Where The Heart Is

Soft, neutral tones with pops of colour transform Hanni Wong's 100-year-old conservation shophouse into a family home.

- Azhar Rahim

For wealth management advisor Hanni Wong and her banker husband Nigel, living in a shophouse has always been the dream. Inspired by the rows of shophouses opposite her then-boyfriend, now-husband's penthouse apartment in the Joo Chiat area, the couple would often try to peek inside the houses. "I loved walking around the neighbourhood and seeing how these pre-war shophouses look as modern-day residences," recalls Wong.

It was the juxtaposition of the old-world charm of the exteriors and modern interior designs that appealed to the couple. So when they got married in 2017 and the opportunity to purchase a shophouse came knocking on the door, both Wong and her husband wasted no time setting up a viewing appointment.

Walking into the east-side property for the first time, though, Wong was not impressed. The almost 3,500sqft three-storey shophouse, which was then just listed on the market, looked very rundown and was segmented into two separate units: The ground floor was rented out as a retail-cum-office space, while the upper two floors were rented out as an apartment.

"It was definitely not a love-at-first-sight moment for me, to be honest," she says of the property. Scrolling through her phone to show the pre-renovation photos, the 35-year-old recalls how dark and dingy the space was. "There was no natural light coming in except from the two windows at the front. It was in [such] a completely unliveable state that I wasn't able to visualise how it could be a home for our family," she says.

Despite her reservations, the couple made an offer and, within days, were homeowners to a 100-year-old conservation shophouse. Wong asserts that while she was not a fan of the property then, she relented as her husband could see its potential.