A Minimalistic Yet Functional Service Yard Without Carpentry

240

Minimalist
HDB (Resale)
~1,000 sqft
3 br
Couple Living

Hey everyone! Welcome to our minimalistic service yard with zero carpentry! 🙌🏻 During our renovation process, we found that there were limited information on how to design a service yard in a space like ours, so we hope this post will help those of you who are in the same shoes as we were! :) Let’s dive in!
Having a service yard door was a non-negotiable for us, as we wanted to ensure that we can cook with a peace of mind without having to keep our laundry, something that the Mrs had to battle with in her family home. We also switched the opening of the door to the right instead, something that our ID suggested to accommodate the opening of our fridge door — so thankful for his meticulous advice!
We opted for bi-fold doors and wondered if we should have gone for sliding doors instead. However, after living here for the past 6-7 months, we don’t regret opting for a bi-fold door anymore and here’s why: 1. Regardless of whether the door is open or closed, we have a spot to hang our kitchen towel
2. Changing the door’s opening to the right side contributed very largely to this non-regret. It now opens to the side where the pipes are, which is also the “less usable” space in the service yard. It creates the perfect nook for our laundry basket, and we can fully utilise the other side of the service yard for storage instead, without being obstructed by the door :)
Here’s a bird’s eye view of the service yard layout for reference 👀 If you also have a similar layout, don’t intend to build any carpentry and plan to opt for bi-fold doors, we highly highly recommend at least changing the opening of the door to the side where the pipes sit :)
On this side of our service yard sits our washer & laundry basket 🧺 We also tuck the laundry basket for clean clothes in between the washer & wall for easy access. We often use the space above our washer to air & sun dry small items & recyclables ☀️🌬️
We added a carpenter tear to the door of our washer to protect it from accidentally knocking into the wall. These are small but mighty additions that we have added to other parts of our home that require that little extra protection too!
On the other side of the service yard sits our storage rack. Having closed storage is a must for us to protect our things from dust. The design of this rack also makes it easy for us to hang items such as our aprons, pails, and gloves neatly. We also added sockets here for charging our vacuum cleaner and any other appliances that we may need in future 🔌 P.S. We initially intended for our washer to sit under this rack, but the platform where the pipes sit (on the other side) does not allow us the fit both the washer & rack. Hence, we moved it to this side, which turned out to be a much better placement as this maximise the amount of sunlight that can enter the service yard and kitchen, which would have otherwise been partially blocked by the rack.
Buckets/pails always come in handy and we are glad that we found these transparent ones. It really helps with reducing their visual weight, perfect for achieving the minimalistic look for our service yard without having to hide them 🙌🏻
They can be bought as a set or as separate pieces :)
A little glimpse of how we organise our items at home using upcycled items ♻️ Over here, we used cardboard boxes, paper bags, and tote bags ✨
And finally, we have the automated, extendable laundry system. We love that we do not have to worry about the rain getting to our laundry! 🌧️ The built-in fan, light, heat & UV also come in handy especially on rainy days when laundry takes a little longer to dry. Otherwise, we get good wind & sun on most days, which we are so thankful for! 🙏🏻 That’s all for our service yard! As usual, we hope you found this post useful! ◡̈