Little Flat in a Big Estate

If you are an old girl who's devoured interior magazines and filled yourself with trends and styles, our new home will definitely stand out as a modest example.

 

My mum, our old girl, chose to rent our new flat and made some holistic changes. She strategically outed a lot of our furniture. The old flat was more than ten years old and creaked a little in places but we’re working it into a cosy abode.  

 

This is mum’s latest place – what did she aspire to in our palpitating flat? “I didn’t work on interior design,” she stoutly insisted, “I worked on storage. Just placed the island table and the ordinary table in the middle of the dining space inside the big kitchen. Then I put some bookshelves in the living area and …” She was beginning to concede. “I ended up putting the blinds in place of the balcony curtains.”

 

September 2023, we moved to the flat ready to receive attention. We dared not paint the walls or floors or do any serious stuff to it as this flat is rented. It remains tied to its creamy and café- latte color scheme. In my room a largeish white check-pattern partition covers me up lying comfortable in my bed. (Mum’s idea)

 

Mum's room is the largest and I share with her an inner bathroom where I take showers. Leafy and flowery tiles adorn the inside of the shower booth. A problem of the squeaky bathroom doorway was solved by mum adroitly moving the narrow inserting space by the door into a neutral position. Mum commissioned me to use my calligraphy skill to write “Please Knock!”　on the bathroom door.

 

My mum has been the sole homemaker. My dad, although a bachelor in Architecture, his territory has been confined to his room. Changes in September 2023 saw his books spill out. Mum placed sky-blue three-tier bookshelves beside a larger window in our living room to put together many books (mostly dad’s.)

 

Our extensive kitchen welcomes you: a microwave oven, an induction heater, an electric kettle and the Brambly Hedge tea set we got from UK. There’s no more pantry or chandelier over the central dining table but what a time we’ve had as my mum joyfully taped the margins of kitchen furniture! We also individually got rid of our chandelier and the pantry, but there remain two biggish built-in closets each in my father's and mine to store clothing.  

 

Mum bought the new computer for family use. Oh, and she had this opportunity about her self-drawing pictures. She also wanted to hang up some of her treasured pen drawing and watercolour artwork on one corner. After we looked carefully at the living room, we went to the max buying a milky coffee table, creating a visible café latte in the middle of living area.

 

Overall, my mum summarized our move as: she wanted simplicity, but focusing on organization and good arrangement was the main thing for her.