Kids' School Bag Corner

This was a project that both DH and I wanted to do for quite some time...
Staying in 800+sq ft apartment, we managed to get it up for our kids by sacrificing one piece of furniture...
Our belated new year gift for the kids....

JL’s Future New Bed

Last month, we decided to buy the metal white bunk bed from IKEA at RM 499. It was cheaper than DIY because initially PaPa was thinking to build one for JL. The white colour looked great in JL’s future room making the small and tiny room look spacious.

Currently, the bed is being set up with EL’s baby cot under the bed. EL is sleeping in JL’s room until AL is big enough to sleep on the upper bunk. Once the girls are bigger, JL will get his room where his study table and book shelves will be located under his new bed.

We are looking forward for the kids’ rooms next phase renovation…

Kids’ Rooms adjustment again…

We thought 2011 will be our last renovation for the kids… However with JL asking whether we would be having another sibling, it took us some time to think and plan.

The only way was since JL’s room is a bit bigger than AL’s, the plan to make space would be to have both JL and AL’s current beds stack up as double bunk because their beds were originally stackable. The two beds would stack in JL’s room and for AL’s room, we would get a bunk bed which PaPa would modify to have the study table and book shelves on the lower bunk of the bed.

So the plan would be :--

If boy

1. Stack AL’s bed on JL’s bed in JL’s current room

2. JL would sleep on the top bunk and Baby#3 would sleep on the lower bunk with bed rail

3. AL would get a new bed which PaPa would modify later for her when she is big enough to sleep on the top bunk into top bunk bed+study table on the lower bunk

4. The boys would have to share the cupboard and study table

If girl – this will be more challenging

1. Repaint the room – JL’s current room from green to pink and vice versa on AL’s current room

2. Stack AL’s bed on JL’s bed in JL’s current room (which would be the girls’ room)

3. Temporary JL would sleep on the top bunk while AL on the lower bunk in the girls’ room (pink colour)

4. Baby#3 would sleep in AL’s current room (which would be already painted in green as JL’s future room) either on the cot (if we can find anyone giving away a baby cot because KorKor and JieJie’s babycot would be in KongKong and PohPoh’s apartment) or on a new single bed with bed rail.

5. When AL is big enough to sleep on the top bunk than JL would change place with Baby#3. PaPa would than modify the single bed to JL’s dream bed where he would sleep on top bunk and have his study table + book shelves at the bottom bunk.

6. The advantage would be Baby#3 would not distrurb KorKor and JieJie at night when she wakes up for her feeding especially during the first year.

7. However, JL had to ‘tahan’ sleeping in pink room…

With the last check-up gynae saying Baby#3 is a girl, PaPa has to plan for the big project…

Our Dream Home

Our dream home is not a big home. We just wanted a decent space of home and not too big. The bigger the home, it will be even harder to maintain plus we tend to accumulate more things at home. Besides that smaller space also will keep us closer and cozy.

We love our current small home space but wish just another small store room, a small space in dining area for PaPa’s mini office and a bigger kitchen for us to cook as family. It will be nice to have but not compulsory to have a bit bigger wardrobe for PaPa and myself. Other than that, we love our small mini living room where we are closed and warm watching television. Our master bedroom is small but we are fine with it. The mini bathrooms are also just nice for us without having to worry to clean big bathrooms.

Additional dream we love to have will be a small garden for the kids to run around plus plant some vegetables. Currently, our balcony is just limited for drying clothes and the kids will play around our wide corridor in front of the apartment when there is no time to go to the apartment’s playground. I dream of hanging outside our small garden relaxing with small camp fire. I have even seen some home in overseas having those permanent cozy outdoor fire places.

Yes, it is just a dream. Currently, we are contented with our mini small 845 sq ft home. PaPa and I are in the midst trying to look for idea to make more space.

Ideas on maximizing our apt…be contented…

My DH and I have been thinking of how to maximizing space in our apartment. Property price has been increasing to high that we decided to stop our hunt and focus with our apartment. Moving out from this area is total out of question because there is a lot of major changes need to be done especially on the kids.

 

DH has been reading a lot about space making and I am impressed on some of the ideas he showed to me. It is remarkable how we can make space in such a small space. Some of these apartments are smaller than ours.

