Why did we choose to stay in Telok Blangah? 4rm resale unit near CBD.
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- Classic Farmhouse
- HDB (Resale)
- ~1,000 sqft
- 3 br
- Couple Living
Hello! Sharing our house hunting journey and why we chose this 4-room HDB resale flat in Telok Blangah area :) We had tried BTO and SOB for a good 3 years under the old scheme where you needed to wait 3 months for results before you can apply for the next, so having no luck with those, we decided to start looking for resale units after we sign the wedding contract. 😝 
We have a quite a few criteria: high floor, 20 years maximum, NS facing windows, floor to ceiling windows, near MRT and being as close to the CBD as we reasonably can. Truth be told, I've gone down the rabbit hole across all the property apps, filtering everyday to see if new units come up (lost count of viewings as it's been awhile), and looked at the MRT maps of all the possible places we could afford to live in. We grew up in the far West of Singapore aka Jurong, and the time taken to work was so long that we really want to move somewhere more central to make adulting easier haha. We've viewed houses around Geylang Bahru, Farrer Park, Paya Lebar, Toa Payoh, and a few units around Telok Blangah. After ~2.5 months, this unit was love at first sight. It ticked all our boxes except being near the MRT, because this added factor immediately adds a good 6-digits to the house price (I'm looking at you, Tiong Bahru). But to be honest, future us appreciate it sometimes because it's quiet, right beside a hill (think weekend walks among the greens), and it still have direct buses to CBD and town, albeit #buslife is not the most convenient. Once set, we signed the papers and begun our ~5 months renovation journey (thanks Covid). We had to re-do everything since it was 20 years, from hacking of carpentry, to re-wiring, to re-waterproofing. The only things we kept were the living room windows (too expensive and needing permit to change given its floor to ceiling windows), parquet floors in the bedroom, solid wooden kitchen door and the main HDB fire-proof door. 
We went for a classic farmhouse look with bits of modern contemporary twist since it's honestly hard to get everything in SG. Key elements I tried to have: wooden beams on ceiling, barn door, shaker style cabinets, open shelvings, long hood (although not triangle! 🥲) and a fake fireplace 😂 Will feature them in the separate posts!
- 9 April
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