BTO · Punggol

Punggol 5-Room BTO

First-home owners turned a standard five-room BTO into a storage-rich home that doesn't feel like a cupboard — by designing the carpentry as architecture and letting the living space stay open.

Living room in a five-room BTO flat with a blue sofa and herringbone timber flooring

Project Facts

Placeholder — replace before launch

Property type: BTO
Location: Punggol
Size: 108 sqm · 5-room
Completion: 2025
Scope: BTO renovation, Storage-led carpentry, Lighting design
Style: Contemporary Scandinavian

The brief

The owners moved from a rented apartment with a shared wardrobe crisis. Their brief was blunt: 'Everything we own needs a place, and we never want to see all of it at once.' They also work from home two days each per week and wanted a study that didn't feel like an afterthought.

The challenge

Five-room BTOs tempt owners into carpentry everywhere, which is how living rooms become corridors of cupboards. The design task was to concentrate storage into two architectural moves — a living-room wall and a bedroom wardrobe suite — and keep every other wall honest.

Design approach

01 — Space planning

The study nook was carved from the dining zone with a joinery desk and shelving that reads as furniture, keeping the living-dining volume uninterrupted. The household shelter's mandatory door was integrated into a full-height joinery run, turning a code requirement into a design line.

02 — Storage as architecture

The living-room storage wall — floating console, closed storage below, display shelving above — carries the room's composition. In the master bedroom, a wraparound wardrobe suite with a proper dressing return replaced the usual flat wall of doors.

03 — Material strategy

Herringbone vinyl flooring in a pale oak tone runs wall to wall, visually enlarging the flat. Joinery fronts in a slightly deeper oak create gentle contrast; stone-look surfaces appear only where hands touch — countertop, splashback, vanity.

04 — Lighting

Cove lighting lifts the ceiling plane through the living-dining axis; the study nook gets its own focused task light; bedroom wardrobes carry integrated sensor lighting that glows softly at night — a small luxury the owners now can't live without.

Key decisions

Two storage walls, not six: Concentrating carpentry kept other walls free for art and light — the flat feels bigger than its floor plan because it breathes.
Shelter door, absorbed: The household shelter's door sits flush within the joinery line — compliant, and invisible until you need it.
Study as joinery, not room: A dedicated desk bay with shelving serves two work-from-home days without sacrificing a bedroom.