Compassvale Condominium — Full-Flat Carpentry

A three-bedroom condominium in Compassvale, taken on for a family of four moving from a 5-room HDB. Their priorities were the kitchen (open-plan, with an island for breakfast and prep), a walk-in wardrobe for the master, and a workspace that doubled as a homework station for the kids.

The brief

The unit was developer-finished — appliances installed, walls painted, generic builder fixtures throughout. The owners wanted to replace every fitted item with something specific to their lives: an island instead of a peninsula, twin-vanity bathrooms, a wall-length study desk, and proper walk-in wardrobes rather than the standard built-ins.

We were brought in after the family had already engaged an interior designer for the rest of the project but wanted the carpentry split out separately. The ID coordinated with us on materials and timeline; we handled scope, fabrication, and install ourselves.

Scope

Eight pieces, all interconnected by material family:

• Kitchen base + wall + tall pantry runs, 18 linear feet
• Kitchen island, 2.4m × 0.9m, full quartz top
• Master walk-in wardrobe, 3m × 2.2m, open layout with drawer banks
• Second bedroom built-in wardrobe, sliding doors
• Third bedroom built-in wardrobe, swing doors
• Master bathroom twin vanity with integrated mirror cabinet
• Common bathroom single vanity
• Study room desk run, 2.8m wide, with suspended drawers

Design choices

The unifying choice was material restraint: one cabinet laminate (warm oak, matte) across the whole flat, and one accent — a smoked-bronze metal trim running across the kitchen tall pantry and matching on the bathroom mirror cabinets. No second wood tone, no contrasting fronts, no decorative hardware.

The kitchen island was the most-discussed piece. We pushed for 2-inch quartz mitred edges (rather than 20mm standard) to give the island visual weight, plus a 30mm recessed handle pull along the island fronts instead of clip-on hardware. The result reads as one continuous block, which fits the rest of the restrained material story.

Walk-in wardrobe is open-shelved rather than door-fronted — the owners wanted to see everything at once, and accepted the dust trade-off in return for the speed of access. We added a single low-amber LED strip along each shelf face, which switches on with a motion sensor when the door opens.

Materials

• Carcass: 18mm moisture-resistant plywood
• Fronts: Lamitak warm oak matte (PET surface) — single code across all cabinetry
• Accent trim: anodised aluminium in smoked bronze
• Edge banding: hot-melt PVC, colour-matched to laminate
• Kitchen top: 20mm quartz (Caesarstone Calacatta), mitred 2-inch edge
• Vanity tops: 12mm sintered stone, undermount basins
• Hardware: Blum soft-close throughout; Blum Aventos lift-up on the upper kitchen wall cabinets
• Lighting: Häfele Loox LED 2700K, motion-sensor in walk-in, switched in kitchen

Process and timeline

MCST coordination required for delivery — lift padding booked two weeks in advance, delivery confined to 09:30–11:30 weekday window. Workshop fabrication took seven weeks (longer than HDB because of the quartz lead time and the appliance-integration tolerances). On-site install was four days with the ID's contractor coordinating tile and wall finishes around our work.

Aventos units arrived three days late from the supplier (a recurring industry issue), which we absorbed by sequencing other installs first. Final handover happened on the agreed date.

Cost range

This build fell in the S$26,000–S$32,000 range — toward the upper end of typical condo full carpentry due to the quartz island, twin vanities, Aventos hardware, and the smoked-bronze accent trim. The base carpentry was middle-of-the-range; the upgrades pushed the total.

Where to go from here

Planning a condo build of your own? WhatsApp Alan with your floor plan. MCST coordination is on our side.

For materials specifics see the plywood vs blockboard vs MDF guide. For cost context, the pricing page shows indicative ranges across all property types.