Design Challenge or Headache?

Excellent co-location with Little India MRT Station and Tek Kha market

I had sold my private apartment in Aug 2007, and was required to give vacant possession to the buyer on 10-Feb-08. Although I had 6 months, I spent much time hunting for a replacement property. It was exceedingly difficult to hunt for a private property at a reasonable price at that time due to the feverish property market. Finally, an agent contacted me as she knew I was interested in properties near to good amenities such as MRT, shopping malls, and wet markets. Well, she had a HDB 4R available, and would I mind downgrading to a HDB flat??

"Downgrading.. ?!" What downgrading? Our lifestyle? Or comfort? Perhaps social status? I mused.

I had never regarded moving into a HDB flat from a private property as "downgrading", particularly if the property is located near excellent amenities. I never cared for spurious comments or superficial folks and the only reason I bought private properties was for investment - higher and faster price appreciation compared to public properties over the same period of time. Which was borne out when I sold my private property. For me living in a HDB flat was as good as living in any other private property. And so if one was available at Buffalo Rd I would grab it!

The property market was very hot then. Obviously in any investment one should always buy low and sell high. If you sell high and wish to buy a comparable replacement property at the same time following your private property sale, you are likely to pay high prices too, since all comparable properties move at the same pace, more or less.

So it was a no-brainer for me to buy the HDB flat. Its location at Buffalo Road turned out to be excellent - MRT station practically at the doorstep, Tek Kha wet market is your next door 'neighbor', and taxi-stand just 'downstairs'. With MRT and bus-stops providing connections to the entire island, there was no need to expense on a car. Not to mention the location at Tek Kha is right in town, with Orchard Rd, Raffles Place, Suntec, etc all nearby. The Buffalo Rd HDB flat turned out to be what I was looking for!

Sure, the Buffalo Rd resale flat had downsides: the flat was old, did not have an attached toilet, no store room (what??!! my wife screamed), no balcony or ledge to place the air con compressor, a shower cubicle too small to build a vanity top and basin. And inadequate power supply from the national grid. Which meant I would have issues installing aircons, as not all brands have the capacity I want to adequately cool the flat.

Moreover, the unit was on a low floor, which meant lots of ants and cockroaches (urrgh!), possibly stench from the rubbish dump on the ground floor, and noise from vehicles and people downstairs.

We visited the flat. It had obviously seen better days. We saw spalling concrete in the kitchen ceiling, broken window panes, loose window hinges, broken toilet bowl, and exposed concrete in the kitchen window ledge. Security would be a problem for a flat on the low floor.

We were ready to pass over the flat as the downsides would compromise our comfort. Except the 85-year old seller pleaded with me. Finally, we decided to give it a shot; the asking price was reasonable for the location (despite a $49k cash-over-valuation) and I did not bargain. We thought with some hard thinking we could probably solve some of the inherent defects in the flat.

No store room, no balcony, no outside ledge for aircon, no attached toilet
(picture coming.. )


The uncle seller in the background

Flat built in 1982, when masonry work was slipshod and unregulated because HDB was in its infancy.


Note the unsightly iron pipe carrying the central TV cable and the uneven wall masonry


... in the bedroom
(picture coming.. )


..including the window wall
(picture coming.. )

The ID told me not only were the walls uneven but the kitchen wall also had a slight slant, necessitating further preparatory work before the tiler could commence tiling.

Spalling concrete in kitchen ceiling



Broken concrete at kitchen window ledge



The spalling and broken concrete were not serious problems because I was prepared to change and replace all the iron windows to aluminum ones. I also agreed to pay the ID for the repair and touch-up work needed for the spalling concrete.

Spalling concrete repaired

Broken Squat WC
Replacing the squat WC to a sitting pedestal WC meant the toilet door would be hindered by the WC and could not open fully inwards. As I dislike sliding or folding door this meant the door had to open outwards instead of inwards. This was a design compromise I had to accept if I wish to install a solid wooden door for the toilet.

Shower enclosure with huge gap above door
Both the toilet and shower had big gaps above the door. This would not do especially in a kitchen; sigh... how would you like if someone did their business in the toilet while you were cooking or having meals or snacks in the kitchen?

