Atas on the cheap

Today I decided to have cod fish with shimeiji sauce for dinner. 

We went to the wet market at rivervale plaza and bought quite lot stuffs. Veggie, minced meat, and we head to the fish monger to buy cod fish. And was very very shock at the price! $11 for 1 fillet!!!

Been cheapo, I refuse to buy. And saw another stall selling 3 fillet for $5 of a common fish (forget what name). So mama jess bought it.

I cook the fillet the same way as cod, but check the fish to prevent over cooking. And it turn out awesome max!

Dinner dun have to be an expensive affair, substituting with similar local products could do the trick. And my family think that the dinner is good. :)

Fish Fillet with Hon Shimeiji sauce

Badminton

It all started 3 weeks ago when Weifu jio us go Cheng San CC to piak the feather ball.

Honestly, I wasn't thrill. Been hited in the face for countless time is bad enough, and playing against all these pros? It is pride down the drain faster then NEWater treatment. But I really miss meeting up these folks, so I though fuck the pride, having fun with my friends is more important.

Boy, I glad I went. :) Somehow my LASIK-ed eyes could see better, I guess my lazy eyes in the past didn't give a good judgement of the direction of the shuttlecock. Although not as good as my pro friends, it is decent enough to play a game.

So, we had been meeting up almost all weekend for games. And today we played from 4:30pm to 9pm. I never sweat so much before sia. All the running, laughing, and smacking. And we had been teaching Kandro how to play, and she is getting the hands of it. And it is please that she got all excited when we go for the badminton session. I always prefer kids to sweat it out then looking at their iPad whole day.

Playing badminton for 4hrs plus certainly cause a pain in the legs now. Kandro and I were nua-ing in our sofa while Gavin playing D3 lazily. But ain't it perfect to sweat it out together with Family and Friends, and to nua together again?

 

Until next guys! Let do it again. :)

New nest

We have more or less settle into the new house. Mushi really love to run ard the house, I guess he must be happy with the ample space to run. The new home had kept us busy for now...

And... I never though I would enjoy cooking this much. =)

Halfway there...

Ok, so I gotta over the sadness of no tatami, and trying hard to think on the bright side on the amt of $$ I save, and how gorgeous my vinyl tiles are.

Danna and I went over the home during last weekend, and we are happy that the kitchen is almost done! What we are left is to install the hod and tralah! A kitchen!

Let start with the door shall we? Uncle BK (Our designer) initially propose a usual bi-fold door for the kitchen to help to cut our cost. But seriously...

Kitchen door???

I think guests would have though that is a toilet. Even if I make it a glass door. The aluminum frame is still going to make it look like a toilet door. After round of discussing from no door to glass door to sliding door, we finally decide to continue using bi-fold door coz mushi will have to access the service yard most of the time. But in-lieu of aluminum frame, uncle BK use wooden frame (it is actually laminate, solid wood wld have cost a bomb) to match the carpentry of the house.

And I'm very please with how it turn out!

Just perfect! Plain perfect! Exactly how I want it to be! It cost more than a bi-fold door, but it super worth it! Since this will be one of the 1st thing we will see when stepping into the hse, why not make it pleasing to the eyes. :D

Next, we move on to the kitchen itself.

We had wanted our kitchen to match closely to the laminate of our living area. But this would mean DARK wood hue. Uncle BK is not very keen on it as dark hue will make the (already very small) kitchen even smaller, he is a fav of white. :p But I'm very keen to maintain a consistence look on the whole home, so we come to a compromise. Top cabinets will be white, while bottom will be dark wood. It turn out to be a perfect combo:

The white top cabinets make the kitchen much brighter. while the bottom dark tone merge well with our home. And also, I took Ronald's tip of having all drawers for the bottom cabinets, it make retrieving stuffs so much easier!

The oven, hood, and hob are from Eletrolux. It is a package special of $1,499! We bought it immediately when we saw the offer. ha!

