Little House : Our Mini Studio

Since we got the news end of last year about my pregnancy, we've been moving and cleaning things around the apartment. Our favorite space is our small studio/playroom where we spend most of the time working, watching movies/series and playing games. We were just 2 people in a 3 bedroom apartment for the past 2 years (not including when we were living elsewhere), so we have the privilege to dedicate the whole room for this alone. 

Several months back we decided on moving the studio from the master bedroom to the second biggest room in the middle of apartment (that used to be our bedroom) - because 3 people sleeping in a master bedroom seems like a rational idea (we decided on co-sleeping for a few years). 

So we moved everything to that room and managed to get the most decent space in the apartment. There are enough light and very airy. But a little cram because we put our 13 year old huge L-shaped sofa inside the room as well.

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About the red awkward sofa :

The sofa is an old red-coloured sofa in the living room that never been used for years because it became Awan's play-space and I'm allergic to her fur. We've been ignoring the sofa for so long. But after the news came and we decided on 'really' put an effort in improving our space, I decided to only keep items that are functional in the apartment - that, including the sofa.    

So I called a guy from a cleaning service to professionally 'deep-cleanse' the sofa. The sofa cleaning service costed RM 150 and took around 1.5 hours to finish : 

Next, deep cleansing the 13-year old sofa and planning to change the cover • Moved the sofa to our studio room •

Sofa cleaning service costed Rm 150 • Very fancy 💅🏻 • And it took 1.5 hours 😬 pic.twitter.com/vo8ednIGhY

— azreenchan (@azreenchan) February 3, 2019

There are still old patches and stains that can't be removed, but as long as it is cleaned and sanitized, I can use it, Af can use it, so it can fill the purpose and be used instead of being thrown. We then moved the sofa to our studio room and we put behind our desk, where we spend the nights watching movies/series and playing games and sometimes napping in the afternoon. 

The only awkward thing about the sofa is : it is bright red, and our whole apartment is in natural soft colour (beige, chocolate, white). So I hate the colour of the sofa, but oh well. And we trained Awan to not step on the sofa anymore, and it worked for now.

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Our desks after moving on our first move (to the middle room) :

We had fun spending the time in this room throughout my whole 2nd trimester. One thing I noticed in this past 3 months : we no longer used the master bedroom except for praying and changing clothes (we spent most nights sleeping in the living room because I'm in the pregnancy phase where I'm super hot and sweaty all day everyday). 

I thought this was such a waste of space, because the master bedroom is huge and we no longer use the space. When I mentioned that to Af, he was thinking the same thing, so we decided to move back the studio to the master bedroom :D Haha.

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Little House : Buying your first property

I bought my first apartment in 2012.

During that time, my salary was RM 2,000 and the apartment I bought was RM 150,000.

The apartment is a low-density type, around 1080 sq ft, corner unit with extra windows, located on the first floor, fully tiled and grilled. Other than helping my mom, I love the apartment and it's a nice investment. So even though I was single, 25 and was not ready - I bought the apartment.

It is located in Seri Kembangan, in a small peaceful neighborhood where I grew up,
it is quite far from the city center.

How?

• I applied for "Skim Rumah Pertamaku" and got 90% bank loan for 30 years, I'm currently paying around RM 700 monthly. Much cheaper than renting a decent apartment in a nice environment. 
• There is also monthly maintenance fees : RM 90+, and for me personally, I like how they take care of the building, all the plants are nicely groomed, the corridor's lights are all lighted, the security guards are always there, the floor are mopped weekly, all clean and nice. So I don't mind paying the maintenance bills. 
• At this moment, my family is still living with us. So I divided the monthly fees to 4 of us grown-ups. *that's like RM 175 for us. Two of my younger siblings are still living like parasites until they finish their studies by the end of this year.
• When I first bought the apartment, I need to consider 2 big things regarding the money. Use this calculator to estimate what you will need to spend : 
• The 10% down-payment, which I haven't paid to my mom because I promised that I'll pay when I live there fully. So I haven't paid it yet. 0-0 *bonus point for me.
• The legal fees and SPA, I have a travel-saving that I planned to use for my Euro-trip back then. But I cancelled it and I bought the apartment. It costed around RM 8,000+ for the legal fees and SPA. I used it all up. T^T
• I didn't buy a car because I think it is the worst investment for people with low-monthly salary. I pay my PTPTN loan for RM200-500 each month. So other than bills and insurance, I didn't use up my salary at that time. It was cukup-cukup makan, but enough. I still don't own a car though. 

These days, the price went up to RM 210-250k for these apartments *even in this short 2 years time. If I include the loan + the interest (RM97k) for 30 years, the apartment would cost around RM 230k. With the high rise of property's prices, I think this is the greatest investment I made when I was 25. I'm not sure what will happen in the future, especially when the 2nd MRT is fully done in Seri Kembangan area :D

I'm thinking on buying the second property with AF.

I love the extensive research and all the possibilities. With property's prices go up to being almost-ridiculous, I think what we can do is find something small and nice enough place for a good investment.

As I told my colleague,
"buy a property now, when you don't have other responsibilities and loans".

Tips :

• If your salary already reached RM 2,000 per month, you can consider finding a small flat in the city or an apartment a bit farther from the city. You'll be paying more or less the same as your rent anyway.
• Don't buy car, yet. Use public transportation or motorcycle. I used to walk over 3km daily to work. It's a nice exercise.  
• Live a frugal life, especially when you just starting up your life as an official adult.
• Work as a freelancer. 
• Read useful articles on financial planning, ie : iMoney

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Little House 4 : 4 months

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Pets :

I gave Minka the ferret back to my boss after 2 weeks + another 3 days.

