The most expensive part of our resale home - the bathrooms!

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Minimalist
HDB (Resale)
~900 sqft
3 br
Couple Living

Shopee (FreyaMirror)
Round Bathroom Mirror…
S$26.40
Zaffiro
PRS-1107.88GM Rain Shower Set - Brass Gun Metal…
S-Enquire for price
Hua Khian (Aximus)
Castilo…
S-Enquire for price
Hafary
LJ6333 Tile…
S-Enquire for price
The bathrooms were the first thing that definitely had to go when we took over this resale flat more than a year back - the original HDB tiles (see the next picture) reminded Duck of a stripy shirt for some reason. And of course we wanted to swap out most of the existing bathroom items (eg. the toilet bowl and shower) just for hygiene purposes. So here's a quick tour of our two bathrooms, starting with...
The original tiles and bathroom fixtures preserved by our seller - the tiles were 100% not a vibe for us. (Petition for HDB to just give everyone plain white/grey tiles please! No more stripes or other funny patterns) We're quite unlikely to re-renovate our bathrooms for the next 5-10 years at least, so we decided to take the plunge and give them a whole new look.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, this is what we turned our common bathroom into! Most of the IDs we recommended told us to get a shower screen between our shower and sink area - but Duck was very against that because she didn't like the thought of having this awkward gap between the glass and the vanity, which would be difficult to clean and also... trigger her OCD haha. We decided instead to put in a false wall with niches (on both sides!) and have a custom vanity built so everything would be seamlessly connected without any awkward gaps. The niche on the sink side is conveniently located justttttt above the sink level to get out of the way of any splashes. We don't have anyone using this bathroom for the time being (since both of us prefer the master bathroom) but this is meant for future users to keep their toiletries so we can maintain a clean countertop (we hope HAHA)
The niche on the shower side is located much lower (because we can't have niches at the same height/too close to each other for structural integrity) Some might argue that it's not very helpful because it's a bit low... but our argument is that two niches cost the same price as one so WHY NOT hahaha. Also, this niche was meant to contain soap/shampoo for whoever's using the toilet but since nobody's using it for now, we're using it to hide our random cleaning supplies and foldable bucket. This has been really helpful in storing the bucket because it keeps it out of sight (buckets are not beautiful LOL) and it's also much better than storing it in our vanity - we're worried about the moisture from the bucket affecting the carpentry.
Kirona Scent
Spa Reed Diffuser…
S$12.90
Here's a close up of our tiles and sink area! Pro-tip for everyone: if you're choosing between a false wall and a shower screen, we recommend the wall always The difference in cost of the wall and the screen is about a few hundred dollars (but think of the HOURS you will be spending scrubbing the screen + additional cost of getting safety film especially if you have pets/children/elderly)! Speaking of shower screens...
Here's our master bathroom with the PAINFULLY HARD TO CLEAN shower screen :') But it does go very well with the aesthetic of the house so... Duck is a little divided on that reno decision. We have a false wall in the master bathroom as well, where we have two niches (again, two niches are the same price as one!) and these fancy soap bottles we refill with our soap from MR DIY (couldn't afford real fancy soap after paying for reno T.T) We also got really tired of shopping for bathroom stuff so we have the exact same shower and toilet bowl for both our toilets. We've heard plenty of horror stories about Taobao toilet accessories, so while we're fans of all things Taobao, we decided to have our toilet stuff all sourced locally.
- #bathroomrainshower
- #bathroomniche
Shopee (FreyaMirror)
Arched Bathroom Mirror …
S$55.99
Shopee (Rigel Official Store)
Gallant Rimless Toilet Bowl, WC9030S…
S$420.00
The other side of our bathroom looks like this! The original intention from Duck was to have a full length mirrored cabinet to make the bathroom look big and bright, but we couldn't do that because it would block our window (and we all know how important ventilation is for the bathroom) So instead, we got this long shelf to match our vanity - has the same effect and has also been very helpful for storing our daily toiletries since our vanity size is pretty limited. We had a whole deliberation over whether we should get a custom vanity cupboard (which is not cheap T.T) but decided to go ahead with it in the end because we love sintered stone LOL. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because the contractor was able to custom cut our vanity and shelf to make way for our aircon piping (the thin white pipe beside our mirror). Our piping runs quite seamlessly from the top of the wall all the way to the bottom where it empties into the drain at the bottom without being in our line of sight.
The bathrooms are one of the most aesthetically pleasing parts of our house because we splurged on them AND overhauled everything - the rest of the house would look this good if Duck got to splurge and overhaul everything according to her design direction HAHA Unfortunately, her husband ain't a millionaire so... the splurging was restricted to the tiniest rooms in the house :) That said, we often get questions from friends on our tiles - are they special tiles? How much did we top up? The answer is... no! We didn't top up for these tiles - they are all the super basic 60cm x 60cm tiles from Hafary. We already used up most of our budget on the false walls and niches so we made do with the basic tiles but just took extra effort to select complementary colours and textures that matched the rock/ocean/grey vibe of our home. (And we also spent a lot of time in Hafary touching tiles LOL) We hope you enjoyed our bathroom(s) tour! Let us know in the comments below if you have any questions :)