Inside A Designer’s Urban Sanctuary Walk-Up Home Apartment In Tiong Bahru, Singapore

My name is Cynthia. I'm a product designer in tech. My name is Arish. I'm also a designer in tech. We've been living here for six months. This is one of the oldest residential estates in Singapore. So it's about 850 square feet and it's a walk-up apartment. Because it's a rented place, we cannot change some of the built-in stuff. Before we go on, let me just share with you about this exciting new development that we'll be launching this year, Jayden. Nestled in the heart of the Jurong Lake District, Jayden is going to be the first mixed-use development in the area. Enjoy the convenience and comfort of connected living with Jurong East MRT interchange, shopping malls and more all within easy reach. Even major hubs in the western and central region are all under 30 minutes away. But what is truly exciting is how Jayden is set to transform alongside Jurong Lake District. So according to the URA Master Plan 2019, this area is set to become a major business hub and a fantastic lifestyle destination. Jayden offers you a total of 368 residential units, ranging from cosy one-bedroom to spacious four-bedroom homes. And what is unique over here is that Jayden isn't just your cookie-cutter development. These units are flexible, allowing you to customise your space with bespoke provisions to match your needs and lifestyle perfectly. So if you'd like to learn more about Jayden, you can find out more in the description box below. Alright, now let's get back to our tour. For me, I think compared to all the other modern areas in the city, this area is more unstandardised. So you see more interesting stuff out on the streets. Everything is kind of at a smaller scale. There's not a lot of high-rises. That makes it feel like a more peaceful area of the city where things are moving a bit slower. We call ourselves Unfinished Home on Instagram. It's exactly because we don't think we'll ever see the finish to it. And then we really enjoy the process of finishing it. And that's why we intentionally decided that we shouldn't finish it at one go. We wanted to collect stuff along the way when we travel. We get posters, we get small decorations to bring in. We like to create things that we can put into the house that we have created ourselves. We really took our time, went piece by piece, and maybe it took maybe three months until we saw a semblance of a more common lived-in home for us. For us, natural light was a big criteria. And so what we really loved about this place is that it had a beautiful big slice of nature coming through the kitchen. It had a lot of light that you can get in almost every room. And it moves over to the living room and the dining space in the mid-morning. And then by the evening, it actually goes over to the study area. So you get direct light and shadow through the day in every space. So at the entryway, it kind of reminded me more of a place that could be having more cafe vibes. So we wanted to put our dining table and casual work table over there. And I think we got a bench because it kind of helps you sit up nicely against the wall and enjoy a cup of coffee in the morning. We have a couple of rocks that we picked up on our hike in Yunnan in China. It's actually my favorite spot in the home to sit out here and work and also just be able to get up and do my morning ritual of making coffee, sit up against the bench, enjoy sort of the home a bit. Before we moved in, we also both know that we really want a studio space. I've been painting for almost 20 years on and off. So I have a corner that's set up for painting. Recently, we traveled to Yunnan. So I'm currently painting a snow mountain that we saw. For me, picking the bigger pieces to be white is like enabling a white canvas. While we're iterating on the space, we can add in more smaller furniture pieces to be more colorful. We have a lot of plants because we have a nice view that looks over the kitchen, feels like that's an extension or bringing some of that into our house. The open kitchen is one of the strongest features in the house because it gives you a beautiful wide view from it. We wanted to keep that as unobstructed as possible. And also use the mug that we got from Thailand that we repurposed it to another pot for the bigger cactus. We actually also 3D printed a bird feeder because there are some birds in the neighborhood. They actually sit on our windowsill from time to time. The walkway is kind of nice as well because it has this unique interesting feature where you take a step down into the study area. Decided to put one of my 3D printed shoe and it just kind of felt like it fit nicely into the space. So while we do have some work desks that may be unnecessary for work, we also have some of our creative pursuits here as well. So for me, I have my 3D printer, Cynthia has her piano. I think having lived in this space, I didn't have maybe any expectations. I didn't know that it is a nice and maybe artistic neighborhood to live in. But I really feel more and more content every day. And you really do get the feeling of being in a sanctuary in the middle of the city. We can hear the birds in the morning. We get this blessing of light through the day. And it's quite peaceful and quiet around us. Thanks for staying till the end. Now if you like what you've just seen, do subscribe to our channel and click the bell so that you get updates whenever a new video pops out. And if you'd like to have your home featured, feel free to drop us an email at hello at stackedhomes.com