A Young Couple's Nature-Inspired Apartment With A Serene Reservoir View | Singapore

We aim to create a calming and cozy home with natural textures, choosing a neutral base to make it easier to add colour accents through a few modular pieces. We focus a lot on spatial planning. While we define each space distinctively for their respective purposes, we make sure that the whole look and feel is still cohesive and connected, facilitating open conversations between anyone that we invite within this space. My name is Dion, I work in Advertising. Hi, my name is Gok Shen and I work in Finance. And these are our cats, Lato and Marie. This is a five-room BTO in Sengkang. It's around 110 square metres and we have been staying here for around six months. We wanted our home to be welcoming and relaxing, yet retain that close to nature feel. We host friends and family very often, so the material and styling choices we wanted were centred around hosting guests and making sure that we have enough space for our cats. So Dion and I love nature and we were very fortunate to have this scenic view of the reservoir. The unit we chose granted us both privacy and very nice cross-vegetation within the house, which heavily influenced the layout of our home. We wanted more space for hosting guests and to make it more spacious, so we had the entryway open up to the living and dining area. We kept it simple by adding a floor-to-ceiling shoe cabinet with a shelf by the doorside for easy access to commonly used shoes. We did the curves in the home to soften the space and to make it less angular, but we wanted it discreet. So we hit the right angles and edges of the ceiling by curving a gypsum board and painted the dining area with a grey textured paint up to the ceiling to give it a little dimension. For a little more ambience in the evening, we added dimmable colour adjustable cove lighting that stretches to the bedroom corridor. Our dining area is close to the kitchen, specifically for serving food conveniently or my homemade matcha, and we wanted it to be a space for cosy discussions and gatherings with friends and family. We wanted the space to reflect the wabi-sabi unfinished theme, so we coloured it with a matte cement paint finish to match the colour tone of the wall and floor. Our floor was made with cement suede, self-levelled and polished as we didn't want grout lines. This flooring starts from our entryway and stretches to our master for a seamless look, keeping the areas visually connected. As a finishing touch, we added solid wood chairs and shelving as a backdrop to display our ceramics, incense, some candles, but we are still curating for things to add there too. In between the dining and living rooms, we left a small gap for the carpentry so that it wouldn't feel so suffocating and allowed us to add a few extra things here and there. The main purpose for it was to create a subtle divide between the living and dining room so that everything isn't so mixed together. We went with a warm neutral grey sofa with a pet-proof material that pairs well with our long TV area. This is where we usually wind down and chill at night if it's just the two of us, so we chose something that is a mix of firm yet soft and comfortable so our guests can relax after a filling meal. We wanted our living room to be a communal space where people could gather to chill and talk. To subtly influence our guest seating position, we went with organic curved furniture like this pebble-shaped coffee table with a carpet underneath so that our family and friends can sit when there are more than 10 people. Thanks to our view over the reservoir, we are confident about privacy so we went with sheer blinds to soften sunlight, especially in the morning. This helps to block out the glaring morning light for KS as he tends to wake up very early to enjoy his coffee at the sofa. Have you ever watched Tiny Home Tours in Hong Kong and ever wondered why can't we maximise space like that in Singapore? Well, if you have, here's one of the more interesting new launches, TMW Maxwell. This development is doing things completely different with its innovative flip or switch units that are designed to maximise space use. From a dual-purpose Murphy bed frame or sofa setup to an outdoor dining table and a flip-down ironing board, every fixture has been designed specifically to fit the constraints of small-space city living. For me though, the modern hotel-like branding also stands out. There's a rooftop pool, a modern gym that has special lighting, vertically landscaped gardens on each level and lively entertainment spaces all nestled within the vibrant Duxton area that's seamlessly integrated with the commercial spaces. For more information, feel free to click the link in the description box below for editorial and video coverage of TMW Maxwell. We created a TV wall with custom cabinets and a swivel TV that can be adjusted to face the dining area during meals. This was also designed to create more storage and to conceal our altar. We have also added small openings in the carpentry to add speakers, hidden cables and gaming consoles. To add a little more texture and ambient lighting, we chose these mutineer tiles as a backsplash and cove lights to accent the top and bottom. For a little more visual distinction and contrast to the kitchen, we added a fluted sliding door for the entryway and had it curved to maintain the same design language. We cook for our guests relatively often, so our kitchen was designed to be more open and functional. The kitchen is where I try out different recipes and for KS to prepare his morning coffee. To prevent hoarding, which we are sometimes guilty of doing, we opted for open shelving for display. It also serves as a visual reminder to keep things tidy. The tiles on the backsplash are the same as the ones we use for the TV feature wall and to make the design seamless, we chose a quarter white quartz matte finish for our kitchen countertop. Our cabinets are just a little more unique with different ways of opening which are a little more fun to open than a regular one. A few cabinets conceal master switches and provide us with more storage. Since it's a five room flat, we have common bedrooms but they are only slightly renovated. We decided not to furnish the common bedrooms too much and just leave it for future and unpredictable plans. But in the meantime, they are used as workspaces or my husband's extensive bike collection. For our common bathroom, we went for a muted green look with a painted ceiling, vertically stacked subway tiles with an edged look and cotton white quartz countertop. It is mainly for our guests to use and bathe but its main function is to bathe our cat, frankly. We decided not to fully enclose the shower screen, making our life easier bathing them there instead. We wanted our bedroom to be a little more minimalistic while retaining the overall theme of wabi-sabi. I prefer to do my makeup against natural light so we built a floating side table right by the window. It also doubles up as a spot to hold our laptops and my reading tablet for some leisure screen time before lights out. For our bedhead, we added a protruding wall with a cove light as ambience lighting in the evening. We still want our bedroom to look and feel spacious so we had a floor to ceiling wardrobe built in a right angle. Right beside our bed and connected to our wardrobe are extra shelves that are used for decoration and to charge our devices. Our bathroom carries the same design language and materials but with a larger space and a designated dry and wet area with a shower screen to make sure the dry area doesn't blend in with the wet. I believe a home should be a place where you put your mind at ease, a place where you feel safe, comfortable and offer both tranquility and functionality. A home should adapt to your needs, providing a space for relaxation, connection and creativity, making it a unique retreat from the outside world. As our home grows with us, I hope it becomes a nurturing environment offering flexibility, evolving to our various needs and also different phases of our lives. I hope it becomes a constant source of joy for the both of us. Ultimately, I hope it reflects our journeys that each corner of the house becomes the backdrops for cherished memories that we will have with our loved ones and that it remains the constant source of joy.