Decor in $450k house revolves around 3-year-old son

These home owners like the minimalist style so their young son, Zhen Yuan, is able to have the run of the spacious double-storey detached house.

Wed, Oct 05, 2011
The Star/Asia News Network

KUALA LUMPUR - The decor style of a house needs to be simple when family life revolves around the needs of a three-year-old.

Luckily, these home owners like the minimalist style so their young son, Zhen Yuan, is able to have the run of the spacious double-storey detached house.

Dubbed a "twin bungalow" by the developer, the house is totally detached, except for a 10ft (0.9m) stretch at the back, where it is linked to the neighbouring house.

House owner Wong Chee Siong bought his house two years ago for RM1.1mil (S$451,770), after having stayed for three years in a semi-detached house in the adjacent Bukit Rimau area. Before that, he lived in Subang Jaya.

Wong finds that Kota Kemuning is the place to settle in.

"As I travel a lot, I need to find a gated and guarded community for my wife and three children as they are left alone quite often. With family members living a distance away, my family's security is of utmost importance," says Wong, a business development and corporate account manager with Diversey, a hygiene and sanitation company. Covering the Asia Pacific region, he has been travelling extensively for the past 10 years, so you would expect to find lots of mementoes brought back from his travels. But Wong has been disciplined about not cluttering his home with artifacts.

Elegant and minimal Click on thumbnail to view

Quiet and elegant

After navigating four roundabouts through tree-lined broad roads, the visitor reaches Kemuning Hills, a quiet, elegant neighbourhood.

Wong's house has a fence and a gate, but there are no worries about leaving the gate open and having the two teenage children, daughter Xin En, 13 and son Pin Cheng, 11, cycling around.

Wong, 41 and his wife Siew Kung, a piano teacher, love gardening and a favourite plant is the heliconia; the more species adorning the garden, the better.

A glorious bed of heliconias stands outside the main gate, and the garden is replete with various ginger plants, a banana tree with purple flowers but which does not fruit, bushido trees and wonderful hanging bracts of heliconia.

Many houses have a seat in the porch, but Wong has gone further by installing a gazebo by the side of the main door.

Minimal

Inside, all is cool and calm, with white walls, clear ceramic tiles on the floor, and a feature wall backing the audio-visual counter.

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Wong says: "The colours I have used are brown, black and white, with a bit of red here and there." You can see that in the black Cellini L-shaped modular sofa perked up by red cushions. A patio adjoins the sitting area, and a red-cushioned circular seat on a brown deck is certainly inviting for an outdoor chit-chat.

Wong cut his decorating teeth by reading interior decor magazines and visiting show-houses and is confident about his "interior is minimal, outside is tropical" concept.

"With the needs of my young son, Zhen Yuan in mind, I have not placed a coffee-table in the sitting room. But I have placed a carpet here where he can lounge around on," explains Wong.

Gallery

From the sitting room, a short corridor lined by paintings leads to the inner portion of the house. He calls this his gallery and at the end of this passage, a RM3,000 (S$1,231) painting of a sunflower in brilliant colours lights up the atmosphere.

The original dry kitchen was located here, but the home owner has raised the floor and converted this open space into a play area, with timber flooring, for his young child.

The dining area is in black and white. A heavy six-seater marble-top dining table with leather chairs from Casarano represents a stable income. In feng shui, it's important to have a solid table so your rice bowl would remain stable.

Another patio backed by a water wall feature and a koi pond afford more space for diners.

Upstairs, the master bedroom has a lovely lanai with metal louvred windows. Wong has converted the lanai into a private sitting area where family photographs are displayed. The windows now open into a balcony where long beans, sweet potato and lady's fingers grow.

Since he works in a sanitation company, it is no accident that his house is kept spotless. Not for him such habits as leaving a book on the sofa or newspapers strewn about.

No surprise that Wong has opted for a simple and minimal style. And it works, to accommodate his growing family.