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Entryway: Blending Retro Glass Bricks with Modern Contemporary Design
HomeWelcome to our 15K modest & minimal home with 2 cats
dynalivv
4room-96sqm || Low cost budget homeowner 😜
Welcome to our 15K modest & minimal home with 2 cats
1209
- Minimalist
- HDB (BTO)
- ~1,000 sqft
- 3 br
- Couple Living
Welcome to our 4 room BTO featuring our light and minimal home with mostly lose furniture. Our home is 96sqm with three bedrooms and a balcony. One day we'll share our balcony, but for now, it's still a work-in-progress. My husband and I are DINKs, or rather, SINKs because I'm a struggling freelancer. My husband is the only one holding a regular full-time job while I'm still building my own career. Partly because of this, we could not have a large budget for our home renovation as we probably would have struggled to repay another loan. So, we kept things minimal and livable, while embracing a slow renovating approach into our forever home. The living room is the heart of our home and is also our favourite space where both my husband and I, and our two teenage cats spend most of our time in. It feels like a collaborative space where we play games, watch TV, have dinner and cuddle with our cats. Because we limit spaces in which our cats can enter, like our bedrooms, we try to provide them a dedicated space to climb and play. This has worked out really well for us as it also provided them with more napping and hide out spots. 1 year later, I still love our sofa. Not only are the covers removable to be washed, it also has storage underneath! Our living room will always be evolving with time. Eventually, we would like to add a gallery wall, along with a TV frame to add more variety and colour into our space. Perhaps, we may even paint the TV console/drawer and swap out the door knobs at some point, but that's still up for discussion. My husband is an avid fan of caring for aquarium fishes since our rental days. He has a dedicated shelf for all his fix tanks containing fishes like goldfishes, angel fish, guppies and shrimps, among many others. Because of how heavy fish tanks generally are, we decided to get our bombshelter vendor to install another rack in our living room to make sure it's strong enough to hold multiple tanks. As much as we would've wanted to have a concealed carpentry for our bombshelter, we didn't have the funds to do so. In hindsight, I actually prefer how it looks now with whatever we had. We had our vents concealed on one side and had the main vent in a more seamless design (Do note that you need the vents re-installed if you intend to sell your home) I also had the bombshelter door painted the same colour as the entire house which almost gives a really seamless look. Since everyone will know there's a bombshelter, I guess it doesn't really matter if we covered it or not. The sliding shoe box is a relatively new addition to keep our shoes more organised, also after my youngest cat decided to throw our shoes off our rack previously. It has made the space visually less cluttered vs a regular shoe rack. Eventually, one day, we will be having a little locker cabinet to place our shoe boxes in. Our entryway light was such a steal! It's only 10.90, but unfortunately does not exist in IKEA Singapore anymore. But this type of light mounting is great because the electrician charged us as a regular light installation. In comparison to an actual track light installation, this alternative is so much more economical. I work from home a 100% of the time, so, I definitely needed a dedicated office space for me to work in. It took a long time for me to decide what kind of setup I wanted to work in. And then one day, I saw this IVAR cabinet being listed on Carousell for only $80 including the lights. Then I decide to have my desk setup among the shelves. I guess you could say that I have an adjustable desk 😉 
This room was actually a bedroom, but we decided to hack it down to create the feeling of space and to let more light disperse into our kitchen and pantry area. It used to be so dark with all the walls. It has also been great for me to still be able to communicate with my husband in the kitchen from my home office. Because I enjoy sewing and crocheting, I've always wanted a huge table for my work station when I do have ongoing projects to work on. And boy, did I manifest the huge 2m table. I got it for free on Carousell! I had the surface sanded, sealed with polyurethane and painted the legs the same colour as my home. As much as I love this table, I will have to downsize. I'll be having a mini-makeover for my office. Follow me on my ig @dynalivv to see the transformation soon! Our second favourite part of our home. The kitchen is the only place that we did our renovation. My husband, being a chef, of course we needed a proper kitchen. When I chose the laminates and surface countertop designs, I imagined it to look and feel more like a concrete, raw, wabi sabi style, but it somehow turned out to look more industrial which I'm not too mad about either. Even though we don't have top cabinets, we still managed to have led lights installed by having a pelmet box. These lights are such a life changer. We usually pair the lights from our chimney hood to have more light. Another one of our best decisions we made was to have sintered stone and have it as a backsplash as well. I personally prefer having stone-like materials for my countertop. This rack was not in the original plan. Our microwave used to be on our pantry countertop. We then felt the flow of re-heating food in our pantry feeling a little off, like it didn't flow well. I'm so glad I got this rack. This has made our food prep a lot more intuitive and felt like it made more sense. Our fridge is probably the most expensive appliance in our kitchen, but so worth it. I love the ice function which I never knew I needed. We hacked the walls of our kitchen to create an open concept kitchen - my husband's dream to have. Another one of our better decisions made. We also have a moving kitchen island which has been so handy to have. Eventually, we would like to add shelves above the dry pantry area to reduce the appliances on our countertop. In our second bedroom, instead of a guestroom, we have our own mini gym. This has been a dream of mine and I'm so happy to have finally been able to make this manifestation come to life. This was a recent addition just 2 months ago. I could easily break the costs of the equipment even by the end of the year vs having an actual gym membership. I got my barbell, weight plates and bench from Taobao which would have otherwise costed me so much more if I were to buy locally. The rack was purchased from Carousell from a gym owner. It was such a good deal for all the workout variations I am able to do. Overall, I'm happy to have been able to call this space my own home gym even if it's not the most extravagant of materials and equipment, but it has worked so well for us the past 6 months.
2comments
rachieehomeSuch a heartfelt post! :) it's so amazing how you guys kept your reno at 15k but have so many nice features around the house. Eg your mini gym!! I love to crochet and too! And I love sewing though still not very good at it. Haha.7 months ago- dynalivvCreatorAw, thank you so much! I appreciate your comment 🫰 We do try our best to make our home feel like home one day at a time 😊7 months ago
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