Our 3D Visuals

After several meetings with the interior designer, a couple rounds of revisions to the 3D design, and visits to suppliers to choose tile and flooring; sink and taps and other bathroom fixtures; hob, hood and oven combo for the kitchen as well as lights for the whole apartment - we are finally ready to start the renovation. 

It is both exhausting and exciting at the same time. I can tell you nothing tests your communication and negotiation skills as husband and wife than going over design details. We argued over the choice of tiles for the bathroom; the brand of hob, hood and oven we would get; the brand of refrigerator - basically everything    . I'm just glad we sorted everything out and ready to now see the design come to life.

To be honest we weren't really going for any kind of theme and just wanted something modern-looking, minimalist and relaxing with the color palette mainly neutral tones - gray, white, black and some light and dark woods thrown in for good measure.     

Living Area/Dining Area/Play Space: This is actually a very long, rectangular area, with the dining area near the door, living room near the middle and play space at the other end where the windows were located. The picture above focuses mainly on the living room though because the design just needed to show what type flooring would be used (light wood but not as yellow as the picture, a bit more natural-looking) and whether it would mesh well with the built-in TV feature wall and console. We chose light flooring and will probably paint the walls white to have a more bright, airy feel to the area. There will also a red brick wall behind the sofa but isn't shown here as the designer said the brick wall effect doesn't really translate well in 3D drawings.

Kitchen: Originally I wanted an all-white kitchen but the realities of life and heavy cooking would render that kind of kitchen very hard to maintain and so we ended up having a darker tone for the area. I still have white cabinets though so part of the dream is still alive. A little to the right of the picture, beyond the sink, will be the trash chute area and I'm wondering whether we could set up a vertical garden somehow just above the trash chute. It will be near the window and will have access to sunlight and far away enough from the main cooking area - but will see how it goes. It will have to be a DIY project though since we're trying to keep to a budget here.

Common bathroom: We didn't really want a fancy bathroom, in fact, this bathroom is reminiscent of the bathroom in our old apartment in Moulmein - just white tile and dark gray flooring and yet it feels very relaxing. There was one thing hubby and I agreed on and that was getting the rainshower showerhead. The picture doesn't show but there are actually large industrial pipes to the left of the sink. We're trying to think of what color to paint the pipes. White seems to be the obvious color but black seems to be quite trendy right now as a color for bathroom fixtures so that's an idea too.  

 Bedroom: The flooring will be as is and we'll just sand and varnish the flooring so it looks new so the main change in the bedrooms will be the addition of built-in cabinets.

Hacking of the flooring and existing cabinets start next week. Here's hoping the renovation goes well.

Site Inspection Woes

We finished our second site inspection today and it was such a relief to finally be near completion of the sale. We had an earlier site inspection last week at which we thought the owners would have vacated the apartment. So it was a bit of a shock to see the apartment still had stuff in it. In any case, it was a nail biter of a week as we tried to check with our lawyer on what to do in case the owners still hadn't moved their stuff in time for the second HDB appointment. I'm just glad everything worked out in the end and we're excited about finally getting to start on the renovation soon. In any case, here's how the empty apartment looks now.

When we were viewing the apartment prior to sale, one of the rooms had a ton of computer parts on the floor. We didn't realize it was covering damaged flooring. Whether that was intentional or not, we'll never know, but  practically speaking even if we had to replace the parquet flooring, the costs aren't that bad so it's still okay.

 Here's a closer view of the damage - which looks like some kind of water damage.

Here's another room which we're assigning as the kids' room. It's the biggest room in the apartment.

Here's the room with the most light which we'll turn into the main bedroom

Extended living room area which will be perfect for the kids' play space

 A view of the community

Another view from the living room

The kitchen

The kitchen view from the dining room/living room

We'll be getting the keys from the lawyer and the 3D designs from the interior designer next week. We're getting closer and closer to our new home. More updates to come. 

Singapore Spaces

This December will be my 9th year in Singapore. In all this time, I've stayed in a whoppingly large number of apartments...okay fine, it's just 5 apartments, but if you move every other year or so like I do, you'll be feeling like a turtle too at the end of it. You can check out pics of the Singapore apartments I've stayed at here and here, and though all of them were lovely and cozy and full of character, I took an impending move as a sign from the universe that it was time to settle down.

I never really expected to stay this long but somehow life just happens. When I came here, I was just a twenty-something single girl trying to prove I could make it on my own away from my family. I was initially planning to live and work in Singapore for a couple of years, be able to tick that off my to-do list and then move back home, but then my sister followed me, and I eventually got married to a fellow expat. Time passed, the kids came, and though we did go back to Manila to have my second baby delivered there, we eventually made our way back to Singapore.

Now with my eldest daughter having just started preschool, it's so much more important for us to stay in one place, which is why we've decided to finally buy an apartment.

Prior to that decision, I've consulted with several experts on the matter, specifically, the taxicab drivers of Singapore. Yup, somehow or other, I ended up having the same conversation every time I made my way to work. The taxi driver would pick me up along the streets of Balestier and comment about the great hawker food at Whampoa market, then he'd make an insightful comment about the explosion of high-rises within the area which would eventually lead to a discussion on the evolution of property prices and the current cost of buying an HDB flat. In any case, after a number of these cab conversations, I eventually brought up the issue with my husband and prepared key points for why this would be a good time to buy:

1) High cost of renting - We were quite practical and managed to save tons of money on rent by living with housemates for years and choosing old apartments whose rental prices were slightly below market average (at one time we lived in a 4-bedroom bi-level penthouse but split the cost among 6 people!), but we don't have housemates anymore and are only now starting to feel the pinch of high rental prices. Add to that the cost of clothing, feeding and sending kids to school, which we didn't have before, and we seriously needed to manage our household budget and try to cut down on costs.

2) New job and PR renewal - I started a new job this year and me and my husband just renewed our PR status which means we're likely going to stay longer and if we're staying here longer then I refuse to keep moving. I don't want to measure my possessions anymore by the number of boxes it takes to move them around (15 as of last count). I want to finally live an unboxed life!

3) A sense of home/community - To be honest, we haven't really integrated with the community in the past. Now that we have kids though, I noticed people have started to talk to us more or rather with our kids and we in turn are finding ourselves trying to be more sociable as well. In fact, for the first time we attended a community event, mainly for the kids. I think it's a good start. And staying in an actual HDB complex will only further help us feel part of the community.
        
And so key points on hand, I brought up the discussion with my husband and was surprised at how quickly he got on board, but maybe he's already been thinking along the same lines anyway and our thoughts just finally converged. And so another major decision for this year, yes, we're going to buy an HDB flat!

So we prepared ourselves for the long journey of finding that perfect HDB flat, maybe setting aside a couple of months for the search, then another month or two to complete the purchase. But then what happened was that we actually found the flat we wanted after a week of searching and 6 apartment viewings (well, actually we made a bid after the 4th apartment viewing but we lost that one).

In any case, here are pics of our new place and right now it's not really great-looking, but we saw that it had potential and since we're going to do our own renovation anyway, we know we can make it look good. In fact, the current condition is probably why the owner asked a reasonable COV (cash over value) amount.  

 Bedroom 1

 Bedroom 2

 Kitchen

Living Room with extended balcony

We're so looking forward to transforming this space into a home. More updates to come.