 

Well, we are still planning and see we can make space in our apartment. Once the plan is final, next will be execution plan where we need to save $$$.

 

We are not complaining on the space because we minimize on the things to buy. Besides that, we give away things we don’t need to charity. We love the small and tiny space of our apartment.

 

Anyway, our first part of the next phase renovation will be around the corner…

 

We have learnt to be happy and contented with what God has blessed us.

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Hebrews 12:5

DIY Ceiling Fan in JL’s room

After shrinking the kids’ room into JL’s mini room and tiny store room, the ceiling fan was far too long for JL’s room. This was the fan which we had from the time we bought this apartment. It was still in a good condition.

We went to Panasonic shop to check out the long and short blade fans. PaPa found that the fans blade can be interchangeable. So, PaPa went to Panasonic service centre to order for 3xshort blades which was only about RM 40. PaPa went to collect the short blades and came back to change the long blades to the short blades.

We were happy with the outcome because we didn’t need to spend money buying baby fan which would have cost us a few hundred without knowing what to do with the old fan which was still functioning well.

Now, JL’s room had a modified baby fan…

New Rubber Mats for JL’s room...

We used to have alphabets mat which we ended up giving away because JL would take it all apart and we ended up trying to fix up the puzzles. Than we found a plain small one in multi color which we placed in AL’s room.

Recently, we found bigger pieces which were selling at RM59.90 for 4 pieces. The best thing was all 4 pieces were in same color unlike the previous would be a mix of 2 colors. Besides that, we found that these rubber mats were thicker and it was labeled as yoga mats. We got a set of 4 and placed them in JL’s room. JL loved having the mats because he was able to sit down and do his reading warmly instead of sitting on the cold tiles.

AL’s Pink Room

A peak of AL’s room (previously Office cum Store room) from the entrance painted with Cotton Floss (Pink) paint.

A small basket to keep the entire remaining soft toy

The whole room is pink except the curtain and cupboard. AL requested for pink curtain and we would find a pink curtain later.

Behind the door is AL’s play area.

Last but not least, we got her this as her room ceiling light. Since, PaPa need to put a light in the newly set-up store room, we decided to get her a new ceiling light and PaPa transferred the old one to the store room. AL’s room has a wall fan which is fixed just above the room door.

JL’s Green Room

The entrance of the kids’ previous room, to go to JL’s room is to pass the new store room.

JL’s room sliding door painted using Mistral (Green) paint. The door has not been fixed with door knob yet.  The sliding door slides between the gypsum walls.

A peak of JL’s room (previously part of the kids’ room) from the entrance painted with Guava Ice (Green) paint.

JL’s whole room is green (except the bed, curtain and study table) including the cupboard and wall light frame.

A small basket to keep the entire remaining soft toy and his mini workshop

PaPa joined multiple 3-tired boxed shelves together into big book shelves. This is also AL’s reading area because AL’s room is smaller and not enough space for bookshelves. I wish we can get nice covered bookshelves to keep the dust away (and of course it will look neater) but currently no budget. We try to make do with what we have.

JL’s study area using previously our office’s table

His foldable chair is usually folded and kept next to his study table

Another pending item besides his door knob is the ceiling fan (surprise…)

Before 2011 Renovation

I shared a lot about the kids’ room from the previous posts

• · Room #2 Changes
• History of the Kids’ Room- Part 1
• History of the Kids’ Room- Part 2
• History of the Kids’ Room- Part 3

Last photo shots of the kids’ room

A peak to our previous tiny Office cum Storeroom (now is AL’s room). I didn’t manage to take the photos earlier, so please ignore the messiness because it was in the midst of moving things out for renovation.

Here was the Office Area with Desktop Table and Office Table. This Office Table would be JL’s Study Table.

Here were the wall cabinets mounted above the Desktop Table and Office Table. We got these wall cabinets free.

The other side of the room was the store area which was made of metals frames and wood shelves. PaPa set-up the shelves by himself (DIY). He bought the materials and set-up by himself.  In front of the store area, PaPa bought a few 3-tier box-shelves and joined all together to make 2 big bookshelves to cover both metal shelves (Store area).

Room #2 Changes

Among all the rooms in our apartment, Room #2 went through the most changes. The last change was in 2009 when we took over the big cupboard from Sam Yee’s apartment.

