The most exciting (and busiest) part of our journey to moving to a new home is definitely the renovation. The flat is currently on week 5 of renovation and it’s still in complete mess! But I feel very enthusiastic about the whole process. Here’s the full renovation plan:

The Concept

Long before we bought our HDB flat, we already knew what we want for our home: cosy, fuss-free, and yet stylish. We want to create a home with the atmosphere that we always look forward to come to everyday.

For me, personally, I love and adore Japanese home that seems to always embraces simplicity and calmness. I want to implement the idea into our home because we feel that a perfect home is the one that should not only brings comfort but also a peace of mind. I’m lucky because my husband wasn’t so picky about the theme of our home at first, so it was easy to ‘convince’ him with the style I’m after. He was more into how the home will function, where to keep all of our stuff, how many air conditioners we should get, what type of stove to buy… that sort of things.

I envisioned my home to be bright and airy with mostly white and light-coloured wood like beech or light oak. I started by collecting references from Pinterest and I even created a board dedicated to inspiration for my future home here. Pinterest has been my favourite app ever since I started thinking about renovating my flat. I opened Pinterest almost anywhere and anytime.

When designing the flat, my husband and I have our own role and focus. I’m ‘responsible’ for the visual while my husband is more into the technical side. We were also considering about how to maximise the storage space around the house. We want our apartment to be free of clutter, that each of our stuff should have their own ‘home’ without making our flat looks like a warehouse. We plan to build a lot of storages in the living room, including a bench storage along the window. We also plan to have a walk-in wardrobe in the master bedroom.

And since I wanted my home to be bright, I planned to have some walls hacked down to make the space looks bigger and also to bring some light to the kitchen area. I also planned to change the floor tiles into wood looking vinyl flooring.

After months of brainstorming, here’s the full renovation plan brief:

We complied our ideas into a pdf and this led us to the next step.

Finding Interior Designer

We sent out the brief to some interior designers to seek quotation and most importantly to see how they can translate our ideas. We had meetings with few designers before we eventually found the one that met our budget and needs. I like that they understand what we want and always open to meet our expectations.

Here’s the initial 3D design from our interior designer:

It was not exactly what I want, but close enough. The 3D design went into several changes before we’re ready to commit with the renovation.

Renovation Process

After several weeks of finalising the design, the renovation finally began. Here’s when I have to say goodbye to our ‘virgin’ flat forever because from now on, it won’t look the same anymore.

The fun (and most daunting) part about renovation is choosing the materials. I roughly know how I want my home to look like, but choosing the right material to use wasn’t easy. We both need to choose carefully in order to achieve that exact look that we want. We are glad that our interior designer didn’t only listen to us and respect our choices but also give us valuable feedbacks as well.

The renovation is planned to be completed in May. We’re still left with plenty of tasks to settle, including installing air conditioners, fans, lightings, internet, curtains, arranging the delivery of the furnitures and so on. It’s overwhelming, indeed, but we are happy! We look forward to the day we’ll move in.