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dinkdongs
🏠 warm & cosy modern home inspired by local cafes | 5-room resale flat
Avoid these 8 easy-to-miss reno mistakes that affect everyday habits:
7237
- Free Style
- HDB (Resale)
- ~1,200 sqft
- 3 br
- Couple Living
Here’s a checklist of important decisions that you need to consider and discuss with your ID before okay-ing the start of reno works. Some of these may sound pretty obvious, but in the flurry of reno, it’s easy to overlook these points and it’ll likely become “reno regrets” bcos you encounter them every day! 
1) Order of switches Trust us when we say that switch configurations (which switch turns out what) is super important!! Plan the order of the switches in advance and communicate it as clearly as possible to your ID and electrician. We find that ordering your switches according to the logic of where the appliance is located (eg furthest to nearest ceiling light = left to right switch) is the most instinctual for daily use. 
For us, to prevent any ambiguity, we drew up a blueprint for the electrician using diff colours and labels. You can use ours as a reference to create your own! We heard from friends that changing the order of switches after it has been configured is very troublesome, so it’s best to get it right from the get go. 
2) Ensure sufficient power points (esp TV console) Don’t underestimate the number of power points you need in your house. The TV area especially is key to hide all the different electrical accessories. We have 6 installed — and it’s still not enough, so we had to squeeze an extension plug in. Accessories we plugged here: - TV - Sound bar - WiFi - Apple TV - Aqara home hub - IKEA lamp - Steam deck charger - Ethernet 
3) Aligning hood & hob Moving on to the kitchen, this might seem like a “duh” point, but our IDs had actually decided the position of the hob (and cut out the sintered stone countertop) without consulting us, and we were not ok with the position. Initially, they positioned the induction stove very near the edge of the countertop. This meant that the stove was very off-center from the hood, i.e. the hood would not be sucking in much of the heat, if at all, since the pots/pans are not directly underneath (in fact, it was quite out of range). In the end, we pushed them to replace the countertop, cutting out a more centered space for the induction stove (as u can see from the picture above). 😣 So please learn from our mistakes and communicate this clearly with your ID beforehand. 
4) Minimise countertop cut line If your countertop stone of choice needs to be cut (to fit into the hdb lift), you can request for the position of the cut. Ideally, you want your countertop to look as seamless as possible, so the cut can be in between the sink or stove hole, so that the line where the cut occurs is minimised! Ours is at the stove area. We also requested for the installation workers to colour match the grout with the sintered stone and they did a good job! 👍🏼 You can see in general the lines is not very obvious (although some portions of the grout may have rubbed off… but I think can request to refill the line!) 
5) Position your washer & dryer correctly As you can see in the pic above, do plan ahead for the order in which the washer and dryer is positioned, which also means taking into account the plug placement at your laundry area — take note that washer and dryer cables are generally quite short! To increase max efficiency, you would want your washer and dryer doors to swing open in opposite directions so you can transfer your clothes from washer to dryer easily. Also keep this in mind when you shop for the machines as some doors are not reversible. 
6) Wardrobe space planning (a) Communicate clearly to your ID what each compartment is for. For hanging clothes, guys’ shirts will need around 120cm of hanging space from the bar, while dresses need around 140cm. (b) You can’t have enough drawers, and compartmentalising your drawers makes organising your clothes sooo much easier. Here we have 4, with the top level split into 2. But, to save $$, we could have opted for one single long drawer in the top level and bought compartmental storage trays (from IKEA) to organise clothes. Something useful to consider! 
7) Glass shower screen width Our no. 1 reno regret is the shower screen in our common bathroom being too narrow. We wanted to keep the bathroom looking more open, and opted to not install a door for the shower area. So we were abit upset that our IDs did not run by us the planned width of the glass and went ahead to decide the width without us realising (& it was too late + expensive to change). The width of the glass here is way too narrow, making showers a nightmare bcos of how easily water splashes out of the shower, making the rest of the bathroom v wet. We end up not bathing here at all, and use this space for washing legs, filling pails, cleaning stuff, watering plants etc. (i.e. low splash activities). Our take is, the glass should be as wide as possible, of course with sufficient space allowance left for a person to walk thru. 
8) Distance between tap and sink (for top-mount sinks) No one talks about this enough but the distance between the tap body and sink, and how much area is left of the sink from the spout, is so important since bathroom taps are used on a daily basis. We would say that the general rule is to reduce splash on your countertop (& for OCD people like us, try not to splash the tap body itself). In the common bathroom, our tap is closer to the sink, but still allows a comfortable distance for washing hands. However, it is not wide enough for washing our face as the tap kinda gets in the way when we lean into the sink. 
Our master bathroom tap is further away from the sink, and the spout is relatively closer to the sink edge. But this means that we have a larger surface area to play with, e.g. washing our face is much more comfortable (we can lean really low into the sink), rinsing other things is also easier. On a whole, all these small little details add up since they pertain to features you encounter on a daily basis, so it’s best to iron them out from the get-go and prevent unnecessary reno regrets after your moving in!
14 days ago
