Home improvement

So nothing much is happening (including wedding planning) except for work and shopping for our new home on Saturdays. It's going really slowly because Saturday is the only day we both are free to do stuff together. There really isn't a whole lot of things to do since this house is at a pretty livable state but its making it cosy that requires some effort. And to make it cosy, we need to spend money. Before spending money, we need to research and decide for the best option to go for. And that's the time-consuming, hair-pulling part. 

But of course there are also some no-brainer decisions like decorating the living space with a few stalks of flowers.

Just a nice vase and a few stalks of flowers can really change the way a space looks. Even when they're only buds.

And even prettier when they blossom.

One thing I've learned from this is to get rid of all the extra leaves on the stalk. I didn't realise this was necessary until I was at a cafe once and they had the exact same flower except theirs looked really neat, there weren't too many leaves on the stalk crowding the vase. Lenny said the leaves need to be removed so that there wouldn't be too many leaves and flowers fighting for the water. If one doesn't get enough, it will not survive. Which probably explains why some of the leaves turned yellow and wilted.

So yesterday the moment we got this new bunch of flowers, I removed all the extra leaves before placing them in the vase.

Looks much better! But this is one is a different species, the leaves damn a lot! So definitely need to clean it up a bit otherwise it'll be really ugly.

One of the tougher decisions we've had to make was a dishwasher. Previously in the place we leased, the dishwasher was included. Back in Malaysia I have never used one in my life. When I came here I was skeptical. I didn't think it will clean efficiently but after using it for 2 years, we became quite dependent on it. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad thing. My thoughts on it eventually changed and I actually find it useful and much more efficient than hand-washing so we decided we will get one for our new home since the seller didn't include one.

We didn't quite have a specific brand in mind but we knew we wanted a freestanding one, a cutlery tray not basket, a straightforward control panel (no need too many fancy buttons). Took us about 2-3 weeks when we decided we will go with Miele, for piece of mind. Also because the sales assistant was nice to us. It makes a huge difference, the selling technique. 

We were at Harvey Norman and were comparing between a Miele and Bosch. The Bosch one was more expensive and we were tending towards the Miele. The SA kept promoting the Bosch one and refused to explain more about the Miele dishwasher. That's a turn off seriously, he should provide the information when a customer requests for it. Not only try to sell the expensive one so he can make more commission out of it.

At the other place (where we ended up purchasing from), Jim, the SA was really helpful and knowledgeable. And he didn't try to sell us the more expensive machine, he said in his opinion the lower end Miele is good enough. Anything expensive is unnecessary unless you are living in a million dollar house and you have too much money to spare. At the end of the day, it washes your dishes the end. And that's it, we were sold.

This is not exactly a home improvement item but timber floors are so hard on the feet! It looks nice but when it's cold, it really kills my feet. Got this cute bedroom slippers from Peter Alexander. Really comfortable! Matches my pajamas some more.

Came home one day, checked our letter box and found this:

It's from our neighbour, super kind can?? And this isn't the first time he's being kind. 

Ok let me explain how garbage collection works here. Basically when you live in a property (not apartment), you have to buy a bin from the suburb's council, and it's the large, dark green kind. So on specific days, you need to have your bin ready on the street side before the truck comes. Once they empty the garbage, you can then bring your bin and keep it inside your house; for us, we keep it inside our garage.

So one particular day it was the garbage collection day and we have dragged our bin out to the street side the night before. On the next afternoon I came home to the bin sitting right outside our garage  door instead of the street side. I thought it must have been Wk who pulled it in before he left for work and didn't have time to keep it in the garage. I left it there because I was lazy lol. When Wk came home and saw the bin by the garage door he said "Wah so nice ah help me pull the bin in". Ok before I continue, the reason he said I'm nice was because we all know Ee Von NEVER touches the bin unless she really has to (eg. bin is overflowing with garbage). 

Obviously, Wk wasn't the one who brought our bin in. And it wasn't me so we guessed it must have been our neighbour, there wouldn't have been anyone else! It's a really kind gesture because we had a general and a recycle bin (2 bins in total), so he would have had to go back and forth to bring both bins in, and not forgetting he has his own bin to mind as well. It's definitely not a convenient thing to do as you can see. And of course, we did return this gesture. 

And this guy let me tell you, is fated to live next to us man. One day we were at an auction on another property in a nearby suburb that we had intentions on bidding. He was there! We didn't bid on the property because we knew that we could not afford it when it went past a certain price. He bid, but obviously lost it to someone else. 

And then one day when we were here in this property's inspection, we saw him! We immediately recognised him because at the end of that auction it was between him and this other girl. And we thought oh crap, this guy has quite a high limit (we know from his bidding in the other property) if he's interested in the same unit as us, we will lose it to him. Can only hope that he's not interested in the one we want.

Thankfully on the day of auction, he did not bid on ours (but another asshole did hmmmph!). He was more interested in the other one which he got in the end.

Win-win :D Seriously it's so crazy, who would have thought someone you saw in an auction will end up becoming your neighbour?

Ok back to next home improvement item. We bought a bin for our kitchen! And it's no surprise it's not an ordinary bin otherwise it wouldn't deserve a blog post.

Maggie calls this the 'royal bin'. Here's a video to show why:

How can anyone not like this bin?!?

I super hate bins with lids that spring up when you step on the pedal, and slams down when you release it. The springing and slamming action pushes air out and it disgusts me, feels like bacteria will be catapulted into my face wtf. Ughh. Noisy some more.

Whoever designed this is a fucking genius lol.

And just look at it, which part of it looks like a bin? None. That's the whole point, bins are disgusting inside so it should look as cool as possible on the outside so people cannot tell it's full of shit inside wtf hahahah.

Found this huge Asian Grocer near our place called Asian Grocer WTF HAHAHAHA what a good name! Stocked up on some Asian staples and junk. Super ring!!! Gosh I miss that stuff.

Ok time to go to work.