I was meaning to post this last week but I got lazy and partly also because the new bathroom isn´t completed. It would have been completed just in time for Christmas but something just had to go wrong. The tile shop gave us floor tiles from 2 different production batches so they weren´t the same thickness. The shop and all the other branches were sold out so they had to order more from Italy. We´ll get them next week hopefully but I´m slightly worried they won´t be the same thickness as the ones we have on our floor now. Daniel, the guy that did absolutely everything traveled back to his home country Poland for the holidays but will be back 1st week of Jan to finish the rest. That means he´ll be back 2nd week of Jan. He´s really good with his hands and did a terrific job with the bathroom so far but he sucks big time when it comes to punctuality. We were warned before we hired him so we were prepared and didn´t get upset. The quality of his work makes up for his tardiness.
Here are pics of the bathroom before the remodeling. I´m quite embarrassed to show these pictures but even more shocked now after the transformation that I actually lived with it for 3 years. I mean, it was pink. And floral. How this style could actually be "in" in the ´70s is beyond me.
This
was where all the MU application took place. Just a single light at the
top of the mirror, not the best I know. Nor was there much natural
light.
A doorknob came loose, we super-glued it back on but it came off again. We just never bothered with it anymore.
Ahh...the shower cabinet that was a royal PITA when it came to cleaning. It shall NOT be missed. I didn´t dare show what was behind the doors. Chest of drawers was crap from Ikea. Broke apart like it was made of cardboard. Ok, I may have shoved one towel too many in the drawer but still! Middle drawer was broken so we only made use of top and bottom drawers. Was close to replacing it many times but we came to our senses and waited until we got new matching furniture for the whole bathroom.
Our
old potty! Daniel took it apart and left it outside by our front door.
So for a while we had a toilet outside our door, lol. Even our
neighbour commented on our new décor. Well a lot of trash accumulated
so we hired a container and got rid of all the crap and made our front
yard look a bit more presentable. When we first moved in, I bought the
bright pink rug with matching toilet brush (behind the trashcan) to
brighten up the bathroom without clashing with the pink walls ;P .
In the middle photo, the brown spot you see under the window was a burn
mark. Don´t know how it got there but it was there when we moved in.
Same goes for the curtain. I searched and searched but was unable to
find a suitable replacement. I know the easiest would be to buy cloth
and sew my own curtains but I´m too lazy :/ The curtain is actually
see-through, we have white wooden blinds behind. Third pic is a close
up of the dreadful, awful, horrendous, ugly, hideous and not
forgetting, cold floor. Boy I´m so glad I don´t have to step on it any
longer.
And so began the transformation...
Daniel took apart everything including the old walls as they were not aligned and he put up new walls.
Next, he covered each wall with waterproof latex paddings, laid down my favourite part of the whole bathroom - heating cables "MMmmmMMMmm" and installed the toilet cistern.
Daniel did a terrific job with the tiles. The white tiles on the walls
are actually subtly patterned with lines. Gives it a textured look.
voila. . .
We are going to install another light in the ceiling. A high cabinet in the same style and colour as the vanity will be mounted on the wall in the corner where the silver vase is. It´s not mounted on yet because the cabinet will jut out and cover part of the window. Daniel suggested we change to a smaller window and get more wall space. It´s more work of course but I think it will look much better, we were intending to replace the window anyways since the current one is punctured. Also we´re thinking of a frosted window so we don´t have to think about curtains :P
Almost complete yet still a lot of patching up here and there and of course window to be changed. Changing to a smaller window means changing of wooden boards on outer wall too. I´m wondering how Daniel is going to do that when there is about 2 feet of snow outside, not to mention we´re expecting very very cold days ahead of us. I won´t be surprised if we have to wait till spring to get the window done.
to be continued . . .
Last year my team leader came up with the idea to bake a pepperkake (gingerbread) house and share with everybody in our department. I don´t know how it all actually started but I challenged her to make it in the shape of Malaysia´s famous Petronas Twin Towers. This talk first started summer of last year so I had many months of taunting her about it and insisted it to be in 3D. Come December and one day she appeared at work carrying the much anticipated Pepperkake Twin Towers! Despite it not being in 3D, I must admit that she did a pretty good job. She was so proud of herself and was practically gloating. Of course I didn´t admit to her face that I thought it was good, lol. She then challenged me to bake this year´s pepperkake house and she picked Hamar Vikingskipet (The Hamar Viking ship), which is a stadium in her home town, Hamar. I had the whole year to prepare myself for this and I really didn´t know how I was going to accomplish this until the very moment I was going to bake it. Dough was easy-peasy - Ikea sells readymade pepperkake dough which is actually quite good, just a tad too sweet for my liking though. I thought I did a pretty decent job with the shape however it melted in the oven :/ My husband said it looked like several things - a whale, a giant turd, a garden snail...anything but what it actually is supposed to look like, LOL. (All I wish for Christmas is a new husband who is more supportive!) I personally think it looks like a peanut. What do you think?
