bespoke shoebox - my 442 sq. feet challenge

random

2008-10-27T19:43:00.002-04:00

chairs.

2008-09-28T05:55:00.001-04:00

as of today i still have no dining chairs. i use my dove gray vanity chair in my living room as a stand-in. but it's proving to be an increased hassle, esp now O comes over at least twice a week and the idea of having a homecooked dinner is becoming more and more appealing. i'm quite frankly tired of eating out and waiting for food.. while usually we head for restaurants that do not require waiting, just the environment around is stressful and last thing we need is more added crap after our long days.

so i was at pricerite today and i saw these cheap dining stackable chairs:

cheap, white, stackable. my family's chairs won't be stackable... but much nicer. hm.

i broke my bodum

2008-09-06T19:43:00.003-04:00

my beautiful francfranc x bodum died because of my stupidity, along with four of my water glasses. in simple terms i was too busy trying to yank the trash out of my trash can and subsequently, i slammed my head against my dish rack.

i'm here to report francfranc is not carrying new ones :(

i did find other things i want there though!

I think the white one will be great for my bedroom/living room during the winter months.

this will be great for magazine storage + extra seating + wine glass stool.

yes i live here

2008-08-09T09:48:00.008-04:00

time sure flies. i've been paying mortgage and living in this little shoebox for 3 months now. wow.

so let's see how far my flat degenerated:

kitchen: a lot more dishes. on my second tin of earl gray now. i'm aware i'm out of paper towels.

my room:

a housewarming gift from Anthony. he first bought me a cushion but his dad used it, so he bought me this very sexy lamp instead.

these stuffed animals have sentimental value for me. i brought them back from toronto. i still didn't have a chance to get replacement curtains for the broken doors yet.

instead of hanging my laundry in my kitchen, i hang them in my bathroom instead.

my den/living area... still missing dining chairs, so i moved my vanity chair here

i sit on my coach instead of my chair of course when I watch tv :)

imperfect beauty

2008-07-16T10:39:00.002-04:00

Marge mailed me a housewarming gift fron the T.dot. but when it arrived in HK, it shattered into pieces. the poor candle holder became millions of pieces of green glass, save for 1 panel:

i am using it as a coaster now at work :)

my space inspires what i wear

2008-07-15T12:27:00.001-04:00

i swear!

because bigger is better

2008-07-12T00:43:00.004-04:00

HSBC had a welcome offer for the tv. i bought this 40" HD-ready TV for a bit less than $9000. for the same amount of money i can buy a 32" TV in the stores.

but bigger is better, right?

islamic architecture never looked so good on HD terrestrial TV.

the only problem is i must keep this box for 7 days.

tough task for a small flat like mine.

before the typhoon

2008-06-24T11:48:00.006-04:00

since we have a level 8 typhoon situation right now as we type, tomorrow will be a much-welcomed day-off. three hours prior, i finally dragged my bum to Ikea and Francfranc, both 5 minutes away from my office (i know i'm lazy).

i've been eating out or eating no-cook foods since i've moved in. it wasn't until last week, after about two weeks of a lot of pub grub and alcoholic beverages, that my body is starting to complain.

my apartment came with some pre-installed Grundtal rails from Ikea, and when i saw this in the store, i picked it up:

when I got it home, i found in horror:

this:

must be attached to this:

with a screwdriver.

so i guess my countertop would have to suffer for a bit longer with my drying dishes.

i bought other stuff as well, my favourite though is this:

i love my books

2008-06-15T01:09:00.002-04:00

I can properly showcase them now :) I am still unpacking a lot of them.

the shelves were designed to match my shoe cabinet. one of them was broken upon delivery and must be returned. i plan to put the DVD machines and shinanegans on that broken shelf.

after receiving my vanity mirror the first thought that crossed my head was "wow, now i can do makeup on my vanity! first time in .... 4 years!"

