New chamber for the belles...

Remember when Hilman had his snip-snip and I took a 2 weeks leave to be his dayang? Well, besides being Hilman's dayang, I was also wearing a couple of other outfits - the girls' removal contractor and interior designer, when we decided that Hilman needed to have his own room as he's a big boy now.

The top-floor which consists of a nice sized bedroom with an attached bathroom had never been used ever since we moved in to SD in 1999 (well, at least not as a bedroom, that is). It also has a roof-top garden (which to people like me who can't even keep a cactus alive, makes no difference, really!) It has basically served as a storage room for the kids' unused toys, old clothes, and books all this while. Believe it or not, we even found Ayah's Form 4 books and exam papers up there in one of the many, many boxes! And the kids got all excited when they found all my love letters written to Ayah all those years ago. Ayah had kept them neatly in one big box. Aaaawwwwhhh... :) Suffice to say, both Ayah and I got teased by the kids when they read some of the mushy stuff I wrote him in those letters. Mega cringe moments, I tell you...Hahaha!

Thinking that 10 days would be enough for us to convert the top-floor room to the girls' new room, we took our own sweet time to clear the junks and whatnots from up there. Little did we realize that after 9 years of being the store-cum-hoarding room, we were actually heading for a giganormous task of sorting the treasures up there. There were things that we wanted to give away. There were things that we wanted to keep (especially some of the kids' cute little baby clothes which had some sentimental values to us), and there were things that DEFINITELY needed to be chucked out. TONNES of them.

Suffice to say that as we cleared the room upstairs, the rest of the house also became like a tongkang pecah. The family hall which became a transit point for all the junks, especially, looked as if Hurricane Katrina had passed through it at least 3 times! (The pic of the family hall in the slide was taken BEFORE Hurricane Katrina hit actually. So, you can just imagine how it was after it got hit ;))

After clearing the room of all the junks, we had it painted. The girls chose ICI 'Vineyard' as the colour for the feature wall, and 'Barley White' for the rest of the walls. And alang-alang dah cat bilik the girls, Ayah and I decided to get Voon (our trusted contractor) to re-paint the whole of the front of our house, including the fence/gate/grills, etc. Luckily I was on leave and was able to supervise the work.

It was supposed to be a minimum make-over of the room as we plan to move out to the new house in BJ at the end of this year anyway. The room already had its own built-in wardrobes and also a queen-sized bed. So, the only things that we needed to get were the girls' study tables, and of course - the curtains. Or so, I thought. But, you know lah, bila dah sampai IK*A tu, the list got longer and longer by the second... And we ended up buying shelves, storage boxes, scatter cushions, lightings, a carpet, and the whole lot of other jim-bangs for the room! We also had to instal an air-cond unit and also a water-heater unit for the girls. Maklumlah budak zaman sekarang. Kalau tak ada all those things, tak boleh tido and tak boleh mandi...kononnya lah, kan?

Anyway, Voon only managed to install the water-heater and also the shelves yesterday afternoon, and so, the girls only managed to finish tidying up the room late last night. It had been a pretty tiring experience for all of us - mentally and physically, but, it was all worthed our efforts and time. And the girls just love their new room :)

Here are some pics taken from Day 1 and as we progressed throughout the 2 weeks (or more, I think?!) of completing the project.

My next project will be to help Ayah furnish his new clinic at TMC, and I'm soooo looking forward to that :) I don't think it'll take too long as we'll be left with a free-hand to furnish and decorate a nice-sized EMPTY consultation room without any junks attached to it. I'm already playing with colours in my head for the room now. Can't wait!

Oh ya, by the way - if you happen to get Metro Ahad today, please flick through and read Page D6, ya. There's an interesting article written by my Tuan Doktor in it. (Promote....jangan tak promote!!! Hehehehe!) or you can just click here :)

And I now present you guys with....(drum-rolls!!!) - THE GIRLS' ROOM!!!

Enjoy the pics, y'all :)