Our Standard Kitchen That Came With Our DBSS: How We Live With It

2043

Scandinavian
Others
~1,000 sqft
4 br
Couple Living

Hello again!👋🏻 Welcome to our small humble kitchen.😌 This is the standard kitchen that came with our DBSS home. DBSS stands for “Design, Build and Sell Scheme” and they are flats built by private developers with each development characterised by unique external features. In addition to the general renovation guidelines, flat owners need to follow certain guidelines to help maintain the development's aesthetics. In Singapore, there are only 13 such developments so we are lucky to be first owners of one.🥹 But basically, our home is a HDB pretending to be a condo but is still a HDB.😂 There are pros and cons of getting a DBSS. Pros: - Look like condo without the price of one - more “premium” interior furnishings (or so they say 🙊) - good location (depends on project) - have large balconies - no need to decide a lot of things for reno Cons: - more expensive (they call it premium price lol 🥲💸) - no swimming pool or gym (we live near safra so can pretend that’s part of the facilities to make ourselves feel better haha) - no security (we’re in SG so this one not really an issue la) - cannot customise to our needs In this post, we’ll be looking at the standard furnishings our kitchen came with.
Our kitchen is really small for a 4-room flat but I guess that’s the sacrifice for having a larger balcony space. Since we don’t really cook often, we were ok with it. With a small kitchen means limited counter space so we only have essentials out and everything else is kept out of sight. And just because it’s small, doesn’t mean I can’t do my styling magic hahaha.🌚🌝
We did not have the choice to choose the materials or the look of the home but I guess the developers tried to make the designs as appealing to the masses as possible. Our backsplash is stainless steel, not in line with our home aesthetic I know, but actually it’s quite easy to clean and maintain after cooking. Especially since we’ve been here for almost 9 years and there’s no major issues yet so far. We have no idea what our countertop is made of but it’s quite sturdy and it matches the stainless steel backsplash I guess?🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♂️
Due to the limited counter space, we added this extendable rack above our microwave so we can place additional things. We’re still old school and boil our water with a kettle.😂 Thinking of investing in a water dispenser to make our lives easier.🤔
Intermission photo because Cai Png want to meowdel.🤭
This is where we place our coffee and tea packets.
- #afternoontea
Sorry, Cai Png asking for attention again.😆
Our kitchen doesn’t have a yard so we got a washer/dryer that removes our need to hang and dry out clothes. Of course for clothes that cannot be put in dryer we would have to hang out in the balcony to dry. Not because our kitchen doesn’t have a hanging rack but because we feel that the clothes can dry faster in the balcony. We also have a dishwasher! Couldn’t get a built-in one because our home came with kitchen cabinets installed and we didn’t want to replace any of them with a built-in dishwasher as our kitchen is already so small and we need as much storage space as we could get. This dishwasher is countertop friendly too!🤩 Tip for home owners: GET THE DISHWASHER!!! Saves time and marriages hahaha. And it’s a tip we give everyone whether they ask for it or not.😂
We added on these open shelves ourselves as we need more storage space. Adding more cabinets would make our already small kitchen even smaller so we got these from Ikea. (IKEA sponsor us please we love you!🥹) All our laundry, dishwashing and dry goods related items are here for easy access. Easy for the husband because he’s tall but difficult to reach for me because I’m short. So that’s my excuse for doing less laundry and dishwashing.🤫
Our fur babies love climbing everywhere they can climb haha. This was before we organised and placed all the mess away into the cabinets.
Placed their litter box here so they have easy access to it all the time. We have one along the corridor and one here in the kitchen so they have options. Just like us humans have 2 toilets, they do too.😆 Now let’s look at how our kitchen looked like when we first got the house. Don’t expect any major changes like our previous posts because we didn’t do any makeovers here hahaha.
Our kitchen when we first got our keys. Pretty much looks the same, just with appliances added in now haha. The gas water heater connects to all the taps and showers in the house so we’re able to set the temperature and get it throughout the house. The clothing rack is also quite easy to use but is manual, unlike those automatic ones nowadays, so we hardly use it. We’re not sure what are the laminates or materials used for the cabinets but they’re all Blum system and we haven’t had any issues with any cabinets or drawers since living here. Forgot the brand for the cooking hood and hob. For the tap I think is grohe.
That’s all we have for our kitchen post. Hope you enjoyed reading our post and see you again next week!😉🫶🏻
Photo of baby Cai Png as bonus hehe.🤭
And not forgetting photo of Cai Tou too hehe.🤭