Let’s Talk Carpentry: Decision-Making Process & Tips!

261

Free Style
HDB (Resale)
~1,000 sqft
3 br
Couple Living

Hey everyone! In this post, we will talk about all the carpentry we have in our house 🪵 Starting off with one of our favourite carpentry decisions — building this peninsula. The kitchen used to be fully closed off from the rest of the living area and we knew we wanted to hack down this wall to make the kitchen feel less claustrophobic & for the different spaces to feel more connected. Subsequently, we explored various ideas of what to do with this space and finally decided to build a peninsula, which turned out to be one of our most used space at home! Here are some ways that we’ve been using our peninsula: 1) Groceries drop-off point 2) DIY/craft station for our upcycling projects 3) Charging station* 4) Alternative dining/coffee/tea corner 5) Alternative work station 6) Storage (The other side of the peninsula houses cabinets) *If you’re planning to install an island/peninsula, adding sockets will come in very handy considering theor versatile nature!
We decided to customise a full-height cabinet with niche at our entryway, with its depth flushed with our DB box. The decision was made because we wanted to maximise storage while having a spot to display things that make homecoming more welcoming. The cabinets house many things that we frequently use, from socks and shoes to bags of all kinds to parcel unboxing tools and more. Do check out our entryway post for more details of this space that’s not shown here!
Next on the list is this fluted panel, which is part of both our entryway and dining corner. Though it was built as a result of feng shui reasons, we have reaped many more benefits from it than we had expected. It gives us more privacy whenever we leave our main door open for ventilation purposes during meal times.
It also acts as a little feature wall for both our entryway & dining nook.
We opted for top & bottom carpentry in our kitchen for practical purposes — storage & ease of cleaning. We decided to go with drawers for all our bottom carpentry (except the one under the sink & our peninsula). This decision has made working in the kitchen more convenient for us :)
One thing we didn’t install was built-in under-cabinet lighting. Instead, we got rechargeable motion-sensor lights! The under-cabinet lighting comes in handy when we prefer to use softer lighting instead of the bright overhead light. The motion-sensor feature is especially useful at night as we do not have to turn on any switches for the kitchen to be sufficiently illuminated whenever we refill our bottles.
Our living room settee is the very first carpentry item that we knew we wanted to have. Close to 1 year in, we are still very glad we made this decision and here’s some reasons why: 1) Extra seating when hosting 2) Storage (especially for heavier items like weights) 3) Versatile platform for sunning our plants/cushions + airing our bags before storing them etc 4) Platform for us to chill & watch the outside world go by
If you’re also installing flip-up casement doors in your home, do request for your ID/contractor to use heavy duty hinges so that the doors do not slam when closing :)
For both of our bathrooms, we customised the top mirror cabinet as well as the bottom under-basin cabinets. Here are the reasons why: 1) We wanted them to flush from wall to wall to maximise countertop space + reduce surfaces to clean 2) To maximise closed storage to store bathroom essentials (shower gel, shampoo, toilet rolls, spare toothbrushes & toothpaste, facial, hair, and dental products) & cleaning products. This has made the replacement each item when they run out very convenient while also freeing up our bomb shelter space for other things. 3) We wanted to install a concealed switch for our hair dryer (check out our bathroom post for this!)
And finally, another one of our favourite carpentry choices has got to be our walk-in wardrobe! 💖 For a more detailed walkthrough, you can check out our walk-in wardrobe post but in summary, here’s why we love it: 1) No need to pull down bedroom blinds when changing 2) When 1 person is getting ready while the other is still asleep, the latter will not have their sleep disturbed by lights 3) Able to see/access all our clothes at once — makes dressing up & keeping laundry a lot more efficient + easily keep track of how much we own
And that’s all for this post! Feel free to ask us anything about our carpentry! :)