The kitchen catching on fire couldn’t have happened at a better time.
Everything in the kitchen got torn down to be rebuilt from scratch. We wanted more preparation areas AND more storage areas, which seemed like a bit of a tricky task given that the room wasn’t being expanded. Again, our faithful contractor Mr. Lee designed a great kitchen that has already proven to be great to work in. There were a couple of minor issues with the kitchen. One was that the builders installed the new water filter backwards, with the input hose going into the output connector and vice-versa. We think that they may have noticed and tried to remedy it, but instead broke a piece off the filter and then gave up, leaving it wrong AND broken. We fixed and corrected it upon moving back in.
During the renovations (in case you were wondering) we completely moved out and relocated ourselves, the two cats, and all our stuff to a rental house fifteen minutes away in a place called Gasing Indah. It’s a typically Malaysian little suburban area with a large Indian community and a LOT of curry houses. Even though it was relatively close, the weather there was a bit cooler in general because of the large trees dotted about the place. This less concreted area of Petaling Jaya brought about monkeys – Macaques and Langurs, and the evening chorus of frogs beyond counting.
After hauling the fridge across town with the intention of ultimately keeping it, it decided to take its own life quietly one morning, spoiling the single cucumber within. We bought a new Samsung fridge and we thank god it doesn’t make that horrible 5-tone notification sound that Samsung phones do. (For anyone interested, the tone is called ‘Over The Horizon’ and it is painfully inescapable in Malaysia)
West. The big black fiery stain up the wall is where the now-deceased fridge was. Yes, it seems a new one was definitely needed.
East
Scraping the old tiles from the wall. To the left you’ll notice that someone has sprayed ‘PENES’ on the wall, possibly when attempting to write the word ‘PENIS’. This was never explained, and we never asked.
After the shelves were demolished
The ceiling. An electrician was brought in to COMPLETELY redo the entire electrical system for the whole house, including all new lighting, sockets, and a fuse box. We found him one day at the fuse box with two large fistfuls of colourful wires, muttering in confusion.
Cement is added to smooth the walls and floor
The newly painted grille is now on the window, the wall where the cabinets will go has been smoothed and tiles have been added down the left side where the fridge will go. Unfortunately the fridge (any normal sized-fridge) is deeper than the riser, so the riser will have to be demolished and retiled to be flush with the floor. Also, the white tiles have been placed too high for the cabinet design. We just don’t realise it yet.
Here you can see the shells of the custom-made cabinets in place. Note the too-high tiles. The exposed concrete was eventually ground out and new tiles were added.
And here is the final result. A friend of Caroline’s had the great idea to put racks directly above the sink. Genius.
And the other side. That monolithic shape is new induction cooker, which is very cool – and less likely to go up in flames.
And lastly, a view of the big red feature wall.