Build Diary 56 – Storage ready and painting walls

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Storage room done! 

Now that my external storage space is (finally) done, I’ve been able to start moving my extra boxes and random stuff (like all my winter clothes) into the storage room. It’s so lovely to not be surrounded by plastic boxes, cardboard boxes and suitcases in my home! 

One thing I learnt in my first year of living in Bali is that rooms without airflow get moldy very very quickly. We were renting a lovely 2 level home at that time. It had a small roughly constructed storage room around the side of the house, in an area we never used. 

I walked past it when we inspected the house and stuck my head in the door and saw an empty dark room with no windows or natural light, and a very musky smell. After moving in, we basically forgot about the space until a few months later when we pushed the door often and found the wall full of mold. It felt very post-apocalyptic. I quickly realised that airflow is essential in the tropics!

With this is mind, when I built our villa I knew that we needed to be very careful. We put in extractor fans in each of the storage rooms and connected them to a timer so they would run twice a day for a hour. Fortunately, this worked very well, and we haven’t had any mold issues. So I decided to do the same thing in our new storage room and use the same method . Fingers crossed it works!

Preparing the walls 

We moved into our local home in a rush. We only had time to do a very quick renovation. See HERE to relive the stress! We needed to get the house to a standard that we could live in comfortably (no more squat toilets etc). 

One thing I really wanted to do is paint my walls! They were in terrible shape as they had long rough concrete patches in them from the renovation. But the walls hadn’t been finished as there simply wasn’t time. Honestly, since we moved in, the walls have been annoying and frustrating me on a daily basis. 

Finally we’ve been able to work on the walls. Step 1 was to prepare the walls! They were not looking good so holes needed to be patched and smoothed down, and waterproofing needed to be done in places.

We’ve been using our new handyman Jen, who did such a good job on the storage room. 

So for the past week or so, Jen has been hard at work preparing our walls. So far, so good. I can’t wait to see them after they’ve been painted!

Bucket listing 

There’s no doubt that Bali is a global culinary destination. In addition to home grown talent, incredibly talented chefs from all over the world have made Bali their island home and have set up amazing restaurants. 

Since I’ve been here, I’ve been lucky to eat some spectacular food, and there is one place I’ve always wanted to experience, but hadn’t had the chance. 

Recently, I ticked it off the bucket list. Room 4 Dessert in Ubud was my destination, and what an experience it was. Originally, the restaurant featured a tasting menu of entirely desserts (sounds like my dream!)  but more recently, it has been expanded to include entrees and mains, though it’s still the desserts that steal the show. 

Chef Will Goldfarb is clearly a dessert genius! Every single moment of our tasting menu was spectacular, but it’s no surprise that the desserts were my favourites. I also loved that you move around to different sections of the restaurant space as you eat your way through the tasting menu. I even got to have my fan-girl moment as Will came and visited our table to describe his amazing concoctions and stay for a chat.

I had met Will a few years ago, during Covid when Ubud basically closed down, and Will opened a little pop up sandwich cafe in Canggu to earn some money so he could keep on all his staff. Those sandwiches were sensational and I knew I had to make it up to Ubud to see the real deal. I’m so glad I did! Highly highly recommended. 

I made a little reel about my experience, check it out HERE 

Birthday month

August is a big month in my household. Both my kids have their birthdays. First up is my son Phoenix who turned 9. Then it’s Luna who turned 12. These days, we often ask our kids what they want for their birthday and they are able to choose. 

Phoenix wanted a new bike, and to pat some alpacas (he is such an animal lover!), while Luna wanted a dinner party with her friends. So we made it happen.

Happy anniversary! 

While on the subject of celebrations. I recently celebrated my 25th wedding anniversary with my husband. Yes, I did get married young! But when you know, you know! From travelling the world, raising kids, building homes and doing life together, I’ve been very lucky to do it with him. Happy anniversary Sasha!