Happy New Coffee Table

We made a new coffee table for the new year and I really like it! This is the first time that Hubby had made a piece of furniture and I'm very proud of him. To be exact, I conceptualised the design, Hubby made the wooden frame, I stained/varnished it and he fitted it together with a MDF board and liquid nails.Even though the workmanship is not excellent, he at least made my idea come true and it's standing excellently structurally. 

I'm also very happy that my idea to recycle a piece of abandoned stone bench top (left by the builder after they got the sink cut-out wrong and had to make a new bench top for us) into something nice and useful became realised. It did cost us a couple of hundred dollars to get the stone mason to cut the stone into the shape of a circle though. But it's worth it as a stone table like this would probably cost more if we'd purchase it at some furniture store. Not to mention the stone is the exact match of our kitchen island bench. There several more pieces of stone which I'm planning to turn into a breakfast bar table for the alfresco area. I think Carpenter Hubby will have a busy year ahead!


Happy New Year Everyone!

XX turns 5

It's been another busy week. Christmas Day came by, accompanied by some hail and flooding. Luckily for us, we were affected by none. Only Hubby's hind wheels got stuck in the mud after he left it parked on the bare naturestrip outside our house during the storm. The interior of our house is more or less organised now and we were able to welcome and entertain some visitors over the holiday period. Only wish the dishwasher was working. After a failed attempt by us to install it ourselves and ended having to pay for an emergency plumbler in the middle of the night, it still won't work for some reason. I got a feeling we will have to wash more money down the drain before it can be used.


Speaking of money, we are right now feeling that a house is a big bottomless sinkhole in which you pour your money in. One of our friend commented that she will be a very rich woman if she had saved up all the money she'd spent on her house over the years. Probably she's right. There are so many expenses, large and small, which came up that we never had to think about previously. And now, our plasma tv is showing a yellowish screen, which I reckon is not an auspicious sign.


The year is slipping by so fast before I have a chance to report recent important events. I still owe XX a birthday cake. I feel so bad that this year, XX turned 5 one day after we moved in, I have no time to make him a birthday cake. I only used the oven for the first time to make some pre-mix whoopie pies for his kinder. At least he had his moment of fame in school with 28 of his kindy friends singing him a birthday song and I did get him a big Lego Creation set as a gift, but I still feel a gap. I have made the birthday cakes for both of them every year since we moved to Melbourne. This year, XX's cake was a $5 mud cake from Coles.


Cake or no cake, my little baby has grown up one more year. Come next year, he will be joining his older brother in primary school. Although it is just Prep (equivalent of K2 in Singapore), he will be donning official school uniform, packing a lunch and going to school 5 days a week for 6 hours a day. I'm so gonna miss him. Since we came to Melbourne 3.5 years ago, he has been my constant companion and I witnessed his amazing transformation from a baby to toddler to a young school going child. It is so amazing. I'm being made redundant at more and more tasks as he now takes over cleaning his bottoms and showering/shampooing himself. He puts on his own socks and shoes and knows how to put them into the laundry basket afterwards. And just one day before he turned 5, XX learnt to ride the 2-wheeled bicycle on his own! We were busy supervising the movers and he was paddling around the back with the bike. He found his balance for a few seconds and then he could balance longer and longer. Suddenly he's riding a few metres without falling!  


It's a natural progression for him and I'm proud of his accomplishments. I'm relieved also for more freedom but at the same time, I probably need a little more time adjusting and letting go. You know, I still like to carry him, cradle him (with his limbs hanging out) and smell his neck like a baby.


Here's XX's photo diary of his 5th birthday.

On my birthday, I went to the indoor playground with Brandon and Callum after my Prep orientation.

Hooray, I'm 5 finally!

Mom made whoopie pies for my kinder friends.

Me with my teacher blowing out the candles on a fake cake.

My birthday present which I constructed with help from Mama and KK.

   

We Moved In

So much has happened since my last post. We finally got our keys, gave notice to vacate the rental house and started organising the moving in. Appliances and curtains got installed, furniture delivered, we moved in officially, XX turned 5, Hubby and KK got their blue belts for Taekwondo, end of school year and it's Christmas tomorrow! 


In between all these major events, there were lots of unpacking, tidying and organising at our new home and the cleaning and handing back of the rental property that was our home for the last 21 months. There were also school orientations for XX as he gets ready for Prep next year and end of year Christmas concerts to attend (even XX's kinder had a mini one). Hubby and I were so tired these last few weeks that we basically just crashed into bed everynight. But there's the satisfaction of finally living in our own home which we've work hard to create and I think we're progressing well. Hubby has been very hard working especially, assembling furnitures and fixing up odd jobs around the house. He's even started working on some of the many home projects lined up, such as our timber deck and we even got the Christmas tree set up. 


Enough said, I'll let the pictures tell the story:

One of the first thing we had to do was to set up a post box.

Hob and Hood installed.

