Our home renovation has just started! Meanwhile, here’s some flashback pictures of our ‘untouched’ flat from when we first gotten our key and before the renovation began.

The very first time we saw the inside of our home was right after we collected our keys back in February. We knew we already loved the location of the unit and the surrounding neighbourhood, but seeing how each room really looked like for the first time was still a thrilling moment. What if it’s nothing like we thought it would be? What if the rooms are too small? What if there isn’t enough sunlight inside? What if there IS too much sunlight inside?

I was very happy that none of my fears came true. The rooms are bright enough but not too hot. The only room that wasn’t bright enough was the kitchen, but it doesn’t matter because we were planning to hack the wall and make it into an open kitchen concept later. Overall the flat looked just the way I thought it would! Even better, it actually looked a little bigger than what I expected, only dusty.

Here’s how each room looked like:

To be completely honest, it really looked good enough already and I felt bad having to get it renovated, especially knowing that they will tear down some walls and change the floor. So these pictures hold very precious memories to me because during the renovation it will be messy and it will never look the same anymore afterwards. But doing the renovation is for the better (I hope) and I can always revisit the memories of our ‘virgin’ flat through these photos if I ever miss it.

The next weekend after our first visit, we came again to clean the windows, mop the floor (it was very very dusty!), and to check if there were any defects that we should complain to HDB.

Some defects are minor such as scratches on the fixtures, and some are major such as hole on the plumbing pipe and the door that can’t close properly. The biggest defect we found was the uneven kitchen floor tiles. Most of the defects are very hard to capture in photos. At first, I was worried that it would be impossible for HDB to fix the defects, especially for the kitchen floor tiles. But I am very pleased that they were able to take care of it almost flawlessly. It took about a month for HDB to repair all the defects until (finally) the flat is ready for renovation.

Now that the renovation has begun, I can’t wait to see how it will turn out! I hope everything will go smoothly until the day we move in.