The big clean up

July is the month where Penang celebrates its Unesco Heritage listing. For an entire month, the Georgetown Festival takes place with pockets of arts, cultural, music and heritage appreciation activities organised downtown in the heritage precinct. 

So I packed my bags, and hopped into my friend's amazing 1985 Toyota Hilux, named Puumba and we drove that evening 350km along the North-South Expressway. Here's a picture of us along the highway soon to arrive at the midpoint of scenic town Ipoh.

I arrived in the wee hours, just in time for supper. Cousin David meets up wtih me and brings me to nearby Pulau Tikus market. We mange and head home. Thank goodness for his hospitality to host me in his home since No. 15 was too dusty for me to sleep in. Here's a novel idea! Perspex covered windows to protect from dust. I think I'd love to do this for my own home too :)

In the morning, I awoke and was raring to go! So much work to do! And it was already Wednesday! The soft launch I was planning on Saturday and I had already invited a musician friend, not just any musician either?! It was Az Samad, who happened to be in Penang that weekend for a performance with his poet father, Pak Samad (A. Samad Said). How exciting!

The front of house, with a nice outdoor area - hmmm, perhaps I could place an outdoor table & 2 chairs here so we can watch people pass by. Well, that's what we used to do as kids. Some unlucky folks will have rubber-bands shot at them?! Oops. Hehe...

This is the kitchen and bathroom area at the back of the house. I'm thinking of a nice hanging light piece since this area can be seen from the living hall. It must be something nice... hope we can find something!

The kitchen area, sporting a cute little fluorescent light from yesteryear. It's quite small but it's still functional, so let's see what we can do to retain that. The fan, I purchased from KDK for a really good price and had it fixed the same day.

The staircase needed some reinforcements, so the contractor Ah Ping fixed it. I'm not happy, but I'll leave it for now. So long as it's secure, the aesthetics will need to wait until I return the next trip. What would be nice is to re-sand the staircase and the upstairs area to reveal the original Merbau.

The dining room is fairly dark. So I envision a low hanging light, just above the dining table. Well, the fluorescent will need to come in too cos during Chinese New Year, I plan to have some chor-dai-di sessions yeah!

This is the main living hall. The lovely coloured glass panels really liven the place up. So I'll need to look for some retro - styled lighting fixtures that will add a nice touch to this room. Oh, and in future, we hope to display the artworks of local artists as well.

This is the room divider and was previously decked with sandstone type bricks. I didn't like it, so had it removed. The bricks now sit beneath our plants outside the house :) This will be our main performance area, so I hope to introduce a nice warm light effect to illuminate Illuminati. Consider this the 'stage' area lah.

The previous tenant had these two windows sealed up. My idea is somewhat different. Natural light is so important, so I chose to rip out the faux walls and revealed the windows again. They now have life and bring in the bright Penang sunlight right into the room.

See what I mean? The coloured panels really liven up the room in the day. And in the night, it offers privacy and a beautiful mood when viewed from outside.