[Personal]: Renovating My 400sf Studio Apartment

10 min readJan 23, 2021

In preparation for getting married, we have decided that my tiny bachelor studio apartment would be the best place for us to stay for the next 1–3 years as a newlywed due to its strategic location.

So I decided to spend some money to prep the place up. At first, I only wanted redo the kitchen cabinets, but ended up doing the whole apartment, except for the flooring and bathroom.

This article will share my experience, problems, and budget for renovating my small 400sf+ apartment in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Due to my tiny apartment’s limited space, our design options were quite limited, and we had to work under a lot of design constraints.

Renovation Summary

Total renovation cost: RM 32,111
Total renovation time to complete: 2 months.

The Studio — Before Renovation

Here’s what my bachelor pad looks like before renovation:

*Blue door (what was I thinking) is the entrance*

*The original kitchen cabinet from the developer, about 13 years old, that I painted blue — lols*

*Very bachelor pad like decor. I painted a featured ceiling*

[Step 1]: Get Inspiration Online

Before we hired an Interior Designer, we did some online research and searched for: ‘ small kitchen designs ‘ on Pinterest and Instagram. Here’s what caught our attention:

KITCHEN CABINET

This design, I found on Pinterest was the closest to what we wanted:

White, minimalist themed
Full height cabinets
Built-in oven
Contrasting patterned backsplash tiles

KITCHEN BACKSPLASH TILES:

Because the kitchen cabinets are plain white, we wanted to get backsplash tiles that will be the center of attention in the kitchen.

We narrowed down to a teal colored herringbone patterned tiles, just like what we saw here on Instagram.

DINING TABLE:

We don’t want a separate dining table as we have limited space. We found this cool design online:

Incorporate dining table into kitchen cabinet
This retractable table is the perfect solution, but it will cost a lot of money.

Same material and color to match the kitchen cabinets
Full height, hidden handles + drawers
Integrated study area

Now that we knew what we wanted, we showed the Interior Designer these pictures:

[Step 2]: Discuss With Interior Designer

The Interior Designer then proposed several solutions within our budget.

Here’s the first round of designs from a software called SketchUp:

Early 3D Design Proposals — Rejected

*Kitchen: Cramped countertop & the cabinets are not full height*

*Kitchen counter is too tall and narrow. We also want to avoid tall stools*

*Safety concerns: Not a big fan of the cabinet on top of the nightstand*

*TV backboard created a tight walking space between sofa and kitchen counter top*

*Alternative TV solution: I didn’t like that the main door opens to the back of the sofa*

There were 3 rounds of back and forth between the interior designer and me, and below is what we ended up with:

Final Design & 3D Render

*3D Render — Hollow table dining table foot area, full height cabinets, herringbone backsplash tiles with LED*

*3D Render* — *New 50″ TV. The old TV will be hung in front of the bed*

*3D Render* — *WFH desk next to bed, away from TV so I can work while someone watches TV*

3D Render — I’m feeling the WFH desk with LED. Bed frame with LED headboard and drawers on the sides

Alright, the design & 3D render looks bomb. The next order of business, start buying stuff that would save us money:

Stuff I Bought Myself to Save Money

*I bought a Livinox brand* *cooker hood* + *ceramic hob* *combo at my local kitchen equipment store* — *RM 1100*

*Black nano coated stainless steel, deep sink* *— RM 390*

*I bought an* *Elba brand built in oven* *during 11.11 sale for around RM 750*

*Black themed kitchen tap* *to match the black sink* *RM 110*

*Kitchen backsplash tiles, we bought at a ceramic shop at* *Jalan Ipoh, KL*

*I bought all the lamps at my neighborhood lamp shop*. *4 sets of lamps, totaling RM 230+*

*Frameless switches* & *doorbell* *I bought at a local hardware store — RM 220 all in*

*Queen mattress specifically for backbone support — RM 1100 (can’t find online,* *but try this*)

Phew, that’s a lot of stuff! But I’m pretty sure I saved a ton by not letting my contractor or Interior Designer supply them for me.

The next order of business is to apply for renovation permission with my apartment management so wetworks (contractor lingo for hacking & tiling works) to start:

[Step 3]: Wetwork Starts — 1.5 weeks

*Wall hacking to run the wires for the TV & WFH area*

*Fully disassembled old kitchen cabinets. Start wiring & kitchen piping work*

*Pulling electrical wire for wall-mounted TV in front of the bed*

*Due to the new layout, we had to relocate the dining lamp and the ceiling fan out of the way*

[Problem 1]: Kitchen Backsplash Tiling -3 Days

The most exciting part of the kitchen, the backsplash tiles. But we ran into a problem. The alignment was off, and you can see it here already:

It’s even more obvious once it’s done. I drew the lines so you can see what I’m talking about:

I had to complain to the contractor and used a long ruler to illustrate the alignment shown above. Luckily, he agreed with me and the next day took the tiles off (without damaging them apparently) and retiled the kitchen backsplash:

*Good guy contractor & his worker, addressing my complaint*

The next day, I came over to take a look. He corrected the misalignment and inserted the grout filler. I am delighted with the result:

Nice! Now that all the ‘ wetworks’ are done, I had a special project coming next, soundproofing my wall:

[Special Project]: Soundproofing Wall — 2 Days

I’ve installed soundproofing windows that dampens the LRT noises, but with thin walls, I can hear my neighbor’s pipes if they take a shower or flush their toilet.