BEFORE BAKING
BAKED AND PRETTY-FIED
Last Friday, I received my second order from Verbena Custom Blends consisting of a body scrub, a hair conditioner and a leave-in hair conditioner. I had already tried their conditioner and liked it enough to go and get more. The scent I chose before was Lemon Verbena. I love this scent so much, it is so refreshing and zesty. I recently found out that my husband has been using the shampoo in the same scent cos he too loves it. He didn´t know it was a shampoo though so he had been using it on his body as a normal shower soap, lol. Thankfully I had used up the conditioner else he might have mistaken it for a body cream. I did try their body butter creams but they weren´t rich enough for my ultra dry skin.
Oh, in case you were wondering (which I highly doubt), we are remodeling our bathroom and the gray mosaic tile "featured" on this post is most likely going to be on our bathroom floor soon. It´s made of quarry stone so I think with heated cables underneath, this will feel so nice and warm to step on. I can´t wait! No more shivering in the bathroom in the wee morning hours for me!
I´m so excited about this brand. I first learned about Illamasqua from What Style is to Nickel´s videos. I am hooked on this dude´s videos. I just find something intriguing about watching a guy wearing make-up talk about make-up. I dunno what it is but I think he´s cute, lol.
Just a brief post about the last part of my vacation last month...
Another side trip hubby and I took was to Siem Reap, Cambodia mainly to visit the Angkor Wat (12th century). I was not aware that there were many other temples to visit and not just the one. We were there for like two and a half days so we did not get the chance to see everything. I think we visited a total of 5-6 different temples. They were absolutely stunning. Walls, corridors, doorways, were covered in beautiful carvings.
Reliefs stretched along the outer walls of the Bayon temple (late 12th/early 13th century) depicting tales of the king and the Khmer people in war and daily life. The main theme for the inner walls is Hindu mythology. I found it very interesting to look at, it was so detailed and learning what the reliefs were depicting (we had a guide) made it even more fun.
The Cambodian people are so very polite and friendly. But children begging is a huge problem, they wait at every entrance and exit of every tourist attraction. The children sell different things – guide books, fridge magnets, bead bracelets, scarves. They are a pushy bunch of little salespeople, trying different tactics but most often putting on a pitiful face and in small voices, "Lady, you buy from me lady, 3 for 1 dollaah lady." One girl asked where my husband was from and upon hearing that he was from Norway, she quoted the price in Swedish (Swedish/Norwegian almost identical language). Some beg for money flat out without selling anything. We did not give them anything cos we read that this is all syndicated.
All in all, a splendid trip and well worth the long walks, climbing up steep stairs (it was worse getting down) and being harassed by kids. Going about in town by tuk-tuk is both cheap and efficient. Most drivers are willing to wait for you to take you back to your hotel or to your next destination. We hired a driver to take us to the temples by car but I´m guessing that the tuk-tuk is a much cheaper alternative if you don´t mind the dust and bumpy ride.
And for the thirsty traveller ....
Air-conditioned multi-storey malls were not the only places I did my shopping at during my vacation. I got to
experience “jungle shopping” in the rainforest of Borneo too. Hubby and I know a Norwegian/Malaysian couple that built and run their own business in the form of a homestay right smack in the jungle of Sarawak, East Malaysia. It´s called KuraKura Homestay. Access to their homestay is by river so you are really cut off from civilization once there. They didn´t even have electricity when we were staying there but they should have already installed solar panels on the rooftops by now. The homestay is built on my friend Liza´s land, given to her by her father. This was where she grew up. She is of the Bidayuh people, one of the indigenous tribes found in East Malaysia, some of which were head hunters!
