My First Home Episode 3: $120,000 Renovation for family of 4's 3-Gen 1,600 sq ft HDB

My First Home

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Episode 3: Part 1

Episode 3: Part 2

Episode 3: A Multi-Generation HDB

Jenn: We are a multi generation home. We have our fair share of fights and quarrels. But I'm very thankful
that after Rachel got married, she still decided to stay with me.

Rachel: We are the only family members that she has, and I would never want her to be on her own.

Jenn: So there's actually a lot of space for the four for us, yeah, and plus our dog, Ellie.

Rachel: Since this is my mum's retirement home, so I let her decide most of the designs of the house.

Family of 4

Jenn: But as much as possible, I always try to, like, you know, involve her (in my plans). In this home, there are four of us living here. Myself, Rachel, my daughter Melvin, my son-in-law, and Raeanne, my granddaughter.

Ever since Rachel was born, she has always lived with me. So we've lived together for all our lives, even after she got married. Yeah, we still decided to stay together. Actually, ever since I was 16, she took care of me single handedly, and I’ve never thought of leaving the house. She will always be in my family planning, my future plans, because we are the only family that she has. My entire family has been her family actually, yeah.

Jenn: Come Raeanne, come join us.

Raeanne: Hi, I’m Raeanne and I am eight years old. This is Ellie, and she is one year old.

Previously lived in a 4-Bedroom Flat

Jenn: We actually moved from a four bedroom flat, and I wanted a bigger apartment with the growing family, as Raeanne is growing up. I want to have more space for us, and then we came across this place, and we really love it because it's so super convenient and the space is just nice for us, to still have our own rooms. Like the styles that we want in the house.

Raeanne: This is my mum's retirement home, so I let her make most of the decisions of the design of the house. But I have free rein on my own room and the common toilet. If it were me, I wouldn't say that I would make everything, like, very different, but it's just that I prefer a more minimalistic, like, beige kind of tone of the house. So I would probably decide that in my next house.

Grey Interior Design

Jenn: Hello! Hi, welcome to my home. This is my recess area, where we can sit here and wear our shoes. As you can see, it has a greyish theme, and we have grey coloured cement screed walls, that matches the cabinet. And we also have, you know, you see these lights, it's round, and then you'll see the rest of the home, there's a lot of repeated – similar designs.

Living Room

So this is the living space. So while I don't have a theme, but I like geometry and monochrome. When we first got the place, it was actually pretty dark, so we broke down some of the walls, and we built this wall, so you can see, right, the round arch. It's a repeated design in the house, and the TV console is actually built to give that warm feeling.

Mahjong Area

Sometimes we play mahjong, it's our favourite pastime, and we will usually play mahjong here. So having that space is very good because that allows us to place, like, a mahjong table. So this used to be a balcony, so we took away the doors and we levelled it up, and we made this into a dining space, when we have guests, when we have family coming over. And when I was sourcing for a table, I kind of wanted something wood, something different.

Kitchen

And if you look at the table’s legs, it also has some kind of round shape. It's also an area where we sometimes play board games, and we do activities like jigsaw puzzles. But we normally dine at the kitchen area. Yeah, so let me take you there. So this is the kitchen area. Previously it had walls and then we broke down the walls because I wanted an open concept kitchen, and I wanted natural light.

Dark Kitchen Cabinet

I like a home that's bright. I feel it gives a lot more space. I wanted a dark coloured kitchen cabinet, and what I really like is the gold rounded handles that you see. And this dining area, you look at these tiles, and you will see this in my master bedroom.

We kind of modified this kitchen table. The original design had some steel poles, and we found it to be a little obstructive. So we actually had it removed, and just made it into a plain table. The kitchen is very important to me, that's where my family gathers for our daily meals and we cook at home every day.

Rachel: Actually, other than having meals together at the dining area, we use it for other things as well. Me and my mom will just sit there, we will have some small talk, maybe we had a bad day, we just want to talk about our day. Sometimes, Raeanne and my mum would do some baking, or they will do some juice, like some fruit juice. Being a mother these days, is so different from the old days, like when Rachel was young,

I was always busy at work. She was mainly being looked after by her grandma, but these days, you know, even as a parent, you are constantly being educated on how to be a better parent, what are the things to be aware of, so I think that's what we try to do for Raeanne.

