A moody vintage walk-up apartment in Lavender

451

Virtual House Tour

Eclectic
Apartment
~900 sqft
2 br
Couple Living

Welcome to Ling House! Home to Ronn, Shu, and our rascal of a kitten, Mash. Our 850 sq ft, 3rd floor walk-up is located along the busy Lavender Street, and is filled with our love for antiques and personal stories. We actually named our home ‘Ling’, as in Zero in mandarin. As we hope that no matter how one feels as they walk into our home, they’ll be able to reset back to a 0 within the confines of this space; a respite from the business of everyday life, especially in Singapore.
Our apartment was previously used as a dormitory that had 4 rooms: 2 original bedrooms facing the main road, and 2 additional bedrooms erected within the living room. There was no living area and instead, a narrow corridor leading to a small kitchen and the bathroom area.
This is the view from our entryway. The design for our home was influenced by our shared love for antiques and cosy, chill low-lit areas. We went with a muted grey for the walls, so that we could display our thrifted antiques and collection of knick-knacks from our travels!
A closer peek at our knick knacks! We thrifted this little red flip clock from Penang, and the bird print was from a gallery in Penang too - the artist specialised in creating collages using old photos of people, superimposed on magazine cutouts or like here, an old comprehension book!
From the get go, we knew we wanted an open layout for the kitchen and living area, as we love hosting and this was to be the heart of our home. So we knocked down all the walls in the living room and the ones leading to the bathroom to open the space up entirely. The kitchen and kitchen island is the only built-in carpentry we have, so we focused on that for functionality and also design, asking ourselves how to maximise this space in the process! As we host private dining meals in our home, the 4m kitchen counter top was a big dream to have for additional prep space, with the kitchen island as a place to gather.
A close-up of where our mornings usually start! A cup of kopi with a memento from our trip to Taiwan.
A reminder to self: ‘ji de qu wan’ which means remember to play :)
Minimal built-in carpentry also meant we could play around with shifting furnitures around! Our low-seated ‘living area’ was designed to be cosy yet integrated with the kitchen, so that conversations could flow from both sides easily. Our friends and family who come over are encouraged to just sink into the furniture and be comfortable!
This is the extension of the ‘living area’, which was originally where the kitchen was pre-reno! We converted it to a laundry area, and it’s also a green area for our plant babies. In the evenings, we switch on the Kodak lightbox while having our dinners at the island. The lightbox was something special that Ronn found while on an antique hunting road trip with his dad in Malaysia, he brought it home and restored it to its former glory!
Here’s our bathroom area, we fell in love with the old pink tiles and wanted to retain it as part of the original state of the home - it also helps to differentiate the space from living area to the bathrooms!
This is our dining room which we use for hosting private dining meals! It seats a cosy 8-pax, and we went pretty eclectic for this space. Most of the decor items in this space were also actually thrifted!
Lastly, this is our bedroom, where we find a lot of respite in. Our ‘mini living area’, where we have our TV dinners and cosy gaming nights. As we host often, our bedroom is also our place for rest, so we kept things minimal. We are also big on DIY-ing furniture, so we made a little tile table using an Ikea TV console!
So that’s the end of our house tour, here’s our kitten Mash being a derp (as he is most of the time). We’re so looking forward to sharing more of our home’s journey with you all, so stay tuned! :) Find us on @0.linghouse for more stories and Mash content!