Our 10sqm Balcony: Outdoor Oasis That Makes Our DBSS Look Like A Condo
2279
- Scandinavian
- Others
- ~1,000 sqft
- 4 br
- Couple Living
Welcome to our balcony!👋🏻😌 This is the main feature that makes our DBSS different from a HDB. The size of our balcony is slightly below 10 sq metres which is quite a big space for a balcony. There are some things that we can do and some things that we can’t. For example, the balcony is required to look the same and cannot be boxed up to become part of the living room. But we can install track blinds or change the sliding doors connecting the living room to the balcony to ones that open fully. Of course, we haven’t done anything big like that yet. The only big changes we’ve made to our balcony are adding the wood outdoor decking floor and invisible grilles for our fur babies. Let’s go down memory lane to see how our balcony has changed over the years.🥹 
This is a before photo of our ugly living room and balcony before we freshened things up haha. From here you can see the layout was completely different. We had a bar table and chair set that we placed in this format because we had no sense of space usage.🫠 This layout made the balcony feel blocked and uninviting. Slowly spruced up the balcony with plants. Won this pot in a giveaway yay! Made a plant corner because I went through a crazy plant phase during start of covid.😆 
A collage of a few of my plant babies. Some of these plants are thriving while some have died.🥲 Some died because of my own fault but most died because of our fur babies destroying them or playing with them. RIP.🪦 Loved the balcony but hated the balcony tiles that our home came with originally. Always felt that it was too cold and grey whereas we wanted a more warm vibe. So we saved up money and upgraded our balcony with these wooden decking. It’s weather proof and easy to maintain. Changed the whole feel of the balcony. It’s easily one of the best things we changed in this home.🤩💯 It cost us $1.7k back in 2020 so we’re not sure what’s the rate now. 
Shifted the plant babies and furniture back into the balcony. Also RIP to my favourite plant that I’ve ever grown. Got it for $70 as a tiny baby with 1 leaf and it grew till it touched the ceiling. I couldn’t keep up with the rate that it was growing and it died.🥲🥲🥲 It’s a Musa Aeae AKA variegated banana plant. The fruits would also be white and green. It would have been bananas!!!🤪🍌 Get it? Because it’s a banana plant?😂 Hahahaha ok let’s move on. Changed the layout to make the balcony feel more open and inviting by placing the bar table against the wall. 
Had some nice alfresco dining with the new layout.🤭 
Did some vlogging too back in our vlogging days.😆 While the high table and chairs were nice, we found ourselves not using it as much as we would like to. The chairs weren’t the most comfortable which made it hard to lounge for a prolonged period of time on it. The table was also too narrow to be functional. Basically it was look good but useless.🤣 Finally decided to sell off the table and chair set and got this outdoor sofa from Ikea. We got this sofa secondhand on carousell as Ikea stopped bringing in this design without the closed sides. Got lucky because we found a relatively new one that the previous owners were selling as they were migrating elsewhere. It was barely used and they protected it very well with an outdoor sofa cover which they gave to us. Really got a super awesome deal!🥹👍🏻 The sofa became our new favourite spot for photos. Here’s Cai Png on his first bday.🥳 
And Cai Tou as a cool police cat.😎 
Now for the other side of the balcony hahaha. Removed the shelf and opened up the spot to hang a swinging chair. This has become our favourite spot to chill and read a book or to nap when the weather is cooling.🤭 It’s a favourite spot for our cats to nap too.🤣 Current view and layout. Thinking of changing the swinging chair to a rattan one to have a more timeless feel. But that’s a project for another time hahaha. Surviving plant babies in this corner. 
Some styling details around the balcony.✨ 
The wall decoration here are actually placemats that I got from Yogyakarta when we went there for a short trip.🤭 Many items around the house were collected that way from all over the world. Tip: Collect items you love and incorporate them when styling your home. Has more meaning that way!🫶🏻 A candle and portable lamp to set the mood at night. That’s all we have for our before and after post of our balcony. Thanks for scrolling to the end and see you next week for the next post!🫶🏻 As usual, photo of fur babies as bonus.🤭 Cai Tou is chilling as usual while Cai Png is caught in the act of trying to destroy another plant.🥲
- 13 September
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