Blinds had to be in before we can move in. Here's the sliding panel blinds in our bedroom.

Bought some furniture pieces from Ikea which we had to assemble.

The plantation shutters in the Lounge room.

Panel blinds in the laundry room that we installed ourselves. Rails from Ikea, fabric from Spotlight. 

Yay, our first meal (Korean instant noodles) in our new home.

The timber arrive for our alfresco decking.

Hubby setting up the frame for the decking. Yes, we're going to try and DIY!

Looking homely and comfy for Christmas.

More pictures on XX and KK to come and as we settle in and tackle more home improvement projects. Meanwhile, have a Merry Christmas and Happy 2012!!
   

Burnt Garlic

A few moments of distraction was all it took to overheat the wok. I should have stopped proceeding but I thought I had a chance if I poured in the oil and pushed in the chopped garlic immediately. But it was too late. The garlic were burnt but I still pushed in the ikan bilis. What was I thinking? As I stir fried them around, I realised I had no chance to save this dish. The soup is gonna be bitter with the charred garlic. I'm gonna waste all the ingredients if I continued. I turned off the fire and started chopping fresh garlic again. 


Burnt garlic is no big deal. But like burnt garlic, some things in life have no U-turn. A moment of unthinking can be all it takes sometimes to make a irreversible mistake. This lesson was a valuable one for me, especially after the gift saga with KK.


We had bought 2 gifts of games, one Xbox and one PS3, for his friends. They were brand new so they came wrapped in plastic cling wrap. In his attempt to peel out the price tag, my son tore off the whole plastic wrapping completely. Not only that, curious he opened up the box to have a look at the instruction booklet inside, thereby breaking the seal on the Xbox game. Great. Now I not only cannot offer to get an exchange on the gift (if the parents object to the title we chose), it looks like we have bought pre-owned games instead. I was a pretty mad mum. 


I know he's still a kid and kids don't think so much when they do things. But the sooner he learnt there are merits to thinking before action or demerits to actions without thoughts, the better he will be at being independent. Too often, we read in the newspapers of teenagers or young people who get caught in situations such as molestation, possession of drugs or smuggling unwittingly. It might not be their intention to commit crime but it's a messy situation they can avoid if they were more alert, cautious and less ignorant. Certainly if they paused to think of the consequences of their actions, they might still be able to save themselves before it's too late. 


So the humble garlic has imparted some important lessons to life:

• Be on the watch out, a moment of distraction and you can get burnt.
• If something is not right, stop. You can't save the garlic but you won't destroy the dish.

More Delays

What do you do when things are not going the way you want and you can't do much about it? You sit around sulking or walk around grumbling or you pour it out in writing? Well I tried the first two, it didn't really help me feel better so I'm going to try the 3rd remedy.


At this final stage, the house is still not settled. Things took a dramatic turn for the worse when we went to do our "PCS" (Project Completion Signoff). Instead of signing off that everything had been completed, we found the site supervisor couldn't make it for the appointment as he was summoned to go to the head office urgently. Turned out he got fired that day. 


Turned out also that he has not been doing much at all about our house. Some of the items raised 2 weeks ago were being fixed on the spot by the substitute site supervisor who took over last minute. This new guy seems initially like a nice guy and one who has much higher standards. He saw some of the rectifications and agreed that it was a 'crap' job and had to be redone. Some other rectifications made no improvement at all. Like the garage door, it was still not sitting straight. 


We were very keen to move in and even agreed that some issues could be fixed after handover. However, I was reminded many times by different people not to do that. Most people had difficulties getting the builder to come back and fix things after handover. They are not one bit interested in you after they take your money. So we have decided to make them fix all the defects before we take over the house. Which means an indefinite delay.


To make matters worse, we discovered the concrete path outside our house had some serious defects. There appeared 2 long thin cracks in the concrete recently and when I mentioned it to the ex-site supervisor, he claimed it was within tolerance. He asked that we leave it and review during the 3 month maintenance period. I took his word for it then but we met another concrete trades person lately and he highlighted what a bad job our concrete was. Many parts were not even the minimum thickness of 100mm. Indeed it was and from then my eyes opened. I now suspect the cracks could be the result of poor workmanship. We raised a fuss with the builder about the concrete and they have still not responded how they are going to deal with it. 


That's not the end. On the day of the PCS, the new site supervisor got someone to come and clean up the exterior of the house. He did a good job but some water from his high pressure hose were forced into the house and there was a puddle on the floor boards near the alfresco sliding doors. It was highlighted to the site supervisor who claimed that he will get some towels from his car to mop it up later. But guess what? In his hurry to go off (to visit Grandmother and it's girlfriend's birthday), he forgot. That was Friday and when I reminded him on Monday, he claimed that it was done on Saturday. However when I went to the site on Wednesday, I saw huge stain marks on the floor and I suspect the floorboards have just got damaged from the flooding. One more major issue to repair = more delay.


