Renovation story

OMG! From blogging once a month, now it's getting twice a year ke? I am so attached to the other blog, while our hectic life plodded on in and out of the house. Quite a jumble I say but it was interesting enough to share it here.

Well, after the first quarter of 2011 went by quite smoothly, literally, the second quarter was a total temporary make shift. Finally we decided to put our house renovation project into full swing. With a few documentations and red tapes thrown into the affair, Mr. Cheong our handsomely China-man contractor started work on the last week of May.

The biggest task for us was to clean up our dusty house and shift 90% of the stuff into our rented house. Luckily it was only two doors away. And thanks to all the tiny handy energetic kids, the shifting for the small stuff were made easy. The bigger ones, I had my cycling buddies around the neighbourhood to help with.

And so we had to adapt to the new house for awhile. Perhaps 3-4 months and we still have the view of looking at the renovation progress daily. I missed my house as I packed the last stuff and step out of the door. The memories. Though it will only be a few months, the renovated house wont have the same feeling I guess.

Everything was temporary at the rented house. We didn't bring our wardrobes, hence our luggage substitute the purpose. Kids have their TOYOGO drawers and we had to make some adjustments to the layout for different kind of perspective or perhaps a different breather to the atmosphere. 

Renovation progresses awesomely. Cheong had his men working 6 days a week and honestly I had the guilt to my fellow neighbours for the loud banging of the wall, machineries and sometimes untidy construction materials along the road. 

As we approached into August, almost 90% of the house was ready. New paint. New rooms for the kids. New kitchen for ibu. New car porch. New bathrooms. New work room for me :]

The tiles and color schemes for the paint came in quite well. Alhamdullillah. Next was the decoration. The part that I have zero knowledge of. The part where arts and creative thinking I had left ages ago. Google-ing ideas didn't help much, knowing that local interior decorator don't share their ideas worldwide. And who wants to share a terrace house ID on the web? Hence, I had to ask around with the lighting part first. Alhamdullillah, my work deals with a few fellow architects and their ideas were great.

We skipped with the initial idea of having too many downlights, plus it cost me a bomb. We combined the each area between downlights, spotlights and pendant lights. With neutral white color walls that I chosed, the result was splendid. This only applies to the living and dining, plus the work room and the corridor upstairs. The rest of the house was fixed with the normal flourescent lamps.

Eventually the house was ready and we shifted back in on Nuzul al-Quran public holiday. While fasting, it really drained us in a ZAP! We swept and washed during the night, and shifted the stuff during the day. Lucky we are not the proud owner of bulky furnitures, hence the only stuff require manly lifting were the fridge, washing machine, dining table and the mattress. That was thankfully done in less than 30 minutes with the help of fellow neighbours after Tarawih. The rest of the small stuff, we had the small soldiers to handle.

The smell of new plasters, paint works and tiles encouraged us to start decorating what was required and meeting the limiting budget. Still we require new wardrobes for the utility room & the kids' room. The proposed aircon at the living will have to wait. So will be ibu's new stove and kitchen cabinet. 

January that was

Wow! Now it's becoming a monthly ritual updates? No, not that it's not happening enough to post it every week but the more general scenes should be better I guess.

The hectic lives are catching up momentum as we finished our first month of the year. Very thes fast one I tell you. The weekdays went like a flash. First 3 weeks were blatantly speedy. We barely catch our breath as the day breaks till nightfall.

Monday, is the busiest especially the evening part. With Kumon, tuition Cikgu Fuad and Iqra' altogether, the world is simply awesome.

The fourth week of January things went slow approaching Chinese New Year long weekend break. We went back to JB for a food retreat. It was feast bazaar indeed. From breakfast at Larkin Point with Kacang Pool, lunch with Mee Rebus Haji Wahid at Restoran Barakath Taman Seri Tebrau to dinner at Kg Melayu Steak House. Not forgetting to pack up the frozen masalodey and pau Roslan for KL.

Ooh! Umar had a bike accident a week before. He crashed his bike during one of the evening's cycling around the block with fellow friends. One stitch on the left head, just barely on top of the ear. He didn't cry like mad and surprisingly, he didn't cry during the stitching. Cool.

We went for a picnic at the third week with Kampung Pandan Backpackers in Kalumpang, Ulu Selangor. A rainforest retreat. Nice place with beautiful river. It rained the whole day, so we experienced every second of the rainforest package - cold and wet.

2010 that was...

Gedebak gedebuk dah habis tahun 2010 and dah masuk pun tahun 2011. Memang tersangat laju masa meninggalkan kita tanpa ia pandang ke belakang walau sekali pun. Kita yang kadang-kadang masih termangu di persimpangan. Kalau nak difikirkan pasal masa, memang kalau di anugerahkan sehari tu ada 48 jam pun masih belum tentu kita berjaya manage masa kita.

