In a recent youtube video reveal with Overkill, Nicole Chang Min & James Seah revealed their new hanok-inspired HDB flat to the public. The brief that Nicole and James brought to interior designers Jaslin and Daniel from Extrusion was specific: Korean-inspired, warm, and entirely functional for a pair of content creators who film at home regularly. What came out of that brief is a flat that solves a problem most homeowners don’t even know they have, which is how to make a space feel atmospheric without sacrificing light.
And after shamelessly rewatching the video more times that we’d like to admit, here are 9 things we absolutely love about their home, from a remote-controlled hanok ceiling to a hidden door that disappears into a mirrored wall.
Contents
- 1. The hanok-inspired ceiling skylight that lets them control the “sun”
- 2. The common bathroom with a hidden door & a teardrop tap
- 3. The master bathroom built around an onsen bathtub
- 4. Shoji-inspired doors made from frosted acrylic
- 5. A functional themed kitchen with ample storage
- Nicole Chang Min & James Seah’s hanok-inspired second home
1. The hanok-inspired ceiling skylight that lets them control the “sun”
Stepping into the home beyond the entryway will lead you to their living room. A cosy corner carved out with a raised curved platform that gives the space a warmer, more intimate vibe.
Above it, is the real showstopper: a hanok-inspired skylight that stretches across a the entire ceiling with custom wooden beams to mimic exposed timber rafters in traditional hanok roofs. Installed by Cellux Ceiling, this fully customisable stretch PVC skylight is fire-resistant, lets you adjust colour temperatures, and is controlled entirely by remote.
Image credit: @extr.asia
For Nicole Chang Min and James specifically, this feature goes beyond aesthetics. As content creators who film a significant portion of their work at home, having a controllable overhead light source that mimics the quality of natural daylight means they are not beholden to the weather or the sun’s position. The skylight essentially gives them a studio-grade lighting condition inside a living room.
Nicole and James’ home draws some inspiration from the luxurious designs of boutique hotels. The first of this we see is in the design of the common bathroom which does not feature a traditional entrance or layout.
While the sink area is fully visible from the living and dining room, the access the to common bathroom toilet is through a fully mirrored door from Velto Door that blends seamlessly into the floor-to-ceiling mirrored corridor wall. Unless you know it is there, you would walk straight past it, which is exactly the point.
The mirrored wall is also an interesting design choice as their vanity does not have a sink as a backdrop, but frosted glass instead. Natural light filters gently through it from outside, keeping the space bright without any harshness or glare. It is a deliberate absence that makes the room feel considered rather than unfinished.
Inside, the walls, floors, and ceiling are finished in Loopy Paint micro-concrete. The same material runs across every surface without interruption, giving the bathroom the kind of seamless, tactile calm that is difficult to achieve with tiles.
Gif adapted from: Nicole Chang Min
The tap is the feature most people come back to. It suspends from the ceiling in a slender teardrop form, a fixture that would not look out of place in a boutique hotel bathroom in Cheongdam-dong. It does not sit on the counter or emerge from the wall. It simply hangs, delicate and precise, and turns the act of washing your hands into something that feels a little more ceremonial than it usually does.
3. The master bathroom built around an onsen bathtub
Image credit: @extr.asia
The master bathroom is accessed through a reed glass door, which provides enough privacy while still allowing light to pass between spaces. Inside, the micro-concrete finish continues from the rest of the home, keeping the material language consistent throughout.
The bathtub is tiled in a wood-look finish that references the deep timber tubs used in traditional Korean and Japanese onsen bathing culture.
Combined with an overhead rain shower positioned directly above it, the setup is designed around the idea of a deliberate, unhurried wind-down. The rain shower means you don’t have to choose between a bath and a full shower, you get both in the same footprint.
In another hotel-esque twist, the vanity sits inside the master bedroom rather than the bathroom. This way, the bedroom gets that hotel suite quality where getting ready feels like part of the experience, and the bathroom stays a dedicated space for actually washing up.
4. Shoji-inspired doors made from frosted acrylic
Image credit: @extr.asia
Traditional shoji doors are made from washi paper stretched across a timber lattice frame. They are beautiful, but fragile and difficult to maintain in Singapore’s humidity. For Nicole Chang Min and James’ master bedroom, their IDs used frosted acrylic panels in the shoji frames instead, keeping the visual language of the doors while swapping in a material that is wipe-clean, durable, and far better suited to the climate.
The acrylic panels carry the same quality of diffused light that washi paper is known for. When the lights inside the master bedroom are on at night, the glow passes through the frosted panels and the bedroom effectively becomes a “large ambient lamp” for the rest of the home.
Image credit: @extr.asia
The master bedroom also comes with a walk-in wardrobe, sectioned off from the main sleeping area by the same shoji sliding doors. Step through them and you’ll find full-height timber cabinetry lining both sides of the room, with a built-in timber desk running the full width of the window wall. Drawer units are built into the desk below, and a floating stool tucks underneath when not in use.
5. A functional themed kitchen with ample storage
The kitchen keeps things simple and consistent. Timber-look vinyl on the lower cabinets, white upper cabinets, and simple wooden dining furniture. This all ties back to the same warm, neutral palette you see across the rest of the home. Nothing feels out of place, and that continuity is a big part of what makes the hanok theme work as a whole rather than just in certain rooms.
One thing worth noting is that there are no tiles anywhere in the kitchen at all. The micro-concrete covers the floors and walls seamlessly, which means no grout lines to deal with after a heavy cooking session. Practical and good-looking at the same time. Storage is generous too. Cabinetry runs floor to ceiling on the kitchen side, and the dry pantry counter along the opposite wall doubles up as a home bar, with bottles lined up alongside a coffee setup and open timber floating shelves above for books, trophies, and personal bits.
Nicole Chang Min & James Seah’s hanok-inspired second home
We’ve toured and loved Nicole Chang Min and James’ first HDB home, and their second home is even more impressive! We’ve seen plenty of ryokan-inspired homes make the rounds in Singapore, but hanok-inspired renovations are still rare, which is why this renovation stands out with all its delicate and thoughtful details.
Read our other home renovation articles here:
- IKEA’s new home design service helped with family transform their BTO in under 14 days
- This homeowner created a faux skylight in her 3-rm HDB for around $1K
- A $65K 3-room resale HDB modern mancave transformation
Cover image adapted from: @extr.asia
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