We’re in the era of unapologetic DINKs. The Double-Income-No-Kid couples that are reveling in the freedom of making lifestyle choices that their married counterparts could never. Yes, they buy 4-room and 5-room flats when their family never expands beyond 2. Why? Because they can, of course! If you’re not the type of DINK that’s knocking down every wall in the house, here are some ideas for your multiple spare rooms to make the most use of your new BTO or resale flat.
1. Home office
Image credit: The Interior Lab
With most companies offering flexi work-from-home arrangements, it’s a no-brainer to carve out some space for a home office—especially one bathed in light for positive vibes all day long. This Sumang Walk HDB resale home renovation shows us how hacking down one and a half bedrooms can give you the illusion of a larger living room to create a nice little home office for you and your partner to hole up in for most of the day.
Image credit: The Interior Lab
This other home office by The Interior Lab shows us how versatile a spare room can be. By keeping the built-ins to a minimum, you can easily switch up and redecorate the room in the future depending on your needs. A full-length sliding door with fluted glass panels gives you privacy, yet allows ample sunlight to stream through the house.
Image credit: The Interior Lab
2. Home gym
Image credit: Fuse Concept
Gym rats—this spare room idea is for you. Why waste money on monthly gym memberships when you can bring the gym home? Some Singaporean homeowners have raved about the benefits of converting their spare rooms into home gyms with few regrets, if at all.
Kit out your home gym with all-in-one machines and weight trainers to cardio machines and rubber mats from HomeGym.sg. One Lemon8 user, @foongfamilyflat, shared that they spent slightly more than $5k to convert a bedroom in their 5-room resale unit into a dedicated gym area.
Image credit: Zenith Arc
Just like this 5-room BTO flat in Tampines, having a home gym saves you the constant trip to the gym and spares you from sharing sweat with the after-work crowd. And whenever the mood for chasing gains strikes, you can put on your gym bro hat without being too far away from your work desk.
Image credit: Mesa Haus
Taking it up a notch is this house by interior design firm Mesa Haus, who converted a bedroom into a bouldering space for their climbing enthusiast clients.
3. Walk-in wardrobe
Image credit: Dr Reno
We don’t all have to be fashion icons like Jamie Chua or Willabelle Ong to justify having the walk-in wardrobe of our dreams. If you’re a bit of a shopaholic, then a spare bedroom might be reason enough to have yourself a walk-in wardrobe.
Image credit: Dr Reno
Hack through a wall to merge the spare bedroom with your master bedroom, or leave the room as is and transform it into your own little wardrobe space. We’re loving the peg board accessory wall in the Dr Reno walk-in wardrobe-slash-studio above.
Image credit: Inizio Atelier
You can even go all out with elaborate seats and built-in planters to match your wabi sabi or Japandi-themed home.
4. Hobby room
Image credit: Finbarr Fallon, Designed by PI Architects
With a little give and take, the spare room can be transformed into a shared hobby haven. Whether you’re into gaming or all about quiet reading, there’s plenty of space to go around with an extra room all to yourselves. No need for any complex planning either—just zone it out and decorate your areas however you both like.
This homeowner transformed a bedroom in his 3-room Bras Basah resale HDB flat into a karesansui, which is a Japanese rock garden and library, complete with a shishi-odoshi water feature.
Image credit: Authors Interior & Styling
While not a DINK couple, this Singaporean family turned one of their bedrooms into a craft room for the homeowner, who loves to sew. Awning windows with wooden frames create a sense of separation between the craft room and other living spaces, yet keeps it cohesive with the rest of the house.
Image credit: The Local INN.terior
Alternatively, bifold sliding glass doors are also an excellent choice to save the original partition of the spare room whilst maximising natural light distribution through the home.
5. Home theatre
Image credit: The Orange Cube
Take Netflix and chill to the next level with a home theatre setup in your spare room. Your friends will be seriously impressed—after all, not everyone has a private cinema at home. And with a closed-off room, you won’t need to keep shushing yourself or turning the volume down, especially if you’ve got soundproofing in place.
Image credit: The Interior Lab
No more buying movie tickets or scrambling to find the best seats. With a home theatre, you’re bringing the cinematic experience right into your room. Plus, turning up in PJs would be totally acceptable.
Should you hack the walls of your spare room?
While some all-out DINKS are hacking their larger flats into a giant studio just because they can, you might want to keep those walls intact and just partially hack certain walls as in the real-life examples above. One thing to note is that if you do go ahead and hack down walls in your flat, when you decide to sell, you might be instructed to have those original walls reinstated.
Keep in mind that HDB does require you to have permits before any hacking commences and you’re not allowed to remove any structural elements within your HDB flat—this could lead to penalties.
Spare room ideas for DINK couples
Even without knocking down the walls of your spare rooms, there are plenty of ways to creatively repurpose the space to suit a whole host of needs based on your lifestyle, habits and of course, input from your other half━since the space belongs to both of you, after all.
For more articles about space-saving:
- 9 space-saving reno hacks to make your bedroom feel bigger
- 9 space-saving furniture options to shop if you can’t commit to built-ins
- 6 best space-saving kitchen appliances to minimise clutter in your kitchen
Cover image adapted from: The Orange Cube, Finbarr Fallon, Fuse Concept, Dr Reno
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