New Homeowner Checklist

Congratulations, you've bought your first home!

Being a first-time homeowner is a very exciting and busy time in life. With all the planning, packing, renovating, furniture buying, you wonder where to start first. Without a checklist, its absolutely easy to overlook some very important things that need to be done.

I've gone through the best and the worst of moving into a new house. Even with a plan, checklist, costing & budget, and all the sketches and research paper that my husband and I have done, there are still so many other things that crops up and caught us off guard. The headache and stress is beyond this world.

Realistically, for most new home owners, the purchase of a house practically burns your pocket already. However, with a strategy in place, you can begin the process of kick starting your ideal home plan by carefully investing in the right projects and purchases so that your dream eventually becomes reality.

1. If its an old house, what you need to first do, is get your electrician and plumber to check and evaluate the old wiring and plumbing. If you need to change, these are the first thing that should be in your list. Sketch out the floor plan of your house, point out where you want the lighting to be the brightest, where you want mood lighting, so your contractor can create separate switches for different lighting mode. Power point is important and you need these a few around the house, and where you think you needed the most ie. bedroom, study room, tv area, kitchen etc, you wouldnt want to have to drag your fridge cable so far to plug it in, and you dont want to share the power point with a washing machine, both uses a high amount of power.

Before planning for the lighting, you need to already have some idea of what furnishing you want for your house. Rooms that you want to convert to a study rooms will need a brighter lighting, bedrooms only need minimal lighting with dressing table gets the best lighting. Walls that will have paintings, you might want to think about spotlights to highlight the paintings or photo frames.

A well chosen light fixture adds elegance, style and finish to a room while providing excellent lighting. There are literally thousands of lighting options available on the market today. Invest the time in purchasing a well made light fixture by a reliable manufacturer so that you can enjoy your purchase for years to come.

2. Set up utilities before you even move in: open or close an old account, so when you move in your utilities are ready to use (with zero/new balance, you dont want to be burden by unpaid utilities bill from the previous owner)

3. Renovations. This is the biggest headache! Even moving in to a new house (from developer)! Start planning, area by area. Group the area by the renovation work scope. Rule of thumb, do the area which has the biggest area space first, for example, changing of flooring. Floors occupies the biggest area in the house, so is the ceiling. This is the mess-iest. Next come whatever works that needs hacking, breaking down, cements - all the dirty and dusty work. Change of flooring, plaster ceiling, fixing the lighting, aircond plumbing and wiring, tiling, toilet and kitchen plumbing etc.

4. Then the fun part begin. Before the build-in, or loose fittings comes, you might want to think of the wall paint. Remember wall colors will change the overall look of your house. The wall colors you choose will act as a canvas for the rest of your home, so choose wisely. And again, at this point you would have already know what type of furniture you want to decorate your house with. Match the colors of the furniture, flooring and the wall. For dark flloring, you might want to go with a lighter wall color. Where its necessary you can add feature wall, or decorate it with wallpaper. Painting is a relatively inexpensive interior project, especially if you're handy and can do the painting yourself.

5. Once all the dirty work has done, you can now start fitting your build in cabinets, kitchen, interior design items. Last, are all the loose fitting and furnitures.

So these are the step by steps things that you should look into before you start anything.

• Should you renovate? minor or major. Define the scope of work
• What kind of remodelling are you looking at? Budget?
• Sketch your remodelling plan - laymen. Or get an interior designer to do it and advice on your plan.
• Assembling the specification
• Selecting a contractor
• Start the remodeling project
• Inspect and supervise your project
• Decorate your home 

Wishlist: Shoes Shoes Shoes Wardrobe!

What do most ladies dream of having? Shoe cabinets like those of the celebrities' shoe cabinet, of course! I spend hours day dreaming about how my ultimate shoe walk in wardrobe would look like. So these are some pictures that all fashion lovers would dream to have.

Ladies, you are gonna love these....

Paula Abdul, the former American Idol judge has an impressive walk-in closet in her 5,000 square foot Mediterranean style home in the San Fernando valley. All her outfits and coordinating accessories are numbered with tags so she can easily pack for trips and events. Her impressive shoe collection is made up mostly of high-heels—"I always wear heels unless I'm working out," says Paula Abdul.

Owwwh I love this the most! Even half of this room would be more than enough for me. All I need is the shoes be stored in a walk-in-room, with built in full length cabinet with lots of shelves, a full length mirror, an absolutely marvelous lighting, and a nice bench! (owh please throw in a gorgeous ladder also for me to reach the top shelves) walllah my dream come true (and lots of shoes shopping after that)

..i can make do with this! It can fit 64 shoes!! (yup, I count)

Oh boy, I cannot make up my mind; do I love her cabinet or her shoes more?

Multi tier shoe cabinet?

.....And I'll be happy with just this for now :-) (my new shoe cabinet, which I'm trying to get the contractor to install the lighting - again camera phone quality)

Showhouse Spotted: Seri Pilmoor, Ara Damansara

Taken from camera phone, so please bear with me on the quality of the pictures :-)

This is the rooftop of the bungalow unit. The 3rd floor consist of a 2 so call wings, one with an audio room, and the other side is the open air roof top lounge, with the connection being a open air walkway.. Its is really huge, I think can accommodate a large bbq party here. And it comes with a wooden flooring!

And a jacuzzi!

I was stunt! Not by the interior design and furnishing, but I like the concept and design of the house, structurally, plus the finishing and the little details that they have put in. The white door frame, the white-frame sliding door, (no surprise coz I'm into all things white) the sliding wooden door to all rooms (tho personally I feel the rooms are small, not to my liking).

Modern and Contemporary Bali Villas

I was looking for hotels or villas to stay in Bali next month. Was planning to have a trip with a friend who just got married. The hotel must be luxurious and romantic to cater to a honeymoon couple. If its just me and hubby, I'd settle with just a nice villa at the 'padi' field, or clife side outside Bali town.

So I found these pictures. Bali has lots of nice villas with modern and contemporary designs, despite that they are known for the traditional balinese villas.
Enjoy the pictures!

Our inspired local landscape artist: Seksan

Seksan Design is an international landscape architecture firm based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The studio is led by Ng Sek San, who founded the company in 1994. Some of their projects are the award winning Maple Sentul, One Menerung Bangsar, Seri Maya Ampang and Hijauan Kiara, Mont Kiara, just to name a few.

Notice that Seksan design likes to use stones as one of their landscaping elements? yup, stone makes an attractive, low-maintenance landscape. The artful application of landscaping stone could enhance the natural elements that you have put in like your plants and shrubs.

Types of Stones Used for Landscaping

• Sandstone Landscaping: The most common colors of sandstone used for landscaping are buff, brown, blue, black and pink. They are usually used for making walls.


• Slate Landscaping: The common colors used for landscaping are black, green and red. These stones are very strong and resistant to water.


• Marble Landscaping: These are fine grained. The common shades are pink, white, black, yellow and brown. These stones are strong and have high water absorption. They are used mostly as slabs for walls and for paving.


• Limestone Landscaping: These stones have very low water absorption. They are used for walls and the common shades are grey, black, white and buff.


• Granite Landscaping: These are fine to medium-course grained and are very strong. They are used for walls and stepping stones. The common shades are pink and red.

And because we like Seksan design so much, we tried to replicate his ideas into our garden :-) wink wink. This is a snapshot of our yet-to-be-completed garden (aerial view-taken from a camera phone)

Playful room

Arent these cute? Though it might not be the theme that I would want to try, but these are adorable. The designer plays with colors on a white canvas base, thats what makes it looks more appealing.