"this must be photoshopped"

2008-06-12T11:37:00.002-04:00

it reminds me of the silver lining in life's circumstances.

housewarming numéro un

2008-06-07T00:51:00.004-04:00

they love my alessi hand vac, i don't blame them

we christened the flat with champagne, courtesy of SETI's Todd Miller :)

other spaces i exist in

2008-06-03T09:01:00.003-04:00

i figured i should post a picture of my desk at work, since i spend a lot of time there when i am not in and out of meetings.

we're pretty industrial-chic in the office design department. our floor tiles are sheet metal, literally.

we're bursting at the seams though, we may move soon.

don't have to treasure-hunt no more

2008-05-31T02:53:00.003-04:00

special delivery today:

now i can find my shoes without digging through bags. (un)fortunately, the shoe cabinet's movable boards are a bit too low in my opinion, my sky-high heels have problems and have to adjust the shelves a bit.

i finally have a chair in my shoebox as well:

i love the button detail:

busy.

2008-05-29T11:45:00.003-04:00

new gig = brain drain everyday. it's nice to come back to my own sanctuary after exhaustive left/right brain burns.

so this is around my headboard. what do you make of it? it's ugly like hell.

wardrobe malfunction.

2008-05-26T08:58:00.003-04:00

a while back i posted about my fugly closet. it's hideous, but it was custom-built for my wall, and for the most part it is quite new still and has a lot of drawers for organization. i stuck with it (i kept the matching bed as well).

well, after i moved in i discovered just how poorly the thing was constructed. due to cheap materials, the boards warp instantaneously. the doors were hard to slide.

then this happened on sunday:

the door fell off the rails and almost crushed my toe!

sigh.

more stuff

2008-05-24T00:04:00.004-04:00

i mounted my rnd clock, it looks quite neat against my very classic sofa/not so classic wall-colour.

my dining table arrived as well! the fold-out leaf opens to the back side so i can sit more people :)

it has its wood grains exposed:

über-sexy

why i hunt for bargains.

2008-05-22T11:40:00.006-04:00

if i can buy something for $5 why pay $10?

of course, i only do it when i have time. while time is often against me, i do score great bargains then use the saved money on nicer stuff.

this leaf pot-table-protection-thingy is $10. i love $10 shops.

i bought all three at the as-is section of ikea for $40

i bought the laundry basket for $10 so i can splurge on these items:
Francfranc x Bodum coffee bodum
Francfranc x Bodum pepper mill
alessi Anna G wine bottle opener

and of course

she was lugged back to hk from toronto, yeap.

my old vanity and my new dining table are arriving tomorrow, can't wait!

"you'll eat phad thai all the time?" - G

2008-05-21T11:53:00.006-04:00

i bought these dishes at a designer shop the other day. according to G, a lot of Thai restaurants use them. ah well. they were fairly inexpensive, the plates were $6 each, the salad bowls $13.5/$15 a pop. the two bowls i borrowed from my aunt are from Ikea.

fanny mentioned about my sponges, yes i have super cute sponges!

don't be fooled by the cute bird, she's powerful.

i'm cheap, and i rarely use chopsticks. so when my aunt gave me these wedding favours tonight:

i took birdie for a spin and scrubbed off their name and dates.

rewired

2008-05-20T08:24:00.004-04:00

PCC-dub rewired my broadband today. the modem i used died, so they gave me a new one.

here's a view of my little kitchen :)

i can't afford to reno the kitchen, so i placed plants there instead. i splurged on some francfranc x bodum items, an alessi Anna G wine opener and matched them with some colourful sponges/towels. i will head to shanghai street tomorrow to see if i can find replacement door knobs.

starbucking

2008-05-17T23:27:00.006-04:00

shoebox without internet, lack of dining surface and having a week off between jobs mean ritual coffee and breakfast at the Starbucks.... 15 bloody minutes away.

the problem with living in an older district is the lack of hot spots... if i drag my labtop to a congee place and hook up wi-fi with those PCCW telephone booths i'm sure they will kick me out in five minutes flat. those ladies in aprons mean business, man.

as my parting gift, my colleague remembered i loved this clock at Homeless ... and bought it for me! i am trained as a designer and anal-retentitive typographer. so it looks like i have to go buy me some blu-tac.

aside from new purchases, i LOVE old stuff. i've been "borrowing" stuff from my family:

so, cute. i use it as a step-stool to reach my ridiculously high closet rails.

this came with the apartment, it's the receiver to open the gates downstairs for visitors:

like, 1985!! look at the straight lines! the brown and beige! i made my friend wrap the whole thing with five million coats of tape before we painted to make sure it is as pristine as possible.

a week internet-deprived.