I'm getting increasing frustrated especially when there's nothing much we can do except email them every other day about the progress. Yesterday, the furniture company called, claiming they can't hold on to the furniture (2 large sofas and a dining table) we ordered any longer. When we ordered them 2 months ago, I never expect that the house would still not be ready until now. 


On the other hand, I'm glad that all these things happened now, before we sign off and while we still have a bit of bargaining power to make them fix the problems. I thank God for the people He sent to remind and advise us. The contractual completion date is 23 December, after which the builder will have to start paying us $250 per week as damages. I wonder if this will really happen? From a project that have so much potential to be completed in 5 months to one that is overdue. I have no problems moving in next year but where am I going to settle the furniture in the mean time? 

3 Trophies

The boys in our family have added 3 little trophies to display on top of the tallboy at the entrance, together with the collection of photo frames showing memories of our lives together. The trophies are nothing major, just a little recognition for their love of the sport but I'm still proud of them. 

Hubby got a trophy for being the Yellow Belt Grading Champion for Taekwondo at our club. This is in recognition of him having the highest grading score amongst all the yellow belt gradings. He claimed this was the first time in his life he ever received a trophy for anything. 


Last Saturday, at the annual Christmas dinner organised by City West Taekwondo, KK was nominated and won the Junior Encouragement Award for Point Cook branch. There were 3 awards, Junior Champion, Junior Most Improved and Junior Encouragement. I supposed this is an award for showing encouraging performance during his training. For someone who started not serious and nearly couldn't qualify to take his Yellow 2 grading, KK has indeed come a long way. These days, his TKD instructors are happy with his improvement and commitment during training.


And our dear XX, not of age yet to join the Taekwondo club but already so inspired by the trophies (he calls them 'Piston Cups') his dad and brother had received, decided to make and award one to himself. He asked me for an empty drink bottle, started pasting paper all over it and finally had me write his name and the words 'Junior Champion' on it. I did an impromptu award ceremony on the spot, shook my little champion's hand and congratulated him as he proudly received his 'Piston Cup'. He took the 'trophy' and put it right next to his dad and brother's. One day, I know he will get a real one back to take its place. 

Rock A Fellas

There is never an end to the things we can learn. We thought that with a combined experience of over 70 years on earth between us, there is nothing that will faze us. But building our first house in Australia has given us that opportunity to feel like a little confused child again. Our latest crash course now is on  'Landscaping'.


In Singapore, landscaping was never an agenda for us. We kind of take it for granted that it will be there when we move into the HDB or condo estate. That timber deck, paved footpath, lush green lawn and stone benches, it's all done up nicely by the developer. We walked around and on them but have we ever wondered how it was made? Here in Australia, we're learning for the first time how to turn a piece of muddy ground into a garden. Where do we even begin? 


Apparently, the land has to be 'prepared' first. Like before putting on make-up, you have to clean your face and put on moisturiser first. The land has to be excavated by a bobcat and the trash soil taken away. Then you can put on the weed mats before you pile on top soil (which you got to buy). Only then do you plant the grass or turf. 


And if you want your garden to be more than just grass, a space that is both decorative and usable, which in our case consist of some timber decking, footpaths, garden beds and paving, the jobs add up. And getting landscaping done here is not cheap. The labour cost is high and can make up 60% of the total cost. We have gotten quotes ranging from $16,000 to $50,000. Which makes us think that it makes a lot of sense to DIY some parts of the landscaping ourselves. But how?


Unlike most Australian men who grew up watching their dads doing gardening and handy jobs around the house, my born and bred in Singapore husband is a total green horn when it comes to such tasks. And I'm even worse, can't tell the difference between a rake and a fork until recently. We are both very willing to take on the labour, especially if it saves us so much money, but our lack of technical and practical knowledge is a major setback.


So that's why currently we are on a steep learning curve. No doubt we will have to get the professionals to do some jobs like preparing the land and setting the concrete base, but I feel we should attempt to do the timber decking, garden beds and paving ourselves. There are some friends we know who has done theirs and we are hoping that we can learn from them. In the meantime, we have visited a few places that sell pavers and stones to learn more about the different materials available and their prices.


The range is mind boggling. Pavers comes in all sorts of shapes - rectangle, squares, irregular... and thickness, colours and feel. Even rocks are not so simple....Basalt, bluestone, sandstone....The strangest part is these rocks that comes freely from the earth are not cheap. One shop quoted us $80/cubic metre. Sure, some of them had to be mined and broken down but you know what, when builders build your house, they make you pay like $16K to excavate and remove rocks (called site costs) from your land. The rocks are taken to factories to be broken down and then sold to landscape suppliers...for you to later buy them back for your garden. 


I'm pretty sure that even with research and theoretical knowledge, we'll never be able to fully understand landscaping until we sink our hands into the mud. I just hope to be able to carry them rocks when they arrive.