It might be hard to imagine that a basement can be so beautiful
Surrounded by things you like
Having tea with a friend
With a bonfire burning next to you
The environment is very relaxing
“Later on at the party we lay side by side”
Our house is located in the west of Hangzhou
Next to the Xixi Wetland
As a planner, my job is extremely stressful
So I cope by buying stuff, like women buying handbags
I’ve bought so many things
So in 2016 I decided to purchase this garden villa which is about 500 square meters
It’s a 3-storey house
I live here with my wife
We are back to the two of us at this age
Every tea lover
Would love to have a view outside their tea room
I tore down the original window of the basement
And swapped it with a big view window
I hired a landscape designer to do the design
My wife and I picked up some plants from a mountain
And some wild stones
And they are arranged in the lighted courtyard
Also we installed damp-proof equipment
Including walls and floors
Most of our neighbors have their basement covered
And they regret it when they see our house
Because the basement acreage is free
By making full use of it
I feel like I’m gaining extra benefits
This is our basement
It’s a part of a piece of furniture that I picked up on the road
Older furniture had landmark buildings on it, and in this case it’s the Qiantang River Bridge
This is a censer
It’s made of bamboo
It looks like a heavy instrument
While in fact it’s super light
I searched four antique stores for it
There are one or two hundred pieces on display
They are brought back by me from different places
Like antique stores
Street stalls
This is recently added to my collection
A tree burl desktop
When we hang it on the wall
It turns into a decorative painting
I started collecting things ten years ago
And now there are about one thousand pieces in my collection
Friends give me a nickname “Scavenger Liu”
Everyday I come back home, my first stop is the tea room
I stay with the pieces
For one to two hours
Admiring them, taking pictures of them
When my wife see these objects
She’d like to express them in her way
So she arranges flowers in the bottles
And place them in different corners of our house
I buy, and she decorates
This has become a joint hobby of ours
I wouldn’t call myself a collector
It’s too much
I’m just a scavenger
I went to a few auctions
Only to find that my level of happiness when I buy a 20 thousand yuan object
Is exactly the same as that when I buy a 20 yuan object
I also apply folk crafts to our furniture
The desk in the study
The desktop is Chinese lacquer art
Which I made on a trip with my designer to Fuzhou
It took two to three months to make the desktop
My job was very busy
We got married
Without a formal wedding ceremony
During the six years when my son was in elementary school
I almost didn’t show up at his school for once
While now I stay at home a lot
And I meet with my friends at home
My wife usually reads on the ground floor
And I play with my “toys” in the basement
My family is just a glimpse away
I’m really enjoying life like this