On The Shelves

Upon my return to Hong Kong after almost two weeks in New York, I was greeted by the sight of this:

Now I just need to recover from my 24-hour flight (a gruesome 6-hour layover in Seoul) so that I can start arranging the books and accessorizing.

Chime In

With Hong Kong winter over, we finally got to test our central air conditioning in our new apartment. Anyone who has ever moved in to a new place would know that you never really find out what’s great or wrong about your apartment until you’ve lived in it for a few days. For example, on our first week when Paul was staying with us, we discovered that there was a design flaw in the bathroom. Even with the shower curtain in the bath and shower area, water would still spill onto the floor when you shower because the tub is slightly raised than the border surrounding it. So the water would splatter on the border, collect and flow onto the bathroom floor.

As for our air condition, the first time we turned it on it kept making a vibrating noise. The repairmen came the next day and it seemed like it was fixed after they gave me a demonstration. But that night, it was the same story: the same vibrating chugging noise akin to a train about to leave the station. But that wasn’t the only noise, the air blowing from the AC unit would hit our crystal chandelier and the crystals would sway and hit each other and produce a sound similar to those of wind chimes. It’s been three nights of more or less the same thing: crrrkk, crrrkkk, crrrkkk, chug, chug, chug, ding dong, ding dong, ding dong. It’s like were roughing it out somewhere in the woods with the cacophony of noises.

No wonder I keep having weird dreams. Last night’s was especially strange as I dreamt that Andre the Giant’s son was our houseguest and because he was so huge and tall he would step on all our furniture and destroy everything. I wonder what it all means.

Making An Entrance

Contrary to popular belief, I didn’t get rid of all of BB’s belongings in favor of my better taste. Whenever we get into arguments over who has better taste, I have a ready answer, which instantly knocks out all of his. I say, “I get paid for my taste.” Having made a career out of editing lifestyle and fashion magazines, I’ve got this one right in the bag. I’m sorry I digress.

True, I got him to dispose of most of his “I am a white expat living in Asia” tchotchkes like his Buddha’s, pottery and all sorts of wooden accessories purchased randomly on trips to Bali, Thailand and Vietnam. It is also true that we have stashed away his collection of Chinese and Asian art under our beds for more Western art. However, we’ve kept a couple of his pieces like the ones adorning our foyer: a gilded mirror and a semi-lune marquetry console table which have graced his apartments avant et après moi. I also happen to like both pieces.

Looking at how they are styled now though, I find that I need to break them apart because the overall look doesn’t really go with the rest of the apartment. Our key words when it came to the design of the apartment were classic, modern and glamorous. Looking at the photos above and below, all I get is classic.

I am faced with the conundrum of whether should I move the mirror somewhere else and find a replacement or move the console table and look for a substitute. As it is, we have run out of wall space. We have art everywhere even in the bathrooms. So I suppose the best way to go is move the console and look for something more modern to give the classic gilded mirror and edge, to make it ‘now’. And I may just have the perfect spot for the console!

Or maybe I should paint the foyer walls black lacquer as in the master bedroom?

Cocktail Hour

We purchased this bar cart from a store in Singapore called Platform which sells Italian pieces. We acquired it a couple of days before the movers came to pack all our belongings for the move to Hong Kong. We haven't had the chance to use it. Now that we are more or less settled in Hong Kong, we hope to make great use of it. We just have to figure out what kind of drinks to put on it as we are not heavy drinkers. I personally am always for popping open a bottle of Champagne.

We placed the bar cart just by our foyer so that we can easily offer drinks to guests. Hanging above it are out cut out silhouettes by this brilliant artist called Karl Johnson which I had commissioned last Christmas - www.cutarts.com I first saw such artworks in a magazine feature on Jonathan Adler and Simon Doonan's home and after that I kept seeing them in all sorts of shelter and fashion magazines. I think they are a good alternative to oil portraits. Flanking it are lithographs (one black and white, the other in color) by Alexander Liberman who served as editorial director of Vogue and mentored the legendary photographer Irving Penn. He was also a renowned sculptor and painter. Some of his works are on display at the Met and the Guggenheim.

A Work In Progress

There is still much to be done but we are getting there. Here's a look of the apartment thus far.

