71 renovation progress week 20

Week 20. 3rd to 9th September.

Renovation outstanding items:-
(1) Kitchen cabinets & backsplash & gas & hood
(2) Wardrobe repairs or replacement
(3) Small door under staircase, the space we intend to use for shoes storage
(4) Mirrors in bathrooms and bedroom

Monday, catched up on laundry! There are 3 rounds of clean laundry on the sofa. Hehe. We have more to completely clear the "backlogs".

Anyway, I added a pouffe in the living room. I have 3 from my grandma's house, which my aunties almost sent to recycling centre. I plan on re-wrapping them in future because they are very well-used over the years. :)  I also got from Muar the new but not used since 2006 roman curtains; meant for my brother's room but he find the colour too gloomy. It's just nice to cover over the dark colour sofa. Plus it's leather are coming off piece by piece, covering it up helps to slow down the "damage". Another romans curtain which is smaller, I folded into half and used as table cloth on the coffee table. :D I also found matching pillow cases in 73, hehe. Previously was blue colour.. doesn't blend into the furnitures. 

Tuesday, went to Ikea after work to buy kitchen drawers. :) It's quite expensive though. :( We took 12 months instalment.  

We really like how Ikea designed their drawers and decided to spend on it. Praying that we get a reasonably priced carpentry work for the kitchen. :)

They are quite heavy.

Totaly 9 drawers, for 3 sets of drawer in kitchen. :) RM1800. I told you they're ex. :) Pray that we are making the right choice!!

Wednesday, all I did after work was just arranging things in the bedrooms upstairs. This is the only place where we can hang clothes.

 Wanted to start tidying up our documents in this shelf, but just couldn't find time! :(

 Toileteries and documents...

Thursday, Anne brought back this carpet from Muar. There were two and have not been used since they were purchased, which I don't know when. Anyway, one of them has brown spots all over because of long storage in humid place. Yuck. So I immediately wash it in the garden with dynamo and a small brush.

 After scrubbing, the brown spots are still there, already harden.. the carpet might need a little hair cut when it is dry. :) Plan to put this at our living room. :D

At night, I planned to go to Ikea to exchange the drawers. One of the drawers we bought wrong size. :( We have space just enough for 80cm, but I thought it will be too small so we went with the closest i.e. 60cm, which looked too tiny for the drawer space. So I went back to get 80cm drawers. I couldn't do it on my own so again, I asked my colleague Rae Ling to accompany me. In such short notice, she agreed! May God bless her. :) :) Thank you Rae Ling... it was a long night for us because Ikea had very long queue at the cashier on a Thursday night!  They apologised for it, it was caused by some technical error with their cashier system.
Friday noon lunch hour, met up with the carpenter my friend Jade recommended. They came to measure our kitchen so that they can give a quotation. This caused me to leave for office rather late but thank God my boss is very understanding. Now just waiting patiently for the quotation, they also going to quote us on making new doors for our failed wardrobe.

Saturday, Ah Hoong came with 2 guys. Main objective is to fix our masterbathroom sink. The sink trap was damaged during installation, we took back to Han Lim where we bought it, the boss say it's ugly but can still be used, so now Ah Hoong is fixing it back for us. Sigh, we were hoping he will replace a brand new one for us!! :( Because it was his worker who was not careful enough...... He also came to fix out leaking garden tap. It's been leaking for weeks! We bought a garden tap to which Ah Hoong also misplaced.. we thought he will replace a new one for us but he also did not. Sigh.... got to have a bigger heart! But it's easier when he is really a good contractor. :) :) 

Yes he didn't replace the things he did wrong and the things he misplaced, but he helped us with lots of extra things around the house! :) He helped to hang the mirror at our dining area. This mirror was purchased from Ikea specifically for our wedding. I needed a big nice mirror for getting ready in the morning so we invested in this. It was then used in USJ house in the bedroom. Now in 71, I decided to use it to reflect some natural light from the big window opposite, to brighten up the dining area if possible. :)

After hanging the mirror up, we realised it is not level. Then Ah Hoong check, the mirror is level, according to his balancing tool. The problem is with the fluorescent light above, so they helped to adjust the light. There are many many holes under the fluorescent light.. because Ah Loong installed in a wrong position once.. so save to say there are 2 holes hidden there.. there're a small gap where we can see the hole, where I used silicon to cover up.