Usually, this isn’t a problem. But since I work from home, this is a no go. I chatted with one of my neighbors and got a hold of these wall soundproofing guys.

They installed a 3-inch thick gypsum board wall that is sandwiching a soundproofing fiber called Rockwool:

Below is what the rockwool fiber material and the finished wall looks like:

*Rockwool material on the left, and the added thickness on the right*

No more water-flowing noises for me. The next order of business, painting:

[Problem 2]: Painting — You Get What You Paid For

Alright, the paint job was the biggest let down in this entire project. Our painting requirement was not as straightforward as we initially thought. There are cracks, and some parts of the wall are uneven.

We asked around and got quotation for RM 1,700, RM 2,500 & RM 3,000. Being naïve, cheap Millennials, we picked the cheapest guy. Little did we knew that he screwed us over real good.

Let me explain what we needed (but didn’t know at the time):

Fix the wall cracks
Apply plaster to the entire uneven wall and skim it to make it even
Let the plaster dry and sand it smooth to blend in with the existing wall
Only then paint

The guy that we hired was incredibly incompetent. He used to paint the outside of houses. But apparently, indoor painting is not his forte. He had two other guys that, as I see it, are not painters at all. I think they are just random guys he picked from the neighborhood.

But later, they applied the plaster but did not skim and sand it down. So obviously, the walls become uneven, and I can see the joints where the soundproofing walls are:

When I complained, he dared to say that my walls are messed up, to begin with, etc. After 2 days of constant butting heads & the general tiredness of this entire project, I was just exhausted, paid him, and wished never to see him again.

I didn’t have the budget to hire someone else to fix this, so after a few YouTube videos and a trip to the hardware store, I DIY’ed it myself:

*Me, plastering and sanding on the left, and repainting on the right*

The wall turned out OK, but with all the hassle, I’d hire a pro to fix it if I had the budget. OK, wall paint fixed (sort of), but there’s one more problem:

Bad Paint Job on Front Door: Remember that my front door was blue? They had to apply several layers of paint to turn that blue into this offwhite, but they were too lazy to sand the door down first, so the paint didn’t stick properly, and it dripped overnight:

*Absolutely unacceptable, lousy, idiotic paint job*

My fiance & I tried to fix the door ourselves by scraping the paint off, but it turned out to be way more labor-intensive than we thought, and we gave up. We hired our current contractor to fix the door for us:

*We DIY scrapped the bad paint on the left. On the right, the pro picked up where we gave up*

The bad paint job on the door, fixed! Now I had to wait for the factory to manufacture the cabinets due to backorders.

[Step 4]: Installing Cabinets

After waiting for about two weeks, the factory was finally able to deliver my cabinets.

*Unloading all the cabinets from the truck — surprisingly a lot for a small studio*

*Day 2: Starting to install the kitchen cabinets on top*

[Step 5]: Installing Quartz Counter Top — 1 Day

The longest wait is for the quartz countertop. They had to wait until the kitchen cabinets are installed before they can take proper real-world measurements.

Plus, with the 2nd Malaysian lockdown, I had to wait for 2 more weeks.

*Before and after quartz kitchen counter top*

These pros installed everything in about an hour. Absolute meticulous work. I am very happy.

[Step 6]: Final Touch-Ups

On the last day, there were final touch-ups for:

Install kitchen tap
paint touch-ups
Secure in the built-in oven
TV cabinet wiring
Install smart lock

*I received a free air-purifier from the interior design company*

*Installing kitchen tap & the free air purifier*

I bought a Novalock smartlock on Shopee that includes installation.

Pro-Tip: Don’t try to install these yourself. It’s quite complicated

Final Result — 3D render Vs. Reality

Finally, here is the final result. The only thing missing is the living room TV that we will get later in a few months:

What a long post! Overall:

I am happy to spend the money
Renovation costs me around RM30,000 for everything, double the original budget
Project took me 2 months, during which, I had to stay at my parents
Shop around for contractors and never get the cheapest guy
If you’re not a DIY type of guy, never attempt to DIY anything, you’re only going to screw it up and it’ll cost you more to fix it.

Originally published at https://balkonihijau.com on January 23, 2021.