JULY’17 FAVORITES

Another monthly favs! Here are my top picks from this month:

[The subtle art of not giving a f*ck –  IDR 256.000]

A counter-intuitive approach to living a good life. One thing I’ve learned from this book is to “choose your fucks wisely.” – WORD.

 

[Rollover Reaction SUEDED lip & cheek cream – IDR 129.000]

Forget Kylie lip kits & try this local brand! Not that I’m against Kylie Lip kits (i love Dolce K), but RR provides a better texture & you can use it as your lip cream, blush on, and eyeshadow. It’s perfect for your everyday use, quite long lasting, and super affordable. Plus, I’m currently obsessed with OMBRE lips effect, so this has been one of my Go-To beauty products! I usually wear LUCY (on the outer lip) & LIVV/UMMA (on the inner lip). MOSS & SALLY are my other favs too!

 

[The Daily Stoic: 366 meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and The Art of Living – IDR 363.000] 

A nice way to start your day in the morning! “One page a day, keeps your negativity away” – this book is meant to be read one day at a time, it’s simple yet uplifting. It provides lessons about personal growth, life management, and practicing mindfulness.

 

[Pop socket – IDR 4.000]

Trust me, it’s a better option than a ring holder. Normally these kind of pop sockets are being sold around 50k-75k each, but lemme tell you where i got mine… tokopedia! for only 4k each! I bought a bunch of them and gave it away for my fam members cos it’s so cheap! I bought myself a simple grey colored one so I can put stickers on top of it. Soooo useful and looks CUTE AF ❤

 

[Double-sided Pill Box – IDR 25.000 Daiso]

The perfect pill container for those of you who has allergies/ who gets sick easily! It’s a double sided box with a total of 7 compartments, making it easy for you to bring different kind of meds. I literally bring this wherever i go. Put this inside your purse & you can pop your pills anytime anywhere! (why does it sounds so wrong though?)

Apartment Home Decor (AFTER)

After months of decorating and shopping for home goods, finally i can call this apartment ‘my home sweet home’.

First of all, I’d like to personally thank Billie (my contractor), Linda & Melvin from @helloembryo (my interior designer) for fulfilling my dream apartment! Also thanks for capturing these amazing shots @mariowibowophotography! Last but not least, special recognition to my little furry model @tokyotheyorkie ❤

Welcome to my apartment home tour!

Foyer

An instant warm and cozy feeling when you first enter the space..

Entrance from foyer

Living room area + home office corner

Having hardwood floors definitely has its good and bad sides. Well the good thing is that it frickin’ look amazing in real life! so pinterest! LOL #Truestory : few of my friends who visited my apartment for the very 1st time told me that they feel like walking through a coffee shop / bar lounge lol (not a typical indonesian home – hence NOT MAINSTREAM). Now the bad thing is that if you have kids/pets, they will literally destroy everything. NEVER use hardwood floors if you have kids/pets. PERIOD. It scratches easily (esp if you have kids/pets running around) and water/any liquid spill is a big NO NO. So you better make up your mind before deciding to stick with hardwood floors, whether it’s worth the hassle or not. As for me right now, having hardwood floors with herringbone pattern is EVERYTHING ❤

@tokyotheyorkie fav’s corner

For the TV console, we decided to incorporate wood element & minimalist style, with versatile opening/closing.

TV console (open)

TV console (close)

Dining area

Another statement piece would be this solid wood dining table, made from “Trembesi Wood” – it just screams SCANDI.

Open kitchen & dining area

From what I’ve learned while doing my own home decor, plants really make a difference! If you feel like you’ll ended up killing real plants, then just simply buy fake plants – it’ll still gives a pop of color and pleases the eyes at the same time!

#Shelfies

So I told my designer to create something unique and cool for the guest bathroom. Why? because guests will use it often & I want them to feel comfortable and inspired at the same time. So thoughtful of me, right? 🙂 Plus, I kinda want to impress my guests tbh haha.

Guest Bathroom

Herringbone statuario marble pattern – basically this is such a pain in the ass to work with. Fyi, this bathroom took the longest out of the entire renovation process! Every time i visited the site to check in with the progress, the workers always gave me that “look what have you done. YOU’RE TORTURING US” look. But oh well, it’s worth it! 3 P – “Patience, Persistence, & Perseverance” screams all over my guest bathroom walls LOL. Can’t be more happier with the final result!

Herringbone marble pattern – TO DIE FOR

Aisle between master bedroom & walk-in closet

White brick walls & Concrete walls – I’ve always had a thing for white bricks & concrete walls, so i said ‘why not having both of them in the master bedroom?’ Scores!

Master bedroom

Walk-in closet with open wardrobe system – against all odds (my mom’s never-ending rants about how unhygienic it will be & all the dusts involved later on).. I decided to still have open wardrobe closets – cos if not now, when? before having kids and all that, let’s just experience having a bachelor-pad kinda vibe. YOLO right?

Walk-in closet with open wardrobe system

So that’s all. Hope you enjoy my apartment tour. There are a few rooms that I didn’t post here (guest bedroom, master bathroom, and laundry room). Maybe I’ll post it next time? We’ll see.

