Stairway Light Fixture and Window Panels

Another thing we had put off for a long time was choosing the light fixture for the stairway. There was a long electric cord hanging there since we bought the house. We were looking for a large fixture because the stairway is pretty big. There is of course a wide variety of really gaudy fixtures available here in Malaysia. The long crystal ones like the chandeliers shown on the TSEN website here seem to be quite popular, but too 'fancy' for our taste especially since there are already a lot of elements going on in the stairway.

We were thinking about the Howell style Chandelier (inspired by the 2097 Chandelier by Gino Sarfatti) at Timeless here. But I have been seeing this chandelier used in houses around the world a bit too much lately and think we will get tired of it. So we opted for a simple round Asian Lantern style fixture. The electric cord and cover at the top are from an Ikea Melodi lamp (28myr) where I took the shade off and replaced it with a Lantern I bought in Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown.

As for the two windows. One is made of glass blocks so you can't see through it, but the other window is overlooking the side of our neighbors house. The window itself is something like 250cm+ long, so it was hard to find something that would fit the window. Our neighbors have had a custom piece of fabric installed, which doesn't look that great. When I saw that the Ikea panels for the Kvartal panel track were 300cm long, and two panels side to side would cover the width of the window, I chose to use it. We had to have a person install the Kavartal and panels because it required a tall ladder. It took them a few hours and I could hear them complaining about the process (had read online that these are not easy to install). Well, glad it is done, we have light and privacy!!!!

Sculpture Bases Completed

B has completed the two white Sculpture Bases for the empty spaces in the Entryway and upstairs (mentioned before here). I've placed a couple of my middle-eastern Silver pieces on the bases for now, and will keep an eye out for some larger vases or sculptures to place on them. We think they look great!

White Stones Under the Stairway

We Recently bought 11 bags of these medium size white pebbles for the space under the Stairway in the entryway (we had tested smaller grey asian pebbles shown here).

I like the larger size pebbles and the white looks pretty nice and neutral. I was planning to make (or have B make) a piece of wood to paint white that could be inserted at the front to 'hold back' the pebbles and make them look enclosed. But R likes the way they are loose on the floor. He thinks they are more stylish this way. I'm not sure, but will leave it as is for now and see over time.

Inspiration for Under Stairway

So after we finished painting the Entryway, my mind immediately started thinking about the useless space under the stairway (okay I was thinking about this before painting too). I don't know who designed this house, but they could have done a better job with the layout in places. The entryway near the stairs is a good example. The space is totally wasted. You can't really put furniture in there because of the angle or hang art. You wouldn't want to close it up as a closet either. So what to do?

Awhile ago, I saw a photo online of a staircase with Asian pebbles near it and thought this might be an option. So I researched online and was initally thinking about adding some plants in the space too. But it doesn't get that much natural light there and plants would require upkeep. Since we are going for contemporary minimalist, and since we are in Asia, R and I thought why not put some asian pebbles in the space? Just simply the stones.

So I get my box of unused pebbles leftover from the landscape design stage (the pebbles I placed in the photo above are not the same darker blueish grey we used outside the house. These are a lighter grey). But after putting them down, R thinks that the pebbles look too small and I think they look too much like the pebbles we have outside the house. I'm going to go to the Rock Garden in Seremban sometime soon and see what else they have. I'd like to get the entryway moving along.

Inspiration photos I found: