Another Kitchen Makeover

If you look back through this blog, I had shared a kitchen-related post way back in November 2020. Much has changed around the kitchen since then as it seems to be the one place in the house that requires constant work.

Kitchen in 2019

To start with, the house next door got sold a little over a year back. The new owners wanted to carry out renovations as per their taste. Since one of the kitchen walls is shared, their over-the-top tile work had immediate repercussions in ours. The dampness caused one wall to peel through the year, barely six months after I had a patchwork paint job done for the peeling in 2022.

Meanwhile the adjoining wall with a wooden cabinet fared worse. It suffered an acute termite infestation and the cabinet had to be discarded, leaving behind a marked wall.

Missing cabinet - 2023

We had to rearrange all the crockery and stocks that were in the discarded cabinet. We also got a made-to-order iron rack in the kitchen that could hold the essentials like flour and rice.

Kitchen in 2024

Earlier this month when a neighbour was getting a house-painting job done, we got our kitchen a fresh coat too. The slab is still crowded but at least everything looks spring-cleaned.

My learning from these repeated episodes of kitchen renovation: the modular style just does not work here for the long term. Local workmen fool residents into believing that the newest materials are superior and will make a difference but the reality is far from that. In a place prone to general dampness, termite attacks, and even flooding, the only viable option is a metal and stone kitchen. The kitchen in my parents' DDA apartment fared much better, lasting well over 35+ years!

Using My Painted Bottle-vases

Just realized looking through my last post that I hadn’t really shared with you the pictures of my bottle-vases in action. So here goes….

This one sits on the washbasin countertop of the kiddy bathroom, holding paper flowers. Fits in with the butterflies and dragonflies that flit across it!

And the smaller one is used to hold the fresh flowers that my babies get me from their walks around the house.

Will give a garden update in my next post. Till then, enjoy the mid-week madness!

Vacation Vagaries

I’ve had a busy fortnight; hope that explains my sudden disappearance.


The kids decided they had to do some summer vacation stay-overs. So off my five year old son went to his paternal uncles’ place. And two days later my three year old got dropped off at grandma’s. That left a very paranoid mommy at home!


There I was on tenterhooks, swinging between worry and happiness. Worried at how my munchkins would manage on their own. After all this was the first time they were staying alone, without each other for sibling support. But I was happy that they were learning to strike out on their own, make individual choices and lead independent lives.




But mommy missed her munchkins so much that she painted them a surprise. So their bathroom got a Froggy with a red umbrella, sitting pretty on lotus leaves while giant mushrooms peeked from the sides! :) Yes, all this on a glass jam bottle that I turned into a toothbrush holder. For more details, read here.




This new holder complements the glass bottle-vase so well. And they both enliven the washbasin area, just as it should be in kiddy space.

Tying Up Loose Ends

We just completed two months of living in our new residence. These have been two months of hard work, trying to tie up all the loose ends that keep popping up once you start living in a new house.

Remember the grill painting exercise that I talked about here? Well, much as we tried, hubby and me could not progress beyond one balcony. So we finally hired some painters to finish the paint job for us in all four balconies.

One of the painters busy painting our kitchen balcony grill

We also got additional grills fitted on the windows of the living room and the kids' bedroom. Security is one aspect where there is no compromise, so this was another major loose end tied up. Phew!

A peek of our living room grills

Leaking faucets and WCs, broken latches and sundry other work also took up our time.

Almost all our weekends zip by in getting these loose ends tied up. But we aren't really complaining (at least not yet!). After all nothing beats the pleasure of living in your own brand new home. :)

Painting Our Grills

We have had some harrowing times with getting odd jobs done around the new house. For one, due to the high demand for skilled masons, carpenters and painters in this area (due to lots of new construction projects), the workers charge an exorbitant sum. Imagine paying 150 rupees to get a 70 rupees worth door latch fixed!

Secondly, the quality is never guaranteed. In fact, we realized that despite paying a princely sum, we were very often at the mercy of completely unskilled labour. Like our fabricator who used inferior quality primer on our grill work, causing parts of it to catch some rust.

That is when the hubby and I decided to do the paint job for the new grills ourselves.

And so we’ve been hard at work the past two weekends trying to figure out how best to tackle it all. We bought some metal paint, a thinning agent, a couple of brushes and got down to it. Though our pace is rather slow, at least we know that the quality won’t get compromised. We just completed the grills on one balcony – they don’t look too bad, what say?

Will keep you posted on how and when the remaining ones get done.

Any tips from anyone on how best to finish our grill painting?

P.S: I must admit that I found the painting exercise immensely therapeutic. And got to spend some quality time with the hubby in the process. Talk of killing two birds with one stone!