Bounded by Tampines ECO Park and the TPE, Tampines GreenVerge , Tampines GreenCourt and Tampines GreenVines sit within a huge cluster of BTOs in this east-side neighbourhood. With the estimated completion dates looming for these estates, there’s no time like the present to start planning for your home renovation.
For those who are still uninspired, our blog today will take a closer look at the floor plans of these Tampines BTOs. Using real-life designs that have been done elsewhere, we show you how to incorporate these layout ideas into your own flat. Hopefully, they will get you one step closer to your dream home.
Tampines GreenVerge
1. Bathroom vanity on the outside
Bathrooms in 3-room flats are often quite small, even for the en-suite bathroom. The solution? Place the bathroom vanity outside within the bedroom so you can have the option of a larger shower area. For this to work, you will need to sacrifice a nightstand and have your wardrobe just next to the bed.
2. Multifunctional TV wall
Converting the bedroom next to the living room into a home office for your 4-room flat at Tampines GreenVerge? Here’s an idea: Do up a coffee pantry area (for much needed breaks in between deadlines!) on the other side of your TV wall with a custom bar table.
Beyond just a relaxing nook and a structure for mounting the TV on, this TV wall is also partially made from glass panels, allowing light to permeate through both areas more freely. This reduces the ‘closed-in’ feeling you sometimes get with full concrete walls.
3. Kitchen entrance in the middle
There are varying layouts for the 5-room flats at GreenVerge. This idea works for the layouts where the bomb shelter is located to the side of the home rather than along the walkway and for layouts with an open kitchen or with kitchen walls that can be hacked away (you’ll know the walls can be hacked if they are thin black lines rather than thick ones).
In this layout idea, the entrance to the kitchen is located in the middle between two kitchen counters perpendicular to the main kitchen counter along the wall. This offers plenty of countertop space for food prep or for entertaining. One of the counters can be used as a dining area by incorporating legroom and chairs. Another can be converted into a pantry or a home bar. Plenty of options.
4. Shoe cabinet privacy
The entrance into the 3Gen flats at Tampines GreenVerge looks right into the living room, which can feel like an invasion of privacy when your neighbour walks by. Consider then doing up a shoe cabinet cum privacy screen that helps to conceal your communal spaces from nosy neighbours while giving you an area to store and put on your shoes.
Tampines GreenCourt
5. Indoor window
There are 2-room units over at Tampines GreenCourt. While these are originally furnished by HDB with sliding doors that segregate the living room and the bedroom, we like the idea of having a window cut-out as it makes the spaces feel a little less boxed-in. Install bi-fold window panels for added flexibility on your use of the areas. When left opened, the ledge the panels sit on can also double up as an extra table.
6. Kitchen extension
Break down the barriers between your kitchen and the service yard in the original 3-room flat layout at Tampines GreenCourt. This gives you an extended kitchen area in the service yard. Do up a built-in storage just under the window and use it as a breakfast nook (provided you have a decent view) and house your laundry essentials there.
7. Home bar
Enjoy your wine from the comfort of your home with a dedicated home bar. You can incorporate it together with your TV feature wall in the 4-room layouts at Tampines GreenCourt.
Slanted shelves by the side provide the perfect storage for your reds and whites. A custom solution like this one that combines both the feature wall and home bar also keeps things looking consistent so you get less visual clutter.
8. Dry and wet kitchen
With the layout as such for the 5-room flats at Tampines GreenCourt, you can’t quite go for a dreamy open kitchen. But you can consider a dry and wet kitchen layout like in this instance by installing a kitchen island (dry kitchen) just outside the entrance to your (wet) kitchen.
Use the island for baking or prepping light meals and double it up as a dining area to save some space. Keep the colour palette similar so both areas feel connected. A sliding glass door keeps the fumes and grease out during cooking, without obstructing the light flow.
Tampines GreenVines
9. Concealed entrance
We love hidden doorways just like every other person. They provide more privacy when you have guests over or when you just want a clear visual demarcation between the communal areas and the private zones of the home. This is especially important in smaller homes like 3-room flats where space is limited and your bedrooms can feel like they are too close to the rest of your home.
The walkway into the bedrooms is concealed behind this fluted wall that is an extension of the TV wall. Unless you look really closely, there is no indication of where the door is. This design can also help to lengthen your living room visually.
10. Pull-out dining table
The suggested layout by HDB for the 4-room flats at Tampines GreenVines positions the dining area just outside the kitchen counter, which can feel a little bit cramp.
To mitigate this, we suggest going with a pull-out dining table like the example shown below. This dining option can be extended out so that it sits perpendicular to the kitchen counter and then stowed away after use.
11. Pivoting telly
We have two layout ideas for the 5-room flats at Tampines GreenVines since both floor plans look quite different. For the first one, we like the idea of a TV wall that can be seen from both the living area and the dining zone. This can be done with a TV wall that sits in the middle of both the spaces and then coupling that with a pivoting TV bracket.
12. Walk-in wardrobe
This second layout idea is for the 5-room flat layouts at Tampines GreenVines with the bedrooms located on both sides of the home.
The master bedroom in this one is particularly spacious and the tiny walkway does mean you get to have a galley style walk-in wardrobe from the entrance to the room. To minimise space, a part of the built-in can be converted into open shelves for storing bedside essentials.
ALSO READ: How a tailored layout made this tight 4-room HDB spacious
This article was first published in Renonation.sg.