Archives for September 2015

All i will need are white walls and clean floors

I have never been a fan of build-in interior design.

I regretted building in a shelf in the master bed-room in my previous 5 room HDB flat, and told myself that I never will want any built-in interior fixtures for my living area or for the bedrooms. The only build-in interior fixtures I imagine myself to have in my next home, would just be limited to the bathrooms and the kitchen.

So I was really quite excited to have a clean palette to work with for my rented place. Since there are no renovations to be done, no upgrades can be done to the kitchen and toilets, no spotlights or built-in shelves. All I needed was white walls and clean floors for the rest of the areas in the home.

I am certain one can get a home tastefully decorated with furniture, textiles and home accessories without having to renovate any area in a home, especially with the help of Pinterest these days *wink*

So what would I do with this space?

Newhome 1

Having an apartment unit at 1250 sq feet, I have relatively small spaces to work with for the rooms, but a fairly comfortable space for the living area.

The layouts of the rooms are square which will be easy to work with, and since I already had a clear idea how I prefer this home to be furnished.

Hb and I purchased most of our furniture in one place under 2 hours. Sounds unrealistic, but it is possible to fully furnish (not style) a home under 2 hours, especially if the residents are a decisive couple :P.

The only gripe that I have of the furniture for the living, dining areas, study and master bedrooms, is that the furniture will be arriving in dribs and drabs, so I will be coming home to a relatively empty house for the next two months.

By Christmas this year, this house should be fully furnished and decorated.

 

Colour Palettes

I am still deliberating if I should change the colour palette in the living area, but that will mean having to change the curtains that have been provided by the landlord. If I were to keep the curtains, I can work with this palette;

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I have purchased a sofa in one of these shades above, so pulling together colour palettes from Pinterest was easy. If you are connected to my profile in Pinterest, you will notice that I like to pin colour palettes to my Pinterest wall rather regularly. As I make references to colour palettes when I am painting or crafting something new.

So the very first step in furnishing or decorating a home will be to decide what colour palettes you will be working with, within each specific areas of the home.

If you are looking for complimentary colour palettes to be used for your home decor, art design or floral arrangement, my Pinterest profile for Colour Palettes is a useful link to refer to with 400++ palettes and counting.

I will be furnishing, then decorating one area of the house at a time in the next couple of weeks. So look out for my blog posts leading up to December 2015, to follow my journey and tips of furnishing and decorating a new home.

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Onward to thirty-nine and thriving

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I am thirty-nine today.

Some women would prefer to keep their age a secret after the thirties, but I wear my ‘being on the wrong-side-of-thirty’ badge proudly. It has been an eventful 9 years being 30-something, a roller-coaster of a ride, but I can finally say that I have arrived.

The definition of ‘having arrived’ means to be a success and being famous. To be a success is subjective, and being famous is meaningless. There are many successful and famous people who haven’t discovered what their life purpose is, and haven’t found true contentment, despite their wealth and success.

My definition of ‘having arrived’ is the culmination of knowing my life purpose and finally finding peace and contentment.

I think a friend put it so aptly when I met her in Jakarta last week, “There is something about you that is so different from when I first got to know you in March last year. There is now this peace and joy within you.”

Indeed it is this peace that surpasses all understanding, the peace that can only be obtained when my full confidence is placed in a loving God and when I know how to be thankful in all circumstances. I have learnt to LET GO and LET GOD take over for all things.

The changes started when I started telling God, “Not my will anymore Lord, but let your will be done in my life!”

Often we humans have so much good things to say about Him, but our actions prove otherwise. We try to wrestle our own way, have a long list of things that we desire and ask for, and cannot trust that He can do far more abundantly beyond what we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). Why are we so afraid to surrender our own will, to let His will take over for our lives?  We may say that we trust God, but in reality, I think most of us don’t. In fact, most of us think we know better for our own lives and will prefer not to surrender that control that we have on our lives, over to God.

All I can testify reaching 39 years of age today, is that God is truly faithful, He is so good and loves His children.

I am filled with thankfulness as I am overwhelmed by the blessings (both spiritually and physically) God has given me since the start of this year. All it took from my end was full surrender and a realisation that I needed to align my life fully with His will for me, and go where He led me to.

He has once again proven that indeed He is an awesome God and I cannot help but to share this testimony of God’s faithfulness and love.

The icing on the ‘my cake’ turning 39 this year….

I have just collected the keys to a new home 2 days ago. Kyle and I will be moving out of my mom’s place, as we have got a new place, albeit temporary for the next 2 years, as hb and I will only be able to purchase a new place in 2017 due to stringent HDB rules. The boy and I are looking forward to more weekends to be spent with hb, as he will coming back to SG more frequently each month.

When dh first suggested that getting our own place last week, I told him that I was content with the current arrangement. But it didn’t take long for him to convinced me that it will be nice to have a new place to come home to. Following the next 3 days, we confirmed a place, then purchased the furnishing and appliances.

I haven’t been praying or expecting for a new home, since we moved out of our rented place in 2012. I just trusted God for things to happen in His perfect time. I didn’t expect our financial turnaround to happen so soon, and the amazing thing is, this is just the beginning of God’s restoration for our lives!

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For quite sometime, I have avoided looking at Interior styling photos on Pinterest and that has been quite challenging especially since I love Interior Decorating. So with this, the passion for Interior decorating is officially re-ignited. So I will likely be blogging about Interior Decorating in the next few weeks 😛

It’s going to be a busy but fun last quarter of 2015 and I look forward to a joyful and content 40s to come. And I am glad that the term ‘mid-life crisis’ will continue to be a foreign term that I will never need to relate to.

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