So far aku bersyukur perjalanan sepanjang 365 hari yang lalu takde yang betul-betul mencabar. Pemergian arwah ayah, kami redha dengan ketentuanNya. Malah aku bersyukur kepada Allah s.w.t. pemergian arwah menemuiNya dalam keadaan yang sangat mudah.

BTHO kids pun alhamdullillah berjaya melalui alam persekolahan dengan tenang dan mudah. Amir telah buktikan yang dia masih boleh maintain di tahap terer walaupun kadang-kadang tahap aktif dia menduga kesabaran. Kak Long juga maintain & slowly dapat blend in dengan cara ayah & ibu mendidik. Umar pun kita dah boleh start monitor academic progress...at least mengenal huruf.

Projek-projek besar masih ada yang belum terlaksana. Ni semua di luar kawalan kita, sebab bergantung pada pihak ketiga yang menguruskannya. Slowly kita akan menuju ke arah tu. InsyaAllah.

Singapore - Marathon & Universal Studio

Eventually the date came for our long drive southward back to hometown with Livina. It was pleasurable and the kids plus ibu were soundly asleep throughout the journey right after Maghrib on Thursday. I drove comfortably like driving a Mercedez, throughly awesome technology - have I been outdated from the comfort of driving for 5 years. It was an impressive upgrade from driving my Wira. If my late dad still around, he would be excited with the car and we'll be talking about it and about cars, generally for hours.

Friday was rest day for the rest of us especially for me. It was carbo-loading fiesta with awesome cookings by mom. My initial plan to enter Singapore with Det was shelved when he bailed out at the very last moment. My next choice was Azmar, since the rest will be entering straight from KL by bus and train. I boarded his company's trip bus on Saturday morning (early wake at 5.00am & missed my precious sleep) and entered Singapore headed to Universal Studio. I was lucky when I got a free entrance ticket & a meal voucher from Azmar's travel agent. One of his colleague didn't make it for the trip, that's why. It rained cats and dogs that morning hence crowd was bearable. We tried a few rides and ate at the Egypt Town before leaving for the race bib collection at Marina Bay.

Travelling with somebody familiar in Singapore was a useful experience especially using the MRT. It was easy when you know how. My nightmare was over when initially I thought it was troublesome and complicated to use the MRT. Yes, we were like tourist when it comes to looking at the maps and road names on the streets. The rest of the day was spent window shopping at Novena and Orchard Road when we should be resting our feet instead for the marathon.

Lari ke makan angin ni?

Come Sunday, the inaugural Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore 2010 took place. I didn't felt any jitters. Thats odd. Maybe low expectation for the race. We walked towards Orchard Road where the 15,000 full marathoners jammed from end to end. I didn't see the front and the back. All was heard was the DJ pumping up the melody. We had to use the underpass to cross and enter to join the crowd. Placing ourselves at the end of the pack will only take more time, so we climbed the fence and jumped in. I think it was 3/4 of the crowd. My first experience running full marathon with this huge crowd. It was awesome. If only we have this kind of people in Malaysia kan?

The rest of the journey towards the finish line was the usual love & hate thing. Regrets, pain, bored stiff all blended in. Upon crossing the finish line, all was gone and I was already planning for a return. Humans. Crossed back into JB straight after and laid rest since I need to recover for the next day's trip.

The icon

Monday, early wake up...again. Aiyo! Who says vacation is relaxing? The travel agent managed to get us into a Toyota Innova since the bus was full. Good. We have the whole MPV to us. Kids were so excited. They asked too many questions and I tried to answer every one of them. Traffic was a breeze and we arrived at Resort World hald an hour to 10.00. To my surprised, the crowd trippled from Saturday. There were 6 rows and each of them lasted for 200m! We worked through it and managed to queue at the shortest available. I had plans. Once entered, we skipped the meal voucher collection (collect later) and rushed to Far Far Away land for the 4D Shrek Movie. We were among the first to reach there while the rest of the crowd were still caught taking pictures at the Hollywood Street. The movie was short but enough to tickle our sense of humor, especially the part when Donkey sneezed and soaked us. Thats why they call it 4D la. The rest of it, you just need to experience it.

Next we managed to watch Donkey Alive singing on stage. Actually some sort of movie also but the seating arrangement made it different. We sang along, clap our hands, dance and laughed at his jokes la. Yeah, wait till you listen to his..."la".  The day started to be freaking hot and crowd was huge. Just like Orchard Road. Just enough timing for us to rush to watch Waterworld live performance. Now this is totally awesome though we only managed to sit at the corner row but the BOOM and BANG and SPLASH just made Umar shut his ears and eyes!...but he didn't let go of the ice cream. These are professional stuntmen and woman. They jump from 30 feet platform, fight, kick and shoot bazooka! Just like the war scene from the movie itself. Amir wanted to watch it again but next show will only be in another 2 hours.

