Lighting Concept- Living Room

The approach to the lighting concept was to have a "functional lighting" and a "mood lighting".

Functional light 

1. Choice of white light for reading on the sofa

2. With a ceiling fan and no downlights or cove lights (see why here) we opted to choose a ceiling fan with built-in light to reduce the spinning shadow effect caused by the light located above the fan blades.

Mood Lights

1. Choice of yellow light

2. Can be used as a night light during the childrens' quiet time before bed.

3. Installed through wall mounted and ceiling mounted chandlers.

Also see Shopping for lighting 

The cost savings of converting from down lights/cove lights to the above lighting concept can be found here.

Making a Long-shaped Living room feel Spacious

Our flat layout is a long rectangular shape.
Thus, it feel narrow and long, more like a corridor than a living room.

This particular layout was one of our main concerns before signing on the Option. But my wife likes the location so much and I thought maybe we can figure out a way to re-design the layout so it feels more spacious. Indeed, this has become one of the most challenging issue in our renovation.

Together with our ID, these following methods were applied to create a more squarish spacious feel to the living hall.

1. Colour Scheme

Found some useful resources  paint supplier's website. There is also a simple video commentary of the effective use of colours. The following is a summary.

How to raise ceiling?

Colours can be used to change the size of your home. You may use 3 different shades of colour to make a low ceiling appear higher. Simply use the strongest shade of colour on the base of the room, then paint the medium shade of colour for the walls, and finish off with the lights tint of the colour for the ceiling.

Choice of colours in Living Room

We chose the 3 different shades of Cream for the florr Magnolia yellow for the wall and white for the ceiling. We wanted an earthly version of the european classic feel. What do you think of the effect?

How to create width in you hall?

A long narrow hall will appear shorter and wider if the end walls are decorate with a dark or warm shade of colour, and the side walls with a light or pastel colour.

Choice of colours in for the End Wall

The end wall was painted with a Dark Cocoa colour to try to make the living room feel wider.















2. Feature Window & Glass Door between the Kitchen and Living Room
Our ID guy proposed this glass door and feature window to allow break the long walls of the living room.
It also allowed for visual communication for the people in the kitchen and the living room. My wife agreed to the idea saying that it will allow her to monitor he helper cooking while she is in the livving room.

3. Floor Tile orientation
The tile chosen was a creamed coloured homogenous with light brown streaks running in 1 directon.
Our ID recommended that the brown streaks run across the width of  the living hall to make it look wider. But I feel the effect was not obvious as the brown streaks were too faint.


Also See
Kitchen design concepts and specifics
Choosing right fan for your room
Glass door and kitchen living window
Chandelier Lights

Pre-renovation Preparation

Finally signed the OTP for our own flat! Seems like a high in the property market cycle though at that time. But that's another story.

Anyway, we decided to do some preparation while waiting for the 1st appointment.

1. Brought a Fengshui Master to see the place for peace of mind.
There are somethings that cannot be changed like the location of the kitchen, structural column and walls and general apartment shape.
For the things we have control over, the fengshui input will helps us lock a few important variables. So the ID has a basis to proceed on. According to my fengshui master, important things subject to your birthday are
a. Location of sofa in Living room
b. Direction and Location of Bed in Master bedroom
c. Direction facing of the Refrigerator
d. Direction of the stove
e. Layout of the Kitchen should avoid clashes between fire and water.
Don't think I am qualified to explain too much in detail. That's why we hired an expert. Anyway, if you are interested, we did some brief research here so we knew a few basic questions to ask.


2. Brought several contractors/ ID to view the flat.
This will give the contractor a fair chance to price the project correctly. This step will reduce the chances of contractors underpricing and subsequently cutting corners. Things they will look out for are whether the flat is on the lift floor and demolition works required, conditions of windows and door. Remember that you will probably get a fair market price if you have at least 3 independent quotations.

The other advantage is that you will get to tap the contractors' experience on how the renovation can be done. collect all the best ideas and fit them into the feng shui determined variables. Saves a lot of time and brain cells!


3. Do some research work on the theme you and your partner would like.
It can be retro, classic, cottage, Bali resort etc. We picked a Classic European style. One of our favourite design we liked very much was a similar long living room shaped apartment. It helped us conceptualize the colour tone and details that make our home look classic European.

Researched Long Living Room design

A white kitchen design

Spacious Hotel Concept Toilet

4. Start getting quotations early from at least 3 contractors/ ID.
If it does not work out, you can still get someone else to quote. For us, the first contractor was very "high end" (aka super expensive and no bargaining allowed). There are also a few "celebrity" contractors we researched form the forums. However we did not engage them as they were very difficult to book.

Like to share some photos of the place before the renovation.

The kitchen (before renovation)

Long Living Room

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Read about Demolition preparation

Read about Shopping for lights