2008-05-16T23:40:00.011-04:00

i'm writing this at a Starbucks around my old office. the disadvantage of living in an older neighbourhood in Hong Kong is the lack of hot spots. pcc-dub will install my stuff back next tuesday so until then, i will be drinking a lot of Starbucks.

living in my new space, as sparse as it is right now, is amazing. my rooster looks amazing on my walls:

here's a view of my couch and blue blue/yellow walls:

yes, i love love love love love love wooden floors. my Mormon-rejected couch works amazing with the floors.

i hate my ceiling light though, so i don't turn it on at all. it reminds me of Bart Simpson:

so my solution is simple: leave it off permanently until i find a better replacement. ignorance is bliss.

i was at ikea and i looked at a few replacements:

but now i look more and more at it, it will be too matchy-matchy with my rooster. need to hunt for better alternatives soon.

baaaah

2008-05-13T21:38:00.001-04:00

good news: i moved into my shoebox
bad news:

1) i have no tv nor broadband yet
2) only my Mormon sofa and bed are in so far, rest of my furniture will not arrive until later this week
3) i realized i am an idiot for leaving half my stuff at my rental, will transport them later
4) i desperately need to buy a lot of stuff like bedsheets, dishes, vacuum cleaner, and other stuff

snowed

2008-05-10T10:49:00.006-04:00

we all tried to protect our hair today when we were painting my ceiling.

i have lots to learn from Sikh men

we finished painting the place though.

this is my den/living room. my blue accent wall will be where my couch is placed against.

what i bought

2008-05-09T10:14:00.004-04:00

the view from my room :)

ok, better pictures of my room-painting-in-progress

the beam - it's going to be pink i think

neapolitan ice cream

2008-05-09T00:06:00.004-04:00

i started painting last night. i used to frame, mount and gesso my own canvases with house paint back in high school (Arts York, hellllll yeah!), so i figured instead of spending 7k for someone to paint my walls, i will spend 1k on good paints and do it myself. ok, i am no alchemist but thanks to the nice people at the paint shop i know how to mix latex paint with water now.

didn't bring my camera with me but i am trying to figure out what to paint at the underside of my ceiling beam. the wall is gray, and my little nook in my room is pink.

yeah, i lost track of time and was there until 12 midnight, had to catch a taxi back to my rental. like, i am starting to question did i save money or not painting on my own if i have to keep taxi-ing every night.

let the mayhem begin.

2008-05-06T23:06:00.007-04:00

we started reno's yesterday. i hate spotlights, especially cheap ikea ones with gross matte-silver finish. Sooooooo 2000. Taking that monstrosity off and installing my rooster wall sconce on the side wall instead.

I didn't know walls in Hong Kong were real brick and mortar. Ah well, live and learn.

We also removed the gross built-in vanity and mirror from the bedroom.

I had to interview someone at 6:30 that day, and my work fuck-you heels became covered with concrete dust. Blegh.

keys.

2008-05-04T04:41:00.002-04:00

I'm officially a homeowner :)

The apartment looks a bit different after it's emptied.

hahahaha

2008-04-29T03:08:00.000-04:00

i will get my flat a day ahead (may 4th)!

coach changes

2008-04-18T22:33:00.002-04:00

I was going to make the coach from Anthropologie. Then aunt P called and told me they have a coach they made for the Mormon church they messed up. Pretty much they used the wrong side of the fabric to upholster the whole thing then realized so.

So now I have a delightful golden-yellow camelback coach wih curly girly arm rests.

PERFECT ! :D

colours.

2008-04-12T22:55:00.001-04:00

i will have a dark gray sofa with colbalt blue bolster pillows, made with scotch-guarded microfibre. a set of white slip covers with yellow bolster pillowcases in cotton will be used for summer months :)

my table will be made in natural walnut-teak colour, a strange mix of purple and brown. The shoe cabinets/shelves will be aged cream.

super excited? you bet.

now i gotta find a floor polisher, some painters and an electrician.

french rooster

2008-04-11T23:46:00.001-04:00

Hey Gi!

I made some protos long ago for a French customer for the rugby world cup.
I am going to throw them away soon... except if you are interested in it :)

One is still plain, to express your artistic side :)

Let me know.
Bye
Ro.

------

OMG OMG,

give me the WHITE ONE!

OMG!

