Homebuilding a space with character: our small but cozy living room
ploots.home
mid-century modern / vintage 93sqm EC
building a space with character: our small but cozy living room
162
- Mid-Century Modern
- HDB (EC)
- ~1,000 sqft
- 3 br
- Couple Living
Our living room is the most important part of our house - it’s the place where we come home to unwind after work, rest on the weekends, and host our friends and family on special occasions. Rather than achieving a clean, minimalistic look, wanted to build a space that was functional and yet full of character - one that would be able to evolve with us over time. Due to the configuration of our house, our living room is rather long and narrow and opens out into our balcony. We did not have the luxury of a large, open space to play with. Because of this, we decided to keep built-in furniture to a minimum and focus on standalone pieces that can be shifted around if the need arises. We also installed semi-translucent linen day curtains to give our house a brighter, airier feel. Lighting is a very important aspect of any space. While we installed overhead downlights for practicality, we usually use our small lamps instead. The lamp on the right was a gift from my mum, who hand-carried it back from a small village in Japan. Our built-in display shelves contain a variety of memorabilia, mostly from our travels. We also have a functional coffee and tea corner / dry pantry below. 
Our latest favourite self care activity is making our own matcha to beat the exorbitant prices of matcha drinks outside 😬 Our matcha / ceramic wares were procured individually - a secondhand wood tray from Hock Siong, a chawan from a local potter, a matcha bowl from Cultured Wares (check them out on Instagram!) and our matcha whisk and powder from Kyoto. 
Adding greenery is a great way to change the vibe of a space and make it feel more homely. We usually keep most of our plants on our balcony but occasionally move them indoors when we want to change things up or give them slightly more shade. This is our dracaena from Candy Floriculture - we’ve named him Bobby ✨ We bought our sofa from Castlery - it’s been comfortable and easy to maintain so far! Above our sofa is (what is intended to be) our gallery wall. Procuring prints (and frames) is a slow process, but our advice is to only get what “speaks” to you for a more personalised feel. The table we spend most of our time at is not our dining table but our coffee table. We love our trapezium shaped coffee table which we purchased from a vintage dealer on Carousell. Across our coffee table is our Picket & Rail TV console (also from Carousell).
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