WHEN Karen Ho found out from a friend that a house at Chip Bee Gardens was going to be available, she just couldn't resist taking over the corner unit on Jalan Kelabu Asap. Especially when the previous tenant had been a landscape artist, and had created simple but lovely garden spaces in front and at the back of the house.

"So I just bit the bullet and took it. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up," she says, even though the lease for her previous apartment wasn't up yet.

Ms Ho moved into the 1960s, Jurong Town Council-owned house with the said friend, Loretta Bertocchi - who runs Juiced Rawbar at Republic Plaza - just about three weeks ago.

Even though it has been less than a month, the house looks pretty much like a home now. A well-organised one as well - lots of white in the background, "loved" furniture, interesting art - but warm, given the comfortable eclectic
blend of furniture and art in the house.

You know how a home reflects its occupants? This is one prime example, given Ms Ho's involvement with Unifem (United Nations Development Fund for Women).

Singapore has yielded two successful fund-raising dinners, with the third one coming up in November (that's the well-organised bit); and coincidentally, just about the same time she moved into the house, she also started a social
networking group called DinnerNmore - a herald (possibly?) of new beginnings. But more on that later.

Ms Ho, in her thirties, is perhaps best-known in the non-profit circle and to the media as the one who has put together Unifem's annual fund-raiser for the past two years. "It's just something that I wanted to do when I took a
sabbatical from work in 1995," she explains. The Unifem's SNOW (Say No to Oppression of Women) Benefit is the organisation's largest fund-raiser, which raised $93,000 in 2005 and $130,000 in 2006, and the target is $160,000 this year.

The brand and marketing professional had quit her job a few years ago when she decided that it was too demanding. She was the Asia-Pacific head for an e-commerce business unit of an American IT company. "The business grew a lot, but I was in Singapore for an average of 1.5 days a week. I loved the work but it does take its toll," so she planned her exit.

The artistic house of Karen Ho

For her sabbatical, she had pledged to get involved with non-profit work, something she had always wanted to do. A diver, she spent two months in Yucatan, Mexico - in a reef conservation project in the Sian Kaan biosphere,
part of the second-largest barrier reef in the world. Then it was off to a primary school in Cambodia which her former boss supports, to help teach children how to use computers. Returning to Singapore, she got involved with
Unifem, taking up the fund-raising gauntlet.

There, she managed to marry her love for food and skills in organising. Unifem's SNOW Benefit has carved a niche for itself as a philanthropic gourmand's dream. This year, for example, chefs invited include four from the world's Top 100 Restaurants' list (as awarded by the UK's Restaurant magazine).

They are Fergus Henderson of St John Restaurant in London, Shannon Bennett of Vue de Monde, Melbourne; Justin North of Becasse, Sydney; and Singapore's own Sam Leong of My Humble House.

How did she manage to get these top chefs? "Seriously? The way I've done it since 2005 is to pick up the phone and ring them! And chefs are wonderful, you know, I haven't had diva acts from any of these top guys from day one. No diva acts at all. You tell them about the cause, and they say, 'sounds great, let me check my calendar'," she declares. Not that it didn't take five months of her time to pull off the first benefit two years ago.

Third year into the event, the organisation has certainly got easier and she has managed to get a few companies to "adopt" Unifem as their corporate social responsibility candidate. When the Benefit isn't taking up her time, the MBA-holder is an adjunct lecturer of marketing at the Singapore Management University (SMU) and a project adviser at the UOB-SMU Entrepreneurship Alliance Centre for Small-Medium Enterprises.

So there has been time to do up the house as well, since moving in three weeks ago. "I haven't lived in a landed property since I was 10 years old," she shares. So the sound-scape is quite different - Ms Ho runs to the door, for
example, when she hears a gate opening, to find out that it's her neighbour's. And then during the interview, we thought we heard a coconut crashing to the ground. "It could well be, because we do have coconut trees at the back of the garden!"

Since moving in, she has also discovered that Jalan Kelabu Asap is very much a family-oriented street compared with, say, Taman Warna, which sees more artists as residents. She and housemate Ms Bertocchi have kept the house's decor simple and uncluttered. White settees and armchairs set the tone for the living room, anchored visually by a maroon-painted piece of wood with a large Chinese character carved into it. The cabinets are also oriental in style, and two silver dragons dominate a sidetable of artefacts next to the main door.

An old dining table takes centre court at the dining area of the house, and a recent art acquisition is a piece of Indian embroidery, derived from a traditional wedding suit. The main change to the house is the creation of a glass-panelled patio door, where a window used to be, which leads out to the back garden.

The back of the garden - paved Bali-style and surrounded by greenery with strategically placed lights - is, in fact, a ready "platform" for future dinner parties, especially since Ms Ho started putting together a wine and dine social
soiree for professionals aged from 25 to 45 years old. "Our first one in July was so successful that we will hold two this month!" she says.

The aim is to get 15 men and 15 women together, by invitation only, for a social evening at private dining rooms of restaurants.

Already, Ms Ho has friends in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur who're keen to extend DinnerNmore in their own cities, "which is great for Singaporeans who are frequent travellers", she thinks.

Coming out of her sabbatical now, Ms Ho looks back at the past two years with satisfaction. "I had wanted to get involved with non-profits, so that exposure with the children (in Cambodia), with Unifem was good. And I managed to have a more balanced life as well - spending more time with family, doing things I enjoy and learning new stuff."

The next "task" that has come her way is working with a Singapore company to help them take their brand global. "It was a toss-up whether to go back into the corporate world and work for a multinational corporation, or do something more personal, like working with a local company. But I decided to go for the personal."

New beginnings and new digs. Ms Ho is ready to move into her next career phase now, but just like her house, there is more balance - a bit of breathing space, not unlike the gardens of the house.