.::. Repainting .::.

In  a few months' time, we would have reached our MOP (Minimum Occupation Period).  *OMG* Next year would be the 5th year since we've got our place.  Time really flies, doesn't it?

So, after our vacation in Boracay at 'The Lind' hotel, I was very inspired to paint our room.  I liked the color palate and design of the new hotel and this darker blue-grey color along their corridors.  I liked it enough to persuade the husband to paint our place together.

The main colors were greys, turquoise and blue-grey, I really liked the style of the hotel.





So, we went to buy paint and brushes and spent a few weekends on painting our home.  The husband made some not-very-functional newspaper hats.  To small for me, we didn't use them.

Initially, we only wanted to paint the master bedroom and one wall in the guest room.  I wanted to paint a stripped wall, that would also look great when the room is converted into a nursery *someday*.  Alas, the husband suggested chevron stripes instead, knowing that I liked them more - BIG MISTAKE.  Let's just say that chevron stripes are extremely tiring and time-consuming to paint.  We spent at least 2 days on that wall alone.

First, you had paint a base coat, the lighter color of the chevron strips.  Then, you need to measure the walls and decide on the dimensions of your chevon stripes to make it fit nicely to your wall.  Then, we used cardboard to make a few of these shapes as stencils to mark the walls with pencil and tape.

We took hours to finish and align this wall, and we drew arrows to remind us which area needed paint.

Tadah!  After taping, paint the areas that should be painted, remove the tape and touch-up.

Here's the completed guest room with our pull-out bed:




By the time we painted our master bedroom, it was a breeze.  We finished in a few hours with all that taping, moving furniture and 3 coats of paint.  We used Dulux Connecticut Blue for our master bedroom, a lot darker but I quite like it though it did not exactly turned out as what I envisioned (and there's quite a few other shades of blue and greys that I liked too).

Here's the 'before' photo:



And here's the new color:

Oh, and I received a set of bedside tables as my birthday present this year too!  We got rid of the wobbly Taobao ones we got when we moved in and upgraded to these beautiful solid teak wood ones from Second Charm.  The husband said 'May our marriage be as solid as our bedside tables!'.

.::. Home Alone .::.

This week, the husband is traveling. Again. He has been traveling pretty often, but this time feels abit more unbearable. I usually love having the time to myself and pack my week with activities like meeting up with my friends or going to the gym, or getting my hair done or simply go window shopping and have dinner by myself. But this week, I'm preparing for my exams and days feel so long when they are sleep-work-study on repeat mode. Doesn't help that work has been busy, I have been stressed-up, exams are next week and it's almost that time of the month soon.

This is one of the rare cold weeks that I feel somewhat lonely and long for a warm body to hug in bed. No, Chikey who has been snuggling up to me these days don't count!

Can't wait for exams to end (hopefully forever!) and the husband to be back soon! #fighting

.::. Home Sweet Home .::.

The last few months simply flew by. We have been too busy living life, enjoying our freedom and couple-hood.

Both of us have been traveling quite abit and missing each other all the time. I don't exactly mean it that way. It's just that he usually flies out on Saturday when I'm flying in on Sunday! And so we miss each other and go 2 weeks without seeing each other. I have been to Shanghai, Hanoi and Seoul the past few months, and the husband has been to China and Italy for work trips too. I really enjoyed all my trips this year, every single one of them. Hanoi with the husband was so much fun!

We have finally collected our new dining chairs from Crate and Barrel. Those 2 year-old ones from Taobao ain't of that good quality and not very comfortable. We have been chair-hunting on and off the past year, but the husband has an atas butt that can't seem to find a comfortable and nice-looking chair that is also affordable. Everytime a chair catches my attention and pass the look test, the husband has to do a sit test. Most of them fail the sit test, apart from a few that cost like $800 each. We finally settled for these.

It was supposed to take 3 months to indent and arrive in Singapore in October. But since we have been traveling and couldn't find the receipt, we waited and waited for the call that never came. We had to call  Crate and Barrel, only to realize that the chair is already there. Pretty bad customer service for such a brand!

Home looks like this now. I love how the chairs fit into the whole place, and they are pretty comfortable chairs!

The thing about home is that no matter where you go, you will always be back and thankful for a place you can call home.

Feeling all warm and blessed these days, in a very peaceful and thankful state-of-mind. =)

.::. Homecooked Q2'14 Edition.::.

We actually cook at home very often, usually at least 2-3 times a week. I enjoy cooking, and the husband can cook pretty decent food too.  The husband usually cooks western food like pasta and brunch, while I do the chinese food like soups. We love soups, and I think my tastiest soup is herbal chicken soup and ABC soup - these 2 are really yummy and nutritious. For some reason my other soups like lotus root and winter melon soup simply does not taste as good. I usually buy my own herbs for the chicken soup, and I really wouldn't mind drinking it everyday. We do not deep fry at home and I  usually try to balance our meals with vegetables and meat.

Food is very special to me, and I think that putting in effort to cook for your loved ones is one of the best expression of love. And so yes, I really appreciate it when the husband cooks for me and I try to cook as much as possible too. I know that he loves it when he comes home to a home-cooked dinner after a long day at work, without having to think about what to eat or to packet home.



It always warms my heart when the husband does the cooking.



He always cooks pasta, but he changes things up - Crayfish!



