00:09hi I'm Sasha from Bali interiors and hi I'm Shayla from Bali interiors as well nearly 10 years ago I
00:16moved to Bali and I had this idea of starting a business and I came up with the idea of
00:21studying
00:21Bali interiors pretty much within four months of arriving in Bali I decided to start this
00:28Instagram page and then after in COVID actually that's when my business expanded and that's when
00:34Sasha came along to the business because I needed some help
00:44so Bali interiors is a media platform now and we create original video and photographic content as
00:53well as written articles long-form video short-form video Shayla at first did absolutely everything
00:58she was a one-woman band for five years working so many hours every night
01:10we had this conversation and I said to Sasha I would love to have a boutique hotel one day and
01:15he said
01:16we can't do everything you have to choose one we can either have a home or we can do the
01:21boutique hotel
01:26we decided to create our own home here so we we hired an architect spent a lot of time designing
01:32it and built the home which took about two years in total to build but there's also the issue of
01:37where are we going to live as we were converting this home a residential home into a hotel so we
01:44had
01:44to move out and we found a small local house to live in three or four minutes away and then
01:49we were able
01:50to do quite a few different renovations inside what was our home to turn it into the hotel that you
01:57see now
02:03it was really tough I'm not gonna lie I cried a lot why do we have to do this but
02:10obviously it was my
02:11choice and my decision obviously our decision but didn't mean that the decision was easy I still suffered
02:17through it and waking up here is literally like a dream but I'm okay I didn't cry so much it
02:25wasn't
02:25so difficult for me I was quite happy he was fine
02:35okay so we did the renovations in two stages we did one just over a year ago when we moved
02:43out and we were
02:44holding some of the retreats here so we kind of had to turn a little bit some structural structural
02:50changes close walls open other walls with a view to making this five separate rooms rather than
02:58one large residential villa another renovation where that was more of the aesthetics and the interiors
03:05so the second stage is when we really like change the flooring upstairs open we created a kind of like
03:11a
03:11second pantry for the kitchen to make it more better for the chef the in-house chef to work here
03:18put all the wallpaper we painted all the walls and ceilings we changed the marbles in the kitchen in the
03:25bathrooms we changed the flooring in three of the bathrooms did a change at the entry as well the floor
03:31as well we brought more furniture just changed the furniture around and created the spa room and
03:39also the workshop room before the workshop room was supposed to be a photographic studio which we
03:44never really used for that it was kind of the the big gudang and so we moved everything out and
03:50now it's
03:50actually a proper workshop space
04:00yeah there were some challenges uh obviously the the renovation in itself or the two renovations were
04:05quite challenging because in bali things never go exactly to plan so there were delays and then
04:10there was the issue of pressure testing the facility there was a little bit of trial and error to see
04:16how we could make it work but fortunately the the house survived and our sanity survived as well as
04:22we were able to make sure that that the hotel can cope with the demands that it faces at the
04:27moment
04:33pretty much i think we like have it all under control now is it's a good time to open a
04:38hotel
04:38because we've now been tested i think for me the the challenging part was learning about the
04:45structural integrity of a building as we were trying to solve problems that we we had never encountered
04:51before that was incredibly stressful then once we got someone from outside to come and do a surveillance
05:00of the whole building it actually was fine uh and we did some changes to like you know make things
05:06better but it actually it was safe structurally solid structurally solid which was my worry afterwards
05:12with the second kind of third kind of renovation or second renovation once you have contractors in
05:18like you just have to watch them like a hawk because the moment you take the stuff to someone
05:23they go and do whatever the hell they want and you come back and you're like what just happened
05:32it's quite remarkable for me to walk in and remember that this used to be our family home but now
05:36it's a stunning boutique hotel so i have to give all credit to shayla for that transformation in the
05:43same way as she dreamt up the design of the house many many years ago and wrote it down on
05:49serviettes
05:50and random bits of paper this is what she has created so round of applause to you
06:02we were thinking what are we gonna call it we thought of like calling a completely different
06:06name and actually a friend of mine said just call it bali interior something link it to your brand
06:13we're gonna call it maybe bi house i want to have the word design on it because that's the center
06:19of
06:19the core of this hotel i think people know know what they're getting when it's called yeah design
06:25house you know and it is we put a lot of effort and care into the design of the space
06:29and and try
06:31to make a design focus as much as i could i think of it in two different ways firstly i'd
06:41like the
06:42design community just like any other person to come in and be inspired by the space but i also want
06:47it to be a place where the design community can gather and share ideas and kind of turn this space
06:54into a hub where more creativity can be generated within the people who who appreciate and love
07:00beautiful art and design so the whole point of the hotel wasn't just to have accommodation only
07:08thousands of hotels in valley and thousands of accommodations in valley that offer that and that
07:14wasn't the point of the point of the hotel was to foster creativity and connection so i wanted to
07:21create a space where people could like people in the design community in the art community to come
07:26and stay here and connect with other people to to start conversations to to think of different ways
07:34to collaborate to connect recently we just had the first industry dinner and all the things that i
07:39had a vision and it was just happening right in front of me but it was a conversation not just
07:45of like
07:45hi how are you but a way of like helping other people grow and and manifest their dream
07:56one of the core elements of this hotel was play i feel like as adults we lose the ability to
08:05play
08:05bring that possibility of play again without any consequence on the outcome of the of the project
08:13so just play for the sake of playing and i think as adults we don't get those chances anymore i
08:19want to
08:19see people coming here and choosing to come here for those reasons that i explained earlier for connection
08:25for creativity for interaction for the love of design and art and really appreciate the love
08:34and care that we put into making this place this is a really beautiful boutique hotel and i think that
08:42people who appreciate art and design and interiors will will love staying here will love collaborating
08:48will love playing and enjoying their time if you love art and design and and anything to do with
08:54homewares and architecture and anything in that space we would love for you to come and stay with us
08:59at the bi design house
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