Color Palette

Undoubtedly grey is my favorite. Some of the great color scheme with different shades of grey. 

 

Bathrooms

The design of both bathrooms were the most difficult ones to come to terms with. I kept saying this but we really were handcuffed by the limited space.

The children bathroom's main function was for baths but it should also be usable for shower in case we have guests. I personally dislike shower curtains but having glass petition will make bathing the kids difficult. Well, something's got to give. Bath it was, although will try to hang the shower curtain from the ceiling to make it look more elegant like this picture in the mood board. Frankly, I wasn't sure if that was do-able. I haven't brought it up with Ed yet and usually that means he had overlooked it.

The master bathroom have to have both shower and bath functions. We decided to make this one a bit bigger. The bathtub and the shower will be lined up one after another on one side, washing basin and toilet on the other.

Material wise we can only pick the grey wood grain marble as seen on the left upper hand corner. Again, I wasn't given a whole lot of options to choose from here. I will use a glossy finish on the white cabinets and my favorite concrete floor. I personally think that the look and feel of a white bath mat on a grey raw concrete floor was the most beautiful thing.

Piper's Room aka Family Room

The idea here was to use this room for Piper as her baby room initially, with the thought that a few years down the road, she will move in with Lola, leaving this as the family room. Having that in mind, I didn't want to make it too nursery-ish (how forward thinking!).

I will use the Cole & Son wallpaper for the main wall and have a grey & white color palette for the room. Furniture wise we will have to move Lola out of her Kaloo baby cot for Piper, will buy a few other things from Ikea such as the sofa bed. Well, this will triple up as a guest room too. Husband also been eyeing this as his music room. Let's just call it a multipurpose room.

Interestingly, the major challenge here was the closet which should double up as as a TV cabinet when this becomes a family room (hence the middle closet doors need to be able to fully open up). A few designs have came up none work out well. I would really have to drill him some more tomorrow. I was very weary of the CNY holiday and how there will be no production in China a good 20 days.

This is what we have so far but the middle section seems very narrow given set up. Might have to switch it to sliding doors instead? Any thoughts? I personally don't like sliding doors and they aren't the safest for children either.

This will be the smallest room of the three, as part of it was carved out as a storage room - another thing only I seem to think was important. Both husband and Ed, didn't agree. Interestingly, husband was the hoarder of the household.

Piper was kicking as I was typing this. She was protesting against the fact her room wasn't fully tailer-made for her.

Lola's Room

I was weary of making Lola's room too sterotypical. Hence, I will use grey as the main color. Pink will appear only on rug or perhaps cushions. The original idea is to have wall stickers similar to the one below. At the end, I decided that she might outgrow that pretty quickly. Perhaps using removable garlands and wall decor will be a smarter alternative.

Nonetheless, these were the wall stickers I found. They were all beautiful.

This was the original.

This was from Cox and Cox

INKE

Rockett St George

This one was from Love Mae

Lola will be so excited to have all her things like teepee and toy kitchen in her room. The rest of the furniture will be from Ikea. They look decent enough and children grow out of their tiny furniture very quickly. I won't spurge on them.

The most challenging thing was to find nice bedding for kids. They were either too tacky, too expensive or not sold here at all. I stumble across Ketiketa, a Nepalese made children clothing & bedding brand, unfortunately, they seem to only sell it outside of the country. Having a Nepalese trainer who just went back to Napelese didn't really help.

One store here that was quite brilliant was Petit Bazaar. They have a collection of European brand for children. I wanted to bring the entire store home including its interior designer Peggy Bels.

Master bedroom

The key here was the color palette. I have my heart set on taupe with a hint of lavender. The lavender part has to be very subtle and done discreetly prior to my husband's knowledge. He dislikes any color that he considered girl. Lavender is one of them.

We will have two build-in closets here - one facing the bed in a light taupe/grey color and a mirror door one on the left. There will be a nook opposite to the mirror closet where will be a great location for a small piece of furniture such as a bench.

It isn't easy picking out the right color out of a million choices from the color deck. To make it more complicated, 'taupe with a hint of lavender' is not a straight forward concept I can ask anyone else to help. I can also tell you that what came out as a sample, and later, on your wall, will look very different from the deck. Sort of like picking nail polish from the sample and the color always appear slightly off on your nail.

After you pick the color, other decisions have to be made on the finishing: grainy, shiny, smooth, etc. It was like going to Star Bucks for wall paint.

As for furniture, I am very fond of tufted upholstery. I will have that for the headboard as well as the bench. Perhaps both from Indigo . The trunk in the moodboard from the Kelly Hoppen collection looked fantastic but not cheap at all. I saw several great alternatives from Inside. I might need to do more accessorizing once we move in. For now I will save that part for me to do on my maternity leave.

