That's it... at least here, that is.

I have now decided that as there is no more foreseeable regular updates to the house, since construction is over more than a year go, I will no longer update this blog.

I will still keep this blog though, as it seems to be quite useful to friends of friends, who are keen to get ideas for home construction.

You can visit my family blog, G E M B O where I occasionally post stuffs about the house, as well as what that blog is about, Life around our family (mainly shared with families).

I hope this blog has been useful to some, if not all of you, and will continue to be useful for newer visitors.

Garden? Not yet but working on it

The planters at the entrance... purple (Iman) and white (Muhammad) flowers.

Fir tree? They call it xmas tree at the nurseries

Purple plants creating borders for the drive way. We started planting these during the June 09 school holidays. It takes LOOOOTTTTSSSSS of patience :)

Vegetable patch slowly taking shape

New project, still thinking of what to plant here

Fuyio Home Opening @ 19.07.09

My wife and I was invited to the opening of Fuyio Home recently. The owner is Henry Ling, the contractor who built our house.

From hearsay, i understand that Henry starts from the bottom, starting out as a plumber, than venture into carpentry, then into renovation, later into construction from the early 90s and now being the sole distributor of construction materials. A very busy man he is, his day always starts at 4 in the morning and finishes by 11 at night at worst.

I manage to speak to one of his suppliers, the Fujioh representative from Singapore, who said that he was taken aback by Henry's energy, driving from locations to locations in KB and Bandar, that it left them (reps from Fujioh n Golden Clay) exhausted. Yet Henry still plough on and on hahahah. I have seen him work!

And despite busy entertaining the crowd, Henry shared with me that the suppliers were previously pessimistic about Brunei market, but changed their mind when they saw the houses in Brunei with their own eyes. They see the potential, take the roof for example... in Brunei majority of the people still built individual house, so the demand for rood is still there. If you build 10 units apartment, the roof requirement is still only equivalent to 2 or 3 houses.

Anyway, you can visit Fuyioh at Menglait, Muhibbah complex if I am not mistaken, behind Le Apple bakery. If you are not familiar, it is not far from the road behind the Menglait Sports Complex (near the filling station).

Enjoy the pics below, but for more, please go to my Facebook.

Henry never missed out on Lion dance

That;s Henry. Strange to see him in suit heheh

Our house being used as one of the 'model'

Fujioh, one of the brands promoted by Fuyio Home. Fujio specialise in Kitchen hobs, hoods and kitchen stuffs

Congrats Henry. All the best to you.

Lost habitat

The 2 acre plot of rectangular land behind my was recently cleared, apparently a local oil and gas support company will be constructing a three storey building on that land.

Coming home for lunch yesterday, I was surprised to see a unique grasshopper (will long antenaes) near my service door and looking at the fence adjacent to the cleared land, i saw scores of grasshoppers seeking refuge, after their natural habitat was destroyed. I feel sorry for them, but I can only offer some shade, although later that afternoon the missus told me that birds fed on them in the afternoon. Well, its the circle of life.

before the land was cleared

this is taken at noon yesterday, 2.5 days after they started

grasshoppers and other bugs, seeking refuge from the hot midday sun

one that rest on our sliding door

more grasshoppers

Unfortunate visitor

Last couple of weekends we had an unfortunate visitor: a beautiful green bird - which I suspected is a Dove (please correct me if I am wrong).

I found it near our garage and thought it was dead as it was motionless with the eyes opened for the 30 seconds I observed it. However my maid saw the eyes blinked but couldn't even fight to break free when the maid held it in her hands. The maid immediately rushed the bird to the cat cage and let it rest in there, and fed it small pieces of fruits and rice. Immediately? Well we have two playful cats at home and they could have just 'played' with the unfortunate bird.

Alhamdulillah it recovered two days later and flew off to the trees behind our house.

Architect & Contractor contact details

I have long promised this to my friends as well as the architect and contractor. Their contact details are shown in the box on the right.

To those who are familiar with Kuala Belait, my architect's office is on the top floor above Mum's bakery. Freddy is creative and love to capture your ideas and put it into perspective shot, so you can see how it's like when its completed. He is also very patient, especially as we had to take our time to finalise the drawings owing to the birth of our youngest child 'Aaeeshah. And lastly he has very good network with the government offices that allows us to have the drawings reviewed and approved at the earliest possible time.

As for Henry, to use his words roughly, his quotes are not cheap BUT it comes with quality materials and workmanship. I have to agree to that! We didn't approach other contractors for quotes, however we went to a couple of his previous constructions and were quite impressed. He invited us to his home to explain on the quote, line by line, telling us why the choice of tile and wood floorings are expensive, and options of the roofing materials as well as the window frames. He even have his own carpentry factory which allows him to ensure the quality of the furniture and fittings.

