47 266
EVERTON ROAD
47
February15
Where are you from?
Devon, England. Mark is Australian; we met in London 13
years ago and came to Singapore in the second quarter of
2012 after a year in Hong Kong.
How did you get this place?
Hilariously, it was originally a Chinese sausage factory! The
street had been re-zoned as residential, so our fantastic
landlord was pleased to find tenants like us who were
prepared to turn the place into a home at our own expense.
The price started off far too high, so we offered less,
promised we’d do a good job for him and made a commitment
to spend a certain amount of money on the place: $65,000,
which then became our budget. It made sense aggregated
over the four-year lease he had agreed to.
What did you need to do to it?
Our task was to transform a factory, which had in the 1980s
become a photographic studio, into a home that would work
for us – while respecting the heritage and architecture of
the building.
To start with, the interior was very 80s corporate, the ground
level partitioned into dark, poky rooms, with floors covered in
grey carpet… horrible! But I could see the potential.
In the first week, we got busy with the sledgehammers –
great fun! – and took out four flatbeds of rubble, opening it all
up to reveal the original spaces of the sausage factory. Being
on the corner, we’re lucky to have the light from windows
along two sides; like a shophouse, this kind of building could
otherwise be rather dark.
The art on the dining room walls
is all by my aunt, the Dutch artist
Gemma Van Schendelen. I’m
curating a retrospective exhibition
for her later this year. In the
mirrored corridor upstairs is a
collection of smaller works by her
that I’m still busy cataloguing.