Elegance Redefined with Dark Contemporary Theme - $37K Renovation
1980
Virtual House Tour
- Contemporary
- HDB (BTO)
- ~900 sqft
- 3 br
- Couple Living
Welcome to @2chocolatecaramel's house tour at Ubi Grove! :) Featuring our 4-room BTO flat, which we waited for 5 years. It's conveniently located 5-8mins from Ubi MRT on the downtown line. Went with dark contemporary theme with a reno cost of $37K. We want our house to be unique and sleek, focuses on functionality often with a minimalist approach to avoid clutter and maintain an open, airy feel despite the dark color scheme. It was originally designed with an open kitchen concept, exactly what we wanted! Follow us on IG @ 2chocolatecaramel for unique DIY projects, household tips, purchases and more! 
Here's a glimpse of our floor plan (~93sqm). We decided to maintain all rooms without any alterations, aiming for our house to remain spacious, with minimal, neat, and tidy items. To soften the rigid sharp edges of the pillars, we incorporated curves in certain areas of the house. Here's the entryway! For the entire house, we selected matte tiles with white streak patterns from Hafary ($3.40 per sqft). Matte tiles show fewer footprints than glossy ones and are slightly more affordable per sqft. We concealed the bomb shelter with a full black shoe cabinet featuring a rounded edge. A niche with a switch provides space for items like keys and serves as a phone-charging station. We highly recommend installing this switch as it comes in handy! We configured a smart switch with a motion sensor for the entryway light, which turns on automatically when we open the door, brightening the house for us. To adhere to the dark contemporary theme, we DIY and door wrapped our main door and saved $300-$400 :) tedious but definitely worth the effort! 🏋🏽♂️ For our living room feature wall, we selected Arova Artica Marble to create a cool and relaxed atmosphere in the living room. To avoid having a protruding TV, we opted for the Samsung The Frame 55". For those who love movies and music, we highly recommend the Bose speaker (ordered from Amazon US) as it delivers exceptional sound quality. You won't want to miss out on this! 
Sunshine vibes ☀️ fill our living area! We love and are blessed for our unit, which gets plenty of warm sunlight. To manage the heat, we use day and night curtains and have DIY solar panels (3 rooms for S$80, check out our IG reels!) to help cool down the space. We’ve also decorated our TV console with faux flowers 🌹 from our wedding banquet, adding a splash of color to our dark-themed décor. In the evening, we switch on the warm and cozy lights in the living room. Take a look at our newly installed or DIY Xiaomi smart light strip (a X'mas gift from our dear friend!) under the TV console. You can adjust the light color to your liking, choosing from options like white, warm, red, blue, and even rainbow colors. These lights are powered by a switch, so there's no need for batteries. 
Our dining table is 1.6m x 0.8m, huge enough to host up to 10 pax comfortably with addition of a couple of chairs. The dining light allows soft lighting which enhances the ambiance casting a gentle glow over the table. We hope that our dining area allows our guests to feel comfortable and welcoming, making every meal a special occasion! 
Cool white light creates a completely different atmosphere! Despite having a fairly large dining table, we ensured our walkway remains clean and easily accessible. To align to our dark theme, we DIY and painted our door frames black. To share, painting of door frames was part of our contract. Our ID missed out and ended up we did the work ourselves. It was an oversight by both parties so do review your contract thoroughly. 
Entering our sleek and elegant kitchen! To create a spacious feel, we opted for a combination of top and full-bottom L-shaped cabinets. This choice is somewhat unconventional, as many people prefer to maximize storage space fully. We love how our wall lights create a lattice design, adding a cozy touch to our kitchen! 
Here's our kitchen from another angle, showcasing our top cabinets! Installing a corner fan was one of the best decisions we've made. It keeps the kitchen breezy and airy, especially during light cooking. Since we're not heavy meal preppers, the open kitchen concept suits us perfectly. Like many other homeowners, we love having a kitchen island. Although we initially wanted to place it in the middle of the kitchen, space constraints led us to keep it to the side instead. Our island now serves as the perfect spot for our new Breville coffee machine and coffee syrups. We've enhanced our island with this lovely candle warmer. We chose the black version to match our theme, and the candle was a housewarming gift from a close friend too! If anyone has candle recommendations, please DM or comment! 
We are keeping the guest toilet simple with neutral tone colours. We love the pendant light which gives off a modern and sophisticated vibe which suits our contemporary style. We opted for a circular-based basin to avoid any holes at the base, making cleaning much easier. The pendant light, tap, basin, mirror and other accessories were all purchased from Taobao! 
We love our comfy master bedroom! ❤️ if you noticed, the matt tiles are of lighter grey compared to the one in the living room. The best part is that we managed to fit a King-sized bed, a L-shaped cupboard and 2 customized bedside drawers (not that visible from this pic). We love the glass door as this is completely different from the one HDB provides, and they are easy to clean and maintain. However, the cons of glass door without a door frame is that some noise can still come through (if your toilet window is facing the corridor, the glass door will not be 100% sound proof). Nonetheless, no regrets for the glass door! View our master bedroom toilet through the mirror! Built-in recessed wall with a long and wide niche to hold our showering bottles and it gives off the hotel toilet vibes. The glass panel is actually a set of glass doors that completely separates the wet and dry areas in our bathroom. For lighting, we've added an LED light strip and a ceiling light, giving us multiple options to create various vibes based on our mood for the day! This marks the end of our house tour! Appreciate your time to read through everything! Please comment below or DM us @2chocolatecaramel if you would like to understand more on our house and products ♡✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡♡˚ 🔚
- 17 July
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