Tips: Before you call Henry, send him an SMS and tell him he is recommended by a friend (Pg Azmi). No, I do not get commission, but that's how he is. He will not answer the phone if he is not familiar with the number. We had to do the same when we first approached him. I am happy to say so far I have a couple of friends building their houses with Henry, due for completion by the end of this year. Good choice.

Long silence

I have not updated this blog ever since the 6months review by the contractor, however I am very pleased to see that the blog still averaged 20+ hits a day.  Thank you to dear readers/visitors and I hope you can find something useful in this blog.

From now on, as the house is already completed and we've moved in almost 11 months now, I will try to blog about home maintenance/upkeeps in general as well as the usual unsuspected 'visitors'. But please bear with me as I am still recovering from a serious illness, which I am grateful to Allah to be able to recover.

Mr G (Gembo)

A friend's house

I was shopping at "Pasar Borong" in Sengkurong last Saturday, and saw this house. It's a friend's (and also nephew - dad's 3rd cousin's grandson) house, currently under construction and should be ready early next year. 

It's a massive house, with very nice double stairs. See the construction here and their current travel (studying) Down Under here.

6 months on (well, 7 months). . .

It has been almost 7 months since we moved in, and Henry Ling, the contractor came up to check out the house for any touching ups (part of his contract).... well, there were a few cracks here and there but it's just on the surface. 

Apparently its usual especially in our case the house gets quite warm during the day and airconditioned in the evening, all the contracting and expanding resulted in the hairline cracks. As well as the wooden floors too, naturally it will contract slightly as it dries up, hence the contractor has to fill the gaps with special fillers - wooden colour - and you wouldn't notice it until you look very closely.

What else.... oh yes, we have three broken tiles, also related to contraction/expansion - see the photos below.  The main door, custom made from solid wood also shrank by one cm (width wise) leaving a gap when the door is closed. The contractor has to add one cm additional wood at the base of the hinge close the gap.  All else? Alhamdulillah, so far so good and long may it be.

How much does it costs us again (the touch ups/repairs)? Surprise surprise its all free! Including re-painting of all the interior walls!  Even coming from work for the past couple of days reminded me of us just moving in back in May - the smell of fresh paint! Enjoy the photos below. And have a great weekend and Salam Aidil Adha.

  

the main door being worked on

  

walls at the second floor being re-plastered where the hairline cracks appeared

more plastering done... the family lounge...

and outside Iman's Room

Tiles near the garage cracked. Probably not enough cement during tiling last time round.

   

A wall tile cracked in the wet kitchen, as well as a couple of tiles under the bar. These guys did a great job, 'cos it just didn't show that they were replaced.

hairline cracks near the light switches were re-plastered

as well as at the big wall at the living room

the wooden floorings contracted over the 7 months, so the contractor filled the gaps, and applied the water-based coat, to give that shine. Nice.

Muhammad's room - if you can see carefully the plaster covering the cracks were like grafitti... 

More Visitors...

My friend Azlan from KL (in red tie - who look like Eric Roberts from Heroes), came to our office recently with his colleagues from UK. 

A regular visitor to my blog, he finally had his wish granted to tour the completed Gembo Home after coming here in March. I hope to be able to host lunch or dinner the next time they come over.

Asha welcoming the guests

Group pics... sorry, no photos during the tour - the host was busy showing the guests around 

Off they go, to catch the 6pm flight

Wet Wet Wet... not the band, but the weather

 
Pics taken before 8 this morning. It has been raining every evening for a week now, and has rained non-stop since 10 last night until early morning. Our lawn now looks like a big pool, but Alhamdulillah as the rain stopped this morning, the water began to recede... about half the lawn is still covered with water but nonetheless it has receded.

The sky looked gloomy at 8 am and looked the same even at 6pm. It rained a bit at 8pm but only for a short while, and I hope it stays that way overnight. I pity those people in low lying areas - hope it will improve for u guys.

More visitor.... arachnovisitor

Pic taken early this week... I hope it's not poisonous, but am not taking any chances and locked all the windows and doors heheh.

Hari Raya Final Preparations (delayed update hehe)

A well travelled friend got us this seeds from his travel down under. We planted it a couple of days before Raya, and in a week it started to grow.

This is our flower planter near the entrance which, yes, we finally managed to plant something just a couple of days before Raya. Total spent... $30 for 5 pots of plants and 7 bags of black soil. Efforts? Priceless heheheh

Our three kids 'helped'

Another shot of the planter, with the three different coloured flowers - pink, white and blue. Oh, don't ask what flowers are they, cos we have no idea heheh  The flowers are Petunia (thanks Cuz Zulida). I'll probably (probably!) plant some more as borders to the driveway as I love to see the flowers bloom EVERY DAY

There they are again

The 'lampu cucul' in place

close up of the lampu cucul

Muhammad waiting for his uncle to play firecrackers

another close up