The house, imageswhich was built in the fifties, has been remodeled from its staid and rather small and unattractive beginnings it finally emerged as the inviting home it is today.

If the hostess, after personally opening the gate to greet you, gives you a moment to browse around the house, you find yourself in a hall which, apart from serving as a bad weather dining area, contains a Malacca cabinet that used to be placed in the kitchen to store fine crockery, a function it still fulfills here today. A door leads to compact, ergonomically designed all-white kitchen. On your right in Malacca Chinese side table made of nam and teak wood, now visible because the original lacquer has been stripped off.

But bad weather that’s allows such browsing is not what you hope for when visiting friends, so on you go where you eyes take you to living room and its adjacent patio, where dining and entertaining usually take place. Since the morning, the table is laid for breakfast, with Celadon bowls from Chiangmai. On the cane side table sits a red clay incense burner, over which hangs a red and gold Chinese lantern.

On the right side of the patio there is casual sitting area with two cane chairs and a lacquer tray on a cane stand which serves table. All this is suffused by lovely light coming off the multitude of greens in the garden, by set aglow by the early sun.