Idea Book Entry # 1: Curtain Design

A friend of mine told me last week, “Apsal blog rumah kau tu ader 2 entry je,”. I cant remember what my response was (mestilah ader response, bajet la being me), but it dawned on me that it has been a while since we posted anything here. Busy kot (busy dengan ape?? haha~ i dont know)

Anyway, I came across the picture below. And I think I like this curtain design very much. But I don’t think this design will suit the theme I have going on (in my head) for our house. But still I like it.

I saved this picture and think what I want to do with it. I liked it but it doesnt go with the theme. I dont want to throw the idea away because I might want to use it (and mainly because I like the design). Then a very brilliant thought hit me! An idea book!! So I can just throw everything I see that I like in there and browse through later when I need motivation and ideas. As we already we have a blog for our house up and running already, I just post my ideas there!! So xde la gambar2 on things yg menarik and cantik and I like terbazir begitu sahaja.

And I really hate the times when “Eh, hari tu ader jumpa satu gambar nie cantik sangat bley refer utk dapat idea,” skali tengok2 rupenye dah buang.

So this is the start of my idea book. Banyak lagi to come (if i’m not too lazy to type, sbb actually dalam kepala ader banyak giler idea).

Landskap Laman: Privasi Laman Tepi

Semenjak tinggal di rumah Kak Nisa' (yang ditinggalkan sementara sebab her husband sambung belajar Master di US), saya dah mula berjinak-jinak dengan gardening dan eventually landscaping. Being a corner-lot house, lamannya memang luas, seluas 1500 kaki persegi– lebih luas dari yang termampu untuk saya jaga sendiri.

Apa-apa hal pun, ia memberi peluang untuk kami bereksperimen bercucuk-tanam dari sesuatu yang biasa macam rumput sampailah ke pokok tomato yang haus tak tentu pasal. Kalau korang jenis selalu tinggalkan rumah 2-3 hari satu-satu masa, tak payahlah tanam tomato, senang je dia haus, kering dan lepas tu macam hidup segan mati tak mahu. Tomato ni perlu siram sebaik-baiknya 2 kali sehari, paling tidak pun sekali sehari.

Anyway, I'm digressing. Memandangkan kami dah berpeluang cuba tanam pokok ini dan itu sejak 9 bulan yang lepas, banyak juga hint dan idea yang dapat. Seperti mana rumah-rumah semi-d, laman rumah kami ni tak lah sebesar mana pun, tapi cukup besar to keep me occupied tapi cukup kecil to not overwhelm me as well – 10' lebar kat tepi dan belakang.

Lazimnya rumah semi-d ada sliding door kat tepi. But the downside, sliding door semi-d will usually face your next door neighbour's sliding door. Sebab nak mendapatkan ruang privasi, jenuh juga memikirkan penyelesaian yang sesuai. Mulanya nak letak saja pokok hiasan yang agak tinggi dalam pasu besar, contohnya Pinang Kuning atau Merah. Tapi lepas buat carian online, rasanya pagaran kayu buat tempat pokok menjalar antara yang paling menarik.

Kebetulan minggu lepas ada Karnival Landskap Negara 2010 di Taman Tasik Cempaka, Bangi. Jadi, lepas saja sarapan pagi Sabtu kami terus ke karnival. Memang menarik, ada landskap binaan seperti gazebo dan juga tanaman, dari pokok bunga hiasan, buahan, yang berjuntai sampailah yang dicari-cari pokok menjalar. Seri Pagi bunga biru muda. Bagusnya Seri Pagi ni dia senang membesar. Baru je 3 hari kami beli dia dah mula menjalar naik ke pancur air, kebetulan kami letak berhampiran sebab nak lindung dari panas matahari semenjak dua menjak ni.

Selesai masalah ruang privasi hadapan sliding door. Pagaran kayu dengan pokok Seri Pagi yang menjalar. Hanya nak tunggu buat je.

Welcome to Our Home!

It’s hard to find a house that’s perfect for you.

It’s even harder to find a house that’s perfect for you and your partner

My dream is a single-storey bungalow with sprawling grounds. (kalau duduk kt mana2 hulu kampung dapat la). In Klang Valley, mimpi aje la. This might cost million.

He’s ok with anything that is close to my parents and his siblings, around area Kajang or Bandar Baru Bangi. Why my parents? Ha~ it’s easier if you’re close with your family, back up support just in case you need them. We are really lucky to be working really close to where my family is originally from. So senang la.

We bumped into this house, when we were engaged I think. A two-storey semi-detached. Can’t afford it at that time (actually, we can’t afford this house if it’s not for the existence of join loan and that can happen only if we were married). So we moved on and didn’t think about it.

Then, we get hitched.

We were married for about 6 months when we bumped into this house again. It was sold out. The developer guy was promoting another new development, but we were really not interested in anything else. He left his business card with the developer, so that they’ll give us a heads up just in case something came up that we happen to like. We were not hoping.

Then we get a call. We get lucky upon someone else’s unfortunate event. To sum it up, somebody’s loan was not approved, yada2, blah2…would you like to buy this house?? Put a booking fee of RM 5000, but hurry up, other people might be interested.

After work that same day, we went home and get ayah to write a cheque for us (kami masih muda, takde keperluan for cheque lagi) and directly after that, pay a visit to the developer and make a booking. Sign here and there and tarraaa!!! A place to call our own!!! Yeay-yeay!!

Hah! Little did I know (I think my husband were aware of the complete procedure of buying a home), that the booking was a really miniature step in the whole buying-a-house big picture. Terima kasih, sayang because, really, I was like, not bothered, in the rest of the process. I know there were some contracts to be signed (because I have to sign them), loan application, S&P, yada2 and everything else.

Now, almost a year down the road from the day we take that miniature step and booked the house, our little place is almost 100% complete (according to the milestone payment in our contract, it should be at about 80%), but from the last time we visited, to me our baby is almost 100% complete.

We are expecting to move in sometime between end of 2010 or early 2011. Right now, we are really excited (and arguing a lot) on how to make the place our own.

It’s hard to find a house that you both fell in love with. We overcome that and now I realized it’s even harder (HARDER!!!) to turn a house into a place that reflects both of you, without sacrificing what we both like - which is almost impossible to happen because both of us feel so strongly about our ideas and what we want for the house, and sometimes have ideas that are so different it’s like I want the sun and he wants the moon, or something like that. Obviously, we’ll have to settle for something in the middle - or even better, if we settle for something I like :D

This is our journey. To make this house, a place to call our own, a comfy hideout from the world, a home.