♥ firstlove88 ♥: February 2015

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Happy 9th Valentine's Day!

The 9th Valentine's day was nothing fanciful but yet the most meaningful Valentine's day we have spent till date.

Celebrated it as Mr and Mrs, and also at our new place. Totally different feeling even though it may just be another weekend for us :)

Derp never fails to give me flowers on this special occassion. Be it 1 stalk/3 stalk or 12 stalks. Last year Valentine's day, he even handmade it himself :)

The roses this year...Thanks :)

The red velvet cake which I bought from Petite Bakehouse just below my block. Got it off the shelves 1 day before Valentine's Day.

I do thought that it was quite big but actually because it's only one tier. So we probably eat 2-3 slice each at a time. All the calories are worth it because it's really nice. One of the better red velvet cakes I've eaten till date.

Since we didn't go anywhere far except to the nearby mall to run some errands, we decide to take more photos at home then. Don't wish to let the flowers go to waste lol.

Happy 9th Valentine's Day Derp!

Okay enough of my selfie, and so we did home cook dinner as part of our Valentine's Day celebration. Everywhere is crowded/overrated/overpriced so we reckon home cook dinner is always the best choice.

Furthermore, I was quite busy with all the CNY preparation hence not much time/mood to really celebrate Valentine's Day. Everyday can be Valentine's Day right? :) The whole day I was busy till it's time to cook our Valentine's Day dinner.

We bought fresh sirloin steak to cook it for dinner. First time cooking steak, so excited! Normal days we dare not because they are not really cheap and I'm really afraid to overcook/undercook it without knowing it and it will be so waste.

But for this Valentine's Day, we shall give it a try! This fresh sirloin steak costs $7 each.

The finished product - Black Pepper Sirloin Steak with Prawn Aglio Olio.

The steak was suppose to be the main lead but Derp close the lid of our grill pan to keep the steak warm after cooking.

But who knows that action caused the steak to shrink a lot and all the juice of the steak were forced out. In the end, the steak was really small but still yummy, just doesn't taste juicy lol.

Our Valentine's Day dinner!

Not forgetting we match it with the Moscato which Derp bought the day before too haha! It's his current favorite whereas I still much prefer red wine :)

Happy 9th Valentine's Day Derp and thank you for the roses! Love ya!

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

九如烧腊 Kou Yu Roast @ Jurong Point

When Kou You Roast first opened @ Jurong Point's Hong Kong street, the queue was never ending!

For many weeks, everyday it was just long queue for the restaurant.

It opened few months after I moved out from Jurong so I was kind of sad lol.

Infact, the newly opened Mongkok street @ Jurong Point has a wide variety of food being sold there and it was definitely the highlights. The famous Hot Star Chicken has also opened a outlet there which I've once reviewed about it before.

Weeks back before CNY, I met my mum for dinner at Kou You Roast since I've not tried it before ever since it opened. The queue has subside which is good news so yay to no queue :)

The very Hong Kong style type of banner.

The long list of menu as follow. I didn't know they sell that many variety of hong kong delights!

So here's what my mum and I ordered...

Their specialty is the roasted delight so I make it a point to order that then..

Rice With Roasted London Duck - $ 7.80

Rice with Crispy Pork Belly - $7.80

Deep Fried Prawn Wonton - $7.80

I find both the roast duck and roast pork belly to be so-so. There's not enough sauce or should I say none at all on either the duck/pork belly. Hence making the whole main course we had really try.

I prefer the roast duck over the roast pork belly but this is not the best roasted delight I've eaten till date. I'm thankful it was sold less than $10 bucks even though $7.80 isn't that really cheap too for this standard. Glad that I didn't queue for this restaurant back then!

On a side note, the deep fried prawn wonton was good! Saw people ordering egg tarts and other dim sum from them which seems much more appealing than the roasted delights. Perhaps if I have a chance to patronize them again, I'll try their dim sum then :)

九如烧腊 Kou Yu Roast @ Jurong Point

JP 2 Mongkok #03-80

Jurong Point Shopping Centre Spore 648331

Friday, February 20, 2015

Happy Chinese New Year 2015!

