kitchen island

As a young couple, it’s always an incredibly exciting time when you’ve managed to secure your first home. 

But once you get through all the stress of finding the right home, you’d soon realise the next part of the journey can be equally, if not even more taxing. 

There’s a certain pressure to getting everything right during the renovation process, as once it’s built it’ll be hard to change. Or even if you could, it may just be really expensive to do so. 

For Bryan and Tiffany (@jingwensathome), they were fortunate to find their 4-room resale HDB at Pinnacle@Duxton which was somewhat already aligned with what they wanted. 

“The flat was excellently maintained,” Bryan said. “It had minimal built-ins and already had quite an open concept.”

They also love how breezy the house is since it’s located on a higher floor.

That’s not to say that they had an easy renovation journey, like almost everyone else during the pandemic – they had a few challenges they had to overcome. And now, together with their four cat bosses – August, Austin, Audi, and Auri, they are enjoying the fruits of their labour.

Let’s join them as they share how they turned their vision into reality.

How the renovation journey turned out

The couple was ready to shell out up to $65,000 for their renovation. “We were prepared for around $60,000 to $65,000 as the total number for the cost,” Bryan said. “And so, we wanted to cap the initial quotation to $55,000, before all the adjustments and additional costs for lighting and electricity works along the way.”

He said their final renovation cost was around $63,000. This excludes the aircon and cat grills which totalled about $8,000.

Their approach helped them to stick to the budget. It prevented adding