The $440 House Revamp

When we moved into our flat I had all these horribly naive, impractical ideas about home furnishing. I did not realise, for example, that beige upholstery and wicker baskets were not compatible with cat puke. Or that all those floor chairs and poufs would accumulate rims of fur and dust (conspicuously missing from IKEA catalogs).

Although we've switched things out over the years, there's been a few things that we've been hanging on to, believing that we'd use them "someday". Last month, I finally got around to tossing them out and replacing them with new, more practical things.

The Living Room

Before: 

After:

In 2018 we had this pine-and-tatami vibe in our living room, but the lack of seating was an issue whenever anyone dropped by (which our parents did a few times a month to shower us with foodstuffs, as though we lived in a college dorm).

We got 2 yellow wingback chairs for next-to-nothing a year or so back, but I had always pined for a puke-and-pee-proof leather couch, so I finally splurged on it. Plus 2 ottomans.

Here is another shot to show you the view of the park we have from the flat. You can also see, in the corner, a fancy dining bench that I got for $5 that serves as extra seating and to put on shoes on.

Clara's Room

Before:

After:

We have 2 spare rooms, both odd-shaped, which were originally meant to be our personal rooms. But they were rarely used and turned into a dumping ground for laundry, cat litterbox, etc.

The recent bunny boarding experiment led me to rethink the use of these rooms. Surely there was no need for the litterbox to take up 0.5 of a room?! I moved the crap out and reorganised it as a library, writing room, and bunny boarding room.

Jon's Room

Before:

After:

Jon's room suffered a similar fate to mine. Which was an awful waste of good light (and a perfectly beautiful Lucifer feature wall) if you think about it. So I got another leather couch and a huge ottoman and we now use it as a reading room in the afternoons.

Jon did make some minor upgrades to his 'puter desk, namely switching out his old IKEA POANG chair frame and adding a footstool. We got the chair and footstool set for only $20. He also did up some trunking for all the wires and it looks amazing now.

The Outside

No before photo, but we had these rattan chairs that were falling apart, that we hung on to for sentimental reasons, having carried them home from a bus from an old lady's house in Yishun. Also, we had cluttered our corridor area with dross accumulated over 4 years. 

After: 

On one hot afternoon I heartlessly got rid of the old chairs and the dross. I replaced the old chairs with these plastic/metal outdoor chairs from IKEA. Originally we kept these around the house to use as, believe it or not, bath towel racks. I bought a proper towel rack to free them up for outdoor use.

Because we got everything on Carousell, we spent only $440 on this home revamp...

• Cat food table $25
• 2 x small stools $25
• Bench $5
• Towel rack $20
• Living room sofa $135
• Living room ottomans $30
• Jon's room sofa $150
• Jon's room ottoman $30
• Poang chair & footstool $20