And here we go… So the first cut with the designer was with someone who can give us a modular kitchen. ok fine, we forgot his name. (Edited) Chun Keat from Stosa Design. He imports Italian kitchen cabinets which really looked atas! But the price comes atas as well. Also, there were restrictions as to the modular sizes and the heights and all. We also explored another designer (edited Gary Koh from Ark Interior) at Katong Road who drives a Porsche, is a property agent and keeps selling us how good his designs were but his designer was so busy flying she couldn’t give us a design that we will like. She was not attentive to our needs, and she could not show us that she can pay full attention to what is required to be done. Hence, we felt that it was quite dangerous to have them manage the renovation of the place.
So whenever we talked to the designers, we wanted them to give us their ideas, so that we are able to gauge whether they know what we would like, as we are also not really sure what we wanted to aim for. So yeah we know what we don’t want, but we don’t know what we want.
We met up a few designers, which we all did not like. They are either too expensive, too full of themselves, too “don’t get us”. What we wanted was someone who can tell us the concept, rather than we tell them what exactly we want, else we will not need the interior designer at all right?
So with the hefty price, we decided to explore more of the customized kitchen cabinets as Blum hinges proved to be able to have a combination of required spaces. It will be simpler if we went ahead with a carpenter for the cabinets using Blum hinges, which gave a lot of flexibility. So upon going down to Blum showroom, we found Icon Interior who is an authorized installer of Blum. We went down to Icon Interior and met Joyce, our interior designer who, in the end made our lives so simple. She was very patient and attentive to each of our needs and wants and was able to question us to a solution that she can come up with. I must say she is very experienced with difficult customers.
So we were kind of selected and liked this interior designer who just joined Icon Interior and she was able to help us, with the feminine touch. And just this moment, we were directed to look for WeCreative Yanti to give us a design and quote as a friend of the family. So after speaking with them, they gave us some of their impressions as below and we felt….
This is the lift area where you will be greeted with 2 tall cabinets at the left and right, it feels very boxed up and you will find yourself looking really small.
On the other side, there is this mirror shoe cabinet and the decoration that looks really artistic and atas.
Walking into the house, after entering the door, you will see the display cabinet of all the glasses and then the dey pantry area. The walls leading to the rooms looked kinda wierd.
On the other side of the display cabinet is somewhat like a bar counter, that will be nice but then it looks like a bar. So it was not really fancied, and also felt that the wine bottles display on top was quite old-fashioned. Colour combi is nice though.
Standing in the living/dining/piano area, the place looks clustered with the wine bottles shelving on top. Lightings plan look pretty good in this picture.
The table that was bought already was incorporated into the impression for the whole colour scheme to fall in place.
The idea was later turned into having an open concept kitchen when the exhaust was tested to be useful in removing the oil and the smoke from all the cooking.
Because the whole room is so big, we realize that the whole toilet took up half of the whole room, and the bathtub took up half of the bathroom. And because the bathtub is pretty unwanted, we have to really crack our brains to think of what we can put in that space if we are able to remove the bathtub. So to each designer we went, we explored removing the bathtub. To all, it could be done at our request, but the most crucial part is they don’t know what to do with it. Some ideas they have thought about was to put shelves, or cabinet there. And to put the cabinets there, would mean that the lights coming through from the window will be then blocked by the cabinets, which would make the place dark. Even though there are going to be lights, we thought it would be really nice to have the sun coming in.
So when it came to the bathtub, she gave a really good idea to remove the bathtub and make the whole bathroom smaller, converting the whole bathtub area into a music area that is so suitable! We were very shocked at it and it is definitely the right time for her to come in at this time to add in this idea.
Sadly, we did not use her whole entire design for the house as we felt that it was not all aligned to our liking. We really liked the idea of the music area and incorporated into the new design of the whole place and it has never changed since.
So to sum up Yanti design, we got really good ideas from the last minute pop-up idea which we were really thankful for. That really solved the whole issue of having the bathtub that was so uncalled for. It would have been a white elephant if there was not conclusion about it. However, we did not go ahead with her plans as we felt that the overall design of the place is not something that will last.