Houzz Tour: Black & White Defines This 990-Sq-Ft Flat

Photos by Nieve Photography

House at a Glance
Who lives here: A couple in theirs 30s; he is a flight attendant and she a former flight attendant
Location: Telok Blangah
Size: 90 square metres / 990 square feet (3 bedrooms)
Project duration: 5 months
Designer in charge: Vandra Png and Wilson Teng of Studio FortyFour

A minimalist design reminiscent of the Japanordic style, which features clean lines with curved details, was the approach that the designers used to fulfil the owners’ project brief and colour preferences. “Because the husband loves black and the wife loves white, this inspired the monochromatic scheme. But they want their home to have more warmth compared to the usual ‘coldness’ you get from monochromatic homes, so we proposed the wood-look floor tiles,” say Png and Teng.

The designers reconfigured the layout of the four-room flat, opening up the kitchen for seamless access to the dining and living area.

Storage with ventilation slats was built along one wall of the dining area, which the main door directly opens to. Wrapping around the household shelter is a built-in buffet that connects the dining area to the kitchen – perfect for laying out all the dishes involved in steamboat. The bar-height dining table is also custom-built, with a slit for the steamboat’s cable.

Loose furniture, such as the sofa and dining stools, and decor accessories were mostly Scandinavian in brand: Muuto, Menu, Light Point and Hay. “The owners were very involved in the selection of furniture and accessories, and are always on the lookout for nice items when they travel for work,” the designers say.

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The service yard was incorporated into the kitchen, allowing the cookspace more natural light and ventilation. With this, the designers were able to use more black elements for a brooding style statement.

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The same aesthetic continues into the master bedroom. However, the designers made little tweaks: “As the same tiles were used throughout the living/dining area and bedrooms, we decided to differentiate the master bedroom by laying the tiles in herringbone pattern,” they say. The painted wall is light grey instead of white, with a quarter of it being black to “bring the gravity of the room lower”.

A wall was hacked between two bedrooms to create the larger master bedroom. This also gave the owners more wardrobe space, as they requested.

Here, too, Scandinavian brands such as Hay, Muuto and Skagerak were used for the smaller furniture, while the bed is from local furniture company Commune.

The master bathroom is ‘her’ bathroom, so it was renovated in the wife’s favourite colour: white. The common bathroom is ‘his’ bathroom, and is identical in style and finishes but done in black.