BIG+BIH, Bangkok Design Festival, Baan Lae Suan Fair—Fall sees a host of interior design events in the capital. We visited them all and here’s what we learned on how to pimp your pad without calling in a construction crew.
KILL CLUTTER
Entangled wires and cables, stationery, documents and bills—it’s the little things that make a place look cluttered and uninviting. Here are some tools to do away with the mess.
Box ‘em. If you don’t have proper shelves or cupboards to store your stuff, toss them in boxes and write up labels to keep track of what’s where. While classy, Muji boxes lean towards the pricey side. Opt for more affordable choices at Zeen Zone (Try Central Chidlom, 02-793-7777) where a set of five boxes in pastel colors are available at B950. At Sampeng, things get even cheaper, especially at Nam Ngai Hong (119-121 Soi Palitpol, Yaowarat Rd., 02-224-0099), where see-through plastic boxes are abundant in style and price, starting from as low as B40.
Unwind the wires. Obviously, you can’t live without a TV, stereo, DVD player, PC, printer and modem. Unfortunately, that means a tangle of unsightly wires. If you’re not up for a complete redesign of your apartment and hiding cables in the walls or underneath the floors, you can still get some gizmos to keep your cables in order. At Daiso (try Thaniya branch, 2/F, Thaniya Plaza, 02-632-6671), the all-item-B60 store, you’ll find different types of clips to work wonders on your wires. Or get a cuter Mr.P One Man Tied wire keeper (B250) from Propaganda (try 4/F, Siam Discovery, 02-658-0430).
Compartmentalize. In a bid to clean things up, you’ve been dumping all your junk in drawers. Only problem is, they’re now choked full. Here’s a quick tidy tip: (1) dump everything onto a table, (2) throw away anything you don’t use/need. Before you put things back into the drawer, (3) clean it first, then (4) make sure you use small containers or partitions to keep things together (try Daiso ). Don’t get too hung up on finding fancy containers. Any old box will do.
Ask the Expert: Clean and Minimal
Apirat Boonruangthaworn, Silpakorn University Designer of the Year 2009 (Furniture)
“The essential element for achieving a neat, clean room is the furniture. Vertical and horizontal lines are the two main factors you need to worry about, as they are what the human eye is most used to. Furniture should be installed according to these two lines. Make sure you leave some space though, as you also need to be able to really live there! You should also control the color scheme. Limit yourself to a grayscale (black, white, gray) on basic items and most walls and floors. Less is more is always the right approach for small space living.”
GO GREEN
Going green will not only save the planet but also your money.
Change bulbs. Replace you old incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL) that consume around one quarter of the power of a regular bulb. Despite their higher price, the CFL also has longer life at around 8,000-10,000 hours compared to 1,000 hours of the old types. Start now, traditional light bulbs will be banned in Europe within the next few years.
Water-saving shower head. High-performance shower heads use approximately 40% less water than the old-school vintage types. Try Modem Rain Shower from Grohe (from B17,000 at Boonthavorn, 243 Ratchadapisek Rd., 02-275-0029, www.boonthavorn.com).
Eco-friendly furniture. Furniture in Oggi’s (Nakavivas Soi 47, 02-538-5437, www.oggi-living.com) Husk collection are made of dried rice as you can see from their unique surface. These made-to-order pieces take around 4-6 weeks to be built with prices starting from B2,800. The OSISU (18/18 Moo 3, Nonthaburi 1 Rd., 02-968-1900, www.osisu.com) offers PMC cupboard made from milk boxes (B32,500). But if you don’t like the surface’s color, its block stool made from small pieces of offcut wood from furniture factories has a smoother finish (B13,700).
D-I-Y
Bored with your abode? You don’t need to move out or buy new furniture. Just get active and creative and do it yourself.
Color that wall. Painting one whole wall with one color can have a really dramatic effect. (It’s called a feature wall for a reason.) In a kid’s room, you might go for a primary yellow, red, blue or green. In a living room, try muted colors. For some Pantone colors selected by top designers, visit http://tinyurl.com/yfktvgk. You can also paint old objects to turn them into funky works of art. Check out the iBerry at La Villa (BTS Ari) for a taste of Udom “Nose” Taepanich’s playful decorative style.
