House of antiques

AS a child, Kelvin Pow remembers his grandfather making him clean the intricate carving on a peranakan settee in their shophouse in Katong... with a toothbrush. It was a Chinese New Year ritual and truth be told, he did not mind. It gave him the opportunity to marvel at the strange but beautiful menagerie of phoenixes at play in the branches of delicate flowers and fruit.

Mr Pow, now in his late 40s, did not know it at the time but he was forming an enduring emotional attachment to a piece of furniture that would one day serve as the piece de resistance of his own antiques collection.

Today, in his 1928 shophouse in Geylang, Mr Pow, a business development manager in the healthcare sector, jokes that he had to buy the property three years ago just to house his growing collection of furniture. Previously, he lived in a walk-up apartment in the Joo Chiat area and whatev…