By day, first-time homeowner Sharon Tan runs Full Bleed, her small graphic design studio. By night and on weekends, she puts on an interior designer hat for her recently set up Millimetre Interiors.
When she got the keys to her apartment in Tampines, it had not crossed her mind to design her own home. "But as I looked around, I realised I didn't want a home that was someone else's idea of a sanctuary," she says. "I wanted a deeply personal space, something to call my own entirely."
While others would have picked Scandinavian or contemporary chic as their design theme, Ms Tan picked Victorian and floral. "I wanted all the detail of that period without being musty or ostentatious," she says.
Her first must-have feature was wallpaper, something she's always wanted. "In my day job, designing repeated patterns is something that I thoroughly enjoy," she says, adding that she even considered a career as a pattern and textile designer.
Ms Tan opted for Laura Ashley on one wall, in its classic design featuring flowers and birds against a beige background.
On an adjacent wall is Artemis, an iconic print from another UK brand, House of Hackney, with psychedelic floral prints in a vivid shade of azure-blue.
The flowers don't end there. Look up at the ceiling near the foyer and a floral sculpture called Ode to Mother looms above you, thanks to her fascination with shopfront floral displays in London.
The bathroom walls have Escher-pattern tiles, which she says are a nod to her graphic design roots, as he was the first artist she studied as an art student. There is also a 30kg stone sink that sits on a customised steel table.
Instead of working with a single contractor, Ms Tan decided early on to assign specific jobs to specialised contractors with the required expertise. "This seemed the best way to achieve a high level of competence as each and all of my requirements were exacting," she says.
Since completing her home, some clients have come to visit to see her quality of work. But they need not fear if an English home isn't their style. Ms Tan is capable of creating other themes too. "The modern Victorian look is just me," she says. "The aim is to design a place for the client to look forward to coming home to."
This story was adapted from The Business Times. Click here to read the original story.