Journey to the west - The beginning of a Modern, Minimalist Maisonette
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- Minimalist
- HDB (Maisonette)
- ≥1,500 sqft
- 4 br
- Couple Living
C&E here! Welcome to our journey in the west! @mentionat_west First, a little about us, to contextualise our considerations. We are a young (soon-to-be-married) couple, that has a pet dog, and plans to have more pets (cats and dogs?) in the future. While we do not intend to start a family so soon, we do value the flexibility to do so if we wish to in future. While we are in the midst of our reno journey, we still do not have an idea of what our exact theme is. but we think it would head towards a theme of Modern, Dark, and Minimalistic. This journey started with multiple failed tries of BTOs and SBFs. Unwilling to continue waiting, we then explored resale flats. Initially, we were looking for 4-5 room flats, and briefly entertained the thought of executive apartments and maisonettes. When viewing a maisonettes, we accidentally fell in love with it. Why not opt for something bigger and have more flexibility in the space to play around with, while paying slightly more for it? That was when it all started... After multiple viewings, we found a corner maisonette that fits our criteria: - younger than us - corner - high floor - budget - good location (West side best side) And so, that is how our journey in this lovely abode begins... 
Before transformation! This is how the foyer looks like before renovation. Our considerations for this space: - As open as possible - minimal built ins (option to add an extra room in this area in the future) - Pet friendly Things to change: Floor (Parquet) - we decide to change this to tiles to make it more pet friendly, and to suit the theme more. Railings - we decided to change to steel railings to make it look more modern. We narrowed the gaps of our railings for the safety of our senior and sweet small poodle (: Dining area - shifted to balcony for more privacy, view, and netflix while we eat. Kitchen is one of missus favourite areas to be in and one of her must-have is a kitchen island. We (she) decided to make a major overhaul of this area by combining the study room into a larger open concept kitchen (stay tuned for after transformation photos). This is also at the stage where we knew we wanted the kitchen to be of a darker theme. After much considerations, we have decided to keep the marble flooring as it is only 5 years old and still in pristine condition. We have decided to do minimal with this area other than removing the false ceiling, and polishing the floor. We are attempting to DIY a painted limewash TV 'feature wall' so wish us luck! This area would be converted to a study room. We decided to have minimal built ins in this bedroom, to allow the flexibility of re-converting this back into a kids room if we eventually have mini-us (: This was the master bedroom, the largest room in the whole house. So... we decided not to sleep in it. This room has been redesignated as a games/entertainment room, so that we could use this bigger space to host guest, our favourite hobby (mah-jong) and possible future gym. This bedroom would be converted to our master bedroom! Some complications we faced: Ensuite toilet - it does not come with it! so we fenced up the original common toilet for our own private use, and hacked the existing walls to the original master toilet. The existing door would be replaced by a sliding door to not cause an accident when we open it. (see future post to understand what we mean :P) This room is smaller, so to be only used for relaxing/sleeping, and freeing up other bigger space for productive use. Is your focus now on the stairs? We don't want you to, so have opt to destroy the two walls to the left and right, and replace them with half-height clear windows! This was a clear (pun intended) decision that certainly would brighten up our... house, and allow good air flow across the whole house. In fact, this was the only non-negotiable thing in the house from the Mister. 
Last but not least, toilets. We have decided to overhaul all 3 toilets for hygiene reasons. Stuck to darker themes for both 2nd floor toilets and decided to switch things up for the 1st floor toilet by choosing terrazzo tiles. 
TADA! This was our final floor plan after multiple long discussion with our ids. In the subsequent posts, we will be posting the sketches of what our ids proposed in different areas of the house and how we attempt to build our dream home through different stages of renovation (:
- 2 October
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