Getting quite excited now at the idea of working on our 'new home' - still sounds uncomfortable saying that so for now it shall be called 'the new place'.
The new place will be our third set up in Sydney in a short span of three months, including quarantine as #1. Since that involved unpacking and repacking, I guess it counts.
Took us 15 (not 14 as mentioned in Gabe's post) inspections all around various suburbs, six in fact, to finally settle on the new place which is right opposite us! Happy with our choice not only because it ticks the boxes, but I'm starting to familiarise and adapt to the surroundings here and change has never been my strong suit. Any concerns I had about Gabe wanting to experience living in a different area (having been here previously for work), was soon brushed off with everything else considered :)
So, here we are! A blank canvas to make our own:
we're on level 6, but we have a private courtyard!
a second room, with timber floors!
tiled floors, with some basic built-in
the new place.
We would have liked having two bathrooms, but hey, we can compromise.
I am most excited for our courtyard! Anddd the new 'style' we have in our heads. It will be...*drumroll please*...ECLECTIC! Do we even understand what that means? I guess it will be a mish-mash of designs, or simply made up of things we like, in the hopes it'd go together. Drawing #inspo from these 'eclectic interior designs'...
not quite eclectic but mad love for this wooden shelf divider
I'll say, it's going to be a reallll challenge. Not even confident of getting anywhere close to the inspo but we have some ideas in our heads. That might remain just what it is - ideas in our heads. It's going to be challenging working with the limitations:
1. Ugly tiled floors (but thankful not carpets!)
2. No painting walls
3. No screws / drilling
4. No curtains / only default white mat roller blinds
5. No light fittings
5. No budget (or rather, small and very tight budget)
6. Covid lockdowns
Am definitely experiencing the fatigue and difficulty of lockdown. I didn't realise it so much until wanting to purchase a couple of home essentials yesterday. This includes a kettle, bath towels and a laundry airer that was proving painful.
The items we wanted were from different online stores, and each purchase would naturally incur its' delivery costs, making it impractical to buy. For example, $10 for a bath towel from Kmart becomes $20, which makes you think twice about getting them, and knowing that price could get you better quality ones elsewhere. #gooddealhunter and of course, not being able to feel them makes decision-making tough!
The option of 'click and collect' is also frustrating because it isn't available to us and would mean going to different outlets to pick up individual items. The challenge also with Sydney being so large makes scoring good deals on Facebook marketplace that much harder. Think transport costs, keeping within the covid travel restrictions (5km) and fastest fingers first! The good stuff gets snapped up real quick, is it because we're competing with Asians like ourselves...kiasu (strikethrough) with short term leases.
As I write this, Gabe is out at Clovelly road picking up an IKEA kitchen island we just snagged this morning from FB marketplace - woohoo, our first successful BIG-furniture-piece purchase! It's crazy exciting :)
9.30am: "Hi! Is this available?"- Me
9.40am: "oo Clovelly is within our range! let's get itttt" - Gabe
2.30pm: Gabe at someone's drive way
damnit, it doesn't fit into our car
that's ok! pre-arranged removalists are here
3.15pm: now it's here!
Furnishing a temporary home (epps, place!) needs to make sense, knowing we can't get the great looking stuff only to move again or move back to Singapore with have no means of bringing it back. Time will tell how it all turns out, but logging it in here...the start of setting up THE NEW PLACE! Wish us luck!
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