An executive maisonette, deconstructed and reassembled

497

Virtual House Tour

Eclectic
HDB (Maisonette)
≥1,500 sqft
3 br
Couple Living

Hi there! We are the owners of Casa Ecléctica, and welcome to our home tour in pictures. As we progressed along our renovation journey back then, one question we could never quite answer was, “What is our interior design theme?” We did not want to end up with a “show flat” that only looks pretty but is not practical. Above everything else, our apartment was designed to be functional so we went with whatever we like and made sense. We have termed our apartment “casa ecléctica”, which is Spanish for “eclectic house”. Eclectic themes are often associated with quirkiness and loud colours but to us, it is an embodiment of different interior design themes that somehow came together to create a coherent picture. ••• The first thing most people notice when they visit our place is the porcelain floor tiles which have the look of luxurious marble but not the maintenance challenges. It was not quite the cement-like look we wanted originally but when we first saw the tile design in a large format in the showroom, we fell hopelessly in love with it. 1200mm x 1200mm would have been more resplendent but it was also much more expensive. We settled for 600mm x 1200mm instead and the effect turned out to be pretty nice as well.
We don’t know why kids are so fascinated by our staircase, or just staircases in general. They would be running up and down, and all we could think about was their safety. But we had to concede that staircases have their appeal. What’s not to like about a staircase anyway? We decided to go with timber strips on the stair treads, but not the risers, to give the staircase a clean modern look. While black mild steel was the intended material choice for the staircase railing, we were originally thinking of having minimal horizontal balusters. BCA must have other plans for us - it would seem - and to be compliant, we ended up with an extremely safe design that has more vertical balusters than we can count with our fingers and toes The current staircase railing design grew on us over time and we now think it accentuates the lines in our apartment.
The upper half of the staircase poses a potential safety hazard, yet it adds a certain dimensionality to the lines in the apartment. A diagonal stroke in the middle of nowhere amidst the verticals and horizontals, which is probably why EMs are so dang attractive.
Question: How do you tell people that you are staying in an apartment with 2 floors? Answer: Show them this photo. Sure, there are many interesting EM design configurations out there but few have this unique split-level view that lets both floors be visible at the same time. In our opinion, cross-sectional views are what makes Lego or doll houses appealing, because unless you have X-ray vision like Superman, you can’t see what’s going on inside, no matter how grand or beautiful the house may look from the outside. We can’t exactly remove our external facade so this proxy cross-sectional view is as close as we can ever get to that Lego house appeal.
Don’t judge a book by its cover, but sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. We would say that this picture moved hearts. It tempted our ex-neighbour to contemplate moving into an executive maisonette, and we very nearly ended up being neighbours once again.
Quite literally, what the hack?! We tore down almost every wall that could be demolished in the EM to maximise light and airflow. We then reconfigured every single inch to accommodate our living habits and daily workflow.