Making a bathroom with HDB fittings work

233

Mid-Century Modern
HDB (BTO)
≤500 sqft
3 br
Couple Living

Our common toilet rarely makes its appearance on social media, because we did the bare minimum for the toilet. To avoid exceeding our renovation budget, we kept the HDB toilet fittings - floor and wall tiles, toiletbowl and basin. One year on, if you ask me if I regret not investing more in the common toilet, I’ll be honest and say yes - simply because overlaying the tiles would enhance the look of the toilet. But what’s done is done, and faced with a very basic design, we had the make the best of it.
To spruce up our very basic toilet, we had to rely on decor such as fake plants and placing reed diffusers to fill up the space (and make the toilet smell good too).
We opted for sliding doors for the common toilet because Jem hates wet toilets and floors. I have mixed feelings about this, because cleaning the doors IS. A. PAIN. Like, seriously. I’ll always advise against this, because you’re essentially cleaning 8 (!!) glass panels, and the glass panels that overlap are a nightmare to clean. We can easily spend 20 minutes getting rid of water marks. But if we went with a single glass panel, the toiletbowl will be drenched when we shower. So you win some, lose some I guess.
Our simple sink area. We opted for kompacplus for the countertop, and paired it with a cabinet with wood veneer. No complaints so far - we like kompacplus’ slim profile.
Simple decor like this helps elevate the look of our basic toilet. Get some fake plants, put them in a cute vase, and get a nice holder to neatly display your toiletries! Jem says - now everyone knows we have hair loss! 😂
We replaced HDB’s ecowash basin that came with the toiletbowl, for both aesthetic and practical reasons. For the latter - we simply had no use for the wash basin.
We also built a ledge for us to place our toiletries. Chose a cement-looking tile to align with our industrial theme. It’s very useful, but water pools at the bottom of our soap bottles, so we have to make the conscious effort to sweep the water away after we’re done showering. If not, #mould.
Moving on to our master toilet. There’s clearly a difference, because we overlaid the tiles, and splurged on a herringbone feature wall!
Opted for subway tiles. These are large format tiles with the “grout” printed on. So - no grout to clean!
When Jem insisted on having a mirror with storage, I was hesitant as it wasn’t ~aesthetic~. One year on, no regrets. The extra storage space is extremely useful - we stuff all our other toiletries inside.
Colour theme is obvious - Grey, white and wood!
Single glass panel FTW! Downside is that the floor on the right gets wet when I shower. And honestly it makes the toilet look wet and gross… like I said above - you win some, you lose some. If given a chance to redo our toilets, I’ll gladly hop on the opportunity. There are things I would like to change - from our choice of tiles, to the use of the sliding doors. Hindsight is always 20/20 but hey, this was a good learning experience! At least I’ll know what to take note of for our future home - if we ever do move! 😉