P.S. Don't mind the black Bourgie lamp on the floor. That is to go in the guest bedroom.

P.P.S. If only we could paint the floors matt black and the door jambs and doors white...

Table Manners

When we were looking for a dining table, I really wanted the Warren Platner wire dining table. I called Knoll stores in Hong Kong and Singapore looking for it and comparing prices but gave up when I was told that it came only in one size. It was too big for our dining table.

We needed a small dining table with a 100-meter diameter, way below the standard size. I went to www.1stdibs.com hoping to find one. Four pages later, a Piero Pinto table showed up with beautiful removable legs. How I wanted it but it was too expensive and the legs were gold and badly scratched. Our place is mostly silver and chrome and if we are to pay a premium for something, it’d better be good quality even if it’s vintage.

I obsessed about the table though. And leafing through my old issue of Elle Décor, I found that Brian Atwood has a similar table at his apartment in Milan (see below). We have met Atwood a couple of times, in Milan and Singapore and we are also fans of his bf, Nate Berkus’, work. Atwood got his table from www.spazio900.net but it was a rare piece.

Since we couldn’t get our hands on an original, we decided to have something similar made. The beauty of living in Hong Kong is that anything and everything can be reproduced. Our contractor, Andy, was up to the task and he delivered it yesterday. It is beautiful with chrome legs in mirror finish and a crystal glass. Only, it won’t become stable. It kept on shaking despite the efforts of three people. I suppose it is a feat of physics to make something made of three pieces act solidly like one body.

Unwrapping the legs

Our contractor and his team attempting to stabilize it

It was decided that Andy would make new legs, this time with thicker chrome. Meanwhile we would be using the faulty one until the new legs are delivered. It looks really beautiful and modern and we can’t resist.

What do you think? And imagine how the dining room will look once we have the mouldings! Tres chic!

Chic Transformation

Before:

We bought these faux Louis XVI stools at a store called I Wanna Go Home in Singapore. We placed them under a mother of pearl console in our apartment's entryway. The legs of the stools are unfinished and the seats were in a rough linen material giving them a sort of French provincial look.

After:

For Hong Kong, I wanted to make them more chic than shabby. I knew I wanted to use velvet and debated between peacock blue and a green that is in between moss and hunter. I also wanted to paint the legs white but decided against that at the last minute.

I like how they look now. I like the plushness of the velvet and the rawness of the unfinished, natural wooden legs. It's amazing what a change in fabric and color can do to old pieces.

Woof 2

Brighton, ever the curious dog, never left the side of the electrician as he installed the light in our bedroom last week. I like to think there is a decorator in him.

It's Here!

The Sellarsbrook Blue rug by Suzanne Sharp from The Rug Company has left the premises of Lane Crawford and has found a permanent home in our apartment. We all love it, including Brighton as you can see in the photos.

I really like the how the pattern on the rug is almost identical to the legs of the tables.

Fringe Benefits

For years I was partial to modern design - sleek, geometric and clean. But after being exposed to designers like Kelly Wearstler, Thad Hayes and Robert Mishaan, my style has evolved to something I like to define as updated classic.

A testament to this shift in aesthetics is my current fixation with tassels. I never gave tassels much thought before but today I spent a good deal of the afternoon looking for them.

There is a place in Hong Kong that sells expensive fabric and drapery accoutrements called Cetec (now located on the 18F of the Printing House building on Dudell Street.) They are expensive because their fabrics and hardware are from France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland and their selections are tasteful and well-edited.

They have great selections of tiebacks with tassels - from the classic and ornate variety to the more contemporary ones. I found one a simple one in olive which would look exquisite against our emerald green drapes. I like it's clean look.

My second choice has two tassels on both both ends and each one has a metal upper part instead of the usual knots or loops. I asked for it in olive as well.

Cetec has sent my request to the manufacturer in France and I am to find out tomorrow which one is available. They said it will take 10 days for it to get to HK.

Chic Inspirations: Moving to Hong Kong Part 4

When I first met with our contractor Andy, I had a scrapbook of images of how I wanted the apartment to look like. They were carefully edited images that all evoke the three words I had in mind for the apartment: classic, modern and glamorous. I know classic and modern don’t always go in the same sentence but you’ll see what I mean when you view the photos below.

