Costs: Financing Your Pinterest Moodboards Without Getting Divorced

292

Japandi
HDB (BTO)
~700 sqft
2 br
Couple Living

よ！ That's me. Getting my ears blown into a new dimension by the missus is what would happen if I decided to screw the budget and literally build a ryokan on a private mountainside. We're taking a side-step from our usual house tours to talk about costs, budgeting and the whole balancing act between what's worth saving on and what's not to achieve your dream home. Hitotema.home is a Modern Japanese (not japandi) cozy 3 room BTO, designed to bring traditional elements of Japanese houses into the modern era.
Here's the long and short of budgeting for you. When it comes to renovating, the more you pay, the more you get. This is true if you've got yourself a great ID, or even more so if you're not hiring a design firm. Planning to build a dining room? Sure. Off-the-shelf dining tables cost $ to $$$. Not good enough? Make a custom table exactly to your liking, which'll set you back $$$$ or more. Solid wood flooring vs vinyl? Quartz vs sintered stone? Smart home systems for convenience and scene-setting? Really, there's so many things to consider, and truth is, ALL of these choices will impact your quality of life. So, the point is, maybe setting a budget isn't the most important bit of planning. I'd say, allocating that budget well is the smart thing to do in order for you to find bigger ways to achieve your Pinterest moodboard goals.
So, what did we do? We prioritised a few key aspects that we felt was important to create our ideal space that's separate from design and looks. The first thing we wanted was for the house to *feel* correct. This often gets overlooked by first-time homeowners. What do we mean by feel? Think about the touch surfaces of your home. Not just furniture and counter-tops, but floors, walls and even the inside of drawers. We interact with these surfaces on a daily basis, and it's not something a 3D rendering will ever be able to suggest to you. For example, vinyl floors are cheaper and easier to maintain, but, they also feel hard on the feet and cold/plastic-y to the touch. For our floors, we insisted on 2 materials. Wood, and tiles. Wood was chosen to give that warm, natural feeling on our feet as we walk though social and private spaces. Tiles, with a cold, weighted yet smooth-stone feel create contrasts in texture as you transition from the slow-paced spaces of rest to corridors, where you'd want to move through quickly.
In recognizing early on our preferences, we were able to allocate a higher budget in order to get solid wood flooring. In doing so, we also had breathing room to re-manage our expectations of tiles, choosing a more minimal, basic tile which helped balance our costs out. Funnily enough, this basic tile with its minimal look not only feels great, it's also really, really cheap.
Another factor we allocated our budget greatly towards was material durability - its ability to be long-lasting and resistant. Perhaps, as a chef, the best example of this I could give ya would be the kitchen. We've been around the block, and most IDs would do you a kitchen primarily made of plywood. If you spend a tad more, you might get a marble, quartz or equivalent material for a counter-top. I had planned from the beginning that a kitchen constructed primarily out of wood was not going to be lasting. Wood, heat and moisture are not friends. Our intention was to go with a stainless steel kitchen, and to achieve that, I went with a separate contractor (one whom I work with) to fabricate our kitchen. Was it costly? Yeah. But is it worth it? Maybe not now, but I guarantee in 5 or 10 years time it definitely will be, and will continue to be. Easily, a custom stainless steel kitchen would cost about double of a custom wood kitchen, but, I never need to worry about wood warping next to an oven, or mold occurring from the moisture under the sink. Btw, look at the level of precision by these guys in the photo. If you're looking for the good stuff, call ANOX, they'll hook you up well.
In order to balance those costs, we did 2 things. First, a cheaper backsplash material. Backsplashes are important, but at the same time, really not that important. Because stainless steel is greyish, and our top cabinets are grey, it was easy to maintain a minimalistic (wabi-sabi? idk) look with a basic backsplash material. We went with Cerarl panels. They're resistant, easy to install, and really cheap. It's gotta be at least half the price of our original quote. Next, sticking to wood for the top cupboards was a good plan to keep budgets tight. After all, most of the heavy duty stuff happens over the counter tops.
Have you noticed how expensive TOTO stuff is in Singapore btw? Here's a hack - buy it from Japan. In Japan, TOTO products are literally everywhere. It's not because the country is rich, it's because it's just not that expensive. Okay, maybe it still is kinda expensive, but it is cheaper than any equivalent thermostatic shower mixer + hand shower here. We have a sit-down onsen style shower in our bathroom. Our master bathroom sports a dual shower so the missus and I don't need to fight for the shower (or have my skin burned off by the lava which she calls "warm water"). We'll talk about this in the posts to come, so stay tuned for that.
Also, I guess we were pretty lucky to get a set of existing tiling already fitted that was actually good looking. By not needing a fresh set of floors and walls for the bathroom, we had a little breathing room to change up the toilet bowls to the ones we fancied, and getting a quartz countertop for the powder room for that luxe feel and weighted look.
I think, looking back, we kinda really believe that whilst renovations vis a vis your Pinterest Moodboard is expensive, these achievements fall into a spectrum. By stretching your dollar on the things that matter more to you, it's easier to get further ahead towards that ideal design and quality of life you're looking for. After all, design is merely a function of purposeful, meaningful use. Whilst it's easy to get caught up in the way something looks, think about whether the physicality of design's function is meaningful to you. Whether it's the way something feels, the way it pulls, or slides, or exists over time is perhaps way more important than just the way it looks. Similarly, whilst it's always nice to change just about everything in your new flat, consider whether compromises can be made, and to what extent are those compromises going to benefit your budget in achieving more things that can improve your quality of living. Budgets stack up quick, so plan, prioritize, and make good choices.
Anyway if you burst your budgets, fret not. Just do what we do, and put your dog to work at a fast food restaurant for some extra income.