So you see, for example, in her room, there is a keyboard and sometimes she would just come and play and she's got her trampoline where she loves to jump here. And all her art materials, her easel board, where she can draw, she can paint, so it’s very accessible to her.

Good Childhood

Rachel: I want her to have that childhood that I had actually. That simple, ‘just be a child’, childhood. I just want her to have a good, healthy and stress-free childhood.

Jenn: This is her study table, which is actually convertible into a bed frame. If you remove this, and then you slot in a bed frame, then that becomes her bed, she can sleep there. So that's the plan for the future. This is Rachel's room. Let me show you.

Hi, Rachel, hi Melvin! Hello!

Girly Pink Bedroom

Rachel: So this is my room, as you can see, it is very different from the rest of the house. It's pink color, and this arch is the same as the common toilet. So I designed it where I wanted it to be very girly at the time. But over time, this arch got a little bit in our way because our plugs are at the side.

Yeah, but I mean it's still nice. Yeah, it's still a nice design. So on the other side of the room, I have my wardrobe, which I really like. What I really like about this wardrobe is that you can see the scallop patterns. It is a full panel wardrobe. You can see, it makes the room look much bigger.

Study Room

Jenn: So this used to be a utility room, which we converted into a study room. So this is the space where Rachel and I work when we work from home. And you see here there’s some storage space that we have built. I realised that in the past I spent a lot of time at work, so I didn't have a lot of time for the family.

But as I grow older now, I realised that it is very important and I want to make that my priority. And having a study room is something that is very useful because, you know, I try to work from home as much as I can, so that I can spend more time with the family.

Toilet with Walk-in Wardrobe

So this is my toilet, where you can see it's monochrome, it’s the geometric design that I want. This is my walk-in wardrobe, and I like that it is all full glass, so that it gives the illusion of a bigger space. And again, it's black in colour. This is our sleeping area, where Raeanne and I sleep here together.

And what is special about this room is, you look at this wallpaper. It has that round shaped design. It has that navy blue which ties in to the colour of our kitchen cabinet, and with a little bit of beige and brown, which actually matches my bed frame as well.

So this is actually my private space where I like to watch dramas on TV. But of course, you can see there's a mattress there, it’s actually Raeanne's mattress, because she sleeps with me. We keep each other company. And of course, you know, if she's sleeping, then I don't watch my dramas on the TV, I watch it on my phone with my earpiece.

Rachel: After becoming a mother myself, I have a lot of gratefulness and appreciation for my mum, especially in this home, where she decided that we should also have our own rooms, our own personal space, for us to have our own privacy, and to have our own time. So yeah, I'm grateful for that.

Jenn: When I bought this house, it was always meant for us to live together. So it was always going to be purposed as a multi-generation home. For myself, my daughter and my granddaughter. And I will always cater the space, the home, to have them in mind. And that's because we are family, we’ll be there to support each other, you know, good and bad times. And that's because I love them so much.

Will always stay with mum

Raachel: Of course, Melvin and I would want a house for ourselves, actually that is already on the way. But my mum will always be part of our family planning, we’ll never, not want her to stay with us. She will always stay with us, always be part of our family. Yeah. It never crossed my mind that we will not live together. So there's always the plan to stay together. So I think in a lot of things that we do, the decisions we make, it always tie back to this part, that we know that we will always be living together.

In our next home, of course Melvin and I will decide on the theme and the design of the house, but for my mum's space and her own room, I'll let her plan, decide to have her own monochrome or geometrical design in her own room, as she would like. Yeah, it’s really like a reversal of roles, right?

It's time to let them go and design, plan their own space. For all you know, maybe I would like earthy tones, you know, after that. Yeah, you never know, right?

Credits

Interior Design: Wolf Woof

Producer: Young Lim/ Home & Decor

Supervising Director: Raymond Goh/ SPH Media

Research Consultant: Nonie Chen/ Home & Decor

Research & Storyboard: Justin Foo/ FTTG Media

Video Editing: Wong Zhi Qi/ FTTG Media

Videographer: Lionel Yu/ FTTG Media

Website Editing: Tan Guan Lin/ Home & Decor

Coordinator: Carmen Wong/ SPH Media

Web Optimisation: Prashanti Mohanan & John Tan/ SPH Media

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