Versace designed apartment at The Plaza

On our initial meeting, I really stressed that I want mouldings on the walls, especially in the living, dining and guest rooms. I wanted an apartment that had the same feel of a pre-war apartment on the Upper East Side. I have been obsessed with mouldings since the launch of the The Plaza apartments in New York decorated by Versace. While I am not a fan of the Medusa motif, I found the use of white mouldings against black walls very chic. And I wanted to replicate that.

The bedroom at The Plaza apartments

On our Christmas trip to Italy, we stayed at the beautiful Four Seasons Hotel in Florence and our room had beautiful mouldings in two shades of green. When we went to Rome after Florence, we stayed at a suite at the Westin which was painted in pale gray and accented by white mouldings. These two places made me want mouldings all the more.

Our room at the Four Seasons in Florence

Our suite at the Westin in Rome

Right now, we are still under discussions as to whether we would install mouldings or not. The biggest pro is that it will make the apartment look extremely chic. But there are a lot more cons: it will be an extra expense; it’s a rental so we would have to reinstate everything back to its original state; reinstating the apartment would also cost a lot of money. Andy said it wouldn’t that be difficult to reinstate to original conditions because installing mouldings is a lot like hanging a framed artwork on the wall, but with only just the frame and no picture in the middle. And besides, we’ve already drilled holes for all our artworks.

Dior's mouldings are also very chic

So the question now is, should we or shouldn’t we?

Moving to Hong Kong Part 3

Curtain Call

The apartment is coming along nicely. Yesterday, one contractor installed our new curtains and another contractor hung our art while selling me the idea of installing mouldings on our walls (more on this later).

For the curtains, the colors are pretty much like our wall colors. A jewel tone green for the drapes in the living room in a lush silk-like material. The living room sheers are recycled from our apartment in Singapore. In the master bedroom, we used the same material as in the living room but in a different color. We used ecru with a black 6-inch border on the sides and the bottom to go with the black lacquered wall. We also installed them on the ceiling for more impact. It’s an old decorating trick that is employed to lengthen a room and to give an illusion that your windows are actually longer than they really are. The sheers are in a gauzy silvery metallic like fabric. For the guest bedroom, we used the curtains we had in our master bedroom in Singapore: drapes in pewter and sheers in charcoal. For the study, we used drapes that look like the color of blue sapphires. It will take a couple of days before the curtains will fall gracefully and for the creases to iron themselves out but needless to say, we are very pleased with the result. And again, the photos don’t do justice. I should use a camera and not my iPhone.

While the curtain installer was drilling holes for the rods in our bedroom, the other contractor was drilling holes on our walls. We placed our newly-acquired green James Nares artwork entitled Epigraph 4 against one pale green wall, above a mother of pearl console table with chrome legs. Our Richard Serra etching (Extension #3) went on the adjacent wall. The other Serra (Out the Window at the Square Diner), a lithograph, went on the opposite wall, right beside what will be a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf with a working ladder come March. Both Serra’s we acquired on our trip to New York in September from Gemini G.E.L on Madison Avenue. A small orange Ellsworth Kelly is on one wall.

In the master bedroom hangs an oil pointing by Paolo Troilo which we bought one summer in Positano, Italy. A painting with such powerful and moving brushstrokes that it makes you wonder whether the subject is in pain or ecstasy.

As in our study in Singapore, we have a one wall that is a gallery of pictures and artworks we’ve collected over the years, some bought, others printed from past fashion editorials I worked on. The piece de resistance is the Alex Katz woodblock print.

Moving to Hong Kong Part 2

Color Theory

After two days of paintwork, our apartment is feeling more and more like a home. In our old apartment in Singapore, we painted the walls ourselves – three walls in shades of charcoal, pewter and silver – over the Chinese New Year break. While I can say that we did a decent job, we decided to hire someone to do our Hong Kong apartment.

The process of choosing paint color is a lot like trying to figure out what you want to do in life. Questions like these arise: Is this what I really want? Will I be happy with this decision? What if I go for the safe choice instead and just coast along? Shall I follow my own vision? I like to refer to it as the Dulux equivalent of an existential crisis. I would say Farrow and Ball, but sadly they are not available here.