新年快乐 to all my readers out there!

Have not been updating this space because of the busy CNY preparation (I've got a whole house to pack now boo hoo!), followed by CNY visiting and etc.

But nevertheless, I still want to wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year, 恭喜发财 and may you 羊年行大运! Have a wonderful 羊年 :)

Enjoy all the CNY eating/visiting/long weekend break!

Saturday, February 14, 2015

The Final Outcome of the Home Renovation!

Time to update on the final installment of my house renovation. Pardon for the long delay but I need time to put everything together. Have been busy with the upcoming CNY too so I'm sorry for the long wait!

Previously I stopped at Week 4 of my renovation works, after which it was weeks of touching up/cleaning before the renovation finally comes to an end. Just incase you have not read, I've also blog about my thoughts and answers to commonly asked questions about home renovation. So now, here's the final post about it :)

This is my floor plan for recap purpose before I go further into it..

Our home concept which we send to the 3 IDs we met at expo back then...

Derp used photoshop to do up this to show them our idea.

Below are our ideas back then..

Theme: Modern Scandinavian (If you do not know what it mean, in layman terms it mean everything as wood as possible)

LIVING ROOM

- Hung on wall

- Able to tilt to face dining area (Eventually we didn't have this as we are able to watch the tv quite comfortably at our dining table)

- A suspended TV console and some platforms for photos/deco. (We only had a suspended tv console)

SHOE CABINET (preferably as a partition for privacy)

- Full Height shoe cabinet (Top part as storage, Bottom part shoe rack, Middle portion would be empty to put the keys/miscellaneous items.

- A settee (Till date, we are still finding for a suitable one)

- A full length mirror near to the door for final checking before leaving the house. (We got a full length mirror from ikea and fix it up there)

KITCHEN

- Theme: Sleek, clean and contemporary. Generally white and brown.

- Built in cabinets on one side of the kitchen, not both side.

- A L-shape kitchen-top concept.

MASTER BEDROOM

- A color theme to match the strip timber flooring

- Walk-in Wardrobe to be L-Shaped Full-height, with a dressing table. (No dressing table in the end due to space constrain)

- A full length mirror next to the air-con ledge window. (We got a mirror from ikea to fix it there too)

- Queen Size Bed

- Baywindow cabinet with storage function (We didn't had this but instead we have 2 bedside table, one on each side)

LEISURE/GAMES ROOM

- A work area for 2 computers

- A tv console for PS3/Xbox and etc.

- Approx. 4 velvet chairs and various bean bags. (We have 2 bean bags only due to space constraint)

- A generally dark room.

Additional notes on leisure/games room:

- To hack away part of the walls to be made into glass and glass door entrance to the room.

GUEST BEDROOM

- A bed (Till date, we have yet to put a bed inside yet)

- Bayside window cabinet with storage function

MASTER BEDROOM TOILET

- Colour theme: Sleek, Clean, White

- A simple glass Shower screen with no doors. Just to block water from spraying onto the toilet bowl

- Small built-in platforms for shower foam & shampoo. (2 to 3) (In the end, we don't need this as the design of our toilets come with a latch which have a depth to put all this stuffs)

We chose all the laminates for the various carpentry before the ID do up the 3D designs. They will do accordingly base on what you have chosen so as to give you a better overall feel of the house.

So here comes my 3D design (We changed quite a few times but it were minor changes. Our ID didn't charge us for that. Do find out from your ID whether do they charge you if you are unhappy with the 3D design and require for it to be change) :

Living Room

In actual fact, the TV is another direction but this were to show us roughly how it will look like.

This is the actual placement.

Leisure/Games room

This final product of this room is much prettier than the 3D design. At least that's what I feel haha!

Guest room

We only do up the bayside window storage for this room.

