- Jasmine Wong and Rainier Ng have been living in their 5-bedroom apartment in Singapore for over eight months.
- They bought the 1,350 square foot home for $450,000 and designed it themselves.
- The couple took Insider on a tour of their wabi-sabi-influenced ranch-style home.
Jasmine Wong and Rainier Ng have been living in their 5-room HDB apartment in Tampines, in the eastern region of Singapore, for the past eight months.
The couple’s house is on about 15 minutes walk from the nearest subway stationand about 25 minutes drive from the city centreon Google Maps.
High-rise public housing buildings are a major feature of the Singapore skyline and are home to around 80% of the country’s resident population.
Built by the country’s Housing Development Board (HDB), these public housing flats are also known as HDB flats among local residents.
It was the first HDB flats Built in 1960 New properties are still under construction today. They are considered rental properties and each new apartment is sold on a 99 year lease.
An HDB property typically consists of a few identical apartment blocks grouped together.
Wong and Ng’s block is painted black and white, like other buildings on their property. Only a small sign with the block number of each building distinguishes one from the other.
Although Singapore – tied to New York – tops the list The most expensive cities in the world To live in, public housing is still an option for most citizens as long as they get together certain requirements.
But living in an HDB apartment comes into its own set of rules. Technically, you’re not supposed to own cats, rent your house on Airbnb, or add a mezzanine to your apartment.
The couple began renovating their home in May last year, and completed it in September. Wong estimates they spent S$75,000 on the project, excluding white goods.
HDB apartments are available in different sizes ranging from 1-bedroom to 2-storey maisonettes. The couple’s home is a five-room apartment, by HDB’s identification.
The first thing anyone sees upon entering the couple’s home is the open plan dining and living area.
The study is located to the left of the main entrance, while the kitchen is located off the dining area.
An entire wall of fluted paneling in the living room conceals two doors that lead to three rooms, including the master suite.
Instead of working with an interior designer (ID), the couple decided they wanted to design the house themselves and work with contractors directly.
“We got quotes from different IDs, and they all came out with at least S$120,000,” Wong said. “I know that in the market it’s probably 25% more expensive to renew if you get ID. So we decided to take it up a notch and do it ourselves.”
The first hidden door along the fluted paneled wall leads to a cozy guest room filled with wood and rattan furniture.
“We haven’t had many people staying here yet. My sister was just there when she had to pet for us while we were away,” said Wong.
Much of the furniture was brought over from the couple’s previous home—a rental unit in a conservation house along Royle Road, which is located in the central region of Singapore.
Many of the country’s conservation homes are state-owned and operated properties Singapore Land Authority (Sudan Liberation Army). It is leased via a bidding system for both residential and commercial uses.
Wong said the couple decided to move into their current place due to the rent increase.
“We stayed there for three years during the epidemic,” Wong said. “Then the SLA decided to increase the rent. I think now the minimum bid is S$2,500 but we rent at S$2,000.”
Another hidden door opens to reveal another bedroom, which the couple have turned into a playpen for their pet rabbit.
There is a handmade cardboard bunny house, along with a bunny tunnel and some chew toys in the pen. A plastic pet gate closes the entrance to the room to prevent his rabbit from escaping into other areas of the house.
“She’s a grandmother in the rabbit years. She’s already about 10 years old,” said Wong. “We adopted her from our friend who moved to Oslo.”
The layout of the couple’s home is somewhat unusual in that their master bedroom can only be accessed via a connecting door from the room with a rabbit pen.
Wong said there is no door leading to the master bedroom from the living room.
“The previous owner had already converted it like this,” she said. “But in his composition, his study room was our bedroom, while his bedroom was the rabbit’s room.”
When the couple bought their apartment last year, Wong said, the building was already 27 years old. With a 99-year lease, the couple will own the home for another 72 years — unless they choose to sell it. However, they are only the second owner of this unit.
“The previous owner, the first owner. In terms of layout, everything was very dated. The furniture and floors were probably of the styles of previous years,” she added.
There are two bathrooms in the house. Even the shared bathroom is spacious enough to accommodate a freestanding bathtub.
One reason the couple was drawn to this unit, Wong said, was the size of the shared bathroom.
The highlight of the bathroom is the stone sink, which the couple obtained from a local stone supplier.
“It’s so heavy, we tried to bring it home ourselves, but it just wasn’t possible,” Wong said. “They usually do bigger projects, like hotels, but they agreed to hand them over to us if we bought two.”
She said that metal bars had to be placed under the bathroom shelf in order to support the weight of the stone tub, which was about 20 kilograms, or 44 pounds. The other tub is in their master bathroom.
She added, “My niece and nephew came in one day, and they told me it looked like a hotel.”
Designing and overseeing the house was not easy, as the couple had some difficulty getting their ideas across to the contractors.
Since the two didn’t have any design background, they couldn’t create the same kind of models as a professional designer would.
“I gave a PowerPoint presentation with references to roughly what things should look like, but my main contractor was looking at me unknowingly,” Wong said. “I think the lesson is that we need to have a very specific idea of what we want and tell him that. In turn, he should be able to tell us if there are changes going to happen.”
As part of their DIY experiment, the couple also painted the walls themselves.
“We decided to do it ourselves because we only got S$3,000 to paint the living room,” said Wong. “I was like, ‘Nope, I’m going to save that money and do it myself.'”
The couple’s home wouldn’t be complete without a farmhouse-style kitchen.
The wooden counters on the left are from IKEA and were brought by the couple from their previous home. The sage-green cabinets with black marble countertops are custom-made, Wong said.
“We wanted to reuse our kitchen counter, so we asked the contractor to measure an area to fit them and build the rest,” Wong said.
Since the two cook a lot at home, they chose the freestanding stove because of its design and functionality.
Other furniture items are DIY projects. The couple converted an old sewing machine and used wine crates for a small table on their balcony.
“This sewing machine was owned by my aunt – she is probably older than us,” said Wong. “We revamped it by picking up old wine crates and putting them on top.”
The couple also transformed old lampshades and wine crates into side tables and display shelves for the living room.
“It’s actually two lampshades rolled into one,” Wong said. To make a side table, the couple turned a bamboo lampshade upside down and glued it to the other.
They also had an old table top from Ikea that managed to fit perfectly into the hole for the lampshade.
The couple shares photos of their space and other snippets from their life on Instagram, where they have an account dedicated to their home.
Wong said about Instagram account.
However, it was the cozy home for the couple Featured In a few different local and living publications.
“I think if people really enjoy seeing pictures of my house, naturally I’d definitely want to keep doing that. But we still don’t know what kind of direction we want for our account, right now, it’s really just for fun,” said Wong.