The ID agreed to install new door frames for the shower and toilet and close up the gap. There was also a louvre gap (for ventilation) above a bedroom door that had to be sealed before air-con installation:

eek ! My wife spied a cockroach!

The cement structure for the kitchen sink had to be hacked to free up space for the kitchen cabinet:

The messy and unsightly piping arrangement in the bathroom. The ID agreed to box up the area to conceal the ugly pipes:

But that would pose another problem -- the bathroom window.

The new "wall" erected to hide the ugly pipes would cut across the bathroom window, hence the window would have to be re-sized to fit with the new wall:

Would we be able to obtain HDB approval for the alteration? we pondered *sigh*

What, No Store Room?

The 4R HDB resale flat I bought was built in 1982, when the public housing program under the auspices of the Housing and Development Board ("HDB") was still in its infancy. In those days HDB focused on building public flats quickly and cheaply to house the population -- so balcony, attached toilet in the master bedroom, store room, etc were considered non-essential luxuries and were therefore not provided for in flats built in that period.

I can do without the balcony or attached toilet (though nice to have), but I cannot do without a storeroom !

ID ScrapBook

The storeroom is where I keep my cleaning equipment (vacuum cleaner, brooms, dust-pans, even pails & mops as I don't want my bathroom to look cluttered), ladder, extra stools, etc.

Posed with a design challenge, with time quickly running out, I had to decide where and how to have my store room.

My first logical and obvious location for the store was the space between the 2 bedrooms towards the back of the flat. I could carve out a space by demolishing the wall between the bedrooms, then erect walls to create a store space between the two bedrooms.

However, I soon had to abandon that idea because each bedroom then would have to give up some space, squashing the tiny space in each bedroom even further. That won't do!

Finally, after considering several other configurations, I settled on creating a store room of modest proportion in the kitchen.

The picture below shows the kitchen with the flat's previous owner in the background, while HDB was processing my application to purchase the flat.

The proposed store room would be created in the corner where the fridge stood, simply by extending the front wall of the living room one meter into the kitchen area, and erecting a partition wall so as to create a small enclosure measuring 1m by 1.5 m.

The picture below shows the corner after the old kitchen wall tiles were hacked preparatory to creating the store enclosure. Did you know that HDB's approval is required for creating new walls in the flat, such as the ones for the store room?

The next picture shows the store room taking shape, with the enclosure created out of cement blocks. Owing to space constraint, the store room would be a walk-in enclosure without a door. Nifty idea, isn't it?

And finally, Viola!! the picture below shows the final store room enclosure, nicely tiled and ready for use:

Initially the tiler assigned to the kitchen work was reluctant to tile the enclosure's internal walls. He urged me to use paint instead. I brought the issue up with James, my interior designer, and he proved his worth by directing the tiler to tile the enclosure room fully.

I was impressed !

LATER: Completed storeroom with kitchen cabinets!

Most tilers have only one objective when they take on your job, and that is to do quality work in as short a time as possible. Without an effective ID to lead them, they would take shortcuts that are always not in the flat owner's best interests. This is where it is vital to have a good ID, one who can command the respect and trust of the tilers, so that they will do his bidding without resentment or unhappiness.

The rapport that James had with the tilers was again demonstrated in another incident:

When the tiler erected the partition wall for the enclosure, he forgot (or was not instructed) to make an allowance for the opening of the fridge door, so that while the fridge door could be opened to 90%, it could not be fully opened to 180% (in order to remove shelves while cleaning the fridge interior) due to obstruction from the store enclosure wall.

I was stunned. What to do? Re-do the partition wall to reduce the width by 5 cm? And take more time? It was already the last 10 days of January, not many days before the tilers would stop work and return home to celebrate Lunar New Year with their families in Malaysia.

OK, rather than shortening the store enclosure wall by 5 cm and taking more time, I decided to relocate the fridge to the other end of the kitchen cabinet. Problem solved !

James then asked the tiler to re-align the cement slab for the kitchen cabinet and fridge. And the tiler complied without any apparent resentment.

Although I blamed James for failing to direct the tiler before work commenced on the width of the enclosure wall, I was gratified he quickly took responsibility for the mistake and rectified the situation to my satisfaction. Still, some time was lost.

In sum, I was delighted with the newly created store room, especially the neat tiling work, and my appreciation of James grew. .