I hv been asked to help a friend with his renovation of a 3 bedroom flat in Bedok. My friend is a Japanese aficionado and he has asked me to design the flat in a modern Japanese zen style. Whatever that is!! Lol. Of course it's a challenge that I cannot ignore!! So in the next few weeks I will put my thinking cap on and attempt to immerse myself in all things Japanese and create something that will pass as japanese-ish. Lol.

The plan of the flat is a typical 3 room flat that we always see here. He stays with his mum and so both bedrooms will be intact. They will hv visitors occasionally during festivals as the other siblings or relatives will come to pay respects to his Mum. However, most of the time there will only be 2 occupants. We hv a budget of about S$80k. Here is the plan of the flat, an intermediate flat with a corridor front.

We will hack the walls to the kitchen and the store room will be incorporated into one of the bedrooms. This is such a unique challenge that I get all excited thinking about this project! Watch this space.

Will watching this space and follow this thread closely... Yippie...

Great! A brand new Liebling project to track from scratch!

I'm already very excited. I'm a great fan of what you did to your original Tiong Bahru flat. It was proof positive that a HDB flat need not be ugly... or boring! 

I don't think one can go totally Japanese as in this pic as it may not be so ergonomic unless the occupants want to embrace a Japanese a pure Japanese lifestyle of sitting on tatami floors and sleeping on tatami beds. I don't think the aim here is to create something hardcore Japanese but something that has a Japanese influence. So I can assure you that the flat will not look like this. In the first place I don't think tatami mats are that comfortable in this climate.

But certain Japanese influences will likely be adopted like sliding doors ( which happen to be my favorite anyway) in Japanese style such as this.

We may hv to adapt it by using frosted glass instead of rice paper backing.

I am also planning quite a bit of wood as a Japanese setting tends to be wood heavy although they would use light coloured wood for floors and even for walls and ceilings. I just hv to be careful that it doesn't end up looking like a Japanese restaurant. The room below looks too spartan for a Singapore setting.

I guess one has to adopt enough Japanese elements to give it the Japanese feel. It's a bit like how I took elements of Moroccan decor and set them in a contemporary setting for my small Leonie Studio flat.

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I detest it when some hijacks my thread like that. But I shall calm down as life is short and not allow such pests bother me. Ommm.

Back to the renovation. We plan to use a few Japanese pieces to give the place an authentic feel. Like the chest below. It's actually a kitchen cabinet used in the in a Japanese home in the 1920s. It is in mint condition. I spotted it from an antique shop in Hollywood Rd, Central, Hong Kong. It is not prohibitively expensive. Less than S$3k. We will use it as a shoe cabinet.

I absolutely love the details of the chest. The midsection has very nice lattice work.

Yes my sentiments exactly. It's not too antique-ish looking which can be overbearing. Yes, planning wooden floor. But where this chest will be, it will likely be granite floor. Will be zoning out areas. The ideal part about this chest is that on top it's a perfect place for my friend to display his ikebana creations. He is an authority on ikebana and has authored a book on the subject.

I don't know why this kikiweyes even bother to spam other people's thread. Nobody is going to buy the bloody mattress anyway based on the stupid spam! If I want mattresses I would go to Robinsobs or takashimaya. Duh.

Anyway, in keeping with the Japanese theme, we may use this screen.

@import url(/providers/htmleditorproviders/cehtmleditorprovider/dnngeneral.css);

Yes Voon, thx. Indeed I'm considering bamboo. Do you hv a contact? I'm looking for waterproof bamboo sinks for the toilet too.

We used star bamboo. In the end, everybody will end up using them. They are the material supplier and have their appointed contractors (that's what they insisted on). But beware of the shoddy, sloppy sub-contracted work. My contractor cement screed the floor for them and they came in to lay blah, blah, blah. Followed every time schedule to a T. Time for cement to cure, time for glue to set and cure, etc.

Master bedroom, which was the initial part was fine but come the common bedroom (we hack thro' the whole lot, the layout is similar as your current project so the installers had a joyful time with a 'straight run') there were tons of hollow patches and they had to come in 3 times to drill holes thro' the flooring and pump glue into them and apply fillers to cover the 5mm diameter holes. Urgh......

So be warned.

We did come across a bamboo sink somewhere but can't recall. well, the places we visited were only IMM and Balestier. I know it's still two big places to go looking for but hope it narrows down a little.