November 27, 2019
Like working on a blank canvas, couple Fadhli and Hazimah turned a wall in their minimalist home into a focal point with stucco and metallic groove lines.
“It’s definitely our feature wall,” says Fadhli when asked about the highlight of his home – a 7.5m accent takes up the entire width of the airy 5-room flat, which he shares with his wife, Hazimah.
View this project by Project Guru
“I just wanted a really large 75-inch TV,” confesses the cheery homeowner. “But it also needs a backdrop. Or else, it wouldn’t look nice enough, right?”
Impressive as it is, the TV wall set-up isn’t the only detail of the couple’s home that’s worth mentioning. The $57,000 makeover gave this new flat a breezy layout and an unmistakably classy air that’s played up by an abundance of marble surfaces.
To find out what they did to achieve the transformation of their home from basic BTO to refined apartment, we sat down with Fadhli and Hazimah for a quick afternoon chat.
Fadhli (F): I’m Fadhli and I live with my wife, Hazimah, in this 5-room BTO flat. Both of us are shift workers, and we often work 12-hour cycles, which is why we wanted our home to be a place of rest and a space where we can spend time with the people we care about.
Hazimah (H): That made the open-concept approach perfect for us – less furnishings and carpentry mean that we’d spend less time maintaining it.
F: I wanted an unhindered view of the TV from every corner – the kitchen, dining and living room – so we had it centralised, instead of placing it off to one side. The feature wall helps to anchor the space – the stucco and rose gold groove lines really makes it stand out.
H: The truth is, we aren’t fans of the rugged, more rustic look. That’s why we chose we marble finishes as they’re classier. You can see elements of that peppered throughout our home – for example, our TV console and dining table.
F: We used homogeneous floor tiles with a marble look too, but we changed it up in the kitchen. Since we don’t have a door to the kitchen, this contrast tells us that it’s a different area.
H: As we don’t cook much, we opted for white countertops and herringbone marble backsplash tiles. Our interior designer Clarice recommended that we hide away our power points and light switch underneath the cabinets.
F: Because it is an open-concept kitchen, you were able to see the louvre windows and bi-fold doors of the service yard so that had to go. We replaced them with sliding glass doors and encased that with black aluminum frames. This brightens and enlarges the look of the space.
H: Since we don’t have many built-ins, we bought storage beds instead. This keeps our luggage and other bulky items out of sight. There is one other room – we were planning to hack that spare away, but we didn’t go ahead with it. It’s now a flexible space and can be converted into a hobby or future nursery if the need arises.
F: While a walk-in wardrobe was in the cards, we decided against it – it will be too cramped in our master bedroom otherwise. So, we built in storage on the side, which also turned out to be a great move as we could use it to cover up a window (that leads to the aircon ledge). We call it our “Narnia” wardrobe (laughs)!
Peek into the couple's "Narnia" wardrobe.
H: The existing bathroom tiles were overlaid with marble lookalikes and the floor traps updated to make the flooring look more seamless, which is in line with our aesthetic. Then, as a call back to the service yard’s look, we chose black hardware like the black frosted glass door, a black frame for our shower and black bathroom accessories.
The couple did away with the shower screen, in order to better match the open-concept vibe they had going on.
H: We happened upon one of Clarice’s projects on Qanvast – the home had a modern-contemporary feel with loads of grey, very similar to our style, and I reached out to her by sending in a quote request to Project Guru.
F: Prior to meeting her, we met with other IDs as well, but they didn’t get our point of view, didn’t really quite know what we were trying to convey. Some of them also tried to talk me out of making our TV the focal point. Clarice was the one who understood our vision most.
H: Despite having 3 to 4 other projects happening at the same time, she kept us updated and project managed really well.
F: She even answered our renovation questions in the middle of the night – because we’re shift workers, we end up sending texts to her at 2 or 3am in the morning, but she still responds quickly.
H: It was just so easy to work with her – she felt more like a friend than anything else and we could talk about stuff outside of the renovation.
F: We’re extremely happy about how the home turned out – Clarice did a great job of realising our vision. The loose furnishings and open-concept gives us enough space to play with too, in case our family expands in the future.
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