housethingsgoing
A frog and a duck living in a 4rm resale flat
3 cost-saving things we did for our resale bathrooms
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Welcome to the tiniest and also most expensive rooms of our house - the bathroom! We inherited a set of completely 'original' 100% untouched HDB created bathrooms from our house's previous owner when we purchased this place, and immediately decided that they would have to... be completely overhauled. But bathroom renovations are very expensive (as everyone would know T.T), and so while we splurged a little on things like sintered stone vanities and niche walls, we also had to save on other areas to prevent our financial ruin. We already have a post on the expensive things we did for our bathroom overhaul (check out our profile!) so here's one about the areas we saved on. 
1. Sticking to the basic tile ranges (aka no top ups!) Was it tempting to top up for fancy mermaid tiles and subway tiles to create a super-beautiful bathroom? YES. Did we do it? Unfortunately not - we stuck to the basic range of 60cmx60cm tiles that were included in our reno quotation. BUT using the basic tiles doesn't mean your bathroom has to be boring and generic - we experimented with different variations of the tiles in the basic section to create our bathrooms. For instance, for our master bathroom (in this pic) we're using tiles from the same series, but in two different colour tones to demarcate our wet and dry areas. The darker one "wraps around" the shower area to create a cosier vibe (that works well with the gunmetal accessories), while the lighter tile aligns with the white toilet bowl and sink in the dry area. You can also experiment with different lines/textures/gradients to create bathrooms that are interesting without using any fancy tiles! 
2. No fancy doors The original HDB doors that came with our house had to be removed because they were rotting and water damaged (that's an epic story for another day LOL) so we definitely had to get new toilet doors. Slide and swing doors were included in our reno quotation and that was all we ever considered (despite Duck's great love for fluted glass, which she continues to hold deep in her heart) - no fancy French arch doors, metal doors, barn doors, etc. We also eliminated the option of topping up to change the panels in our slide and swing doors to louvre panels, partly because of cost and also because we heard louvre doors aren't the best at keeping sounds and smells out (which are really important for bathrooms LOL) . Instead, we focused on how we could make our slide and swing doors look nice (and less...plasticky. Our ID kindly offered a free upgraded to frosted acrylic for our master bathroom door - which turned out to be the best choice ever! We really like our half-frosted doors. Our common toilet door (see next pic) is opaque because we weren't sure how guests would feel about frosted doors BUT we kept the black and white theme to match the black and white lines of the rest of the house, in the hopes that there would be some visual alignment *laughs nervously* 
(Here's our black and white common bathroom door!) but back to... 3. Getting our accessories from Shopee/Taobao We ended up choosing local brands like Zaffiro and Pozzi for our bathroom fittings - they were priced very reasonably as compared to premium brands like Hans Grohe and Grohe. We also ordered our sinks, taps and mirrors from Shopee... because there were cashback vouchers and we were also getting tired of visiting all these bathroom stores where everything looked kind of the same and also different at the same time (does anyone feel the same way!). TLDR: We managed to save quite a bit (I would say a few hundreds at least?) and so far everything has been working great. True, we don't have thermostatic rain showers with 20 fancy functions, but our showers work well enough for us to be... uh... very clean and showered every day HAHAHA. There are a couple of minor cosmetic scratches on our taps and showers, but we suppose that's just a consequence of choosing gunmetal (probably unless you go for a high end gunmetal rainshower brand that's scratch proof). So yes, don't leave out shopee/lazada/taobao as options if you're shopping for bathroom stuff - they might not be premium quality or have high tech features, but if you're okay with something reasonably priced for basic everyday use, we think they do have pretty good stuff! 
And that's how we managed to save on some areas of our bathroom reno! TLDR: If you're ordinary salary-earning citizens like us, you'd probably be shocked by the costs of bathroom stuff too. It's okay not to go all out for everything, sometimes local brands and basic stuff work just as well as the premium options! Do you have any other bathroom reno cost saving tips? We'd love to hear yours too :)
5 May