We were never much for color. When it comes to interiors, I am inclined to varying shades of gray while it is a stretch for BB to use anything brighter than beige or anything darker than chocolate brown. And so it is quite a derring-do for us to introduce new colors to our home — a pale blue that is close to robin’s egg and a shade a tad brighter than sage. Hardly daring I know.

Our painter, a Mainland Chinese guy whom our contractor hired, started with the one wall in the master bedroom I wanted to be painted in a very high gloss black. We chose Deep Onyx which took long to dry because of its consistency and the moisture in the air. Our painter who knows very little English and who has a habit of showing me his work permit and pointing out that it says he is a decorator and painter kept uttering the word wet to me whenever I entered the room.

“This wet,” he would say pointing to the wall. Then he would scratch his head followed by this off-putting gurgling noise. I would ask how long it will take to dry and he would reply, “This wet. One wet. Dry two,” plus the point, scratch and gurgle three-part body language. I didn’t quite figure out what he meant until our maid, E, walked in the room to tell me that the first coat is wet and that when it is dry he will do the second coat. I should mention that E doesn’t speak a word of Chinese having just moved here a week after we arrived.

For two days, our painter went from room to room, applying paint with the barest tools – a bucket of paint color and a 7-inch wide brush. No roller, no painter’s tape. How he managed to paint on a straight line or how he was able to avoid getting paint on the baseboards and the other walls was impressive. I guess he is an expert and perhaps that is why he kept showing me the notation on his work permit that he is a decorator and painter.

When I woke up this morning, I walk around the apartment and checked the rooms. The guest bedroom looks like a Tiffany Box (Alice Blue), the curved wall on the dining room (Veil) looks dramatic especially with the black glass chandelier and the huge photograph of model’s parted lips painted a very glossy red hanging above a tufted banquet, and the living room (Shy Blossom) is soothing and calming. The master bedroom with its black lacquer-like wall is very sexy.

The photos below do not give justice to the paint job but they give a hint of what’s to come.

Living Room

Dining Room

Guest Bedroom

Master Bedroom

... And We're Back. Moving To Hong Kong Part 1

We've been missing for a few months due to lots of changes in our lives. We are happy to say that we have moved back to Hong Kong after two years in Singapore. Our moved happened about a week and a half ago. You would think that after moving several times we would have mastered the process. But that isn't the case.

We arrived at our apartment in Hong Kong that was furnished

with rented furniture until ours arrived. Thus, we had a bed that felt like brick, mismatch dining table and chairs, a TV console that was larger than the sofa and towels that had seen better days. It was a good thing that one of us had the foresight to bring with us our own towels, sheets and comforter. By that time we checked in at the airport, we had 10 checked luggage plus a dog.

Almost immediately, the whole process of putting the apartment together began. Two days after we arrived, my friend P, who is an interior designer from the Philippines flew in to help me sort out everything. There being no curtains in the guest bedroom, we spent his first day taping black cardboard on his windows. Followed by a meeting with a contractor who would do the paint job and the floor to ceiling bookshelves. We also spent several hours with a curtain maker who between showing us different fabric swatches and tassels revealed that her marriage hasn't been working for a long time and that she's found herself attracted to women.

Our furniture, home accessories and personal effects were delivered to us a week after we arrived. Some 200 plus boxes. The first day was madness as the rented furniture company had to pick up their stuff early in the morning to make way for our own. When our movers arrived half an hour after the furniture company had left every inch of the apartment was covered in boxes. It also turned out that we have accumulated an insane amount of art and framed photographs. Piled together, they ate almost a third of the size of the living room.

We spent four days sorting out the boxes, organizing the closets and the kitchen, deciding on where best to hang the art. As for the furniture, we already knew where everything was going as we had toyed with the floor plan for several weeks.

We leave you for now with images of the mess that is our apartment and sketches of how we envision it will be once we've cleared the rubble. We will also update frequently to show you the progress.

Handymen trying to sort out our chandeliers

The living room is one big mess at the moment

A rough sketch of my soon to be closet/home office