A Renovation Romance

Talk about a passion project! This stunning home makeover carried out by a pair of newlyweds is nothing short of a love letter to one another.

- Melinda Murphy

It’s a love story really, this place at Mimosa Park. Two newlyweds, LISA OAKE and her husband SANJAY MIRCHANDANI, share a passion for home makeovers and their newly renovated apartment is their unexpected masterpiece. Unexpected because they live in Mimosa Park. Built in 1976,

it’s one of the oldest condos in Singapore. So, what lies behind the front door seems a bit incongruous with what you might expect as you walk through the condo parking lot. In fact, the combination of the real stone walls and the custom-built kitchen feels more like something you’d find back in Lisa’s home country of Canada – not Seletar.

“Google was our architect,” the couple laughs. Lisa adds, “We knew we wanted a cosy and rustic feel, so we both spent a lot of time online, researching what we liked. We’re so lucky that we have exactly the same taste – we agreed on absolutely everything.”

The stone wall

Even though Sanjay had renovated another home previously, sourcing things in Singapore was no easy task. For starters, there’s the impressive stone wall that sets the tone for the entire home. “We went to eight different places to look at walls, but nothing was quite like the one we wanted,” explains Sanjay. “We finally found a gigantic granite boulder at a place called Hot Spring Stone. They used this big burner and a stone-cutting machine and started chiselling it off for us. The pieces had to be thin so they would go on the wall properly. I think the guy thought we were a little crazy,” says Sanjay, with a twinkle in his eye. His love for this project is as apparent as Lisa’s.