Taking care of a ferret needs a lot of patience. Even writing about her needs one whole dedicated post. So I went back to my stinky home, changed to proper clothing, mixed some detergent with Dettol multi-cleaner, and started to clean the whole apartment. That took around 2 hours. I put back all things to where they belonged and the apartment is very much in order now.

But even after almost a month, the house still smells of her =.=

Maybe pet plants are enough for now.

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Pillows :

My mom made 6 cushions : 2 huge, 2 big and 2 small. *I can finally put it in the living room after I returned Minka. By now I spent the price of 1 huge commercialized cushion for 6 hand-made cushions. I chose the fabric and colours with her, a nice mixture of light and dark brown. I'm using synthetic kekabu and also learned about making batang bantal. Can't deny that I'm enjoying all little processes in creating my little home. Now I have a place to melepet2 in my living room even without any sofa or chairs :D

Plus Aja gave me a nice brown coloured carpet for my birthday to match everything in the house. I can sprawl in my living room now, while reading good books or writing decent blog posts. This is how it looks today. I put those illustrations on the wall using tack-it, I'm not sure how long it going to last :

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Frugal life :

If you have sensitive skin and living as frugal as I do, maybe you can try this. Instead of using laundry powder, you can wash your pillow cases using water and soak it with left-over lemon slices from the detox water. Other than giving fresh smell, it also has antibacterial properties.

Bills :

My electrical & water bills are below RM 10 per month, so both bills are subsidized by the government - I'm having free electric and water every month :D But rent is super expensive, for a single renter, I'm scraping money out of my comfort zone for 3 months now. What an irresponsible way of living :F

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Foods :

I can't do so much with cooking because I can't buy fresh foods (fish, meat, chicken, etc) to be kept in my tiny refrigerator. The second-hand fridge is so old, it can't keep up with freezing foods anymore. I might need 5 months to buy a proper 2-doors fridge. 

So that leave me with these easy simple foods: 

1. Soups, by now I've tried making so many types of soups. Egg soup, chicken soup, veggie soup, mushroom soup, tomyam soup, everything I can mix off. Truth to be told, the only thing I feel comfortable eating is rice and soups. 

2. Salad, the easiest way to eat without cooking stuffs up. Potato salad, fruit salad, mixed salad, tuna salad, I read up Pinterest recipes just to find ways to vary salad-makings. 

3. Sandwich, hah, my favorite would be a mixture of 2 slices of breads, cheese, egg, kewpie mayo, and slices of chicken or simple bread with honey. Mmm-hmm.

Oh, other than that, I do eat Mi Sedap sometimes.

The best part of living alone is, I can cook my favorite food every-single-day and no one will complain. 

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Little House 2 : The Second Month

The only furnitures I bought after 2 months at my new home are a wooden table and 2 mini wooden side-tables from IKEA. That costed around RM200+ total. Other than that are all old wooden furnitures from ma and collected wooden things all around. 

Old furnitures were painted oil-based white paint so they seem a bit acceptably decent. I keep on buying cheap brushes from Kedai RM 2 and Mr.DIY because I don't want to waste thinner to wash those brushes. I don't like oil-based paint. 

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I keep on pinning things from Pinterest that might work for my tiny apartment. Mainly I wanted something more minimal, cheap, rustic with natural-coloured theme. My main inspiration came mostly from Muji and other simple Japanese apartments. Things are just too expensive, so I end up collecting old things that can work for me and making things myself.

Personal research center :

Ma doesn't agree with using cheap bamboo blinders and asked to put proper curtain, which, I argued because I hate ruffled fabrics that block lights. I also detest the bunk-bed & old carpet that the owner provides, but I have no where else to keep =.=

Now it became clear to me on how picky I can be. Hah.

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I reorganized the studio for the 3rd time in 2 months.
I found a way to put books in the small space like this :

Every time I go back home to ma's, I take 4-5 books from my old shelves so it won't be too heavy while taking the train. That is what I currently have with me. I probably need a whole lot of book shelves to keep all my books. I'm out of budget. So let just pretend that I don't own so many books at ma's.

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I finally found the use of that super heavy bed's base wood that we collected from the trash. I painted it white - double coat, and put it aside for weeks, waiting for it to become a diy sofa. But huge pillows are quite pricy for me to buy - right now, end up buying some nice natural coloured fabrics from Tewah today and asked ma to sew some pillows for my little living room. 

So the wood turned into this, next to the front door :

The apartment looked empty, decent and a bit cheap. 

Every time I feel like buying huge stuffs, I'll remember Fight Club & IKEA.

I rest my case.

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Little Things 151 : Little House 1

My new place located right in front of a train station. 90 steps from the counter, to be exact. On the highest floor a small one room apartment could reach without a lift. I have 13 windows, including 3 in my room and 2 in the small kitchen with a balcony outreaching sunrise and all the other windows are in the living room with the view of beautiful city Kuala Lumpur from afar. Don't you feel me? :

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I fell in love with the place when I first saw it. 

It was one of those random outing day to new places and from the train ride we saw those little buildings. 

"Look at those nice buildings!", I exclaimed.

"Do you want to stop here?".

And we went down and walked towards the apartments. I asked the guard if we could take a look around. We walked until the last block and snapped few picture of advertisements hanging on apartment windows. Later that night I texted all those numbers and Googled all the advertisements available online. That same weekend, I made an appointment to view one of the apartment with the landlord's friend - considering she is not living in the area anymore.

That afternoon I met her with her 2 children. 

I remember her opened up the front door and showed me around.

If there is such thing like falling in love with a place to live in, then that was the moment when I first felt it. Those huge windows, beautiful views, the small size, the apartment is enough for me. It was almost as I imagine a place that I would lived in be. 

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I discussed the offer and agreed with the landlord to rent the place.

In 2 weeks since I saw it, I moved in and signed the contract.

When it's love, you'll just know.