Hello. new here. thought of sharing on the experience of going this route. Hopefully can find like-minded people or help those who are thinking of doing this, or have some sharing of ideas challenges etc..and of course get to know more people around. Our self designed house. Chapter one: Getting Started I had quite a few people asking me certain questions so might as well share my little adventure of doing our new home, rather than just posting here and there on IG. The first major decision we made was to go without an ID. The reasons are simple. Save $$, we wanted the challenge of creating something that we envision (to see for ourselves the power of visualization!) and of course have fun in the process. It actually turned out to be quite tiring, but more on that next time. One of the most important decision when going w/out an ID is to know clearly how you want to feel when you step into your home. Once we were clear about it, it’s easier to know what we want or do not want. I know it applies with an ID as well, but when you don’t have someone professional to be an extra pair of eye and opinion, you really need to be clear So for me and wife (and coming baby ), we had a list of attributes that we slowly trim , cut down and adapt. For example I admire scandanavian design for its geometric lines and cuts, but I didn’t like certain aspects of itWe wanted a sense of space, so had to make sure that I don’t overwhelm the place with quirky stuffs hence the easy decision for us was not to have a false ceiling and to have less “heavy” and “pop” color. Neither do I want huge full length mirrors around as I’m not a big fan of it.i love dramatic lighting, but because we chose not to go with false ceiling and to have space, we had to look for alternatives.I really set it as a challenge to use the furniture to reflect our personalities and create the feel for the house.As you can see, it is really a mix of striking off what we do not want and adapting stuff to find what we want. For the flooring and walls. I was determined to have a concrete effect either on the floor or walls. It is a die-die must have feature for us. After exploring and researching whether should we really just use concrete or not, the contractor we engaged, brought us to a showroom to view a huge range of tiles. On the first visit, I found a cement screed-looking homogenous tile which best fitted my design. For our rooms, we had a light grained wood-looking one. It was a quick fuss-free visit and not much mulling on 1410971 different choices. With that, we settled on the overall “mood” of the entire house. Because of the flooring design and color combination, it became an easy choice to go with white walls to create the effect that we want. We treated our hallway like a gallery showcase and it was an opportunity to break the overall tone of our living room. Initially we used a single pendant light for the hallway, but it looked starkly out of place. So we switched to a triple bulb model and immediately it created a different feel to it, like the entire hallway comes into life. (sort of ). Will share more on lighting next time! There you have it. Part one. How we started Feel free to share your ideas or questions if you have any. Always good to hear and listen to others you can view some pictures here. sorry can't seem to get the right image size uploaded here..maybe i'll try for next time https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10154228245750153.1073741827.724645152&type=1&l=03e1ecba4a Cheers! HB
