Landed Interior Design

MoneySmart's April 2026 renovation cost guide says landed property renovations can easily exceed S$100,000. A February 2026 MoneySmart budget guide estimates about S$100,000 to S$300,000 for landed or private housing, and says the figure varies with the materials, what the home already has and the contractor or interior designer chosen. Neither figure is a quote for your house. What moves a job from one end to the other is how many floors you touch, whether the kitchen or bathrooms move (new drainage and waterproofing, and sometimes wiring), how many walls are hacked or built, how much built-in carpentry you want, whether the attic or basement is part of it, and whether a qualified person has to submit plans. New paint and carpentry on two floors is a very different job from gutting a three-storey semi-detached. Our landed interior design buying guide shows how to compare design fees and building costs separately. To price your own house, we start with a free site assessment, then a fixed-price quote within 3 to 5 working days, never from a photo.

A design fee can cover the work done on paper before anything is built, such as working out the layout with you, detailed drawings for the built-ins and the electrical and lighting points, choosing materials and finishes, and checking on site that the work follows the drawings. A one-floor refresh needs far less of that than a whole-house replan. CCCS's renovation guide says quoted prices should be itemised, so ask for the design fee as its own line, saying which drawings and how many revisions it covers. Structural drawings and plans for BCA come from a qualified person, who must be a registered architect or professional engineer, so check whether that fee sits inside the design fee or is billed on its own.

Yes, if the budget decides the scope. The biggest choice is whether the sink, toilet and shower stay where the pipes and drains already run. Moving them means new drainage, redoing the waterproofing and sometimes new wiring before any tile goes down, while keeping them lets the money go on surfaces, fittings and cabinets. Keeping appliances that still work also helps a fixed sum go further. Our landed kitchen renovation and landed bathroom renovation pages go through what drives each room's cost.

Some do and some don't. BCA says owners may have to submit building or structural plans before renovating, but minor works listed as insignificant building works are exempt. The list in the Building Control Regulations includes replacing floor and wall finishes, changing windows and doors, all air-conditioning works, and taking down, restoring or putting back a non-load-bearing wall, or making an opening in one. A non-load-bearing wall is one that carries only its own weight. Work on a wall, beam or column that holds up the floor above isn't on that list, so it may need plans approved first, and that side of the job is additions and alterations work. BCA advises owners to engage a qualified person, a registered architect or professional engineer, to advise on the clearances needed, and work that is exempt from BCA can still need approval from other authorities such as URA.

It is worth paying for when the job moves things, such as opening up a kitchen, adding a bathroom upstairs, bringing a bedroom down to the ground floor or making an attic usable. Those changes have to be drawn and checked against the structure and the pipes before anyone builds, and a mistake found on paper is cheaper to fix than one found after hacking. If you're keeping the layout and renewing finishes and built-ins, you need much less design work. Either way, start by writing down how the household uses each room; our article on what to tell your interior designer before drawing begins shows what to include.

You can stay only if the household keeps a working bathroom, somewhere to prepare food, a bedroom and a safe way between them while the rest of the house is a site. Hacking brings heavy dust and noise. Wet works take a bathroom or kitchen out of use until the waterproofing and tiles are done. Rewiring and pipe work mean the power or water goes off in parts of the house while they are done. A whole-house job with all three running at once is hard to live through, so plan to move out for that. A single floor or a few rooms may be possible while you stay, as long as the rooms you keep don't share the pipes and wiring being changed. Our article on living at home during A&A works shows how to test a phasing plan.

Use each photo to pin down one thing you want and the problem it solves, like daylight over a dining table or storage by the front door. Then ask whether it depends on something your house doesn't have, such as a wider plot, a taller ceiling or a different stair position. A photo is a starting point for the design, not proof the layout fits your house. Our guide to turning terrace house design photos into a workable plan takes this further, and if the photos you save are mostly about light, see ways to bring more light into a dark terrace house.

They can, but they need different thinking from the rest of the house. An attic sits right under the roof, so heat from the roof comes straight into it, and the roof and windows decide how hot it gets before any aircon is sized; see how to make a hot attic more comfortable. A basement sits against the ground, so any damp or water at its walls or floor has to be traced and fixed before finishes go on; see what basement waterproofing and drainage each do. Either room also needs a safe stair. If making the space usable means a new floor, a roof change or cutting into the structure, that is building work that may need plans from a qualified person, which our attic conversion and basement construction pages cover.

Three waits, in this order. Any plans that need approval from BCA or URA have to be approved before that part of the work starts. Made-to-measure items such as cabinets, worktops and doors can only be ordered once the layout and the appliance sizes are fixed, which is why it pays to choose kitchen appliances before the cabinets. Then repairs found once walls and floors are opened, such as a corroded pipe or a damp wall, have to be fixed before the finishes go over them. CCCS's renovation guide says the contract should carry an agreed schedule with start and completion dates and say how delays will be handled, so ask for that schedule once the scope and any approvals are settled.