got what i really, really wanted.

but then i was given another design that i was not expecting. i had to go away and get my head around it but it turned out not to be a big change to deal with. my dry kitchen wont be all-inclusive (ie cooking will be in the wet kitchen) and my wet kitchen wont be the pantry i envisioned but, like hubby would say, whatevs. its not going to put a big dent in our lives and we'll just move around it.

but to have the cooking in the wet kitchen requires a bit of work so that's been put on hold. we're concentrating on the dry kitchen now. what the first guy will do is hack the wall between the kitchen and the utility room to make a corner for my breakfast nook. close off one of the doors to the wet kitchen (there's two doors because initially the wet kitchen was divided into two). retile and paint where necessary. he offered to do some wiring work, ie pull wires from the dry to the wet kitchen but i told him not to overdo it as we havent finalised the design of the wet kitchen.

what the original dry kitchen looks like ...

DP#1 (08/05/2013)

we were given a proposition last year. tssc purchased a few houses in BJ and wanted us to take care of one, that's his words for - move in before i rent it out. with him, you never know if he's serious and if he means it and if we should pursue it. we were lost of what to do but he kept badgering us to move in. how can we, honestly. we can't even take care of our current premise and now that i'm no longer working, how can we maintain 2 houses. so we did what we do best, dodge the question.

then after a year of being pressured (seriously, its a pressure to move!) we were finally presented with an option, which we gratefully took. so the planning began. it was intense and terrifying and made us feel like we could not breathe most of the time. 9 years ago, it was only the 2 of us. we could take our own sweet time and were very relaxed and excited. now there's 6. we had to plan the timeline properly, so that the boys are not disrupted, so that they don't know, so that they dont get excited and start pressure us!

for about a month we did the ground work. i looked for help and hubby met them. i dont like meeting people and have an almost-zero patience level so hubby was the one who went back and forth discussing what we wanted with them. i just set up the appointments. we decided after meeting about 4 and after many, many lengthy discussions.

although the person above is doing majority of the work, there is another who is doing some work too. he was introduced by the person who will be doing the kitchen, so he'll settle the kitchen with his introducer. i wasn't too comfortable with that decision but oh well.

despite the pressure we faced for a year, alhamdulillah for this opportunity. for this learning experience. for this project. for all of this. alhamdulillah ya rabb. i feel so small when i think about this. it was a dream i prayed for, for over a year, and its here, syukur alhamdulillah.

all praise and thanks is to Allah, (the) Creator, Owner, Sustainer of the Worlds

segala puji bagi Allah, Tuhan semesta alam

Ramadhan Day 29

not sure what i'm feeling as the holy month of Ramadhan comes to a close. sad, obviously, Ramadhan has always been a calming month (not so this year though). frustrated,because i set a certain target but i didn't reach (actually was nowhere near reaching) it. i hope to do better next year, insyaAllah. upset at myself because the month just flew by and there's so many things that i could have done. scared wondering if we'll see another Ramadhan again. happy because i achieved some - i went for terawikh at the mosque again, after 9 years. the last was when i was pregnant with amir back in 2004. alhamdulillah, in the last week we went almost everyday. pray that next Ramadhan we'll be at the mosque more often.

in the midst of all that, i was also proud. proud of the boys. last year they were not too serious about fasting - amir only fasted a few days here and there, asyraf woke up for sahur but lasted only till 4-5pm. this year, they were determined, asyraf more than anyone else. masyaAllah, they were wonderful. woke up with minimal fuss, no half-days or quarter-days (except for amir for sneaked a drink or two in school three times urgh!!), minimal complains (there were still some, of course) and they stayed healthy throughout the month.


ariff opted a few days here and there to not fast. we're really ok because he was so much better than we expected. i was looking at 3-5 days to start, ariff managed a whopping 20 days, alhamdulillah. asyraf had a 100% record while amir cheated for three days and managed to fast 26 days. we were very upset with amir as he did not tell us straight away that he broke his fast, he only confessed a week after. we hope he learned his lesson and be more honest with us next time. and eat more during sahur so that he could stay strong till iftar.

the last week or so of Ramadhan saw me going back to the kitchen preparing sahur. after a while i was lost of what to cook and recycled quite a bit of the food. i also begged the boys to have cereal now and again because i just could not think of what to prepare.

we also went out more for iftar. had buffet at klgcc and sdcc, went to bank rakyat's iftar and with hubby's footie friends in PJ. we're not a fan of buffet for iftar anymore but went more for the company. we were also not keen to miss terawikh.

Ramadhan Day 16

we have passed half the month of Ramadhan. alhamdulillah, it has been good for the boys. but somehow it was different from the first quarter.

the days that follow the earlier post, the boys started to slack in their fast. amir got better actually, no more whining. asyraf had a couple of days off where he was moody and tired, maybe from the 5am wake up call. ariff started to get coughs and flu and i asked him not to fast. he only agreed to a day of rest. a few days after that he said he wanted another day off, he did look a bit worn off the day before, except when he was holding a broom.

our food also seem to have hit a snag. it was getting a bit difficult to get the boys to sahur with rice. they opted for cereal and bread. so i haven't been cooking. for iftar, they couldn't seem to make up their minds. cooking is not an option because we dont break fast with white rice. i suggested other dishes - baked pasta, lasagna, roasted chicken, salmon, salad but all were shot down. they just wanted kuih, something slightly heavy and then cereal. hubby had headaches everyday trying to figure out what to get for the boys. for us it was easy, nasi kerabu and laksam for hubby and my trusty laksa (we have been having the same for the past 7-8 years!)

so a couple of days ago, hubby decided...enough headache, enough wastage. nasi kerabu and just two types of kuih to be shared. and i'll prepare rice again for sahur starting tomorrow.

we have only had our break fast outside twice this year, not including iftars with extended families, just the six of us. we had buffet at a nearby iranian restaurant. ok...as good as the place is, it was seriously not worth it for iftar. the food were too heavy and we were only able to consume a plate each, not worth the price we paid.

yesterday was much better. hubby suggested japanese for buffet and japanese is always a hit with the family. paid much more than the iranian buffet but much more worth it when the boys polished up everything.