Lunch was at Egypt Town. Bryani! But the queue took me 50 minutes while the eating only lasted 20 minutes. And I happened to spend SGD15 for a bottle of orange juice the shape of a shisha canister. Covert the currency, that ripped me almost RM50! Aiyo! I told the kids to share it. Hehe. Worth every penny.

Boys love it

The crowd, the temperature and the exhausting legs made queueing for the next ride at Jurassic Park seemed endless. I think we waited for almost 45 minutes...again, just right after our 50 minutes lunch queue. If it ain't for the kids, I could've abandoned it. The rest of the visit were spent taking pictures with movie characters. Most of them need to QUEUE! Aiyak! The MPV was scheduled to fetch us at 4pm. I purposedly arranged for early exit to avoid evening traffic across the causeway. Kids seemed still energetic. A few attempts to buy souvenirs especially the tees but the quality simply ain't worth the price. We ended up using the souvenir vouchers for fridge magnets and stuff for SGD5. Perbelanjaan berhemah. Lol.

We left Singapore and reached JB just in time to share the great experience with the rest and had a big dinner with Che Yah's family at Gazebo. A splendid outing I guess. Next biggie will be planned nicely for BTHO as 2 in 1 (run & vacation). Hehehe.

Muka semua dah berminyak main panas. Dapat terjun best kan?

Revenge of the Mummy!

Ms Monroe ke ni? Belasah aje

Bau dah macam kat zoo

Yellow

Battlestar Galactica

Panda in short

 

November Rain - Guns n' Roses

OMG! A month now since the last entry! What happened? Beats me but the urge to digest what's up there and put it into writing was just lame. Even the days through the weekends were not so exciting. Am I loosing the feel or simply plain exhausted from too many stuff? Or perhaps approaching the year end does signalised the accumulated fatigue and draining energy for almost a year now.

It's been raining for awhile now. The recent weekend was wet and cold. Barely have a sunlight till noon before it gets dark and wek again for the rest of the day. Kedah & Perlis were severedly flooded last month. JB was no escape. Laudry business back home is running out of hanging space.

I will have to put this in point forms of all the happenings that took place:

New car

Just barely the week when I had my 39th birthday, our family ride came out of the showroom. Black as ever and the smell of pure plastic from the dashboard was plain awesome. Kenneth our SA was the best. Always kept thing simple and convenient. I barely spend more than 5 times meeting him and yet the car was delivered smoothly. I don't know why but dealing with Chinese SA so far have been a pleasure unlike bad experience with Malay SA. My previous nightmare when buying the Atos was a spellbound.

Spent a bit on the tinted (long term purpose) and the semi-leather seat cover. And yes, the fabric carpet require a more robust material, hence I changed it as well.

House reno
The painstaking lawyer is still painstaking. Never bothered to apologise for his mistake causing months of delay. And the procedures with the government's side is never a simple one as well. Too many levels, red tapes, comments, etc. Time flew in a blink of an eye and still we can only fantasies of having to solve the storage issues in the house.

Edu
Eventually school was over for 2010. And the exam results were out. I was too wasted to look in detail and comment. As long as they remain in the same class and not lower, that's fine by me. When school break came, everything seems a bit on the slower path. No early morning wake at the ironboard, that's the best part. No iqra' class and Teacher Nor's tuition except for Kumon classes. No more yelling across the hall for homeworks, revisions and prepare tomorrow's timetable. A lot was temporarily dislodged from the everyday routine - at least for a month. I should enjoy it to the max!

Hols
OK basically school break is about a month time. We've been saving our annual leaves for this. Nothing grand actually but eventually some alterations had to be done due to foreseen circumstances. The initial plan to fly to Langkawi with JB peeps were stalled when tickers were sold out for the year. Driving up north was shelved when Kedah was seriously flooded. Round peninsular trip by car also was KIV until further logistic issues resolved. That left us with the original Temasek Marathon & Universal Studio JV. Yep, back to hometown for makan-makan trip, marathon in Singapore on Sunday and family fun in US the next day.

Two weeks after, another trip downsouth again for cuz's wedding. This should be a big family gathering. After that, two more weeks until school open which means back-to-school shopping spree will commence.