I will totally love you and make J massage your sore behind.

Gi!

too. many. parties.

2008-04-11T11:25:00.002-04:00

unlike most people, i party on weekdays and work on weekends. i just came back from the third of these things tonight:

a lot of alcohol, a lot of food.
i will pick my sofa's fabrics tomorrow though, along with finalizing dimensions and work.

working out the details.

2008-04-06T00:11:00.005-04:00

Long weekend means drawing up and finalizing most of the furniture (after copious amounts of alcohol and partying). In particular:

The doors are drawn. They took a while and I've adjusted some curves.

I've also designed some nice shelves (!)

They will mount on my wall like this:

Other furniture are finalized as well. They will be painted a distressed cream colour.

delay...

2008-04-02T06:12:00.001-04:00

I won't receive my apartment until May 5, 2008.

That means...

I lost my painting-long-weekend.

blegh.

shoe cabinet.

2008-03-31T11:13:00.001-04:00

i think i will knock this off for my shoes. I like how the fabric conceal my babies.

Apparently, my stilettos are sexy enough to command a total stranger to want to take them off for me.

perspectives.

2008-03-30T09:17:00.004-04:00

I saw Rebellion: The Livinenko Case today. Interesting perspective on Putin.

In other news, my French rooster changed my approach to my living room. I was going to make my space minimalistic, white, almost cold. But crown molding and black wrought iron rooster is just calling lemon glass, or even blue-gray.

animal farm.

2008-03-28T04:04:00.005-04:00

(slaving away at work and the phone rings)
Gi: Hello?
Auntie P: Hey, it's me. The furniture store besides ours? It's closing down. I think you should come and take a look.
Gi (going crazy with Sky PerfecTV! packages, don't ask): ok.

So this thing is huge, at almost 2 feet by 1.5 feet in size. It's the funniest, more irreverent wall sconce I've seen. Now this is going into my den. Now my den will definitely go à la français.

Puppy will now have a friend.

Zaha Hadid - Chanel Mobile Art

2008-03-27T08:35:00.003-04:00

I attended Zaha Hadid's Chanel Mobile Art show today during lunch.

No, it is not a Chanel-brand-touting, couture-admiring glitz-show.

It's a bag-inspired installation. No photographs were allowed in (and they won't do the show justice).

I urge all of you to go if you have a chance.

The most amazing thing about this show is the experience and the space itself. The mixture of light and darkness, silent ambiance and obnoxious noise. Anyone who attended this show, expecting to see Chanel couture though will be disappointed.

See the enlarged 2.55 chains? :)

the perfect sofa.

2008-03-26T09:49:00.002-04:00

I think I know what I want with my sofa now. Instead of static-y metal legs, I will opt for solid wood legs. I like the stitching detail, going to work out the colour scheme. Thinking avocado coloured with some nice white stitching or a nice dove gray.

living room.

2008-03-25T12:24:00.003-04:00

What I am thinking about for my living room. The black bars are doors. I plan to reduce my furniture to a minimum. I will have a L-shaped chaise instead of a normal sofa. The dining table (the rectangle with the two circular halves) will be a fold-out table. Gotta work out the math later :)

prefinished, engineered, exotic, bamboo... nah.

2008-03-24T02:36:00.002-04:00

I am loving and keeping my solid wood plank floor. Warm to your feet in the winter and cool in the summer, they require little maintenance except a good mopping and polishing every few months. These days they are very expensive to install and I am glad my unit has these rather than unsightly tiles, veneered MDF-clapboards and the likes.

busy.

2008-03-21T23:49:00.006-04:00

In Hong Kong you get four days of Easter holidays. My entire family (immediate and extended) are out of town (I can't take time off, crunch time at my company is January to April) so I kept myself busy on Good Friday.
One of the advantages I have is that my space is small but has very high ceilings. I plan to take full advantage of that by making low-height seating, leaving ample room on my walls for giant artworks. I plan to invest in paintings soon :)

In other news, I was also cleaning up my rental place and changing bedsheets. You can see how the whole bed's base is a custom-made trunk:

my name is puppy.

2008-03-20T04:16:00.006-04:00

eero aarnio puppy to you too.

He will definitely do great things in my shoebox, impacting my colour decisions in my living room.

