Our First Home

On 20 Jan 2017, we collected the keys to our very first place. It was a perfectly quiet affair – I had just landed the night before from a full week in Manila for work and Lance was also tied up in his lab work. We initially couldn’t get into the house because the biometric door lock was not working well and the previous owner kindly came by to assist us. It still didn’t work but at least we could get into the house. While waiting, we had Lance’s pizza of the moment at Baker&Cook’s joint called Plank and congratulated ourselves over glasses of lemon water.

It was simple, uneventful, no yelling of auspicious stuff or rolling of pineapples. We threw open the windows and stood around, enjoying the cross winds. The concept of being a homeowner has not sunk in, I don’t feel a mad sense of excitement yet – perhaps my mind is still focused on executing things. Perhaps too many things have been moving too quickly that I can’t pause to fully process and let these concepts and thoughts settle in my mind.

The next day, we dropped by again armed with cleaning tools – two bottles of bleach, two bottles of soap, a bag full of rags, robot cleaner, dust pan and broom, a mop and a bucket, wet wipes, denatured alcohol, baking soda. We scrubbed and disinfected the functional but dirty fridge the owner left behind for us (it’s good as new now!), ran a washing cycle with a heavy-duty washing machine cleaning soap, mopped the whole house, hosed down the common toilet with bleach and wiped the window ledges. There’s still renovation works to do but until then, just coming home to a fresh clean house still makes a difference to us.

& we ended the day with a little romantic pizza hut dinner facing our million-dollar view. I still can’t get over how tasty the sweet and spicy drumlets are. Over dinner, we agreed that where we set up our temporary dining table was an awesome nook for our sofa.

Also, we discovered that the owner had left us a Rainbow vacuum cleaner – the contractor we spoke to today pointed it out to us. & there we were, thinking that the previous owner had left us with a huge vintage vacuum cleaner (which Lance used to vacuum solid bits from a very dirty fridge). The contractor taught us how to crack it open and what to clean so we spent our evening cleaning out filters with a screwdriver because the dirt had hardened over the years. The vacuum is on it’s way to being restored to it’s full glory.

& if we had to give an award for that the hardest worker of the day, we both agreed that it should be awarded to our little robot who diligently and quietly swept and vacuumed the whole afternoon without any complaints or rest (despite getting tangled in a bath mat). It felt very much like our little pet, what a sweetheart!