Mini refurbishment - Completion

Finally we have got all the elements in the house completed. In summary, we did the following for the past 3 weeks:

1) Painting of the whole house
2) Revamp study room
3) Changing of curtains to roller blinds
4) Swop rooms between the boys and my mil
5) Flooring of all the 4 bedrooms
6) Changing of bathroom and kitchen taps
7) Changing of bathroom doors to PD doors
8) Installation of ceiling fan in study room

Gosh, I am glad that it's finally over and we have also done packing for all the rooms. The house looks cleaner, whiter and less cluttered. What has helped tremendously is the bigger bedroom for the boys and they are loving their new private space in both their bedroom and study room.

I love the new taps for the bathroom and its just some little things that really made my day :)

My next project in the house is to sort out all their books and school notes, young scientist magazines, Chinese magazines for the new year!

Tingkat to the rescue!

I had a crazy period of running a few jobs at the same time in my house in the last 2 weeks for the reno. I won't be able to manage if I need to whip up 3 dishes and a soup for dinner each night so we decided to take a 10-day trial with Hong Choo catering services.

So I ordered 4 dishes for 2 pax and did my own soup as home-cooked soup has always been a comfort food for me (and ah lou)!

Day 1:
1) Braised chicken
2) Chai Po egg
3) Chinese cabbage witn carrots
4) Pork chop

Caden loved their pork chops and asked for a second serving. The rest were not bad, except for the chicken which was bland and too tough.

Day 2:

1) Xiao bai cai

2) Braised pork slices

3) Yong tou foo

4) Chilli fishcake

The chilli fishcake turned out to be the children's favourite. It was not too spicy so both of them ate about one each. Ah lou had to attend a wake on day 2 so these were too much for us (we had leftovers for the pork).

Day 3:

1) Fish dumpling soup

2) Gong bao Ji Ting (dried chilli chicken)

3) Cabbage with black fungus

4) half a fish fillet

I spent too much time cleaning up the house and didn't have a chance to take a picture. Ah lou couldn't come back for dinner because of the wake so there were leftovers for the chicken. 

Day 4:

1) Chilli fish

2) Bean sprouts with salted vegetables

3) sweet sauce sausages

4) fatty pork

As the renovation days went on, I didn't have the time to take pictures of the next few days to capture what were served. I recalled there was a day with curry vegetables and the boys ate their dinner so fast on that night as it opened up their appetite!

 

Given that its not too expensive and no MSG, and more importantly I wanted to relieve myself from mopping the kitchen floor each evening, we continued with Hong Choo catering service for another 20 days. But this time round, I did a 4-day delivery per week so we have the flexibility for me to either cook for the family or eat out on Fridays.

 

We probably may increase the portions to 3 pax serving when my mil is here with us once I start teaching.

 

Update:

 

10th July 2015

 

We stopped Hong Choo after a 20 day period with them as we didn't like their chicken dishes, given that the parts provided for each chicken dish were tough.

 

Subsequently I cooked for the family during my school term break for 2 months and I tried Kim's Kitchen tingkat since April. We ordered 3 dishes + 1 soup and their soup was good I must say. Hence, now we are alternating between tingkat and home-cooked food after every 20-day cycle and I am still sticking to Kim's Kitchen for the 3rd cycle in mid-July!

 

 20th Feb 2016

 

I guess we will stop getting Kim's Kitchen Tingkat even after my term break is over come April. Somehow, when we re-contracted with this caterer in end Dec for 20 days, the standard of food has dropped, and quality of the ingredients were not to our liking. I don't know if they have changed their chefs, or whether there was a change in their operations. Before I start work in April again, I will probably do a few trials with other food caterers first and provide my verdict!

 

 

 

Mini refurbishment Day 5 - 7

On Day 5, the painters were back this Tuesday to do toilets, kitchen and all the bedroom doors. It was not as messy that day but the smell of the paint used for the doors were overwhelming that I had to send off my boys to Kimi's place in the afternoon.  The sleep in the night was horrible as we had to live with the smell.