Anyway, here’s the vendor list I use (incase you’re wondering/ you’re just being snoopy) :

• Contractor : Billie Woen (best decision ever) – pm me if you want his contact number (indonesia based)
• Interior Designer : Hello Embryo (it’s like finding your spouse – deep inside, you need to feel like it’s “THE ONE”) – @helloembryo (indonesia & singapore based)
• Built-in furnitures : Hamdani (custom)
• L-shaped sofa: Homedecor Fatmawati (custom)
• Curtains : Homedecor Fatmawati, Interni (custom)
• Solid wood dining table & side tables : Accupunto
• Master bedframe : Ethnic craft
• Dining chairs : Informa
• Marble slabs : somewhere in Sunter area i think
• Hardwood floor : Armani Parquet
• Ceramics : Venus, Wisma Sehati
• Bathroom appliances : Toto
• Lightning : Laluce, Informa
• Fridge : Hitachi
• Stove & Oven : Bosch
• Cooker hood : Ariston
• Air conditioner : Daikin
• Washer machine : LG
• Dryer machine : Electrolux
• Mattress : Serta 
• Coffee table & Bar stools : IKEA
• Artprints : www.etsy.com

Feel free to drop me a message if you have any questions.

Happy decorating!

 

-JL

Apartment Home Transformation (BEFORE)

Me and my husband got married in January 2016. Prior to our wedding day, we only got approx 8 months to renovate & move to our new apartment home. It was a long and fun journey, you know.. planning for wedding & new home at the same time.. mini heart attacks here and there for sure.

Long story short, we decided to do a full renovation. Although our apartment building is old on the outside & interior wise (classic roman themed), but overall it’s pretty legit- meaning that the developers who made the apartment really took their time using all quality stuffs, not like those new developers who prefer quantity over quality.

So moving on to the renovating & decorating part – which is the most exciting part! 🙂 My design taste is leaning towards industrial, scandinavian/nordic, dark bold colors (grey/black), marble, brass, dim lights, coffee/lounge ambiance, and loft kind vibes. While william’s taste is more like wood/earthy tones, light & bright colors, airy, simple and functional. So after tons of disagreements & cat fights, we decided to act like adults, put our negotiation skills to use, and try to find the middle ground (you’ll definitely learn to accept & let go your ego at this stage lol)

Here’s the before pictures…

 

kitchen area

living room area

master bedroom

(Pictures above: living room, kitchen, master bedroom)

 

Some of our major hauls we did to the apartment:

• Extended the ceiling height for the entire space – this changed the vibe immediately, making it more spacey and flowy.
• Made deep ceiling cove lights on both bedrooms, living room, and dining area (we use the maximum height).
• Changed the marble flooring to hardwood flooring (except the bathrooms, kitchen & laundry area)
• Merged 2 rooms into 1 master bedroom – my dream walking closet came true!
• The kitchen space used to be confined with frame walls & it has that ugly retro tiles (eww). When we opened up the kitchen area, the apartment looks bigger instantly!

 

 

(Pictures above: kitchen, bathroom, dining area)

 

The renovation ended up making it quite on time. Although we had to spend the first week sleeping at my mom-in-laws’ house due to our bed frame’s late delivery, we managed to move to our apartment the following week.

As a new apartment-home owner, I’m glad we’re living in an apartment. I think it’s the best way to live as a newlywed couple, considering I’m not ready for any “maid drama” (indo peeps, you know what I’m talking about right? haha).  Currently we have 2 on-call maids who come once/twice a week & work for 4 hrs a day. Later when we have kids, we’ll def have a maid or two, but for now, privacy is number one. I think that on our first year of marriage, we need to settle down first with our spouse, be an independent home/apartment owner, and have enough privacy for both of us. Why waste our energy and time with something that isn’t our priorities, right? Try to live simple but effective at the same time.

Anyways, I’ll post the “after” pictures & my list of vendors on my next post. Stay tuned!

-JL

JUNE’17 FAVORITES

Welcome to my very first MONTHLY FAVORITES!
Here are my top picks from this month:

 

[ Fiddle Leaf Fig Tree – IDR 275.000]

This tree will definitely add those Scandi vibes to your room! Keep in mind that this plant is known to be very sensitive. Do not over water them – i had mine watered once a week. After months and months of searching, FINALLY I got mine at Taman Puring (inside the Gelora Bung Karno, Senayan) – make sure to use your bargaining skill while dealing with the seller.

[ GIGANTISK Touch top trash can, dark gray – IDR 599.000]

Upgraded my kitchen trash can to this beaut & I’m supaaa ecstatic! Seriously though, the “touch top” thingy sold me! The design is very minimalist & functional at the same time. A great investment overall.

[ HICOOK Flame Gun – IDR 238.000] 

Decided to purchase this flame gun so I can make some Salmon Aburo Nigiri at home. And guess what, I’m addicted to it! – now I literally seared everything I eat – salmon, tuna, tofu, cheese, corn…. and the list goes on! Bought mine at Foodhall Belezza, Permata Hijau. Try Tokopedia, they sell it way cheaper.

[ Google Home – Smart Speaker & Home Assistant – $129] 

You can link this speaker to your Spotify, Youtube, SmartTV & even to your home system. You can pretty much ask anything.. from your day-to-day schedule (linked to your Google Calendar), Directions (from Google Map), and other random questions. However, this is not available yet in Indonesia. I find it quite useful at times, but sometimes the speaker just couldn’t get what you’re commanding.. hence you ended up screaming to a machine lol.

[ Kiehl’s Calendula Deep Cleansing Foaming Face Wash – IDR 399.000]

I find that this cleanser doesn’t make my skin dry. Ideal for use on all oily skin types including sensitive skin. Bye hormonal acne! Tried other brands such as Cetaphil, H2O, Biore & Garnier – all did nothing compared to this. Anyways, bought this cleanser at Kiehls Plaza Senayan.