2-Room Resale HDB is a Masterclass in Space Planning for Small Homes

It’s all about the finer details.

At sizes of 36 to 47 sqm, 2-room HDB flats are notoriously small. But somehow, the homeowner of this 2-room resale flat in Bukit Batok managed to fit in a sizeable living room, dining area, and study into the space – all while still having sufficient space for her yoga routines.

“Space planning was really the key here,” says Vanice, the interior designer from Darwin Interior who worked on the home. “We spent more time planning everything and paid extra attention to the finer details – like space and product measurements – to ensure that everything could fit in seamlessly.”

With more and more 2-room HDB flats popping up around Singapore, we wanted to know more about the process and how Vanice managed to design a functional and spacious home for her client. Keep scrolling to see just how much planning and coordination was needed for this particular project!

About the homeowner and her home

“For the home itself, it’s a resale flat that has been around for about 8-10 years. It’s also a Type 2 2-room flexi flat, which is around 47 sqm.”

“For this particular unit type, the toilet is located centrally with an entrance from the bedroom and kitchen each. Both the homeowner and I didn’t really like this, since it makes it feel like a shared toilet. Plus, it minimised the walking space inside as well.”

“So, we sealed up the entrance from the kitchen so that we can have proper segregation between each room.”

About the living room

“The design’s pretty simple,” Vanice says. “It mostly consists of three muted colours from a similar colour scheme, so it’s hard to go wrong. We also incorporated a few curves here and there to soften the look.”

“The homeowner isn’t really a fan of open-concept spaces, so unlike other 2-room flats, we didn’t have the option of hacking the wall between the living room and master bedroom.”.

“Of course, this made space planning challenging since open concept spaces help make a small home more spacious, so we had to adjust. For example, instead of the normal layout with the living room parallel to the window, we shifted it flush against the other wall to make room for the dining and study table.”

“As a result, we were able to fit in everything she wanted. There’s even enough space for her to do yoga; it’s the area in front of the round mirror – which, if you can tell, is positioned lower than usual. This is so that she can see herself easier.”

When asked about the walking room around each space, Vanice mentioned that it was sufficient.

“Of course, when the homeowner’s seated at the study table, nobody can walk past,” she admits. “But this is fine, because she doesn’t host much, so there’s enough room for her to walk around comfortably.”

About the kitchen

“I would say that the kitchen involved the most space planning,” Vanice says. “The homeowner has a lot of appliances that she wanted to put here, like a built-in dishwasher, washing machine, robot vacuum, and so on.”

“Because of this, we had to make sure that the carpentry measurements were very precise. For the built-in dishwasher (which is inside the cabinet with the long handle in the picture), we even went down to the showroom to find the exact product dimensions for our carpenter to refer to.”

“Also, due to space constraints, we weren’t able to place the washing machine at its original location, which was on the left side of the room.”

“So, we changed the overall kitchen layout into an L-shaped one, and placed the washing machine against the shorter wall. This is also where we placed the robot vacuum and the docking station, which is concealed so that the place doesn’t look messy.”

About the bedroom

“The bedroom has a pretty standard layout, with an L-shaped wardrobe that connects to the bed’s headboard,” Vanice says.

“Something that we did for all rooms in the house, including the bedroom, was to play around with indirect lighting. With this kind of theme, there isn’t any one feature that stands out or captures your attention, so we thought to add visual interest through things like cove lighting and backlights.”

About the toilet

“After sealing up one of the toilet’s entrances, we were able to create a bigger shower area,” Vanice says. “If we hadn’t done that, the shower area would have been limited to one corner of the room to ensure that there’s enough walking room between the two entrances.”

“Also, we intentionally decided to use a pedestal basin instead of the usual vanity because it’s slimmer. Because the toilet entrance uses a swing door, it would open right next to the basin – and if we were to use a vanity, we’d have to use a smaller one, which wouldn’t look nice.”

“So, this way, we save some space and add a nice feature into the area.”

To sum up

After everything we spoke about, it’s clear that space planning was the most important aspect of this particular renovation project – something that Vanice vehemently agrees on.

“It’s not just about fitting in whatever the homeowner wanted, but also understanding her lifestyle and tailoring the space to suit it,” she says. “These were things like knowing how much walking room she would need, adjusting the height of certain things, and so on.”

“And as a designer, this project tested my coordination and planning skills, since the carpenter and myself had to be in sync to ensure that the cabinets could fit in all of the homeowner’s appliances.”

“Getting everything right obviously took us some time, and thankfully, the homeowner was very understanding and patient. So overall, it was a pretty good project, and I definitely learnt a lot!”

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