On a separate note, about my closet comments:

Gi: Seriously seeing your ex when you just woke up won't be cool.
M: Well yea, especially if you don't know how he got there. You know, drunken black outs then you see him when you wake up the next day.
Gi: ... but what if it is the ex you never slept with before?
M: That's better right? you don't know if he was good before and you certainly don't know how well he did the night before if you cannot remember how he got there in the first place.
Gi: Good point.

The fugly closet - ideas

2008-03-19T10:15:00.006-04:00

After posting last night I dreamed, and dreamed some more. I thought about the closet, the primed closet... then Ikea Hacker came along.

These people are very creative with their Ikeas! I love Ikea, I love their organization thingys, their kitchen gadgets (much cheaper than Stark/Alessi)... I bought these floral appliques from them a while back on a whim:

They are flexible and you can adjust the height and direction of the flowers... they were fairly cheap.

And then I thought about sticking them to my closet:

Or maybe just all three on one side.

Then I thought and dreamed more and I realized I do NOT want to wake up and see the following immediately:

bright things
shiny things
dizzy patterns
ex-boyfriends
my own, just-awake, frumpy self

Then I saw these amazing wallpaper from Graham Brown Wallpaper:

Imagine these on those closet doors!

The fugly closet.

2008-03-18T12:45:00.005-04:00

I hate this closet. This meleage of vaneered chipboard, glass and aluminum strips really stand as a class of its own:

The thing is, I don't want to throw it out. Although I am not an environmentalist, it fits the space nicely. Sure there's a good 3" gap between the 2nd bay window and the closet, making it the perfect culprit for dust and lost earrings collection. But look, it reaches my 9' ceiling and I can put a (much-needed) ladder between that gap. The bonus is LIGHT-WEIGHT sliding doors and there is a lot of storage space. If I ask my family to build me a closet of the same dimensions, they will go ahead and make me something fancy schmancy in solid hard wood and If I begged hard enough, I can get pearl inlays, ladle work, you name it. It will weigh about 5 tonnes and I'd have to get someone else to remove this sucker before I get a new one.

I don't know what to do with it yet though, so I decided to try to knock all the gross brown crap out first on photoshop:

Thoughts?

The bedroom - colours

2008-03-17T09:42:00.009-04:00

As I mentioned before, I really don't have the heart to toss out the furniture in my bedroom... It's too wasteful to throw out perfect furniture. While I like the quilted headboard, I really don't like the checkered closet.

The interesting architectural detail around the headboard tempts me to try colours!

I really like the gray and pink combination. I saw these bedspreads at francfranc

They would look amazing together!

I decided to take things one step further:

It adds a nice, feminine touch to my space.

Alternatively, flowers seem to be a bit... softer? somehow it feels less boxy.
What do you think? Pink all the way?

The shoebox.

2008-03-16T02:48:00.010-04:00

We measured out the place today!

I bought the place in 10 minutes flat back in January so I never looked too closely at the details. I spent 1/2 hour there today. My father was helping me measure out the rooms as I took photos.

The den

The den is larger than I first thought. It is a little over 11 ft in length and 9 ft in width. There is a 1 1/2 ft extension where the window is.

I purchased this unit for this view:
I am pleasantly surprised to discover I have a flowerbox (!!!) I look forward to planting herbs like basil and thyme out of this space :)

The bedroom

There is something very tranquil about the bedroom. The room is fairly large ( 13 2/3 ft length by 7 1/2 ft width). The current owner did some work on the wall to fit a 5 ft headboard. The other side of the room featured a big closet:

The current owners will leave everything in the bedroom. I don't have the heart to throw them out. While this closet is not what I'd prefer, I will see if I can make it look nicer... The checker meet glass look is boring, bad.

The kitchen/bathroom

The kitchen is fairly large.
It's obvious the current owners do not cook :)

The bathroom is very, very small:

Project bathtub would not happen in this shoebox, sadly :p

Now the little wheels in my head are spinning at hyper-speed! I am so ambitious about this space!

My first bespoke room

2008-03-14T23:09:00.016-04:00

The story

My father decided, within 48 hours after my plane touched down in Hong Kong, to sell his property. Closing was in thirty days and renting seemed to make the most sense. We weren't sure where I would be working and their old place was in a district I HATE.