Slap up some wallpaper. Wallpapers are hot. Again, it’s best to use them on one wall only. Another hot trend is to use them inside closets. Index Living Mall (from B390/sq-meter, www.indexlivingmall.com) has a good selection of big, bold designs. For something smaller, like the inside of a box or drawer, Daiso also stocks funky papers and stickers ranging from faux skins to pop-art graffiti patterns—B60 each. You could also use them as a funky touch at the bottom or top of a wall—it’s cheaper and just as noticeable.
Recycle. Word is every café in London is copying Melbourne’s coffee culture where seats just must be made from milk crates. So one man’s junk could be your furniture. Old fabric and clothes can also be reused in another way. After you clean up that old wardrobe you’ve kept since the Chuan 1 government, you’ll find a lot of vintage clothes that you can no longer fit into. Try turning them into pillow cases.
Ask the Expert: DIY That Works
Intukarn Gajaseni Sirisant, Editor-in-Chief, Martha Stewart Living Thailand
“Bangkokians often think that DIY and crafts are just for those housewives who have plenty of time. But actually there are several DIY techniques that you can do easily and that really make a difference to your space. Renovating vintage items for example. It’s also a great way of keeping your memories. It’s like you give the item a new lease of life. If you want to go further then Homepro and Sampeng Market have everything you need to revamp your room on your own. But, if you really have a limited time and budget, go for walls and curtains. Change their color and make real changes to your room easily. You can also get interesting paint rollers that create textures on your wall without any building work.”
LIGHTEN UP
Good lighting is crucial to good interior design.
Go blinds. Sure, curtains are great for blocking out light, particularly in bedrooms. But blinds offer more creative ways to filter and control the light in your room. Wood blinds are very expensive, but since blinds are strongly backlit during the day, you won’t get to see much of them. Aluminum is cheaper and much lighter but not very exciting. Roll-up roman blinds made of bamboo are really hot at the moment. Try HomePro and Index Living Mall.
Edgy Lighting. Lamps placed in a room’s corners tend to blow out shadows and make the room appear larger.
Focus. If you have a nice piece of art—a painting, a sculpture, or a vintage Barbie doll collection—there’s nothing like a spotlight to make it stand out. With proper lighting, any old piece of junk will look like you picked it up for a million dollars at a Sotheby’s auction.
Brighten up with a dimmer. It’s hard to get your lighting level just right, which is why we love dimmers. Unfortunately, they only work well with tungsten lamps, with can be a problem when you’re trying to go green. Dimmers are pretty easy to build into an existing light switch though (from B200, try Boonthavorn), so you don’t have to worry about ripping up walls or ceilings.
Five Essentials For a Homely Home Office
Desk
It’s essential that your desk is properly fitted to your height. Your knees and elbows should be at a 90-100 degree angle to the floor and the keyboard. The center of computer screen should be around your shoulder height. Positioned correctly that means your eyes are 20 inches away from the screen which should be titled at a 15-degree angle.
Electronic devices
ADSL, multi-function fax-scanner-photo copy machine and a desktop or laptop computer—these appliances help connect your life to the outside world without having to step through the door.
Ergonomic Chair & Mouse
A bad chair causes back pain and bad posture especially if you are sitting at your desk for the whole day. Good ergonomic chairs are made to offer the best comfort to every type of human body. That means you can adjust and customize everything until it fits you best. If you have plenty of bucks, you can try the state-of-the-art Herman Miller seating series. (from B47,500 at iStudio, 4/F, Siam Discovery Center, 02-658-0450/-3) And, if your work requires plenty of mouse clicking, you really need to consider one that fits properly into your palm rather than those stylish but hand-crippling alternatives.
Silence
Don’t pretend you can work while the TV is tuned to the latest Channel 7 soap opera—you really can’t. A workspace should be as far as you can from distracting entertainment devices. If you can’t put the TV in another room, just keep it out of sight until you’ve finished your tasks.
Windows
Of course you don’t want to work inside a closed box—it blocks imagination as well as damages your health. Proper windows give better air ventilation and a great view of the outside world.
Ask the Expert: Good lighting
Jiro Endo, lighting designer for GreenSpace by Greyhound 2009
“What’s really important in lighting design is the dynamic range of intensity. Different exposures of light help give better atmosphere to the room and your room will look much larger if you allow natural light to enter—especially for your workspace. Basic tips I would suggest are (1) be careful when you use white. Too much can turn out a little too bland and (2) you should make gaps between each lamp and light to make the room more interesting.”
