Renovation Progress: Week 6

If you presumed I spent the whole Sunday after Aiden's birthday lazing around at home recuperating from the hectic preparation and hosting of the event, you were dead wrong!

My Dad called my mobile early in the morning to remind us to drop by Crystal Crown to pass to him the DVD hubby made - the one with Aiden's progress pictures from birth till he turned one. So we crawled out of bed and got ready. He kept calling me every 15 minutes to check on our whereabouts. Talk about pressure! When we got there, everyone had already gathered at the lobby. Naturally, we were the last to arrive!

And when all of Datuk Yahaya's grandchildrens get together, of course it calls for a photo opportunity!

Azalea, Marissa and Aiden. Trying to get them all to stand together was a bit hard, since Aiden can barely balance himself properly!

Aiden terhuyung hayang. While the rest steady jer.

Azalea: I'm too cool for this.
Marissa: Ohhh boring!!! Come on Aiden!

Aiden "ran" into Mummy's arms.

Finally we got them all to sit. Unfortunately Aiden always has this urge to touch other babies/toddlers whenever they're near him!

So of course, he touched Azalea!

Then Marissa. Aiden... careful, please don't inherit that part of your grandfather's genes, please!

Azalea, always the patient one.

Careful Aiden, I think you're really testing Azalea's patience there...

Okay, when the kid's uncle starts getting into the fun, maybe it is time to go home!

Aiden was supposed to have his make-up Gymboree class on that day, but we only remembered half way to Shah Alam and Mummy wasn't prepared for the class. Not only didn't I have socks with me, but Aiden was wearing jeans when he is actually required to wear shorts to class to expose his knees when crawling around the Gymboree set up.

So we continued on our journey to Shah Alam. Remember the maid's room issue? Well, after brainstroming for ideas to creatively solve the space problem, the ID contractor finally agreed to my suggestion of knocking down part of the new walkway wall to make it part of her room to make space for the bed so that she has the whole of the existing space for her closet, to do her prayers and stuff like that. Wow. Long sentence! So, did I manage to confuse you just yet? Well, they say pictures say a thousand words:

When I arrived, they were finishing the brickwork for the master bedroom extension.

The existing wall of the master bedroom, still intact.

My new corner windows for the master bedroom. Can't wait!

Knocked down the existing patio windows. This shall now be installed with a one-piece tempered glass, just like the show house.

New patio opening from the outside.

Knocked down the existing wall and windows of the guest room. The guest room shall now be extended complete with a built-in shoe rack (opens externally at the porch but protruding into the room) and a sliding door to the small side garden beside the dry kitchen.

The side garden beside the dry kitchen. At the end is the wet kitchen window.

Knocked down the dry kitchen windows as well, because the height of the existing windows were too tall for the size of the kitchen cabinet countertop. The guest room windows shall be recycled for use here. The window overlooks the small side garden outside.

View of the side garden from the wet kitchen window. Can you see the bricked up wall of the guest bedroom at the end?

Now, the maid's room. See the new (unfinished) opening? The rear door shall now be placed there. The old opening is already cemented and made into a second window for Bibik.

Bibik now has two windows beside her bed and a nice view of the garden!

Bibik's room from the inside. Knocked down part of the new wall to make more space for the room. So Bibik's bed can be placed parallel to the two windows.

The mess in the garden!

Six weeks into it and they are making really good progress.

They finally cemented and made good the flooring of the extended living hall.

New horizontal lines to match the existing ones at the porch.

We had to cement one of the windows at the living hall.

My sofa is huge and therefore when we measured the hall, the sofa end was right in front of the third window. So we decided to cement it and make the area as part of the TV panel so that the TV is at the center of the sofa. Make sense?

And just as we were about to leave, we heard some banging upstairs. When I ventured up, imagine my surprise to find that not only have they finished the brick wall, they had even knocked down the existing wall of the master bedroom! Yeay!

My new extended bedroom *huge grin*

More space for you to roll around, Baby!

The view from the left corner window.

The view from the right corner window. Blocks the view of the PE completely! *deliriously happy*

Aiden literally grew up visiting the renovated house every single week, without fail.

Amazed at all the dirt, sand and stones around him.

My future (civil?) engineer!

After that we left for MidValley as Daddy had to change some of his money into Singapore currency before he left for his "second home" that night. And also to do some groceries, and of course, eat!

Ordered this (so called) nasi berlauk, because I was reminiscing my days balik kampung when I had some authentic Kelananese nasi berlauk!

Wiki defines Nasi Berlauk as rice served with fish or chicken and vegetables cooked with tumeric and galangal infused yellow gravy.

Oh well, I give it thumbs up for creativity (see the layers and layers of serunding in between rice, topped with sambal nasi lemak (yes, sambal nasi lemak!) and a bit of chicken rendang on top) and the not-too bad taste, but it was certainly not even close to the scrumptious ones I grew up with in Kelantan!

And not to forget, this marks a milestone for Aiden: His first time eating all by himself! Not only does he knows how to hold the keropok himself, but he knows how to use his upper and lower teeth to munch on the keropok into edible pieces! Mummy is so proud of you baby!