Kitchen

Master Bedroom

After looking at the 3D image, let's look at the actual pictures of the house taken by yours truly. Took this the night before 1 of the housewarmings we had when the house is in it's neatest form lol.

I'll go through the items bought in details (I'll try my best) in every photo. Will share the links if there's any at the end of my blog entry!

Living Room

Overview of the living room (standing at the entrance of the kitchen)

- 3 downlights and 1 stretch of cove lights are from Tao Bao

- Those printings on the walls are bought from tao bao and DIY-ed by us :)

- Dining table and Sofa from La Cafa Furniture and Design.

- Dining table light from Ikea.

- Stickers on the electrical box from Tao Bao

Kitchen

Eubiq bought from Eubiq Concept Store @ IMM

Service Yard

Rilakkuma laundry bag bought from Tao Bao

Guest's Toilet

We didn't do anything much to this toilet since the sanitary fittings came with the HDB flat.

- Mirror and toiletries stand from IKEA

- The hair dryer holder and towel/clothes hanger from Tao Bao.

- LED strip lights from Tao Bao.

We also use the LED strip lights for the toilets as well as for the masterbedroom cove lights.

And this is how the toilet looks like in normal light.

Very often we find this too bright so we hardly use this light unless we have to wash toilet, squeeze pimple and etc.

If not most of the time we will use the dim light. Especially when in the morning or after a hard day of work, dim light provides you a more cosy and warm feeling to make you feel more relax.

Master Bedroom

This is what you will see before entering the master bed room. The master bedroom toilet is on the right hand side.

The light at the entrance of the master bed room is from Tao Bao.

Making a left turn and that's where our bed are.

A closer look. Our little cozy area.

Before we sleep, we usually on this cove lights to use our phones and etc.

This is the cove lights which I mentioned earlier, they are the same as those in the toilets. We had 2 bed side build in cabinet and there's additional power supply and also a 2 way switch at each of our bed side cabinet. So either one of us can off the lights.

As you can see, the wadrobe is used as a divider/partition so that when one is changing his/her clothes, the other one who is still sleeping would not be affected. It also help block the lights coming from the master bed room toilet.

The theme of the masterbedroom is to make it as dark as possible but still keeping brown as the main color.

Master Bedroom Toilet

- Shower Screen done by ID

- Toilet paper holder from Tao Bao

- The rest of the sanitary fittings are by HDB

- The dim lights are the same LED strips used in guests toilets.

We didn't take down the sanitary fittings from HDB, but instead we add on this 2 suspended cabinets in our toilet to store our stuffs.

The stickers from from Tao Bao too. Initially, we wanted to paste the sticker on our toilet bowl but the shape of our toilet bowl doesn't really match. So in the end, we paste it here lol.

Guests Room

We only did up the window blinds and bayside window storage for this room. It's currently used as a ironing room/hang clothes room.

The passageway in the house..

And last but not least, hereby introudcing the..

Leisure/Study Room

How it look like from the outside..

The blue wall area belongs to Derp.

- Suspended TV console, build in computer desk and top hung cabinet done by our ID

- One Piece Wall stickers from Tao Bao

- The soft carpet on the floor from Tao Bao

Basically, the concept of this room is to make it as fun as possible. We chose the blinds to be purple so as to blend in with the blue and pink.

Honestly speaking, I think we are very daring and it just come to us one fine day to decide on having 1 wall painted pink and the another painted blue. Since in our whole life, I never have a pink wall and same goes for Derp who never have a blue wall lol.

Everything is blue,pink as they are our individual favourite color.

This is my side!

- Bean Bag cover from Tao Bao. Beans are being bought locally.

- Rilakkuma wall stick from Tao Bao

- One piece sticker on the glass door from Tao Bao

On the another side of the room..

Our collection haha! Actually this is not the full collection, I've still got some left in my old place.

Close up of it.

Most of our guests are brighten up by the view of this actually haha! It's fun in the sense they can see all this when they enter my house. All these collection definitely attracts their attention and brings a smile to their face.

One last photo of our living room..