From flickering lights to hand-painted doors: Rachell Ng spills the beans on her top renovation regrets

Seeing your dream home come to life is really a satisfying moment once all the renovation works are done. 

However, sometimes one's preference for style and design might come at the price of functionality or the lack thereof. 

Content creator Rachell Ng took to YouTube recently to share her reno regrets after living in her home for one year and counting. 

Tic-Tac-No

Tic tac doors rank highly in terms of aesthetics, by keeping a sleek appearance with smooth cabinet doors sans knobs or handles. 

It relies on a simple mechanism that allows you to open and close the door with just a push.

But sometimes, the mechanism can get worn out, as Rachell pointed out with her shoe cabinet. 

"You will need to use your hand to screw [the mechanism] so that it will come out and you can use the tic-tac again," Rachell mentioned.

However, she did warn that her hands tend to get sticky from the grease in the door mechanism after adjusting it.

More power points 

Another point Rachell brought up was about installing more power points in her kitchen. 

With a coffee machine, a toaster and a water dispenser all in one space, she struggles with having only two electrical outlets. 

So for now she makes use of an extension cord, though she's not a big fan of it as it is "very chunky and ugly". 

Flickering lights 

Planning to get a ceiling fan with built-in lights? Well, you might want to take note of flickering lights.

Having one in a small space like a study area, Rachell noticed a flickering shadow every time she turns her ceiling fan on. 

This tends to happen because the blades of the fan 'chop' the light each time they pass over it.

Painted doors vs spray-painted doors 

Another regret that Rachell pointed out was having hand-painted doors. 

She suggest opting for spray-painted doors instead as they tend to have a smooth and glossy finish. 

She mentioned that hand-painted surfaces get dirtier faster than the spray-painted ones. Plus, the latter is also much easier to clean.

She showed a white hand-painted door to illustrate her point, zooming into the door knob area to show the faded paint colour. 

Rachell also mentioned that she went for hand-painted doors because of the price. 

"We wanted to cut costs a little bit," Rachell mentioned as she shared that her renovation would cost $1,000 more if she had the door spray-painted. 

Soft-closing drawers, yay or nay?

Rachell's built-in wardrobe comes with soft-closing drawers. 

While she likes the fact that there's no noise when closing the drawers, she did point out that it can get pretty difficult to pull them out.

"This is very dangerous when you have nail extensions or long nails," Rachell mentioned, pointing out that you run the risk of breaking your nails. 

She suggested installing small handles for the drawers instead to avoid the problem. 

Other house woes 

On May 26, Nat Chua took to Lemon8 to share her regrets after living in a four-room HDB BTO flat for more than a year. 

Looking back, Nat wishes she and her husband chose a bigger flat.  

Nat mentioned how it would have been nice to have an additional study space, which a five-room flat could offer.

"In hindsight, the price difference for that extra space doesn't seem as significant as it did back then," she said.

Nat told AsiaOne that the price difference between a four-room and five-room flat in her residential area was "less than $100,000". 

While she couldn't recall the exact amount, she estimated that it would be "$80,000 or so". 

ALSO READ: Space-saving hacks: Interior design ideas for BTO flats

venkat.gunasellan@asiaone.com

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