On Day 6, the flooring guys came in to fix up our 4 bedrooms. The time taken was not as long as I have expected (1.5days). They managed to finish their work within 6 hours, including shifting and working around with the heavier furniture like our bed and a wardrobe. In the evening, the PD door group came in to change both our toilets' doors. The glue smell of the flooring haunted us for the night and thankfully I got the boys to sleep in the living room to escape the smell.

On Day 7, we got the Ikea beds and bookshelves in and also re-route the lighting point in the study room to make way for a ceiling fan. The boys enjoyed their new bedroom given that they are able to sleep side-by-side now compared to the bunk bed they had in the past. We will set aside this Saturday to put up some wall decals to personalize their space. The painters were back only at 3plus in the afternoon to continue with 2nd coats for the bedroom doors and main gate.

Gosh, there were still so much to do before I head to the campus next Monday for my training. I only managed to change all bedsheets today and there were still many boxes of stuff to unpack before next Monday.

The last few tasks to see through tomorrow will include installation of ceiling fan, roller blinds, changing of basin and kitchen taps.

Mini refurbishment - Day 2 to Day 4

Day 2 continues and it is also the start to my body ache! The whole house was literally turned upside down as the days passed when the 2 painters moved from room to room.

I was told that the paint these days are not as easy to achieve the same colour as the ones you see in the catalogue so it takes minimum 3 coats to have almost the same effect.

I also learnt that both Nippon and Dulux only mixes the paint colour when it's being ordered so even if you order the same colour code a few days later, you might run into the chance that the colour code is slightly different with your first batch.

It was dusty when all the furniture are being shifted and covered during the painting days and I had to find ways to keep the boys in the most safe place during these days. In one of the afternoon,  they get to dine in my bedroom for the first time in their lives!

I had to order KFC delivery as I don't have access to the kitchen

Happy with their popcorn chicken bucket rice

Can't wait for the weekend to come so we can arrange for all the deliveries to happen next week.

Mini refurbishment - Day 1

My school's induction has been postponed to mid-dec so today is the start of my house refurbishment period..

The only task scheduled for today is to hack our 12 year built-in study table and bookshelf to give the study room a whole new look for our growing boys.

Before

It took us 2 days on Saturday and Sunday to run through our stuff parked in this area and threw some of those that were of little sentimental value to me. . A same area like this is enough to kill us!

In total 5 big boxes and 6 A4 boxes

 The guys have changed their schedule to my place to the afternoon so I took the opportunity to clear out my cupboards while waiting for the kids to get off from school.

Thankfully,  a charity organisation happens to be collecting old newspapers and used clothing tomorrow so this works perfectly well on my schedule.

What I have accomplished in 2 hours (including cleaning up all interior cupboards)

To discard

Clothing for donation

After

Finally. . The table and cupboard were removed. . Left with the attached lamps which will be taken care by an electric technician.  After vacuuming the whole house and mopping,  my day 1 work is done.

Little accident in school

Today I am officially jobless (again, haha) but had made plans to drop by the school campus to get my laptop configured before my training programme in 2 weeks time. So sometime near noon, we got a call from the school and we knew something had happened to one of the boys.

True enough,  Ethan had a minor accident in school where he was pushed by another child from different class and fell flat on his head which resulted in a big bah lu ku on his forehead.

Poor child looked like it was really painful by the time we went to general office to pick him.

Bump turning blue black by night

The school called us in the afternoon asking about ethan's condition and also told us that they found the child who knocked him down.

I think it's probably just one of the childhood accident that he will remember by..

Halloween night 2014

We decided to visit woodlands grove this year to soak into the Halloween atmosphere.  After we had our dinner and sent my mil back home, it was already 740pm. The journey to woodlands took a bit longer than usual due to night traffic and probably some people have also planned their night there.

So by the time we reach the venue, it was so near 9pm and we saw most kids departing the area with their pumpkin buckets. The boys and girl (kimi) were wondering if there were still treats left for them to collect and we had to prep them mentally that there may not be many houses left with the candies.  Nonetheless,  they had a bit of fun seeing how the rest have dressed up for the night.

My sis-in-law is still as sporting to make an effort to dress up

Even the dog has a pumpkin bag

With Hercules

The kids didn't get many treats ( 2 sweets to be exact!) and they were fairly tired after the 1 hour walk. So I guess they will not pester us to bring them for this Halloween event next year!