The Designer Guys
Calling all bachelors: Is your apartment a glorified dorm room or a fortress of solitude? Award-winning Canadian-Chinese interior designer and co-host of reality show Designer Guys ALLEN CHAN tells us how to make your private space more the latter than the former. His mantra: Whatever the size of your pad, just keep it simple.
1. Your living room should be the entertainment HQ. “If you’re a bachelor, you might be watching a lot of sports and movies and probably playing a lot of Xbox or PlayStation games, so I think it’d be really great to have a big flat-screen TV and a home theatre system. You’d also need a good satellite bar or one of those little mobile bar carts for entertaining guests. I’d get a cool couch with sectionals, so I can stretch out and relax a bit. Try getting a coffee table made of wood, ’cos glass coffee tables get easily smudged with fingerprints and that could be a pain to clean. It’s also important to maintain a good level of lighting, so floor lamps are always good — they help create a mood, especially when you have guests over.”
2. Your washroom isn’t an exhibition hall. “Most bachelors probably have their toiletries all over their vanity countertops. Personally, I’d hide all that stuff away [in a cabinet]. I don’t like anything on my countertop. I like to keep things simple and elegant. Plus it’s easier to clean. It’s really a boo-boo if you display your razor, because there’s nothing worse than walking into someone’s washroom to see shaving bristle all over the sink.”
For the full story, read this week's issue of 8 DAYS (#1132).
