When I lived in a small flat, there were only so many places I could search if I lost something like my phone charger or my keys. In a much bigger house spread over three floors, losing something could mean searching not just for hours, but for days. It actually took me a few weeks to find my sewing kit - now that's a small ice cream container where I keep my needles, threads and other sewing related material. I have resolved to be a lot more organized in this house, since I don't want a repeat of that sewing kit treasure hunt episode. I swear it drove me nuts. Oh and I have missed calls on my mobile as the house is just so big that if I am in the kitchen, I can't hear my phone ring if I have left it in the bedroom downstairs. I'm trying to get into the habit of making sure I have my phone on me all the time.
2. Stairs, stairs and more stairs
When I get home, I have to open the front door to the building and climb one flight of stairs up one floor to get to the landing where there are two doors: one to flat one (ie. my neighbour's flat downstairs) and one to flat two (ie. home sweet home for Limpeh). I open the door to my flat and then climb another flight of stairs and that gets me up to the level where my bedrooms, storerooms and bathrooms are. I then climb one more flight of stairs to the living room and the kitchen; and if I want to go to the roof garden, then I have to climb yet another flight of stairs. So imagine if I am on the roof garden and I need to go to the toilet, I have to go down two levels and climb back up two levels. I have actually tripped on those stairs early in the morning when I was not quite awake. I am getting used to them, think of all the extra exercise I'll get climbing those stairs. In my old flat, I had a lift in the block and never had to climb any stairs.
I have a bigger kitchen now which means I have a much bigger freezer - that allows me to buy loads of frozen food and if there's a good discount on, I would buy in bulk and then freeze them all. I also have received an ice cream maker as a house warming gift from my sister in law, so I have tubs of home made ice cream in the freezer with most unusual flavours - my favourite is black sesame custard but passion fruit with rice pudding worked quite well too. Today, I made ohr tzu bee (black glutinous rice) and honey frozen yogurt and it was divine. #hokkienicecream
4. Bigger house = feels a lot cooler
It was very easy to heat a small flat and the heating system in the block where I used to live was really efficient and the room temperature was usually around 22 or 23 degrees. The flat was usually so warm we had to open the windows to get some cool air in. In this new house, because the rooms are so big, it usually feels cold and the heating bills would go through the roof if we tried to heat the whole house to 21 degrees. So we usually settle for 18 degrees and it does considerably cooler, especially at night. Different parts of the house feel cooler/warmer depending on how much sun they get or how close to the radiators they are. The warmer weather has arrived (it reached a decidedly warm 27 degrees on the afternoon of the 7th May) so I don't really have to worry about heating until at least October now.
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| Having lunch on my roof |
5. Neighbours? What neighbours?
When I lived in a block of flats, I knew my neighbours. I liked some of them, hated some of them but either way, you couldn't avoid them because we would have to share the lift together. Usually I would reach for my phone just to avoid having to make awkward small talk whilst waiting for the lift. In my new house however, I don't have 'neighbours' downstairs as such because the place is rented out AirBNB-style and I have never met the people who own that flat. Thankfully, I can't hear them from my bedroom. I don't know anyone else who lives on my street, though I have five friends from my gym who live within a 10-15 minute walk from my home. Call me anti-social if you want, but the fact that I don't know my new neighbours doesn't really bother me. I never got along with all my old neighbours anyway.
6. My 'do one thing for the house' a day rule
When I first moved in, I took many weeks to unpack and I gave myself a rule that I must unpack at least one item a day - eventually I would run out of things to unpack and it worked. But I decided to keep that rule and now I must do one thing for the house everyday and it has to be something significant. Mundane chores like watering the plants don't count - it has to be something I can point to and say, "there you go, I did this for the house today". Sometimes I would visit the local shops on the way home to buy a small item of decoration for the house, sometimes I would get something for the kitchen or I could spend some time cleaning up the room, rearranging items in a systematic manner.
I am so tempted to go out and buy more stuff now that I have a much bigger house to fill up with my junk. But I have to exercise some self-discipline otherwise I could soon fill this house up quite quickly. But yes, I could do with more furniture in the living room to create a more cozy, living room environment and my roof garden could certainly do with more plants. I am not rushing to get a whole lot of plants yet as I am still figuring out what grows well up there - my pear tree hasn't died yet, but it has shown little (if any) signs of growth so I am now wondering if trying to grow a pear tree on my roof has been a big mistake. Can you grow a pear tree in a (big) pot?
8. Two things I don't really need....
I have two new appliances left behind by the previous owner of the house: a dryer and a dishwasher. I took to the dishwasher pretty quickly, it is a luxury just to be able to put the dirty plates in there after a meal. But if I have only a small amount of dishes, then I would just wash them by hand rather than stick them in the dishwasher. However, I never saw the point of a dryer - you're meant to take out the clothes you have just washed from the washing machine and put it in the dryer. Nonetheless, there is enough space in the house for me to hang the washing out to dry naturally: using the dryer would be a waste of electricity anyway. Hmm, I wonder if I should try to sell the dryer thingy?
