Commonwealth 3Rm Industrial Inspired Makeover

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My renovation is pretty much done... it's was mostly a painless experience thanks to advice and research on Renotalk. It didn't hurt to have a good contractor (Alan from Aian) who was incredibly patient with a clueless newbie who was travelling more than half the time that work was happening. I know he gets a lot of business from online referrals so thought it would be good to share my photos for this reason.

My apartment is very old... HDB 3S but with a utility room at the back added during the upgrading. It had been rented out for many years but condition wasn't too bad, just very dated. My plan was to turn it into a one bedroom place so the front bedroom becomes the living area and the small narrow living room becomes the dining area. I also wanted to change the combined toilet/bathroom to create 2 separate areas, 1 shower area and a separate toilet with a small sink which would require extending it into the current living room. Approval for this came pretty quickly, I was surprised because the area was larger than HDB guidelines... I was already prepared to appeal a rejection.

Photos of before:

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Kitchen sink area

View from the utility room & entrance of original toilet/bathroom

My pet peeve... I dislike having the floor and slippers wet when I just want to use the toilet.

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This is the front bedroom that's going to be gone after the reno... I decided to enlarge the master bedroom and add in a walk in wardrobe so I will have a small living area where this bedroom used to be

Back (Master) bedroom

Original bedroom doorways and living room wall. Entire living room wall will get demolished and both doorways will get sealed up, a new bedroom doorway will get created in the new wall between the back bedroom and the new living area.

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And it all got hacked...

The narrow passageway on the left of the photo is actually the toilet/bathroom... the wall that separated it from the living room got hacked out. This will be expanded and rebuilt, this also means the kitchen will be enlarged about the width of the doorway.

Another view of the toilet & my tiles!

Bedroom walls between both bedrooms got hacked out, living room wall got hacked out.

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My new toilet wall has gone up. To get the space for a proper toilet, I had to expand into the former living room. Since the space is smaller now, it's going to be my dining area.

This is the new living area after the living room wall was hacked away and the new bedroom wall went up... small and cozy!

In contrast, the bedroom now seems really spacious and long. Since the partition walls need to go in for the WIW, this impression doesn't last for very long.

New doorway opened up for my toilet!

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My back utility room that is going to become my tiny spare bedroom & study. Tiles are down!

Cement screed applied to the kitchen wall and the cabinet base has been built. Tiles have also been laid (under all that cardboard). I'll be doing a combination of cement screed and plastered walls in the kitchen, I don't do much cooking so this will work for me.

My combined toilet/bathroom has been separated & tiled, my bathroom has become a slightly larger than normal shower cubicle. At this point, I was really relieved... after all the original tiles got hacked off and looking into the dark, dark tiny space I thought I'd made a big mistake because the space looked so small. The white tiles make a huge difference and the space is large enough for an adult to shower comfortably.

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This is what my tiles look like in the kitchen. I have the same light grey tiles in the bedroom, living, dining and utility rooms that look like cement and slightly darker grey in the kitchen. I thought about doing cement screed on the floor but honestly I don't think I could deal with the dust so decided that tiles were a better option.

Bathroom & toilet floor tiles are the same, I chose a really dark grey with a rougher texture and both will have the same white wall tiles. I thought about doing white subway tiles but I decided instead on larger white tiles that had a very thin subtle tonal stripes along the width of the tile. Both my bathroom & toilet are pretty small so I think that really helps to open the space up.

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My newly built dry washroom! The wall next to the toilet is new and was built to separate it from the bathroom.

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Front windows and grills have been changed, those brown louver windows really made the room look so dark and gloomy. Like the frosted glass with white windows & grill. I decided to keep the brown window frames and grills in the back windows, I couldn't fit it into my budget.

Partition for my WIW is up!

I wanted a WIW because I didn't want a wall of cupboards in the room. The WIW has created a long narrow corridor from the bedroom entrance... not real crazy about this but no real choice due to the shape of the room.

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Wiring went in... happy with the look of the round pipe trunking cos I seriously dislike the regular flat trunking.

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Yay! After all that mess, finally it was cleaned up! Love how bright & spacious it all looks, wish I had so much space after furniture is moved in. Front door is going to get painted white and I'll be getting a new gate.

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The cement screed, plastering and paint in the kitchen is pretty much done and bi-fold doors for the bathroom and toilet are in. I'm not really crazy about these doors but space was a problem and there aren't many options available that I could afford. I do like the louvers above the doors, fits in well with the look I want.

Bathroom

Toilet

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Welcome 3roomer

Hope to c more of your reno pics

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Soon after the WIW partition walls went up, I realized that the WIW felt stuffy and damp. So I decided to put in vents... these ended up a little lower than I like but I think it worked out pretty well after I put the lights in

Plain and simple doors to match my plain white walls.... this is the bedroom door and the pillar behind it shows how much the bedroom got enlarged.

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The hardest things to shop for were lights (although now that I've started looking, a nice bed and headboard might be a really close second). I didn't like the lights I saw in most of the lighting shops, a lot of them looked the same and I didn't see anything that was particularly inspiring. I also had the additional headache of that narrow passageway in the bedroom... how to light something like that? In the end, my lights were a mix of online purchases and some desperate last minute decisions.

Thankfully, I'm very happy with all my choices but I'm still trying to fix my living room light... it was the first light I bought because I really fell in love with it. It is a vintage Artemide Tolomeo ceiling lamp from Lorgan's, I think the wire got pulled loose when I moved it so waiting for the electrician to come and do trouble shooting.

Spare bedroom (former utility room)

Walk in wardrobe:

This was one of my last minute desperate purchases, this one was from Ikea... I sort of thought that if I asked the electrician to leave extra long wires inside the light, I might be able to change it once I find a light that I really liked. In the end, I decided I do like it after all and won't be making any changes.