In good company

For Rachel Lee and Tan Siow Chua, coming home after a long day often entails spending time with family. Both directors of SC Auto Industries, a company that designs and manufactures premium luxury coaches, much of their free time is also poured into grassroots activities. So making time in their busy lives to catch up on the day’s happenings with the rest of the family or entertaining friends and relatives is something they relish.

Home is a four-storey bungalow, designed and built from the ground up. “This house has everything we need, including a gym. Because it’s a bungalow, there are also many windows and doors,” Lee says, of the 6,500 sq ft, six-bedroom, property. Glorious sunlight floods the interior spaces, be it the living room, gym or study.

Simply Stunning
To work on the interior spaces, they engaged Designworx Interior Consultant. Terri Tan, Design Director of the firm, says, “The owners approached us during the construction stage, so it was easier for interior intents to be incorporated into the building.”

Working together with the architecture firm Wong Kok Yan Chartered Architect, the interior designer could address several issues that wouldn’t have been possible had the house been already built. The interior designer explains, “For example, we preferred not to have conventional air-con grilles for the ducted system and suggested 50 mm wide channels instead. This was worked into the air-con system in part, thanks to the mechanical expertise of the owner who had the resources in his coach manufacturing facility to customise the ducts.”

She adds, “He was very hands on throughout the whole process. He has experience with space planning and sometimes will even sketch out his intention on paper so that all consultants involved can understand and be on the same wavelength.” An engineer by training, he was also trained as a chef. As someone passionate about cooking – he cooks for the family almost every night – he’s just as keen to have a well-equipped and beautifully designed kitchen.

Adding And Accessorising
The details include sliding timber doors to close off the wet kitchen. Designworx also equipped the kitchen with a “zhi-char” style hob and kitchen appliances from De Dietrich. Designworx kept the living, dining and dry kitchen spaces free flowing so that guests could mingle easily. Fronting the dry kitchen is a dramatic kitchen counter clad in Fantastico onyx. “The feng shui requirement stipulated something red in the dry kitchen space. We decided to design the island as the focal point and kept the surrounding cabinets neutral,” Tan says.

She added that Lee also loves warm tones, especially bright hues of flowers. So colours like red, plum and burnt orange were added as accent elements. A notable space is the entertainment room, which features geometric patterns that help to distract attention away from the low ceiling. Different types of marble, Arena Classico marble in the living and dining rooms for example, can be seen throughout the home. The powder room is clad with the dramatic Statuario marble. The master bathroom dons the more subdued Dark Walnut marble and Honey Beige marble.

Designworx’s strength is in its attention to detail, which Lee appreciates immensely. Pointing out the small gold touches that were added onto the door frames, Lee says, “There are small details that people won’t notice at first. My friends would remark that they love the doors, but it’s upon closer inspection that they would realise why.”