What I meant by jungle shopping was that Liza would take us around her vegetable/fruit/herb plantation and into the jungle to “shop” for ingredients. She is so knowledgable about vegetation in the jungle - she can tell what a plant is and if it is edible or not by its scent. To me they´re all green and all look the same. Liza is a cook by profession and an excellent one at that. On our first night, she prepared the most excellent chicken soup ever. She stuffed chicken meat, vegetables and i dunno what spices in bamboo that was chopped down from the jungle (by her husband Lars) and cooked over an open fire. The bamboo really added amazing flavour to the soup.
My favourite moment has to be when we were resting and having our lunch at a nice little spot by a stream after a 2 hour trek in the thick jungle and through a dark (and smelly) bat cave. It was so serene, the air was so fresh, birds were singing and nobody else in sight. I also helped out picking snails in the stream for our dinner....yes you read right, SNAILS. I love these particular type of snails. They´re usually prepared in a coconut milk curry like dish but Liza fried them with chili and pineapple from her plantation. You have to suck those buggers out of their shell - part of the fun of eating it. You can´t get ém any fresher than the ones we got from the river!
We didn´t encounter any scary animals, just a green tree frog, a snake in the bat cave and Monster **, Liza & Lars´ cat who actually tagged along jungle trekking. No leech encounters *phew*. Returning from the trek, all hot and sweaty, we cooled off by bathing in the river. There were surprisingly no mosquitos, perhaps cos it was not raining. But down by the river, there were tons of sand flies and I got bitten pretty badly. That was no fun at all. :(
Hmm...I was intending to continue writing about my trip to Cambodia but this post is long enough i think. To be continued yet again!
** I found out earlier this week that dear Monster passed away. Liza & Lars don´t really know what happened but they suspect he died of poisoning. He was a friendly cat full of personality. I´m glad to have met him.
My vacation in Malaysia and Cambodia was a blast. Three weeks flew by like nothing but I enjoyed myself tremendously. It felt good being back, meeting familiar faces as well as new faces. I was introduced to my niece for the very first time. She´s only 9 months old so we didn´t get to chit chat and get to know each other very well. I doubt she´d remember me next year or next month even but that gives me a good reason to fly back every year. My SIL had just gotten a kitten a week before I arrived and instantly, I was attached to little Sushi. She´s so adorable and playful, would make a great playmate for my boy, Brutus. I wanted to take her home with me!
I literally ate non-stop the entire time. My husband and I managed to eat pretty much everything on our ´to eat´ list, some even more than one time but alas, our stomachs could only store so much and we were running out of time so there was no chance we could fit in that 3rd round of paper thosai or dim sum brunch. But seriously, every time I met up with family and friends it was to eat. Most of my holiday photos are of people eating. It is not a joke when Malaysians say their favourite past time is eating.
I forgot how developed Kuala Lumpur has become. The road infrastructure made it quite easy for me to drive there although I have not been driving at all since the last visit 2 years back. Dealing with the reckless driving of the locals is a completely different story though. There were a few close calls but we survived unscathed *phew*. My husband didn´t dare go behind the wheel for fear of losing his cool and mowing down all the mopeds that were zig-zagging in between lanes.
Some fun things I did include Fish Spa. I had only read about it and was curious to try. It is said to help remove dead skin. Human dead skin being the fish´ main course. I went with my mom and we dipped our feet in a small pool filled with plenty small silver fishies. The fish were already feasting on two people´s feet but as soon as I dipped my feet in the pool a whole school dashed to my feet and started nibbling. It was the most ticklish sensation *getting goose bumps as i type* ever!! I was giggling like a looney and was actually in tears. But after a while, it was ok. My mom on the hand, could absolutely not handle it, said it felt like cockroaches crawling up her feet. Thanks for the mental image mom, I thought to myself. Mom took her feet out and sat next to me while i finished my time. I swore the fish were looking up at my mom with their mouths opening wide begging, skin...more skin.
Shopping was pretty much on the daily agenda. As soon as I stepped into this huge new mall called Pavilion, I felt so nice and tingly inside I thought to myself, "Ah, this is where I belong” , tee hee. I am more deprived than I realized! Norway has so little to offer when it comes to selection and diversity, it really is a total bore shopping here. I was just amazed at the number of new shops/brands that are available in Malaysia now, both local and foreign. And yes...I did acquire a thing or two :D (posts coming hopefully soon)
To be continued...
That is so cool MarsG! I didn't even think about how easy it would be to clean the floor since... read more
on Bathroom Project 2009 - Incomplete (pic heavy)