It was from this

To this in 2009

This year 2011, we decided to partition the room into 2 as JL’s room and Storeroom. It seemed to be a small renovation but it ended up almost 3 weeks.

With the messy apartment, at last, on Wednesday 11May2011, the contractor completed to wall except for the door knob. That day itself, PaPa and I started to clean up to make some space in the living and dining area. We only ate our dinner after midnight and slept about 2am. The whole Thursday, PaPa continued  to clean up the apartment trying to arrange all the things as neatly as possible as the space got smaller in order to make space for the kids to have their own room Due to the cleaning up, PaPa had a very bad rash especially around his arms because it was not covered.  I read on nanocleanse reviews and whether will this help him or is there any alternative natural remedy to help his skin instead of steroid?

Up to the time I am writing this post, the door knob is not fixed yet. Sigh… Sigh…

• History of the Kids’ Room- Part 1
• History of the Kids’ Room- Part 2
• History of the Kids’ Room- Part 3

Messy Apartment

It is more than a week that our whole apartment is in a mess. It is like as if we were facing a breakdown service by the contractor. He is the contractor and he is also the worker. He would send all his workers to upstairs another apartment for major renovation before coming down to our apartment. In between, he would be running up and down trying to manage his workers and job in our apartment. We had our long Labor Day weekend staying in this messy and dusty environment. Everyone is sick and having a hard time to recover due to the dusty environment.

It was supposed to be a minor renovation job, just 1 wall and 1 door which can be completed within 1 ½ days only… Sigh… Sigh…

This was the view of the apartment after clearing up just Office cum Storeroom as on last Monday 25Apr2011. The current situation would be more when we cleared part of the previously kids’ room to make space for the contractor to set-up the wall and door.

View from the living room towards the apartment entrance passing the dining area.

View at the entrance to master bedroom with partial view of some things being put into the master bedroom temporary due to space constraints in the other part of the apartment.

The contractor worked late last night and we hope it would be completed by today…

Organizing our space…

After the minor (or major?) renovation, we had to re-organize our space since now there would be no office space. PaPa and I would be working from dining table. We wanted to re-plan all the arrangement and also document management process. Hopefully it would not cause unnecessary messiness in the apartment especially the dining table which would be also our office table. It would be a challenge for us but we would see how the outcome is after the renovation. We are hoping that it would be done by today so that we can start re-organizing the whole apartment.

Our Apartment Reno 2011

Since property price was going up so much, we decided to put our house hunting on hold first hopefully the right one would come one day. The location for house was limited due to mainly family reason. If we were to re-locate to a new place, a lot of major changes need to be done. JL was already 7 years old and he needed space for himself. Eventually, we also needed to give each JL and AL a room as they grew older. 

Then PaPa and I came out with a plan to do some minor renovation on the current apartment 845 sq ft. We decided to divide the kids’ room into JL’s room and store room. The current Store cum Office room would be AL’s room. PaPa and I would work from our dining table. Our apartment was on continuous renovation since 2003 and ended in 2007. We thought 2007 would be the last one, but it didn’t. 

• History of our mini apartment renovation-Part 1
• History of our mini apartment renovation – Part 2
• History of our mini apartment renovation – Part 3
• History of the Kids’ Room- Part 1
• History of the Kids’ Room- Part 2
• History of the Kids’ Room- Part 3

PaPa did the measurement and draw up the plan using AutoCAD. Here is our proposed plan below drawn by me using Excel (please take note that it is not the accurate measurement. PaPa had the accurate measurement). There were a few items we have yet to decide how to arrange until the gypsum board wall being set-up.

Coincident, PaPa’s SIL’s friend was doing renovation in his apartment same block as ours. We decided to use the same contractor since it was considered a minor renovation. Well, the renovation would be starting tomorrow and according to the contractor, it would take 2 days. There goes our long weekend with all the dust until the contractor complete the renovation next Tuesday. 

However, our renovation movement of things started early this week. PaPa had to empty out the Store cum Office room. Such a small store area had things enough to cover the whole apartment dining area, master bedroom and part of the kitchen. Imagine, walking in the apartment via a small, dusty and squeeze paths in a maze. Few days of mess was enough to give PaPa rashes on his body (PaPa is allergy to dust) and for me, more blackheads on nose and pimples on the foreheads.

More updates and more photos on the next posts…