HomeA curvy wabi-sabi 4-room BTO with a pop of colour
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DINKWAD life in our cozy 4-room BTO
A curvy wabi-sabi 4-room BTO with a pop of colour
293
Virtual House Tour
- Japandi
- HDB (BTO)
- ~1,000 sqft
- 3 br
- Couple Living
Hello! We are H and Y, and we’re honoured to be joining the Communa community as new homeowners. Our home is a 4-room BTO in the Central / Northeast area, and we loved the idea that our house was a ‘blank canvas’ for us to play with. Prior to designing our home, we took into consideration our lifestyle habits that we wanted incorporate into our house layout: - We are both homebodies who love kicking it back with a good show / movie to relax together; - Coffee is our fuel and hobby; - Music is a big part of our lives and has a huge influence on us and our mood; - We wanted a big communal space where our family / friends can gather and bond. 
Here is our original typical 4-room BTO layout - what we found unique was that Bedroom 2 and Bedroom 3 “stuck out” from the main living room space and we wanted to take advantage of this. We also appreciated the default open layout for our kitchen. 
This was the initial pre-concept layout idea our ID provided - we knocked down half a room to create a larger living area / communal space and this really opened up our house, linking our living area to the dining and open kitchen. We also wanted to have something to separate the entrance from the rest of the house to create a bigger sense of privacy. Our home aesthetic is inspired by the wabi-sabi design concepts we came across during our research. We wanted a space that felt cozy and calm to come home to, and because we intend to stay in our house long-term, we also aimed to incorporate aesthetics with practicality - to have a lasting home design where we could also embrace imperfections developed over time. 
We don’t have a corner unit so our house faces the corridor directly to our neighbour. To help create a greater sense of privacy, our ID designed our entryway with an erected display shelf / half-height shoe cabinet at the end of the foyer. This creates a sense of separation between the foyer and living area, and the shelves also serve as a feature for us to display some quirky decor pieces. 
Being on a high-floor unit, we wanted to take advantage of our living room’s 1) unblocked view and 2) full-length windows. Instead of going with the usual HDB recommendation of having our sofa against the wall adjacent to the window, we decided to place our sofa directly facing our full-length windows. 
To create a cinematic experience for when we watch shows and movies together, we didn’t get a TV, and instead installed blackout blinds which doubles up as a projector screen to create the immersive theatric feel. We love how our living room transitions from a city-viewing experience to a home theatre. 
Our knocked down half-room has been transformed into a music / recreation room. We love our orange glass block wall feature - we saw these blocks in our ID’s studio and immediately fell in love with them. We decided to display our records and record player outside in the common area as another communal feature. 
This pop of orange is both a conversation starter and also hides our sliding doors to separate the music / recreation room from the rest of the house. This gives us the flexibility to have an enclosed space for when one of us is playing music inside while the other is doing something else around the house. 
Our kitchen layout was open concept by default, and we decided to expand it by knocking down the service yard and extending the counter space into the L-shaped wall. This opens up our space even more and gives us more countertop and storage space. 
At the end of the L-shaped kitchen, our ID incorporated a curved feature wall and shelves to soften the transition from the entrance to the kitchen / dining. 
The kitchen seamlessly transitions into our dry pantry which sits behind our dining table. This is where we make our coffee our drinks everyday, and we love that the mosaic tiles with terracotta grout matches the orange block feature wall. Our dining table is a pill-shaped table that can sit big groups of people without getting in the way. We also got a Grey & Sanders bench on one side to make more space for the dry pantry area. 
Finally our master bedroom - to make a cozy atmosphere we got our ID to do up a platform with plenty of storage and our mattress sits on top of it like a bedframe. 
At the foot of the bed there’s another raised platform which doubles up as a vanity area. And that’s it for now! We’ll be sharing in more detail about each of our spaces in the house in future posts, so do give a like and follow if you want to look out for those :-) 
