Here’s what you can do with a 4.5-metre-tall ceiling at home.
Black N White Haus Director Vincent Ang is used to designing homes: after all, he has worked on all types of houses, from HDB flats to landed properties, throughout his 14 year-long career in Singapore’s interior design industry. But even for a seasoned veteran like himself, there’s a first time for everything.
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“It’s the first time that we’re tackling a penthouse unit like this,” says Vincent, referring to his firm’s latest project, a welcoming, mod-industrial family home with a mezzanine loft that was built across two and a half months. To find out more about this impressive renovation, we spoke to Vincent who revealed the ins-and-outs of the entire process.
About the design brief
Vincent (V): The owners are in their early forties and they have a young daughter. Decor-wise, they had some requests, but there wasn’t a specific look that they were particularly interested in. There’s a bit of modern-industrial style and rustic elements going on here, what with the metal structures and greenery in the living room.
Also, of course, they requested for the living room’s mezzanine. This apartment is a top floor penthouse unit with a 4.5 metre ceiling, and the owners wanted to maximise the space by creating a study area, which is the mezzanine itself.
On the creative process
V: Communicating with the owners was a smooth process as they both work in the creative line, which made it easy to talk about design elements, such as colour, form and space.
Our discussions were mostly on how to maximise the different areas in the house. Aside from the living room, we also spoke about using the balcony as a dining area and how to utilise the space beneath the mezzanine’s stairway for storage.
About new features
V: The mezzanine is completely custom-made, it didn’t come with the house and we had to construct by welding mild steel I-beams together.
There’s also a projector on the mezzanine floor that’s concealed among the plants. To make it work, we used a larger piece of laminate for the living room’s feature wall, which conceals a projector screen.
The junior bedroom, which belongs to the owners’ daughter, has a cute, vibrant theme; there are some classic design features as well, such as a barn door and wainscoting on the walls. Above the headboard, there’s a Pompompurin cartoon shelf with built-in night lights.
The master bedroom has a classy atmosphere, so it’s quite different from the daughter’s bedroom. We went for a hotel-like look here with some luxe elements. For instance, the TV console’s and dresser table’s surface are made of marble. We also included panelling, which is currently trending in homes, for the privacy barrier and headboard.
Both bedrooms are interlinked by a door as well, allowing the owners to easily attend to their daughter at night.
The hobby room is located beside the master bedroom and it’s where the owners chose to have their piano. There are cabinets and shelves built in as well to maximise the area as a storage space; we used panelling here once again as a design feature as a subtle call back to the master bedroom.
On renovation challenges
V: The biggest challenge was the mezzanine’s construction. The entire structure including the stairs was too large to fit into the lifts, so it had to be brought into the house piece-by-piece and welded on the spot – that alone took up two weeks of the renovation timeline.
Constructing the living room’s lightbox and wiring the mezzanine were also pretty tough, because both tasks had to be performed at a very high height. To get the job done, we had to erect a scaffold in the house to reach the ceiling.
To sum up
V: It’s been a pleasure and an interesting experience working on this project. We’ve worked on penthouses in the past, but given the height and technical constraints, this was the most challenging one yet. Considering that, you could say it has been a unique learning journey for us.
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