Day 358- Abandoned Room Converted

I know you won't believe me but I wasn't being a room-tease in my last post. I started writing late and  was almost typing with my eyes closed by the time Cindy and Asuka said yes. I didn't even plan to write about David (whom I am sure is alive and well somewhere) until I titled the post Abandoned Room (which I thought was a clever link to the Abandoned House). That meant of course a long explanation about why it was abandoned and then David and how long it was abandoned and then oh dear, my head nearly touched the keypad, it was almost 2 am and I had to wake up in 4 hours to run! I therefore had no choice but to abandon that post and go to sleep. 

But today, it is

WELCOME! WELCOME!

Please allow me to show you the room and tell you everything about everything and hope that this time you are not the one nodding off.  

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I live in what we call over here, a Black and White House.  I am sure you can tell how that name originated just by looking at this picture. This is also a photo of the entrance to the room. What you see were the last of the things I did- like hanging up this bathroom curtain that was thrown out by FaiZ because they changed the decor theme for their bathroom which used to be concert-in-the-forest-chic; 

and finding a perfect home for these mini- house wind chimes that I bought at the 3 for S$10 store a year back.

Then there was moving this heavy wrought iron side table that I found on the roadside one day with Neo's help. Finally, somewhere I can put these egg cartons that I have collected from rubbish bins and hardly used. The cloths over the table is a grey dhurri rug and a piece of green patchwork fabric I bought when I was in India that have outlived their usefulness as rugs for our floors. The bonsai pot was a gift from my mum when her bonsai tree died. 

Come, come, 

come and peep through the window

Yous: "ooooooooh"s and "ahhhhhhhhh"s

Me: "Awww, common, you haven't seen anything yet!"

This is probably your first impression of the room when you stepped in through the door. The Peranakan  cupboard and dresser together with the traditional kopitiam (coffeeshop) table were from my office. Even if they were bought new, they are all at least 16 years old now. 

Tables like this with the wooden carved legs and marble tops used to be a common sight at the neighbourhood coffeeshops when I was a child. Not anymore of course. So the really old ones are considered heritage pieces that must never be thrown away. 

The Neglected No More

There's a silly story behind this clay vase. It must be at least 20 years old and was bought when I was a young adult. I saw it in one of those brochures from a flower shop and liked it so much that I ordered the pot with sunflowers and have them sent it to me at my home with a card saying something like "Surprise!". I paid three times what it was worth, the flowers wilted within a week and I outgrew the vase in no time. But I never threw it away. Perhaps it was to remind me of a time when I was impulsive and silly and how I should always be a little so. This pot with the Gothic Roses were left hidden in some remote corner of my house for a long time. If you try to rearrange the roses, the leaves will fall off. That's how long it was left there. I am glad it now sits in our workroom with a story to tell. 

In front of that vase is a teapot with matching bowls which FaiZ bought for the house when he was in Uzbekistan last year. I love them so much but until today, they too were just kept in the storeroom. 

Happiness is serving the Apple Tea which Asuka bought from Turkey in that teapot and drinking it from the matching bowls, at the workroom of course.

This is a picture I took for Ilona. She was interested in a birdcage at the Mystic Place which I thought was not as pretty as this one. This birdcage and the basket next to it were also junk pickups, not by me but by my parents. As you can see, the trait runs in the family. My mum said she got it from me. 

This is the other side of that side of the room. Have you noticed the door yet? It's the connecting factor between this side and that side. No, not the vertical white one but the horizontal brown one. This is the clever idea that Cindy had - to use the door as our worktable top. Worktable, worktable, I just love how I am able to say that : our worktable, finally, a real.work.table. The 2 pieces of grey worktable bases at each end of our worktable are light plastic bases that FaiZ picked up about a year ago from some workplace that was being renovated.Yes, even my housemate is a junk pick-upper. Can you further see how this trait can be very contagious? 

Our worktable fits 2 chairs but can accommodate up to 6 mini makers, thanks to the size of our projects. This is where I will sit, on the sun-moon chair that my sister gave me. When SuZ had to shift her office for the very 1st time, she didn't want to bring her old stock so I inherited all her 1st generation chairs. For almost 12 years in my current home, none of my 16 dining chairs matched.

One of those chairs was my favourite, this sun-moon chair. There was about 5 years in my life (around the same time I bought the vase) when I was really into anything with a sun face. I even tattooed my foot with a sun face. Imagine my thrill when I got this chair ... but that was a long time ago...

so long that one of the chairs that I inherited can no longer be held together, not even with scotch tape.

Shootalicious it's already 12 am! In all that time, I have only shown 1 side of the room and explained half that side. I am sorry but I will have to shoo you out now. It's that hour when we can't be here...tell you more tomorrow. Shoo, shoo, shiiiiiiiiiiiiiii....

*whispers

Good Night, People!