busy.

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.

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

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:

1. bright things
2. shiny things
3. dizzy patterns
4. ex-boyfriends
   
5. 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.

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

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?

My first bespoke room

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.

bespoke shoe box - the floor plan

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 :)