A blank canvas
Tuesday 16 April 2013, the first day of the rest of our lives with a Home.
Four years after making the first payment for our flat, we finally got our keys.
To be honest, Augz and I used to do a lot of things on impulse. Getting Fernvale Crest was another one of those things. We had not talked about marriage at that point (although within the first two months of us dating, I told Lea that I wanted to ask him to marry me!) but one day we just went to HDB Hub to, I don’t know, check it out.
We saw Fernvale Crest on offer, it was near both our homes, at Jalan Kayu which we enjoyed going to, and so we thought, okay, let’s just ballot for it.
We didn’t know the price, it didn’t concern us ‘cos we weren’t thinking seriously that we would be homeowners. We didn’t even check layouts or whether it was a premium/standard flat. This was solely done on impulse.
Four years later, with a 16-month old son and well into my 3rd month of pregnancy, we finally got the keys to our home. Yet another sign of how God has plans for us that we can’t even begin to fathom.
Three-and-a-half years married now, we have stayed at four different houses:
- Serangoon 201, which we rented and moved into after we got married was where we built memories of our first year of marriage, and when Maya and Inca joined our little family. A home we cherished.
- Then we moved back to my place to be with my father in what turned out to be his last months.
- After he passed away, we shuttled between Augz’ house and mine, just to be fair.
- Then we rented Sin Ming 24 near our parish and we absolutely loved it there. We thought that would be our home till we made the final move to Fernvale Crest but then Matthew came along and so we decided to move to Augz’ place before I went back to work.
Many houses, some homes… but none of them ours for real.
Until now. Until this. 😀
Which explains why we look this happy arriving for the first time… in our very blank unit.
We did not expect to have kids. Nor did we plan to. And so we ordered no floor and no doors so we could have our blank canvas to do it up as we like, with no consideration to budget (then)!
No regrets there, though… except we’ll have to wait a little longer before we move in.
More pics here: of the living room (we will hack that wall you see on your left)… the view from what was previously designated as the smoking area (previously, because we aren’t smoking now, and hopefully, we won’t anymore…), and lastly… the unwelcome spider. We chose the 26th floor with the hope that insects would be deterred from making the journey up… and still. There was a spider in the house before we even arrived. Oh well.
There we go.
We are ready for the next phase of our life together.
I pray to God that I can surrender the coming two months to Him, and let Him take charge, as I can already foresee myself getting all excitedly stressed and freakishly controlling with the reno works and all.
Finally, there is a part of me that longs soooo much for our “Happily Ever After” chapter to this part of our journey that I’m now paranoid and afraid that it won’t happen. Let me not be like that, I pray, but to trust in His providence, come what may!