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| Sometimes I feel I need a maid with a house so big. |
9. There's a lot more cleaning to be done.
Oh living in a bigger house means there's a lot more cleaning to be done. I have a cleaner who comes in once a fortnight to do the heavy duty cleaning (toilets, vacuuming, scrubbing the kitchen, mopping etc) but I always feel that there's more that I can do in between his visits. There was far less space for me to mess up and get dirty in the old flat, but now with a bigger place, I have got to get used to the extra amount of cleaning that needs to be done. Oh and there's outdoor cleaning as well - you'll be amazed the things that get blown onto my roof garden.
10. Alfresco dining
Well my roof garden needs work, but I do have some garden furniture and I am able to dine outdoors on warmer days. The temperature needs to be above 15 degrees with no rain, but yes, I am wondering if the novelty will wear off? I have to carry all the food up from the kitchen up to the roof, which is a bit of a hassle - imagine if I realize midway through the meal, ah I forgot the salad dressing, then I would have to go back downstairs to the kitchen just for that.
Dryers are essential in Canada. Especially in the winter months unless you have a laundry room.
ReplyDeleteI would love to have a laundry room!
It really depends on the quality of the dryer. I have had both good and bad experiences with dryers.
DeleteWith a good and powerful dryer, your laundry gets almost the same effect as ironed and dried in no time.
With a weak dryer, it is just a waste of power and you would be better off hanging out your laundry.
Interesting. Maybe I should at least give the dryer a go. The thing is that I simply take the washing out of my washing machine, hang it on the rack and it is usually dry within 24 hours, maybe there'll be one or two pieces that are still a little damp on the edges. But I've been doing that for years and never needed a dryer ...
DeleteMy Whirlpools and Magtags have been great. I tried sun drying in Singapore and whilst my clothes smelled nice, they needed ironing. I almost never use the iron on my dryer - dried clothes.
DeleteSurely if you want your clothes to smell nice, that's gotta do with the detergent you use, right?
DeleteWell, think of it as a good dryer would be the shortcut to hang-drying and ironing all of your laundry in an hour.
DeleteI once used an awesome dryer in a particular hostel when I was travelling that resulted in my laundry feeling warm and comfy after just 1 hour.
Then there is the bad experience of a weak dryer that has almost the same effect as just spin-drying after 1 hour.
No, I was talking about the wonderful smell of sun-kissed clothes I actually use scent - free detergent. I like the smell of clothes right off the clothes lines after it's been in the sun, but I don't need to iron after it's out of the dryer.
DeleteMind you, I do have a roof garden and I can hang the laundry out to dry there on warm days. It's just that I would have to carry the washing up two floors from the washing machine to the roof.
DeleteI suggest you keep the dryer. Saves you the effort to hang and keep the clothes. Plus, it is not advisable to dry clothes indoors as it encourages mold growth in spaces where air doesn't move freely and exposes you to a whole lot of chemicals from the washing detergent residues.
ReplyDeleteGet a robotic vaccum cleaner from China's amazon Taobao worldwide. Haier T320 is a good 国产货 to invest in. It is all the rage now in Singapore. This model mops and vaccums at the same time.
Hi Colleen, I do open a window when I dry my clothes indoors - I regularly open my windows anyway (unless there's heavy rain/snow or if it is very cold and windy etc) to get fresh air in the house. You can't keep the windows shut all the time - one needs fresh air.
DeleteI had a look at the Haier T320 - how good is it with carpets? Do you have one? My bedroom is carpeted whilst I have wooden floors in my living room and kitchen. It's easy to clean wooden floors but crap does build up on carpets.
Colleen, so sorry I accidentally deleted your latest reply. I clicked on the wrong thingy.
DeleteI already have a regular vacuum cleaner though - so apart from the cute factor, how else will the Haier T320 perform better than a regular vacuum cleaner? Thanks.
Hi LIFT,
ReplyDeleteThe robotic vacuum has is bristles free suction opening. So all hair and fibres get suck into the dust box. Fibres and hair usually gets trapped between the bristles that lines the opening of regular vacuum. No more cleaning out of the gunk that usually gets trapped there.
The biggest bonus is still time saving as u can set an activation time for it to get to work while u are at work. By the time you return home the floor is clean. Less chores more time to do other stuff. For older folks it saves the effort of bending down to reach under beds and sofas as it goes under those furniture (at least 8cm distance from ground) with ease. My mum is a cleanliness freak so she gets daily vacuuming done by the robot without having to do it herself.
The thing is that some of the rooms in my house have carpets and I'm wondering if I am better off just paying for a professional to deep clean those carpets once and for all rather than just vacuuming more often? There's nothing wrong with them, they're just not new hence have some wear in them (and obviously, dirt).
Delete