What You Should Be Aware Of Before Hacking Walls and Merging Rooms

Worth considering.

When HDB flats are becoming smaller and smaller, hacking walls (and maybe merging a room or two) is a surefire way to make your home feel bigger and brighter – which explains why more homeowners in Singapore are doing just that for roomier living spaces.

But before you commit, it’s worth knowing what comes with it so that you come to an informed decision. We’re talking extra costs, resale considerations, and lifestyle trade-offs that may not be obvious until you’re actually living in the renovated home:

1. Costs can vary depending on the age of your flat

It may not seem obvious from the get-go, but BTO flats and resale HDB flats actually possess different types of walls. Older flats tend to have brick or concrete walls – which require more labour and care to hack – while newer BTO flats come with drywall partitions that are easier to tear down.

So, the final cost of hacking down a wall will look quite different depending on the flat’s age and overall condition. Hacking works for older flats can cost noticeably more, so it’s worth checking with your interior designer, especially if you’re on a tight budget.

2. The structural beam may remain, even after hacking the wall

You probably already know about structural and non-structural walls, and how the latter is the only one that can be hacked. But even after identifying a wall that can be torn down, don’t assume you’ll be left with a perfectly clean floor-to-ceiling opening.

In many cases, there’ll likely still be an overhead beam where the wall used to be, which can’t be hacked. The good news, though, is that there are tried and tested ways to make it look more intentional – from cladding it with decorative panels, turning it into an archway, or using it to anchor the overall design.

Explore: 8 Sneaky Ways to Hide HDB Home Eyesores Like Wires and Pipes

3. Half walls are a good compromise between openness and separation, but will cost more

If you don’t want a fully open-concept home, a half-wall is a nice middle ground. It lets light and sightlines pass through, while still giving some separation between spaces.

The downside is that they cost more. Creating a half wall isn’t as simple as hacking away the top half of the wall – to properly create one, the existing wall needs to be torn down entirely before a new half-wall is built back up.

That means extra labour, materials, and coordination, which means higher costs for homeowners like yourself.

4. Hacking walls and merging rooms can affect resale appeal

You’ve likely seen this point come up many times in forums, social media comments, and perhaps some nosy comments from your peers. But as over-discussed as it may be, it’s still rooted in reality.

Hacking walls and merging rooms may work perfectly for your current lifestyle, but if you’re planning to sell the unit in the future, you’ll need to think about how future buyers might view the reconfigured layout.

What feels like a larger communal area or spacious master suite may not be as usable to someone else – like, say, households with kids or buyers who want more flexibility from the flat. Of course, you could get lucky with a buyer who likes your layout, but that pool may be smaller.

5. Rebuilding the wall can be costly

Hacking the wall may look like a one-time decision, but if you ever need to reverse the layout, rebuilding it can be a whole other cost to think about.

For starters, it’s not just about putting the wall back up. You’ll likely also deal with flooring patches, electrical points, ceiling touch-ups, and the sort – essentially, the unglamorous bits that make this more than just simply building a wall back up.

6. Open layouts may come with lifestyle trade-offs

Open layouts make a home feel brighter and airier, but they also mean everything travels more easily. For example: cooking fumes, TV noises, and loud work calls (and that’s just naming a few).

That’s why, before opting to go down this route, you should think about your lifestyle needs. Do you do heavy cooking often? Do you work from home regularly? Do you have household members with very different schedules? These are worth pondering, since they’ll affect how you live in the space.

There’s also the practical side: removing walls can mean losing usable wall space for storage or shelving. So before you hack down everything, try mapping out where your furniture and storage will go, so you have an idea of what works and doesn’t work.