Below are some examples of Malaysian and Singaporean Landscaping which I have collected as inspiration; some are better than others, but I include a large selection here as a general example of what bungalow landscaping can look like (these photos are mainly from Malaysia and have been collected from iProperty, Mudah, Contemporist and other sites).
We have been taking a much needed break from contractors at the house. There has been a bit more roof work done, but for the most part it has been quiet for awhile and we are feeling less tense now and actually enjoying using the kitchen. The Tuscani stove and cooktop is working fantastically and the rest of the kitchen is great as well. Hopefully the 4 stools we ordered for the kitchen to place around the stainless steel table will be ready this week. Still haven’t ordered the exterior lights because when I went to get the two round black lights I saw for the ceiling which will be placed near the front door and near the back door, they were out of them and now I don’t know what to use with the long black cylinder ones we are planning to buy for the front columns of the house.
Landscaping is our next big job. I bought a sample pink plant after the dark wall was finished to see how it would look. I don’t know the name of these plants, I think they start with a B. And they are very common all over Malaysia.
Here is a photo of some in purple from a house that I snapped a long time ago.
I wanted to use this plant in the 9 planters along the long wall at the side of the house. But, the landscape shops tell me these plants mostly grow up and need lots of room for roots. I had also planned to put these in the long planter on the second story of the house outside the big windows.
Metal holder where a long planter can be added on the second floor
But, I’m not sure they will work as the flower pot (which will have to be custom made can’t hold a lot of roots).
We weren’t really liking the pink color of the plant anyway, so I went to another landscape shop today and the woman there told me that this orange plant which looks similar to the pink but is different will grown down instead of up. I think I am liking the orange color better than pink on the dark grey wall, R hasn’t decided yet. She told me that these orange plants are much less common than the other ones and she isn’t sure she can get 40 plants in that color which is how many I think I might need for the 9 wall planters and planter on the second story.
Orange plant at left and pink plant at right which has lost its flowers
We have had a lot of rain since the house was painted. And since there is no established grass or landscaping, the dirt is already hitting up onto the house and exterior property walls making a big mess. To combat the massive amounts of water which come down on to the ground during a Malaysian rainstorm, we thought about using pebble rocks (need to see what these are actually called) all around the house so that it will absorb the rain (we need to get professionals onsite to tell us if rocks or grass would be better at absorbing the water). But for now, we are thinking about putting pebble rocks all around the house just on the outside of where the water hits the ground.
I have been looking for BIG black planters or dark grey to put on the front tiled sections and patio. There are many beautiful flowering plants that can go in them or palm-tree-type trees that can be planted in big pots. A few of these big plants and then the colored flowering plants in the wall planters and second story planter, that should be all the landscaping we do for now. There is aleady wiring on the ground all around the property, but we won’t do any spotlight/accent lights on the landscaping for now.
Below are some photos of where I am thinking of using pebbles, this is the first day I did the sectioning off, so I might change it. May add more pebbles outside the patio, not sure. The sample pebble bag I bought in ‘grey’ when put down seems too blue!
So we will be looking for a more grey or a lighter grey pebble to use. The other question was if we should use the big large Asian pebbles in some parts (maybe around the patio) these are very common in Malaysian and Singaporean landscape design. But at the present moment I think we will go only with the small pebbles which are being used in more comtemporary architecture whereas I think the large stones make the property look more ‘tropical’. We’ll see what the professionals think. Actually, I don’t think the large stones cost much more than the small pebbles so if we go with the small pebbles it is mainly for aesthetic reasons not cost.
The painting of the House Exterior and Roof Tiles is finally complete! The Roof Tiles are painted with Dulux Roofshield in Idaman Grey 10524. The Exterior House walls are Nippon Cement 9507. The Timber under the roof is painted with Nippon Timbershade (Low Sheen Finish) in Silhouette Grey 4223D and the Exterior Property walls are Nippon S 8500-N (accent base).
We still have to order the exterior lights. I think we are going with black. And now it is time to move on to the landscaping!!!
Here are a couple photos of the Kitchen before making dinner last night. The stainless steel table is great for preparing the food and really finishes off the space. All that is left is the installation of the Ikea light fixture above the table and finding 4 stools (looking for dark wood) that will fit under the table towards the left side.
The Stainless Steel Table company came and unwelded (is that the right word?) the tabletop from the bottom legs and shelves and managed to get all into the kitchen. Once in the kitchen they re-welded it and put it in place!
The Kitchen’s nearly complete, B has to do a couple more things and the custom made Stainless Steel Table which is over 9 feet long has arrived but can not fit through the doors (after we had them measure twice and they promised it will fit). So tomorrow they will take off the metal legs and then re-weld it together in the kitchen! We plan to do our cutting and a lot of food preparation on the table and on the far side by the door to the wet kitchen add a few stools so we can sit around it while we cook, maybe eat in the kitchen if it’s not too hot. It will be nice to get it in place. I added a few plates and asian bowls on the shelves as a sample how it will look, but need to get some stacks of plates and bowls (like I see in the cooking shops in Thailand and Malaysia and some places in the Middle East). The idea was to have it look like a working kitchen where the plates and bowls could be grabbed as needed, not as a ‘display shelf’ so I guess I better take down those display plates on the top shelf because they aren’t looking right at all.