Next, they helped us drill in the picture ledge from Ikea! :D I didn't want to drill the wall to hang up my mirror and not having space for other things.. I want to have more possibilities in the future.. and so I made up my mind to buy Ikea's picture ledge. :) Thank God for Ah Hoong, they did it really fast, and he told us the cement on the wall is not very strong (easy to drill) so he advised us not to place heavy things on the ledge. Noted! :D

I love this corner of numerous possibilities. :) I finally found a reasonably priced mirror at Giant! RM10. The more I look for it, the more I can't find it. We were just doing some simply groceries shopping and there the mirror was waving at me.. pink frame. It sort of made this corner feels softer.. I'm now thinking how to make things here more pink hehe. :D The Ikea clock might eventually go up the wall because I feel round and squares doesn't really go well...

 

Picture of yellow flower was a gift from my not-so-romantic daddy to my mummy. He knows my mummy loves flowers and he saw this picture in a shopping mall so he bought it for her. My mum kept the picture in the plastic cover for years... it was always in office, by the window at the area where we put radio, cassettes and kettle. Memories :) Now mummy allowed me to have it. :) My honor.

The cute picture on the far right.. was a gift from mummy's friend to her. Aunty Maggie, a Taiwanese lady married to a muarian. They both lost their husband in year 2000, so she became close to my mum. Well different people have different journeys, Aunty Maggie has remarried now while my mummy is still 101% faithfully in love with my beloved daddy. Anyway the picture has been in my mummy's bedroom for years, when I was making plans to fill a particular wall with photo frames.. I started hunting for frames, I was reminded of this frame and asked mum if I can have it. She said no... it's too cute to be given to you. Well, I told her I intend to paint the frames white in order to match other frames. :P She refused... so fine.. I joked that I shall then come back and look for other frames that I can steal. Few days passed, she called and told me "I have decided to give you the picture that you're requested for. You can paint the frames white, I think it will look great. You can do anything you want with it, I'm fine." What can beat a mother's love?? I loveeee my mama!! After some thoughts and soaking in mama's love, I've decided to keep the picture as it is.. you know.. to remind myself of her love and generous spirit. :)

Ah Hoong also helped us hang the world map upstairs. 1st thing you will see when you walk up.
This map was from TIME, my daddy framed it up and it was in office 5th floor. We used to spend time there after school with our maid. That's where we had ping pong table set up near dining area, we played ping pong after dinner. :) Or we will do homework while our parents will be doing their office work at 2nd floor. :) 

 It is a very old map, the colour has faded a lot.. they used to have different colours for different countries! :(  And if you go closer you will see that the map was a bit damaged by water. I dont know how water entered, there must've been a leak somewhere in the ceiling etc.... but overall, it is a treasure. :)

Pardon the clutters on the floor, I aim to clear them by this weekend! :)

Update on wardrobe : Cut long story short, they refused to refund us the RM2k deposit, claiming that they are already not making money. For Madam Yeak, she blamed Joshua for issuing cheque to Ah Fatt directly and that she doesn't want to take responsibility for it. It became very ugly, Joshua threaten to take legal actions and Madam Yeak said "come la". So..... we were very worked up! I was already planning to bring this up to the Tribunal court and to black mail Madam Yeak on every related forums I can find on google. Our church leaders advised us to get another carpenter to fix up the current wardrobe, make new doors for the ones that were taken away. Also, advised us to think twice because taking legal action is time consuming. Well, if we don't take legal action, I would still write about them on forums!  But now, as 1st step, we've written formal email to Madam Yeak's company email to demand for full refund. This is to make known about this case to everyone in her company. Apparently no one in her company knows about this case. I emailed twice but the partner Ms Ling (she's been helping us think of ways to get deposit back) said she didn't receive. We suspect that Madam Yeak has deleted my email or reported my email as spam. Well, nothing to fear. During work hours, I just sent 3 times from my gmail, 2 times from my work email. Out of the 5 times, Ms Ling said she received 3 times. So now, we're waiting for Ms Ling to bring this up with Madam Yeak and advise us on the next course of action. Please pray with us and for us. :) The more we look at the wardrobe and analysing on how to repair it, the more flaws we find and the more we hate it!  Our ultimate goal is to remove it entirely and build a new one. But may God's will be done, instead of ours. :)

We spoke to Pastor Kenneth about this over wedding refreshment, he said this that gave us comfort. God sometimes harden the hearts of the people, because it eventually do us better. Imagine if this carpenter did repair the wardrobe for us but give us sub-standard materials? It will be worse and the fight will be longer. I'm glad now that the carpenter will not step into my house or touch on the wardrobe anymore, but still believing that God will still give me a good wardrobe..... because the current one is just too awful.... too awful... sigh...