The Eccentricity of an Artistic Couple’s Apartment
238
Virtual House Tour
- Eclectic
- HDB (BTO)
- ~1,000 sqft
- 4 br
- Couple Living
Welcome to an artistic couple's apartment! 
Hello! We're a couple in our mid-thirties – I'm a Product Manager for an E-commerce company, while my wife is a freelance Copywriter. I studied Design in school, and she has a general eye for aesthetics, so I would say that we are quite a creative couple! I am very excited to tell you about my first home, which was a real labour of our love. Our interior designer (ID) was very helpful during the entire process as he guided us along and evaluated the feasibility of our ideas. Let me now welcome you to my humble abode! 
Even though we are artistic, we want our house to be functional, so we had a few ground rules. Since many of our personal items are flamboyant and bright, we paired them with a simple interior colour scheme (white paint wash, light oak furniture, matte grey laminate, and dark green accents). We also want the house to have a more homely “lived in” vibe so that we can feel welcomed everytime we set foot into our house. 
Paying for built-in furniture can be very costly in our little red dot, so we kept custom carpentry to a minimum. That way, if we want to rearrange our living space in future, we can simply swap out pieces of standalone furniture. 
Our house is approximately 990 sqft wide, and this is our first time living in a house that we can confidently call our own, so there was a tremendous amount of effort pumped into the designing of this house. Let’s start our journey right away! 
I spend most of my day at home for work and leisure, and thought I'd feel quite uncomfortable if I was exposed to passing strangers all day who may peek into the house and see me lounging around casually. So we decided to put up a wall to block away most of our living space from the entrance view. Instead of a wall, window slats would have also worked as an alternative. It allows light to shine through into the entrance, which would have been nice. Most of the benches we viewed were either too narrow to be sat on, or too long to fit this corner to the right of the door. We struggled to find the perfect piece, but found this entry bench that is just the right size. 
Since we're rather new owners of an entryway, we don't have very good ideas about how to furnish it... So far, we're quite pleased with the useful console table and umbrella stand. We initially wanted to have a standing lamp, but it’s regrettable that we didn’t request for any sockets to be included here… Oh well, we’ll take note of it next time! :( I also have a habit of buying small and cute souvenirs, so I’m thankful that I can use this area to showcase them to our visitors. 
We were lucky that this apartment, which we bought through the Sale of Balance Flats scheme, was already without a kitchen wall. I prefer an open kitchen because it is spacious, as it gives off a more inviting and welcoming aura. Closed kitchens can sometimes be too warm. My wife and I love to cook, so we wanted an island table that was an appropriate height for us. We always wanted the countertop to be slightly raised, but didn’t know how high it should go. The slightly taller-than-normal countertop we have now is comfortable to prep food on. If we went ahead with a high bar table, we’d look like children chopping up ingredients on a table that’s too tall for us. D: 
Here’s where the matte grey laminate comes to life! I personally don’t like shiny and glossy surfaces that reflect lots of glare, so this laminate is really soothing to my eyes. It also helps the house to look more modern, but dust settles on the laminate often and it gets hard to clean. We gotta admit, there were bad decisions made during our interior designing process. Our ID recommended for us to install a dry rack that was meant to be BOTH functional and aesthetic. We don’t use it at all, so it is now used for solely aesthetic purposes… 
Push-open cabinets are more common nowadays, but I prefer old-fashioned handles like these. They are flat and rectangular shaped and I can effortlessly hang and reach for my dish cloths. Aren’t the handles pretty? Here you can really tell that my wife has an artistic bone in her body, because she has a collection of both bought and made ceramics kept in one of these cabinets! She doesn't really use them but she likes to show them off, haha. 
There is also a service yard where my washing machine and dryer are stored. At first, we didn’t know if we wanted gas work to be done in our home because we would have to pay an extra bill every month, but living in Singapore is already so expensive… We ultimately went along with it because we installed a bathtub in our bathroom, and running a full tub of water on electricity would cost a bomb. Our dryer and water heater now run on gas, so the gas installation proved to be a good investment. Our current living room and reading room were originally two separate bedrooms collapsed into a single space that feels much more open. The room that was meant to be the actual living room was converted into a study room. We spent quite a bit of time looking for the sofa, but settled for a felt fabric one that is easier to maintain. 
Don’t the natural bamboo blinds remind you of old-styled restaurants? These natural bamboo blinds make me feel like I’m immersed in a calming rustic ambience, which makes the house feel more relaxing and laid back! All the windows in our house are also mosquito-netted to block out pests. 
My favourite part of this area is definitely my little art exhibition wall on the left side of the living room. My wife actually curated it herself - she follows quite a number of illustrators on social media and supports them by buying their prints and framing them up. We don’t buy frames purposefully to fill up the space on the wall, but because we admire these specific art works. This portion of the house is definitely a work in progress. 
We have a common toilet right beside the living room! It’s kinda plain looking but we were happy to leave it alone since it’s not too shabby, so I’m glad that we didn’t have to fork out money to renovate this area… 
The master bedroom is mostly occupied by loose furniture pieces. IDs can pressure you into having carpentry done to your entire room to maximise the space. We gave it some thought but decided to stick to having as little custom carpentry as possible. We decided to be bold and experimental with the interior of the bathroom. I chose terracotta tiles because I think it’s aesthetic. We also requested for a little bit of carpentry for the medicine shelf and lower cabinet, but nothing too fancy. 
From Murakami’s ‘Kafka on the Shore’ to Daniel Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’, my wife is an avid fan of reading books that span across genres! She loves fiction books that have magical elements in it because it allows her to escape into another world... Although she has cultivated a habit of reading on her kindle in recent years, she buys books that she wants to own in hard copy. This reading area also has travel books and several graphic novels that she has collected throughout the years. I mostly use this area to nap lol. One thing I would like to change about this area is the open shelves. Initially, I thought that open shelves would be more effective because I like my books out on display and I can just grab what I want to read in seconds. They also take up less space than closed cabinets. Our apartment can get humid and slightly dusty, so dust settles on the shelves quite frequently. We need to fork out more time to clean it. After learning about this problem as a first-time owner, I will definitely opt for closed cabinets the next time I own a new home… Apparently looking at greenery is supposed to make your eyesight better, right? Being a plant parent was a hobby that was on my mind before I moved into my own home. However, I didn’t know that the number of plants would continue to grow as the months went by… I kept buying more and more plants, so much so that they have made their way to occupy two levels of my open shelves. They’re so cute, and it makes me happy to know that with the help of my love and care, the plants are growing well! The study room is hands down, the most functional place of this house. My wife, who is a freelance Copywriter, works from home most of the time, so a practical desk is much needed. Her workspace is where she spends most of her time at home, so she put in quite a lot of effort to make sure that she will have a comfortable time typing away on her laptop here. She also has colourful ornaments to accompany her as she works. 
This long table was supposed to be a dining table out in the reading corner, but we don’t use it often. Instead of having it out and unused in the open, we made it into a study table. I use it and slave away here when working from home. This long table can also become especially useful when we host guests. I have some foldable chairs in the storeroom, and at that time we bring them out for our guests to sit around the large dining table. To quote Murakami’s novel ‘Sputnik Sweetheart’, “I dream. Sometimes I think that’s the only right thing to do.” I think that this house embodies the home that I always dreamed of, and it is a place that is imperfectly perfect. This apartment will always be a constant, where my wife and I embrace the memorable times we have, and are going to have, in this shelter we call home. We are satisfied with our space (for now), but till then, this home will continue to be where we find solace, peace, with two artistic people as one.
- 2 February 2023
Report Post