We toyed around the idea of having a walk-in closet here. As much as I love it, I have to draw it out to create more space for the room.

Kitchen

Mood board for the kitchen

Limited by its size, I have to give up a lot of great ideas, include an island. I was also debating with husband about the concept of open kitchen vs closed kitchen. Open kitchen, as the one we had before was certainly a lot more chic and trendy, but given the children factor, it would be much safer to have a door. To make a compromise, we will have an internal glass window instead, which was inspired by the Mandarin Oriental Cafe Causette. 

Having an island was also out of the question. In exchange, we will have a bar table against the glass window and one or two stools behind it.  

For the other details of the kitchen, I would play it safe by using materials I was familiar with.  I will have glossy white cabinets and grey technistone countertop. The back panel, on the other hand, was always the one element I can't quite make up my mind on. At last I finally I gave into the white marble which I was thinking of using as countertop but discouraged by Edmond who said it stains quite easily (although he also thought that the technistone stain easily but I have used it for years without any problems). Also will have a concrete floor since it would be enclosed from the rest of the flat. 

My old kitchen below. 

Study Room

Mood board for the study room

Hopefully the study room will come across classic and classy with two dark grey bookcase on each side. Even though either one of us reads a lot, we have accumulated lots of books throughout the years.

This room was carved out from part of the living/dinning area. In order to reserve the light and window, we will have a semi-open design by installing two sliding doors that will remain open most of the time. 

I will reuse my old dinning table set as desk and desk chairs. The table was dark reclaimed wood and the chairs are peacock blue. That was my turquoise phase obviously and in need for some updates. I will re-upholstered it with Westbury's wool collection in pin stripe. Atfield sells them.

I am yet to find a nice rug in light color for this room that won't cost me an arm. Most likely than not will go without it. Although my old Laura Ashley chandelier will go very well here, I decided to save it for the corridor.

So far this is my favorite room.

Dinning Room

Mood board for the dinning room

My desperate attempt to be bold was made possible in this room with Steve's blessing. I have chosen  bright yellow as my new 'turquoise'. With that thought, I will use the Eames yellow chairs which goes perfectly with Steve's painting of monks.

(I can't remember the name of the artist but you can check with  Torrizaka Art Gallery from where we bought this. They are a great Tokyo based gallery with an extensive on-line list. The pricing is 20-30% cheaper than buying them from galleries in Hong Kong. They specialize in Vietnamese arts.)


I will use the Cecilie Manz pendant in black as seen in this mood board, above the dinning table. I am not big on lighting so these are the only new investment I will have for this project.

Another 'bold' features here is the dark full length cabinet, standing on one end of the dinning room area. This will join the shoe cabinet in the hallway to form an L shape. We will leave an empty space between the upper and lower cabinet for display of pictures and other pretty things.

Living Room

Mood board for the living room

I came across Courtney Cox's celebrity home photo on the internet and fell in love with this. The dark blue and grey combination gave me good inspiration for my own living room, which would go very well with my new painting 'Let Go' from Allie Synder Amaryllis Truth Studio (right upper hand corner)

I have always been single-mindedly set on wood flooring. Wood gives a warm homey and natural mood to the entire flat. This flooring in particular is smooth, elegant, most of all, economical. It is from Malaysia. 

I hope to add a touch of dark blue in the room from the rug, pillow and possibly lamp shade.  

Phase One - Planning

After a grueling October, between selling our old flat, buying a new one, renting a temporary flat, dealing with all the legality and finance, not to mention a business trip to New York, I finally get to the fun part - design the new home for the family.

Project Lola+Piper finally launched in November. Lola is my older daughter and Piper is the unborn child in my belly.

Phase one was planning. Edmond, my brother-in-law was kind enough to help with all the execution. After his team had measured the flat and came up with a few drawings, we have to make our first decision on layout.

The verdict is that we have to gut the entire flat without saving one single wall. The former owner had not worked on the flat for a few decades and not in a good way. The entire flat was screaming for a complete make-over. Many parts actually needed immediate replacement before they fall apart and explode.

This was how it looked when we bought the flat. It reminded me of my grandparents' flat in where I grew up.

Kitchen. There was a small maid's room on the left behind the shelf (no window) and a whole other area on the right behind the appliances with windows and stoves. It was a strange set up. 

Living room. A cluster of random furniture throughout the years. The flat was also filled with, what I can only guess, Fung Shui related fixtures such as the twisting beams you see on the left. 

Hallway to bedrooms. More random stuff and twisting beams. 

A very 70s bathroom. 

First, second and master bedroom. Again, filled with random loose furniture. 

The balcony was actually quite authentic old Hong Kong but all the other stuff on the ceiling will have to go.