The end is the beginning

“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” ~ T.S. Eliot

It took me 4 days to clear away every single item from my house. I was really surprised by the amount of 'junks' I have been keeping for the past 14 years (^^')

Even though I must have thrown away half of our 'possessions', I still ended up with 30 boxes of barangs barangs (personal belongings). Here's some stats to illustrate...I sold away:
~ 100kg of old textbooks, activity books, worksheets, assessment books, magazines, etc,
~ 50kg of old clothing, bed sheets, towels, etc
to the karung guni (modern form of rag and bone men). I 'earned' a total of $15. I also sold away my fridge, washing machine, two fans and a radio for a total of $70. I got $10 by selling away my king size bed.

I managed to clear away 90% of our old furniture, and I do hope my 'new' house will not have more than 8 pieces of furniture. I am a minimalist...but this time I will work even harder to keep everything simple...my main aim is to minimise daily cleaning and maintenance :)

After 4 days of hacking, my whole flat was stripped down to its core. Here's my kitchen...it looks almost like a war zone!

There will only be bottom cabinets for my kitchen...and a tower unit by the side. This is my first step of reducing storage space. You may think I am crazy since most people ask for extra storage space. For me, the more space I have means I will fill it up with more junks! I used to have a row of top cabinets which I used it as a 'store'...keeping things I hardly use at all. One classic example: we have been keeping bottles and bottles of Coke which we bought during our holidays overseas. I spent close to 20mins opening 40 bottles (or more!) of Coke and pouring away the content before I could dispose off the empty glass bottles. Not forgetting the numerous cans of Coke I have throw away several years back. This is something I don't wish to happen again.

This is my guest/common bathroom...I have re-positioned the entrance so that the new entrance will be at the service yard instead of the kitchen.

New entrance to the guest/common bathroom. I won't have to see my younger child doing his business in full view any more ;)

This is yet another step to 'reduce' storage space. The entrance of the store will be shifted from the kitchen to the bedroom. I am going to convert the existing store room to a 'walk-in' wardrobe...literally. The space is only 1m by 2m...just enough for a person to walk into the closet to retrieve the item. Yes, it is going to be a tiny closet...but I am the sort who can survive with less than 10 sets of cloths, the space is more than sufficient. Without a store room, the only problem I am going to face is to find storage space to keep my kids' books...I hope the new build in wardrobe cum book shelves will be big enough to address this issue.

Although I have no intention to convert this into a renovation blog, I won't be able to post anything on baking for the next couple of months. I hope I don't bore you too much with this post (^_^).