Renovations!

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When we first moved into our maisonette in 2005, we could only afford to do up the three toilets and kitchen. We just thanked God that the previous owner barely lived in it so the floor and wall tiles were in good condition. Then we re-painted the entire flat and moved in. We had only 5 children, aged 7 to 10mths. From then till now, we added 2 more children and now have them aged 14 down to 3. 

I had also cooked minimally back then. But with the recent battle with eczema, I had to cook a lot more since processed foods were not allowed at all on first, the Elimination Diet and then the GAPS diet. So I found it increasingly frustrating to cook for our brood, whose appetites had increased substantially, in our poorly ventilated and poorly laid out kitchen of ours. I had shifted and decluttered and shifted some more but the poor layout was just hard to fight against.

So we decided that we should invest money to renovate it instead of looking for a new place. Besides, have you seen the property prices! But to re-layout the entire kitchen meant hacking up floors and walls which meant DUST! Shudders! Obviously we couldn’t live in the house while the renovations were going on with our health issues. So since we had to pack up all our stuff, put them in storage and move out, we  took a deep breath and decided that to make it all worthwhile, we might as well  renovate the entire flat.

And that’s what we did. 😀

By divine planning, we were able to plan our renovations to coincide with my parents-in-laws’ long vacation (they even graciously extended their long vacation longer so that we wouldn’t feel rushed) and for it to be after dd’s PSLE. So 2 days after dd completed her PSLE, we moved out to my parents-in-laws’ 4-room flat. It was a tight fit since we had to continue semi-homeschooling in the 6 weeks we were living there. It was soooo tempting to call off school but I knew that would be suicidal coz it would mean not ever taking a break till probably March or April 2013! Our things were in some cases, literally on top of theirs. We laid out our mattresses at whatever floor space was there and piled up the mattresses by the walls in the daytime. We survived!

In the 6 weeks, all floors and tiles were hacked. We had decided on built-in cabinets for all the rooms in order for all spaces to be used efficiently. It was a scary thought for me coz I had always moved furniture around to suit our changing family’s needs but with built-in cabinets and shelves, I cannot do it anymore!

Since HDB does not allow the re-siting of kitchens, we “extended” the kitchen by using the “balcony” are to put our washing machine and 2 fridges and 2 freezers 😀 That allowed the original kitchen to be used only for food prep and cooking. We added a 2nd smaller sink for our various water filters and for me to use it  for fermenting my water kefir grains. I am still getting used to the layout though I love the space!

Two things I especially love in the kitchen is my 70-litre Ariston Openspace Oven and the gooseneck tap at the larger sink. They are so helpful for our large family needs! Now we get to eat our dinner at one setting! I don’t have to start baking my chicken wings at 4pm for our family’s dinner! I can now pop all the chicken wings we eat at one go! Amazing! The gooseneck tap is helpful for washing our large pots and pans.

The packing and unpacking and washing and wiping was tiring but so rewarding. Packing was more challenging as I had to deal with lots of dust. I took the opportunity to throw out A LOT of stuff by either giving them away, selling them or donating them. I had to be really ruthless. No more keeping stuff (especially homeschool stuff) for “just in case”! Unpacking was easy for the big stuff. But deciding where to put all the small stuff was tough. Then I had to walk through the whole house with the children so that they will not keep asking me where things were!

The older children were a huge blessing. They watched over the younger ones while we drove around like crazy, up and down and around the island finalising details. There was one day we were out from 3pm till almost 11pm! It was such a blessing that they could help watch the younger ones during the 2 moves (out of our place and then back to our place). We didn’t have to worry about calling babysitters and they were able to keep out of the way instead of getting underfoot.

The younger ones were also so good at adjusting to sleeping over at their grandparents’ place without any fuss. Yeah, even the 3 year old! I was grateful that hey were able to occupy themselves while we were busy. Sure they watched a little bit more TV than usual, but it was a small price to pay.

And so we have been back at our newly renovated house for almost a month now and everything has been packed away – except the photos which we can’t decide if we want back on the walls or not 😀

As always, we are so grateful that God allowed us to do this. We certainly do not take this for granted. It is indeed a privilege to be able to do this. And now to relax and stop angsting about how the walls are starting to get dirty handprints! Yes, yes, a house is to be lived in and not just a showhouse, right??? 😀

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