HomeBefore & After: Giving our 4rm resale kitchen a total makeover
housethingsgoing
A frog and a duck living in a 4rm resale flat
Before & After: Giving our 4rm resale kitchen a total makeover
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- Minimalist
- HDB (Resale)
- ~900 sqft
- 3 br
- Couple Living
"Kitchen only mah... can use then retain and save money lah!" That was what our parents told us when we first bought our house - the flat was only five years old, so most of the kitchen fixtures were still in alright condition... 
...but the colours were not alright with Duck T.T The previous owners were also very minimalist in terms of their kitchen appliances - they didn't have many things, and for some reason... had their power socket for the stove right above the stove itself, which felt a little like a... fire hazard? Their kitchen cabinets were also in the standard dimensions that every ID provided us with as a start - which Duck wasn't really keen on because she loves kitchen organisation and wanted a bigger variety of storage solutions. And after promising Frog that I would cook lots of yummy dinners for him if they renovated the kitchen, we proceeded to give our kitchen an overhaul! (PS. Dinners have been cooked for Frog, but I wouldn't say they are restaurant grade delicious - my goal is just to make sure everything is cooked and nobody gets food poisoning) 
Before we move on to the after pictures - here's another view of the kitchen from our current dining area. Sorry previous owners, but I really could not vibe with the pink walls, cream countertops and brown cabinets :( 
Here's what that exact same doorway/entrance looks like now! Apart from changing the colour scheme entirely (bye pink walls!) we also extended the kitchen counter outwards to create a new dry pantry and mini bar counter area. The previous owner probably kept his kitchen counter small because he had quite a few kids and appreciated the extra space for them to play in but we have no kids and needed the extra space to store our extensive collection of random coffees and teas. We also took advantage of the very large kitchen entryway to build an open-close kitchen concept using bifold doors and windows. This allows us to close off the kitchen if we're doing heavy cooking, but also keep light coming through from our yard so the dining area doesn't look dark and enclosed. 
But that's not to say that we removed everything in the original kitchen - we retained the original service yard louvre windows as well as the wall tiles, mainly because the colours were inoffensive and we had also run out of budget after paying for sintered stone countertops LOL. One regret though, is not changing the tiles in the kitchen. We'd retained the original HDB tiles as they seemed to be in ok condition, but after the reno we realised that the tiles seemed to be gathering dirt a lot and having weird stains appear mysteriously. We're not too keen about manually hand scrubbing our tiles with bleach every week (sounds incredibly tiring LOL) - so we got this kitchen mat from Taobao to cover the tiles instead. 
Apart from just the colours, we also added in custom-size nooks for our oven and dishwasher, and got a sink that was way larger than the original sink. One last thing that we did for the kitchen was to change out the lights! We got these track light bars which were much more powerful than the original track lights and looks a whole lot more sleek! We also added LED strips for the back of our stove, and chose a hob with an inbuilt light so we've definitely got enough light to inspect our food as we cook now. Not that I've actually cooked mouldy food for Frog before... but just in case, you know :) And this is how we've transformed our kitchen from a very standard HDB "recommended" layout to something that fits our needs a lot more! Let us know if you liked this transformation or if you have any questions about our process :)