In two days' time we rented this apartment in Prince Edward. The building was crappy. The apartment itself was quite sunny though and rent was cheap.

The challenges

My room had a few technical challenges. First, the landlord decided it was a good idea to add a built-in closet that will cut off 1.5 ft by 6 ft from my already small (7 ft by 9 ft = 63 sq. ft ) room:

The closet blocked part of the window, making it impossible to add curtains. We had no plans to stay in this space beyond our two-year lease so there was no reason to remove the closet.

To make things worse, there was a structural column in a corner of the room to the right of the other window.

I must, MUST, sleep in a bed that is at least 3 1/2 ft wide. I also needed a vanity table.

The only way to work around these problems while maintaining my sanity was to design furniture that maximized my space as much as possible.

The solution

The bed I needed storage any way I could get them. The built in closet gave me no options but to push my bed against the side wall. I designed a headboard that doubles as a storage unit. The headboard was designed to fit against the column. I've added extra storage by adding a side door that closes by magnet and a spring-hinge. I store my winter boots in there once the season is over.

The base of the bed was an effective storage system. There are two big trunks to store my seasonal beddings under the mattress. Four drawers are added to store my clothes.

The vanity was interesting. I was moving countries (from Canada to Hong Kong) and I had a lot of small trinklets and farewell gifts from friends I still love dearly. I wanted to display them and the theory was that I would see them daily as I prepared for my day on my vanity table.

The truth was, while the table was very good at displaying them, it was just too, small. 1/2 the desk was permanently covered by things like makeup brushes and the other half were often covered by bills, bank statements, etc. The table became a piling heap and my oval mirror and cheap plastic trolley became my vanity instead:

My board game boxes became my makeshift counter and a disposable bowl housed most makeup items I used daily.

The colours

As my first bespoke space, I made a few mistakes with colours. I know that in my new apartment, I will stick to a lighter colour palette. The matte walnut wood (no, they are not vaneers), while gorgeous in wood grain and colour, made the space smaller. The black and beige roman blinds added to the claustrophobia. I should have picked that fabric in the all-beige variety instead. I tried to lighten up the room by opting for beige/white bedsheets. It helped somewhat but it felt bland. I purchased the heart pillow from Ikea to try to pack a punch to the room.

The conclusion

Overall, I live comfortably in the space. I will most likely take the vanity to the new space, while the bed will be re-configured for my parent's new space. The headboard of my bed will be knocked off and remade to fit their new space better.

Eerie.

2008-03-13T23:10:00.006-04:00

I was at an advertising awards gala last night for JCDecaux. After the nice food and awards, I was heading home from the Conrad and it struck me: a giant retail space like Pacific Place is frightening at 11 at night. There's minimal lighting, most escalators are off, the otherwise crowded shops are empty.

People make spaces "work", and that's how I feel about interior design. Furniture and decorations are not merely art, they are designed to be used: a home is designed to comfort, a mall is designed to sell.

What cheered me up last night

2008-03-12T22:58:00.004-04:00

I was feeling super-mopey yesterday. I was heading home and before I boarded the bus, I saw this:

The store is closing down so this display item is on sale. I think this will work very well in my bedroom :)

bespoke shoe box - the floor plan

2008-03-11T22:31:00.009-04:00

This is the floor plan of my apartment complex. I purchased the "B" unit, facing the Northeast.

The previous owner took down the wall between the two small bedrooms and closed up one of the doors. The two windows that face the North (one in the living/dining room and one in the bedroom) will face the ocean (and highway below).

I will be going to the apartment for measurements this weekend. I already have sketches of how my space will look, I will post them shortly :)

bespoke shoe box

2008-03-11T10:54:00.006-04:00

Design is my life. My family works in the interior design business. I grew up breathing furniture (literally), doodling on old faxes as I hung out in their furniture stores. Doodling and drawings led me to pursue a career in design. Working in this field for a few years now, I've learned to take criticism openly and be equally candid about what I think about other people's work.

In January this year, I decided to take the plunge and purchased my first apartment in Hong Kong. My father chuckles every time I bring it up in conversation. To him, the space is too small (442 sq. feet) to do anything with it. He calls it a shoebox. But I am determined to craft this shoebox of mine, a space that fits my taste and lifestyle – just like a bespoke suit.

Join me as I document my progress, along with other design-related things I see daily :)