wonderment

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Yup, THAT is the view from my sister’s new room, ain’t she a lucky one? From both my sister’s and parents’ room, they’ve got a virtually unblocked view of everything all the way to the Pasir Panjang Shipyard.

Check out the rest of the house in Flickr.

We’ve settled on the designer already… *drum roll please* introducing …. MS HAP GIRL!

Ok ok, her name’s Iris and she’s a fine young lady according to my parents. Not likely to be as shrewd as Derek nor as unimaginative as SuperBrand. Trusty, down-to-earth and confident.

So the dotted line’s been signed, next step we wait for the perspective drawings and then vavooom from there!

Throw an email and you hardly get one or two a week.

Throw a phone number and everyone starts coming out of the woodwork.

Radio thoughts on a wildly frantic day.

New design up!

Something from the template set and lots of my own stuff. Hope I didn’t give you a shock with the Chinese title. It literally translates to “Life’s little melodies”. (I’m sick of unwieldy, cliched English titles. Besides, what more eye-catching than an angmoh blog with a Mandarin title?)

I was supposed to get going with writing my script for Exegenesis (a Bible study program on Genesis), like, yesterday? but Ping recalled me to the office to help operate the console for the radio class students’ project and when I got back, I didn’t feel like doing anything but pack the cupboard. Well, at least that was part of my initial plan for the day.

Today, I went out with a couple of dear church friends who finished their final exam papers last week and were ready to tear Orchard Road down. When I got home, I promised myself some TV, then to work. Just before dinner time, dad announced that we were going to the new house to have another look and there we went.

Honestly, I really wanted to do some work after getting back … But … what a pity to end the weekend, doing work… you know … So I started tinkering around with my blog and before I know it …

It’s time for bed.

The 4 of us got into a huddle to discuss business. Important business.

Who were we gonna eliminate?

Aw Khee Giap a.k.a Mr. “SuperBrand”?
Hap-Girl?
Derek a.k.a Mr. “Passively Too Aggressive”?

In the end, we all totally concurred - Mr. Derek “Passively (wayyyyyyyy) Too Aggressive” got the boot.

I had high hopes for him. He called a couple of times to clarify things before the presentation, his ideas were great (he was the only one out of the 3 designers who actually did research on Sarah’s “bohemian chic” theme. The others just ignored that totally) and even his pricing was better than everybody else’s.

Just too bad he pissed me and my dad off by his incessant calling “to check how things were” after the prezo. We saw him on Wednesday night, he called me on Thursday, called again today at my busiest time. My dad told me to give him his number and I did, and he called him. Dad told him that he was still considering, Mr. PTA offered to call again at the end of today. Nonplussed, my dad told him matter-of-factly, “I am very busy”.

Sorry Derek, thanks for the effort but if you hadn’t called us so many times, we might have given you the contract.

At first we dismissed Aw Khee “SuperBrand” Giap but compared to HapGirl, he’s got a lot going for him. At least for one thing we know that this guy’s got a rep to keep. HapGirl just appeared from nowhere and it seems that she isn’t even certified with RADAC .

The problem is, Aw Khee “SuperBrand” Giap’s ideas aren’t exactly the most creative of ideas whereas HapGirl upped her quotation by too much. From $7,000++ to $19,990??

That’s not all. Apparently my dad dug up an old quotation from another designer. At that time we weren’t educated in the ways of interior design so we didn’t quite know what we were looking for. He met up with my mom and sis and even went to look at the house but we stored his quotation away because we weren’t quite ready to renovate back then, for some reason or another.

Well, he’s back. He’s known as Mr. Kelvin “KFC” (His initials are KSC, it’s easier to say KFC). My mom and sis like him a little and if you know them, you know its hard to get them to actually like someone, so at least he’s g ot that bit going for him.
My dad’s decided to give him a fair chance so he faxed KFC the DTS floor plan and some more specific requirements. He’ll probably get back to us on Monday or Tuesday so we can make a decision then. We expect his quote to go up to around $18-19k so pray with us as we go in search for The One.

Woooo……..

The third designer seriously wowed us with his previous works and compared to the other 2, his pricing is more competitive. But, as things always go, 4 of us just can’t agree with one designer.

One either comes across as “softly aggressive”(for want of a better word), or my sis prefers another’s design for her room, or there are major discrepancies with the first and second quotation.

All of us are worried for one thing though: We don’t know which designer is going to drop us like a hot potato once we give them the project. There’s one designer who is very eager in his marketing efforts but these types can also swing to the other end - (I just have to use this analogy) like a man who courts a girl like crazy but once he’s got her, the treatment is totally different…

I woke up this morning still thinking about the house, wondering whether we’ll be able to finish the house on time (before leaving for the conference) but a verse came to me … doesn’t really solve the problem we have on hand but gently reminds me how much I don’t have to worry how stylishly furnished our home in heaven is going to be

We’re going to live in the best house forever and ever, that is most important! The Designer of all designers has made it sure that all the solid surfaces, swings, deckings, hinges, emulsion paints, flooring, custom-made cupboards/beds/wardrobes, etc, etc all fit into what He thinks is best.