October Feast and Fest

Almost a month now and there were quite a few interesting happenings around. Leading towards the end of school semester, the exam weeks just flew around the corner bringing along suspense and chaos, especially for ayah and ibu. Kids remained calm as they were and with those confident looks. The raya mood bug simply wont resist the temptation to fly away and that's where sometimes ayah be the bad guy for the chapter. I will be the most hated person in the house for bragging and nagging. Sometimes ibu will be my sidekick and they turned to Umar for comfort. Can you imagine that? I am lost to what other approach to make them realise how important is academic. 20 years ago, my parents would just arranged everything for me and it was mandatory without appeal when it comes to tuitions and such. I spent 4 hours a week attending add math's tuition and a few other hours for physics and modern maths. It was draining and zapping but I didn't rebel. The situation is totally different now and I am just pleased that I still have the patience for not giving up.

Ibu had a colourful month for herself. Her convocation finally came through on the 13th. Some of the backpackers were there. She was happier than ever that day. Alhamdullillah. A few days later, we had a surprised birthday party for her at atuk's house. Thanks to Kak Azra and the rest of the backpackers for the support. Again she had a blast with it.

A week after, Kaklong's birthday fell into place. It's the birthday month, remember? We celebrated in the most descend way since exam week is not yet over. But, Kaklong got herself a MP4 player. Asking what she wants will end up with top of the world WANT LIST. Now the rest of house also want MP4 and no more PSP in the list.

I was stucked with a few weeks of running nose and cough. Extreme hot weather seemed to delay the recovery. But that didn't stop me to spice up a bit with some riding extravaganza in between. On 10.10.10, where history comes only once my life time, I signed up for Ipoh - Cameron Highland King of the Montain quest. It was a day trip but the mega 54km climb was truely fascinating.

Our car. Loan approved. Registration will be done once the result from the tendered number is out. That should be another few days. We were quite matured with the waiting actually, as if nothing to be excited about. But, that would a long road to travel together in a more comfortable journey for the whole family. I'll arrange for some road trips in the near future.

House reno loan application almost coming to it's end. The pain-in-the-ass lawyer played his part though it was still a pain-in-the-ass interaction between us. Ibu and me started to talk about the ID stuff lately and I started having images of car porch designs, layouts, landscapes, etc in my head. I might need to put it on paper one day.

And the road goes on

That was a kick-start few weeks back. So far, things seem to fall into place piece by piece. Alhamdullillah. I love it when a plan comes together (Colonel Hannibal Smith).

Project 1: Atos

After the mishap that took place involving a bit of drama with the steep repair cost, our trusty mechanic did his best to save our wallet. It took him almost three days and throughout the weekend to resolve the problem. Fingers crossed during the period and eventually our Atos was moving again. No more of those weird and scary sound (read burning wallet).

A few days back Kenneth went to Maybank to find out the final full settlement figure. Yesterday, the extra amount outstanding minus 55% NCD and over-trade by Nissan, I only forked out RM1,700.00. Phew! The worse part almost over. And Kenneth's manager also inspected the car as well. He seemend satisfied. Their concern is accident free.

Project 2: New car

Finally my/our dream almost came through. I've been longing for a MPV ages ago. Eversince the first affordable MPV came into the market, Avanza have drove me insane. But later on, driving it to Lumut, thanks to Mak Die who loaned it to us, the MPV is not quite comforting.

The years of dream MPV evolution continued for me. From Avanza, I went to continental MPV i.e. Citroen Evasion. Then Nissan introduced their rival to Avanza, the Grand Livina. I was again disturbed but I backed off from the unaffordable price. Then Perodua came up with Alza, but I was not quite sweeped by the generousity of it's spaciousness. Eventually Proton rocked the world with Exora. Sharp look, comfortable seatings for all 7 passengers, generous aircon vent till the last row and most hit is it's price. Avanza was no more in the competition.

Alhamdullillah from years of hard earned rezeki, I trust travelling comfort for my family is now priority. I've decided to jump onto the family MPV legacy. The hunt was over when a call was made to a Nissan SA based in Ampang. A small discussion took place and the story continued till today. God willing, Nissan Grand Livina will be our first MPV. Oh! I shall put it hear as part of the story. I sold my beloved Giant XTC mountainbike and used the cash for the new car. I was so sad to let it go but priorities have taken place.

Project 3: House reno

We took another step. Some comments from Bahagian Perbendaharaan  were tackled:

1. Apply extension to renovation approval from MPKj. Done and approval letter collected today.
2. Renewal to contractor's business registration with SSM. Done. Mr. Cheong was kind enough to be patience with us and submitted the renewal ASAP.
3. Lawyer's blunder (never did he apology) : The typo error with the I.C. number was corrected yesterday.
4. Tomorrow ibu will resubmit to Bahagian Perbendaharaan.