hello birdie pendant ~ Rowan Place, Canada Water, London

It was a great pleasure working with this client on making his new purchase a place to call home. The original flat was under good condition except everything looked as though it still belonged to someone else, someone who kept the flat in a pristine 1990's look with a bit of a middle eastern flair. As well kept as the flat was, it couldn't have been fashioned in a way that's further from my client's personal taste - simple, modern, and as minimal as possible. He wanted no fuss, none whatsoever. We had a very short time to work with but luckily we were able to nail down the design concept for the key areas (master bath, bespoke wardrobe) in a week with minor adjustments in the next, and a trip to Farrow & Ball made choosing paint colours (walls, kitchen) rather effortless. As for the spare guest room and guest bath, we agreed to keeping it low key, which meant we only changed what we needed (such as taps and mixers), IKEA Hacked the rest, and re-use original items found on site in a spontaneous way to bring new life to the space. Because the budget was quite conservative, we had to carefully choose what needs to be done, what could be done, and what we can make it work as is. In the end, I'm happy to say, as much as a refinished flooring would have been ideal, but I think we've really made every penny count.

Office                    :  s. Yen Design                       Year                   &nbsp

Office : s. Yen Design Year : 2016Function : interior design, colour consultation, FF&E construction Administration Budget : 15K +/- excl. costs for furniture / decor / lightingProject scope : 2 bed 2 baths flat renovation with the focus on master bedroom + master bath redesign, bespoke wardrobe, colour consultation on walls + kitchen

This kitchen was rescued by Farrow and Ball - the cabinets were once dressed in a strange mismatched yellow faux wood plastic laminate. It needed a make over.

A bespoke wardrobe was designed in place of an existing one. The old one had a very shallow depth, not only that it suffered visible damage from moisture and mould growth. Having that knowledge in mind, the design of this wardrobe took in the need for ventilation as well as the need for a reasonably deep storage to make this a well utilised closet. I chose an Architectural Grade Birch Plywood with perforated door front, to create a rather simplistic and modern look but more importantly, to allow air circulation even when the doors are closed. Also, the design allows for extra articles of clothing or accessories to be hung on the face of the door, when paired up with 20mm wooden dowels. The wardrobe is meant to be as functional as well as aesthetically interesting as possible.

Little details : Double suspended clothing rod with semi bespoke mobile "cube" drawers. The double suspended rod is designed for clothes to be hung on the top and trousers to be hung on the bottom. The cubes, comes in a total of 4, can be rearranged based on the client's need. For example, it is currently arranged on either side of the closet to create a "his and hers" drawers. Those cubes can also be all stacked up vertically on one end of the closet thus freeing up the other end for long coats and jackets. Alternatively, the cubes can be laid out in a line across the base to create a secondary "shelf" for accessories, etc. On the other side of the wardrobe where moisture may travel in as a possibility, I've designed in larger compartments where less valuable and more hardwearing items can be stored, such as the client's suitcase.

A complete renovation of the master bath. The challenge was in how to make an already small bathroom feel larger while carving out room for the much needed bathroom storage. One key solution was the bespoke matt black metal framed mirrored cabinet, that spans nearly the whole width of the recessed wall at a "towering" height, which offered 4 interior shelves and a reasonable interior depth of 10 cm. Another solution to storage / space is keeping the bathroom rather light and airy, get a sink vanity that offered just enough storage without taking up unnecessary depth and width. Lastly nothing creates as strong of a visual interest as the combination of matt black accessories paired up quietly next to the natural beauty of marbles.

An otherwise emptied room (with the exception of a mattress on the floor, still wrapped in plastic), has now gotten the chance to be better utilised. With fresh paint through out the flat and new window treatments, there still seemed to be something lacking in this so called guest bedroom. Then upon learning that we have an unwanted ugly Ikea metal kitchen rack + left over Birch Ply, I was lucky enough to have a crew that was willing to take on my last minute and rather spontaneous request - make me a floating table / shelf! Design doesn't need to be fancy or extraordinary, I've always believed that. It does however, needs to serve a good purpose and be aesthetically pleasing, with such in mind I think we've achieved this via these left over items. Now this space isn't just a sad little empty room awaiting its guests, this space can now serve as the client's music room.