My favorite breakfast is bacon and cheese sandwich. It's really good, but I didn't like the chips - he usually does it with scrambled eggs.



Sometimes, it's the details that matter. His honey-lemon drink is complete with a slice of lemon on the top that made me laugh.

His cream pasta with erm poached egg and pan-fry chicken.

This was dinner one of the Friday evenings, I marinated the chicken wings and did the salad while he made the pizza. He added so much ingredients and cheese that it's a gooey mess. Wasn't the best pizza but we had a good laugh. Look at that face on the pizza!

I tried to make beef stew, it was quite good for the first time!

Here's steak salad for lunch.

We have a thing for pork trotters bee hook with luncheon meat. And I tried making prawn-paste chicken with the oven without deep frying. It was not bad, though probably not dry enough and we didn't coat it with some oil initially.

Because the husband (and I) loves steak, we do our own steaks at home often. Sometimes, there are good deals for steak in Cold Storage or NTUC Finest. It's actually a very quick and easy dinner to make.

We had steak at home at least twice the past 2 month

My fresh potato oven-baked wedges are getting pretty good, and I can do a medium steak now.

And because the husband had his wisdom tooth extracted, I have been cooking porridge for the past week. Porridge everyday. I try to cook different soups and use the soup to cook porridge for more nutrients. The most delicious one was this black and white herbal chicken soup with eggs and chopped fish balls (his favorite). It was surprisingly very tasty and delicious.

Oh, and did I mention that I love my pressure cookers? It makes my soup really delicious with just 30 minutes of boiling. It makes sumptuous soups after work possible.

I tried to braise a duck last weekend since the FIL is coming for dinner and he loves ducks. The duck was huge and fat. It did braise pretty well in my underutilized dutch oven though, took about an hour to simmer.

And here's a simple teochew muay style dinner, with steamed egg using chicken soup for the husband. Very yummy and it'd be perfect with some steamed otah and pan-fry luncheon meat. Alas, a whole duck was already way too much to finish - that's why I like cooking for bigger groups, so there's more variety!

Next up I'd like to try salted vegetables duck soup, lamb chops and perhaps a good fish soup.

.::. Our home feature on Renotalk .::.

Our home is featured on one of the articles on Renotalk.

http://www.renotalk.com/articles/431/Scandinavian-Scent

It isn't much, simply a compilation of the pictures that I have already shared online like 2 years ago, and they got me to answer a few questions which they did not publish in full. I suppose that part about asking people to reconsider H.E.R.F flooring and highlighting its potential issues wouldn't do their advertisement fees good. Neither will my humble contractor with his little firm look good on their site.

I still recommend my contractor without reservations, mainly because I feel that he's an honest and responsible business man who gets things done. He visits his projects daily around the island and has a dedicated group of mostly Malaysian workers unlike many who have switched to bangalas and ah tiongs. He's definitely not the cheapest, but have been very responsive and prompt throughout the whole renovation and accommodated all our delays with our carpentry. Most importantly, if there are issues, you can talk to him and get things solved.  I suppose it's the trust and rapport we had when working with him. I've wrote about my experience with him extensively - just click on 'renovation' on the right.

We still keep in contact with him and are on good terms. People who know him would know that he's quite funny, prompt and down-to-earth. He has atrocious english, and even his mandarin isn't that good when it comes to writing. Sometimes, when I tell him that some people complain that he's not responsive and did not reply emails, he would ask me to help tell those people to call him instead of sending him emails (in English). He has very very bad English, so don't expect replies when he can barely understand the contents. I think it's a problem to work with him if you can't speak mandarin or malay.

Here's his contact and Facebook page where you can see his other projects. His other project was featured in My Paper but did not mention him too - papers seem to like publicizing big ID names but make no mention of contractors who does the job.

Kevin
9022 - 2321

https://www.facebook.com/pages/H2O-Interior-Renovation/536321743070166

.::. 2013 in photos .::.

iphone. The one thing that follows me wherever I go and contains snippets of my life. Things that I sometimes forget about.

Mental note to buy a bigger capacity iPhone! And in no particular order, just happy memories that I'd like to remember:

The many celebrations at our home:



With my CCHS friends.



With his CCHS friends.



LY's birthday.



Also JH's birthday, with Minnie and a greedy Chikey.

With the neighbors.

The lazy dog who has grown so much.

Brunch dates.

Unglam pictures I took to send him while he's on work trips.











He sometimes arrive in the morning before I leave for work, and buys me breakfast. And yes, I'm very appreciative of that. I wonder if he'll continue doing that till we both grow old.

Outings with the neighbors.

Brunches at home during weekends. My favorite is the bacon and cheese sandwich.

Sometimes there's pancakes and a good pot of tea.

I cut my hair short after a long time.

We celebrated little milestones in our lives.

I mugged and passed my exam - last 2 in 2014!

One of the rare outings with the dogs.

My all-time comfort food. I love a good porridge whenever I don't feel well, and the husband cooks a good pot of porridge.

We visited Hong Kong, his first trip to Hong Kong.

And Hong Kong's Disneyland pretty much sucked.

We celebrated his birthday and had a delicious steak.

We visited Bangkok again after 6 years.

And my little precious boy has grown so much over the past year.

That about sums up 2013. Lovely memories, cozy home to call our own.

Yea I know, the first quarter of 2014 is already almost over. It's been a crazy, hectic year.