Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2023 i Home & Decor

Lighting is an essential ingredient in setting the mood of a room. For the bedroom, where the goal is to create a place of rest and relaxation, ambient light casts an inviting glow and makes the room feel like a sanctuary. But what is ambient lighting, exactly? Essentially, it’s a general light that creates a glow surrounding a space. It’s very different from task lighting, a direct light used primarily for certain tasks and adds visibility to an area or accent lighting, which is used to spotlight a specific element in a home. Indeed, with careful placement and dimming controls, ambient lighting can have a significant impact on the bedroom’s look and feel. Adding a few choice lamps to your bedroom allows you to have a calm ‘glow’ which is…

The Stairway The former bulky wooden balustrades along the staircase were replaced with metallic wires, allowing light to flow in. After years of living overseas, moving back to Singapore is a big decision. The couple’s search for a new home zeroed in on a familiar area, where their extended family has lived for years. Drawn to a terrace house at the landed development The Inglewood, but still living in Taiwan, the couple got help from their property agent to provide videos, pictures, and drawings. Their siblings also helped inspect the house. The couple then purchased it while still in Taiwan. They engaged interior design studio Design Zage, which had worked on another property at The Inglewood. With an eye for reinvention, interior designer and managing director Zhuo Jinhai revamped the…

A walk-up apartment above a row of old, nondescript shophouses that was built in the 1950s and which was used as a workers’ dormitory would have deterred most house-hunters, but not this couple. The pilot and public servant were looking for a property in the Serangoon Gardens enclave. They really like the area, but found the options limited. They viewed a couple of condominium units. However, the prices, sizes and locations were not ideal. So they were thrilled when they finally found this walk-up shophouse that not only fits the bill, but not having to pay any maintenance fees was a bonus. The $350,000 project went to Prozfile. Principal designer, Cadine Lim, has experience with similar walk-up units and came highly recommended by a friend of the couple’s, whose home…

Nestled in the sloping site with a breathtaking view overlooking a vineyard and cradled by a hilly landscape near the Black Sea, this family home in Sevastopol, Crimea, is a celebration of its location, occupants and an embodiment of the spirit of the French Riviera. The homeowners, a middle-aged couple who grew up in the city, were expecting twin boys when they bought the land. They decided to do away with the neglected 30-year-old existing house in the plot and enlisted architect Elena Pershina to design a new three-storey home and their long-time friend, interior designer and decorator Natasha Popov, to put its interiors together. Their design brief requested a modern home with open spaces, ample light and natural materials. Growing up in Sevastopol herself, Natasha pays tribute to the…

Many studies worldwide have shown the prevalence of insomnia in 10 to 30 per cent of the population, with numbers as high as 50 to 60 per cent in some countries. Small wonder of the plethora of sleep aids available to promote a good night’s rest. We’ve rounded up 20 that may help you get more shut-eye in 2023. 1 SOFT TOUCH Never dread bedtime again when your bed is dressed with the world’s softest textile. Sonno’s silky and cool eucalyptus sheets are so luxurious they’ll lull you to sleep in no time. Made from natural fibre, they’re also good-looking with contrasting buttons. Eco-friendly, strong and long-lasting, they come with a 30-night trial and a one-year warranty. Prices range from $149-239 from sg.sleepsonno.com 2 SLEEP STRIP Let a strip of…

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DRESSING THE WALLS AN EXOTIC TOUCH “In this classic Parisian apartment, we incorporated a made-to-measure panoramic paper by Ananbo. The inspiration was to transport the young owners to an exotic destination, a journey without traveling to unwind and enjoy. The earthy color palette and the sepia tone are reminiscent of the northern African country where they vacation and share family roots. When incorporating wallpaper in the design of a room, it is essential to look into some design considerations, such as the ambiance you desire, the best assets of the room where its use can enrich it and if the pattern size corresponds to the proportions of the space.” https://www.lichellesilvestry.com/ “I LOVE TO USE WALLPAPER CREATIVELY — FROM CEILINGS TO NICHES AND BOOKCASE BACKING, THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO ADD…

The average person spends 26 years of their life sleeping, and conventional wisdom (and hygiene) would dictate that it’s not spent on the same mattress. But when is it time to retire your mattress? Under normal conditions, mattresses should be replaced every six to eight years. This is a general guideline, but time’s about up for your faithful mattress if one or more of the following apply. For starters, your mattress is negatively affecting your sleep, and you find that you sleep better at hotels, friends’ houses, etc. The state of your physical well-being is another clue, whether it’s an increase in allergies and asthma or regularly waking up with muscle or joint stiffness. Finally, the actual state of the mattress will give you an inkling. When you change your…

1) Furniture that cannot fit in the lift If you happen to live on a high floor in an apartment complex, try to look for furniture that can fit into your residential lift. Items, such as a King-size mattress, might have to be carried up by hand and will incur additional delivery charges. 2) Choosing small beds Always opt for the largest-sized mattress that can fit into your room and that’s within your budget. The fact is as you will come to appreciate having more space to roll around in as you grow older, or when your family unit expands. 3) Key to sofa selection When choosing a sofa for a living room, try sitting on it and see if you can slide comfortably in to allow your back to…

Three weeks after moving into their resale flat in Potong Pasir, a family of five was stunned to discover its dark past. Its late owner had died and decomposed into skeletal remains in the unit for nine whole years before he was discovered, and they had no idea when they purchased the flat. We are not a superstitious lot but even we got a chill down our spine reading this. The new owner, surnamed Chen, paid $670,000 for the four-room flat and only found out about the unit’s history when the contractor she hired to fix a ceiling leakage casually mentioned it. Throughout the transaction, everything was managed through the seller’s agent and she did not meet the seller. Never once was the unit’s macabre history brought up. Resigned to…

At 1,400 sq ft, this five-room resale HDB flat in Tampines is considerably larger than the typical five-room flats in Singapore. This is thanks to the flat’s many angled spaces, which could either be a boon or a bane depending on the design of the interior. Shermaine Ong, the founder of boutique interior design firm Mosh Interior, saw it as an exciting challenge. “My husband, on the other hand, was a little bit deterred by all the angles. So I teased him: ‘What are you afraid of? I’m the interior designer’,” she shares with a laugh. Today, the couple live in the renovated home with their two daughters, aged 7 and 5, a helper and the family dog. The extensive renovation saw the original flat’s awkward angles eliminated, turned into…

It is in the bohemian 20th arrondissement of Paris that interior architect Chadi Abou Jaoude found the space that he transformed into his personal refuge. The exterior of the building, which dates back to the 1980s, didn’t initially convince the creative mind. What made Abou Jaoude take the leap is the organisation of the apartment itself — especially its outdoor area, as he has taken to gardening a lot lately. As in all big cities, finding a home with a terrace is almost an impossible task, even more so when it comes to old buildings. Abou Jaoude was persistent, however, and after a long search period, he found the right one. Spread over 75 square meters, this apartment is accessible via the third floor and is distributed on three levels.…