“We want our home to be somewhere in which we can relax and feel motivated to create whether it’s music, quilts, a meal or a craft project done with scrap materials, and be welcoming to friends. During the circuit breaker, for example, I created a ‘quarantine quilt’ (on wall opposite) inspired by an Amish bow tie-patterned design from the Esprit Quilt Collection.”
“Of course, our home should also be a safe and stimulating space for our pet rabbit, Wilhelmina, to roam freely in.”
“I once visited the home of two art directors who collected iconic designer chairs along with miniatures of the same model. They would buy each set after closing the deal on a big project and their home ended up being filled with mismatched chairs from legendary designers such as Gerrit Rietveld and Marcel Breuer. It inspired my husband and I when we got our own place and moved into it last Oct.
Instead of buying all the furniture at once, we liked the idea of working towards each dream piece that we’ve ever wanted one-by-one. Some of my favourite items that we have gotten so far include a 1988 Maxi Swatch that I bought on Carousell from the amazing @jeffreyyap, who’s been collecting these giant wall clocks since the ’70s, and Ettore Sottsass’ pink Colonna stool – our most recent acquisition…”
“I made this quilt in 2014 for a group show called ‘Birth, Sex and Death’. It’s made of scrap fabrics from my internship at the studio of fashion label Creatures of Comfort.”
“Our bookshelf is the 606 Universal Shelving System, the iconic modular design by Dieter Rams for Vitsoe. We love that we can add onto it or rearrange its design at anytime, as well as take it with us if we move. It flanks one side of our dining area that’s become Fai’s semi-permanent office now that he works from home.”
“The dining table is made of Japanese ash wood and is extendable – we use it for everything from dining to work – and all the chairs are mismatched. The one captured in the picture opposie is Jean Prouve’s The Standard Chair for Vitra – what folks in the furniture industry call the ‘kopitiam chair’ and one of the most copied chairs around.”
“The corner has also become home to our plant collection that really grew during the circuit breaker. Fai and I have different tastes: I love euphorbias, cacti, ferns and caudex plants while he prefers aroids like philodendron and alocasia. Some will only mature in 30 years so you can say that we are in it for the long haul.”
“When we approached our interior designer Nicholas Lim from The Local Inn.terior, we were immediately on the same wavelength; being from art school backgrounds, we drew from the same kind of references. He transformed the space into a minimal but warm canvas to fill with our collections.”
Photography Vee Chin Art Direction Adeline Eng
A version of this article first appeared in the August 2020 Home Edition of FEMALE.