Table badly needed in center of room!
Above is a close up shot of the Hava handles used on some of the cabinets. The other handles are Ikea Lansa (not our favorite design, but the only ones we could find which were long enough for the tall pantry doors).
On Thursday the Corian Glacier White Solid Surface Countertops were installed. Had we known we were going to use Corian all along instead of marble, we would have had B build the cabinet doors lower so we could have had a wider Corian edge at the front. The Corian Distributor cut and fabricated the curved edge for the undermount sink in KL and brought it to the house sealed in place, but it still took them nearly a full day of work to get the countertops placed and the seam removed.
After the countertops and sink were in B’s plumber fitted the Sink Faucet and the Water Filter Faucet. When we first started looking at faucets, we wanted one with the industrial type hose attached even if they were too trendy or already passé because our kitchen would be having stainless steel accents throughout including the stainless steel industrial center (instead of an island) which we thought would look great with one of these big faucets, but they were too expensive running 1,500myr and over. After looking for a long time, we finally found a smaller version at a more reasonable price of 400myr at our hardware store (Shong Heng the best Hardware and supply store in Seremban). The model came in Satin Nickel which looked better than chrome with the Bareno (Model UM 2039) sink we bought. So we ordered the sink faucet and it was sent from China; when it arrived it was this larger Genova Faucet Model (and Shong Heng gave it to us for the same price!). As for the VRH Water Filter Faucet everyone told us that in Malaysia you need a main water filter for the house and an additional filter in the kitchen for the drinking water as the water is very dirty. At first we thought we would get the water filter in the kitchen right away, but we have just hooked up the small faucet to the cold water for now as we are still thinking about if the water filter is really reliable enough, we aren't sure so we might just keep drinking bottled water.
B also installed the lower cabinets and handles... photos soon!
The first coat of Nippon Cement 9507 has been painted on the exterior of the house. They still have to paint one more coat, but the house is looking a bit lighter than we thought it would.
So in trying to determine the exterior property walls color, we have opted for a very dark grey, nearly black Nippon color S 8500-N (accent base). We think that the dark wall on the side and front of the property will give the house some color and character. With the bright flowers and greenery we will add to the flower pots on the exterior side wall and up on the second floor flower planter, we should get more color around the house.
Dark Wood Blinds in Master Bedroom (hard to photo as they are dark and walls are dark)
So I was thinking about how I plan to open and close the five windows in the Home Office throughout out the day. We need something that opens and closes easily and totally blocks out the sun when needed. We looked again at metal blinds, which seemed really cheaply made and we didn’t think traditional rod curtains would look good in an office. Then I saw some Roller Blinds with a cord on the side to pull them up and down. These are better than the old roller blinds I had in the US. So we were planning on getting a Seremban company to custom make some roller blinds (they are expensive and limited in colors to beige, white and grayish colors, still we thought they were our best option). Then when we were at Ikea buying the metal handles for the Kitchen Cabinets we saw the Tupplur Roller Shades in Black and figured out we could work with the sizes they came in by cutting the two small window blinds down in size to fit into the Bay window.
I am not a fan of Ikea, in fact, I didn’t like the products in the US at all, but in Malaysia there is such a limited selection of furnishings/houseware items that we find ourselves buying Ikea products (such as the art desk we also bought on our recent trip). The best part of the Tupplur Roller Shades is that they cost half the price of the Malaysian Roller Blinds and seem to be better quality. The drawback was that we would have to install the blinds ourselves (something I hate to do, but R seems pretty OK with). Cutting the two small blinds down and sawing off the metal tubes was like performing surgery and installing them in the odd sized space was very difficult and time consuming. But the blinds are up (except we have to screw the white ball cords to the wall which should be easy).
So now our Home Office is finally looking better. Remember this used to be the Master Bedroom when we bought the house. Awhile back we painted the gross sea-breeze-green-ish color on the walls to Nippon 145 White in Spotless. The two desks are Ikea (Vika Moliden Stainless Steel legs and Birch Effect Amon Table Tops) as well as the Leather Verner Chairs. The chairs are a bit ugly, but they were the only affordable AND comfortable chairs we could find. Some people told us not to buy leather because it is so hot in Malaysia that your back sweats if you are using a leather chair. So we bought a mesh back chair to use when we were living at the Condo and it was so uncomfortable and the mesh back started to rip... this chair is now placed in front of my art desk, but I don’t know if I will use it.
On Saturday the Painters power-washed the house to prepare it for painting, they say it is important to power-wash all of the old paint off the house and any peeling paint before painting. It was a HUGE mess. Water seeped into the windows inside the house, peeling paint landed on the ground and surrounding bushes and trees and it still remains. Luckily, we haven’t done the landscaping yet. After the power-washing episode, the painters painted two coats of Nippon Vinilex Wall Sealer 5100 over the ceiling of the roof underhang and walls of the entire house. The sealer is very important in Malaysia, because without the sealer they say the cement walls will peel; it is true because the sample colors R and I painted on the front of the house had already started to peel (after less than a couple weeks! And when they power-washed the sample color sections on the wall, the paint peeled off in giant chunks because we didn’t use sealer under the paint when we did our test). Yesterday the painters painted the ceiling of the roof underhang and today they have finally begun to paint the Exterior Walls with Nippon Cement 9507.
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