Black upholstered headboard

With so much time spent at home, many of us are paying more attention to our surroundings – and discovering that we don’t like what we see. Now might not be the time for a gut renovation, given the social distancing measures still in place and shifting rules regarding construction in different areas and apartment buildings. But it’s a good time to think about smaller home improvement projects. If you’re willing to tackle the work yourself, there are changes you can make that won’t cost much but will have a big effect on the appearance and comfort of your home. A few designers recently shared some of their favourite budget-friendly DIY projects. PAINT TARGETED AREAS Painting has long been touted as one of the least expensive ways to make a big aesthetic change. But there’s a caveat that’s often left out: Painting all the rooms in a home, from ceilings to baseboards, is a massive undertaking that can require weeks of neck-craning effort. For more immediate gratification, … [Read more...] about Staying in on the weekend? Try some budget-friendly home improvement projects

Luzanne Chong and her husband Chris have two reasons for falling in love with their new 1,100 sq foot, three-bedroom condominium apartment: The convenient location in Tampines, and the unblocked view of the greenery from the sixth floor. Ironically, for them to truly feel at home, they needed the space to remind them of their holidays, or more specifically, the high-end hotels they had stayed in, such as Bangkok’s Marriott Marquis, the Intercontinental Singapore at Bugis, and the Ritz-Carlton Millennia Singapore. The first things that Luzanne and Chris turned their attention to were the apartment’s bare walls. “When you enter a hotel room, you do not see white or painted walls,” said Luzanne, who works as the head of customer experience at an insurance firm. “So we covered the entire apartment’s walls with wallpaper,” she said, revealing that she sourced the wallpaper from Retro Dec. READ: How a 732 sq ft open-plan HDB home uses mobile furniture for a new layout every … [Read more...] about How a small family’s 3-bedroom condo got a hotel makeover using wallpaper

I t was a New York winter day, frozen and gray and violently blustery. Indoors, out of the fearful cold, people seemed somehow gentler toward one another – strange in New York City – as if it was enough to battle the elements, no need to battle each other. Inside his manager’s neo-turn-of-the-century apartment, on a sofa near the radiant fireplace, sat Jimi Hendrix , in a gentle, almost reticent frame of mind. The light snow had begun to fall. You could see that through the narrow slits where the curtain allowed the merest sliver of daylight and streetscene to penetrate into the gloomy dark room. On the same sofa, and on a richly upholstered chair next to it, sat the members of Jimi Hendrix ’s new band. He had broken up the old Experience (Noel Redding on bass, Mitch Mitchell, drums) at some indeterminate point during the Fall. He had been living and jamming with an all-purpose crew of musicians – everything from older black gentlemen from the South who played blues guitar, to … [Read more...] about Hendrix: The End Of A Beginning, Maybe

Kazuo and Caryn are avid art collectors who also happen to be huge fans of Japanese architect Tadao Ando’s bold, modern design sensibilities. So what did they do to combine both passions? The couple engaged interior design firm Craftsmen Studio for an art gallery-themed renovation, featuring a monochrome palette of white, grey, black. The result is a space that showcases their impressive collection of works by renowned contemporary artists such as Ai Weiwei, Murakami, Nara, Daido Moriyama, Kevin Lyons and Panupong Tantiyothin. “The idea of bringing the outdoors ‘street’ into the indoors ‘house’ is the key driver of this collection. Most art galleries have high ceilings, blank canvases and open spaces to allow one to concentrate on the art. We adopted similar principles in having a clean aesthetic/background,” said Kazuo, who works as a risk manager in the financial industry. Born and raised in Sao Paulo, he spent eight years studying and working in Tokyo; his father … [Read more...] about How a couple made room in their 990 sq ft HDB flat for a lot of art and a yoga studio