And if the God designs your eternal home, you can be sure you won’t have to worry about a 10-year guarantee.
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I believe that God’s going to help us find the light at the end of this tunnel, whoever it may be. He helped us find a great house and we’re counting on Him to make this house the most comfy for all who visit.

Stay tuned for more stories from ruthie’s house!!

Open Jaw.

Solid surface. Veneer. Laminate.

Doxycycline. PanOxyl. Triclosan. Stieva-A.

Can you guess what these terms mean??

Guess first before scrolling down for the answers….

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HILLSONG CONFERENCE
Open Jaw - That’s the term you use if you want to fly to Melbourne but return from Sydney. I’m looking for airtickets so the first thing I say is, “2 adult tickets, open jaw, fly to melbourne, return from sydney, the cheapest you can find.” So far, so good. We can’t leave in July as previously planned otherwise we’ll pay full fare (about S$800+) for SQ or Qantas. As of now, SQ is offering S$538 at no extra charge for the open jaw thing. We’re praying that either my friend or Val’s friend can take us in because we’re now going to Melbourne first instead of Sydney.

RENOVATIONS
Solid surface - Don’t duh me yet. We’re looking for something to lay on the bay windows in the house. Usually, wood is used, but apparently the latest trend is “solid surface” that fall along the lines of the stuff kitchen table tops are made of … Melamine? Or is that the white stuff you use to soothe chicken pox marks? Err… Melanin is the thing in your skin that gives you a tan … Okay, I don’t know. It’s a M word, I think.

Anyway, they come in really funky colours like fire-engine red or egg yolk yellow. There are the neutral colours like black-speckle and ivory but I don’t have a bay window in my room so I can’t have them anyway.

Veneer & Laminate - These are actually different kinds of wood used for making study tables and wardrobes. Other terms include Chenai, Chengal, blah blah blah….

We’ve seen 2 designers. The first designer quoted us a whopping $19,300+ whereas the second one we saw yesterday just a mere $7,000+. The quotations consist of carpentery work, painting and fixing of L-boxes/false ceilings. Lights, furniture, wallpapering, draperies not included.

The first designer comes from the only design company in Singapore to have “Super-brand” status and he assured us that even though they were a SUPER BRAND! they didn’t have SUPER prices! Wooo… We were definitely blown away by his showroom with toilets that made the 4 of us go gaga. I liked this company’s professionalism especially when I saw his boss personally rearrange a display at a corner. That, to me, showed that the boss was still very much involved in the field.

I wasn’t so impressed with the second designer because she didn’t speak as well as the first guy but apparently the others were amazed at her depth of knowledge and her breadth of ideas. She was more down to earth though. The first designer added as much storage as we wanted but she advised against doing that to make the whole look appear too heavy. One thing I have to hand to her is that she managed to convince my parents to do their room. We were only going to hire a designer to do the living room, dining area, my room and Sarah’s room, but she went one step further to “suggest” a look for the master bedroom. You could see my dad heave a sigh of relief. He wanted a restful look for the bedroom but my mom wants to do her work in the bedroom. This designer actually managed to get my mom to store her files in the bombshelter and dump the huge office tables she refused to let go! *3 cheers!*

And one more thing. Mr. Designer only gave us a 2D look of the area whereas Ms Designer drew up the perspectives for free. Mr. Designer said if we wanted the 3D view of the rooms, he would have to charge us an extra $500. Go figure again who my parents’ were more inclined towards.

We’re seeing another designer tonight. I have high hopes for him because among the 5 that we called, he was the only one who took the initiative to find out what we were really looking for over the phone. We’ll see how things go…
Our closing date is this Friday so we’ll have an answer soon!

I’M TOTALLY ACNE-FIED
Doxycycline. PanOxyl. Triclosan. Stieva-A - These are the acne medication / creams that I have to live with for the next 6 months. For someone who kills the occasional zit with Blackmore’s, this is waaay serious.

I think Skin Doctors make a lot of money. I paid $54 to go see a “consultant” who asked me what I thought the problem was and I knew of course - an accumulation of all the late nights and whacked-out meal times from CCIS and Senai. He wrote that down, took a glance at a monster pimple on my chin, delivered the diagnosis “You’ve got a moderately severe case of acne”, and told me to go collect my medication from the pharmacy. Everything was over in 10 minutes. Like, wow. That’s $54 for just a doctor’s prescription. My pocket pain-pain man.

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This is all for now. Till I return with another update!