The Granite kitchen sink is Carysil Salsa. Danna was actually keen on getting a round stainless steel sink coz it look so unique. Sadly we are unable to find a quality one that is 50cm in diameter. The only one we saw is at IKEA... and no where else sell such round sink more den 45cm. :( After some though, we decide to get a granite sink as I like the feeling of no "Ping ping pong pong" sound that we always get when washing in a stainless steel sink.

In short, I really love my new kitchen, small size, but a powerhouse! Can't wait to start my cooking & baking adventure!

1st weekend after exam

What a fulfilling weekend after exam! Brought mushi for grooming yesterday and bought Danna's phone (his Note had been dying on him. haha).

Today we went Robinson sale at expo!

The result (when the wife is around):

But! It is super worth it! Especially the 450 thread count bedsheet! I can't wait to sleep on it! ^^

And also... Hubby bought me a warm water bag for my relief from bodyache...

It is not cheap... But I really hope it will be a good snuggle when I have the aches. Thank you hubby! Choosing you to be my hubby is the best decision ever!

No more Tatami! *cry*

So... It is actually one thing lead to another...

The original design is, to corner off the TV area (aka tatmi area) with a divider as guest room when need. And we intend to do the air con back to back with Kandro's room. Liddat we oso wun need to see ugly trunking running in the living hall. Below is the diagram to aid your understanding:

BUT!

计划永远赶不上变化！！！

The air-con dude realise that the wall between Kandro's room and living hall is actually METAL! Which means they are unable to run the trunking from her room to the hall, and trunking had to run across the living hall to place that air con in the original position. So ID make a quick decision to put air con at the wall above the entrance to the corridor to minimize the look of the trunking.

Of coz, this will means that if I put the divider to corner the original area, the air from air con will not reach it. WHICH MEANS! People come sleep at the tatami area cannot on aircon, 那我放 divider 个屁啊？？！！So I make the decision to take away the divider.

And now the tatami area look extremely funny in this small room coz the purpose is gone. It is suppose to do a job with the divider to segregate the "guest room" from the other area. But without the divider, every thing look weird. I did explore shoji screen... But it couldn't achieve the same effect as a real divider...

And we took another look at the living hall again. After tatami (without divider), the hall area will look kind of.... small...

So I (Danna is more den happy to give the tatami up due to the cost), took the painful decision to say goodbye to the tatami.

Don't talk to me. It still hurt.

Making of our nest - Journey started!

It had been a month since we collected the keys, but we could do any reno until now!

WHY?!

(1) HDB took forever to do my cement screed. It is only 3 weeks later I saw workers in my unit. But well, free thing ma, can't complain.
(2) We had to apply permit to hack down the wall between Kandro & our room.

And today! I saw people hacking down the wall!!!! WHHHEEE~~~

I still very happy that my idea of "Modern Ryokan" is taking off! Of coz Uncle BK was puzzle why I insist on tatami mats (those cost a bomb!) but he design our house according to the way I wanted and trying his best to help us to save cost.

Our color theme is mainly earthly colour. Think of wooden floor (we use Vinyl in lieu of wood, poor lah), wooden (laminate) shelf, and plain colour.

 When I (yes, me. Coz Danna say I'm the creative director!) 1st started out on searching for design, I don't jump into style too fast. My 1st thought is "how to make it multi function?", as you know, it is 65m2. I can't do anything much to the bedrooms as they are tiny enough. The only option is the living area which will combine living, entertainment, dinning, storage, and home office.

Space is a huge concern to us, I work from home at least once a week, so a workstation is a must (I did try to explore the bomb shelter..). And more space please!

I start my search googling "small home", "space saver" etc.. Houzz.com and apartment therapy is truly great sources of inspiration. ;)

And also I remember the Ryokan I'd stay in 2010. The room are NOT big. It is the size of a usual double bedroom. But it look super spacious and is comfortable too. And since I love Japan so much, why not I bring it in my home?

So I decide to have a tatami for my living corner. So that it can be a dinning, living, entertainment and guest room. It is hard to visualize by words. I shall wait for the final result to be out.

Visiting the house tomorrow. =D