Renovate your home in the right order, with the rules checked.
Plain-English guides for HDB flats, condos and landed homes: what to plan, what needs approval, how to hire and pay, and what happens while the works go on. Every rule links to the official source.
A renovation, from first idea to the end of the works
What happens at each stage
Planning and budget
What happens in a renovation and in what order, what drives the cost, and how to plan a budget that survives surprises.
2 guides →
Rules and permits
What HDB, your condo’s management, URA and BCA need to approve before the works start, and which trades must be licensed.
5 guides →
Hiring
Interior designer or contractor, comparing quotes like for like, what the contract should say, and how payments are staged.
5 guides →
During the works
Working hours and neighbours, hacking and debris, living elsewhere while the work goes on, and what to do when something goes wrong.
4 guides →
Room by room
The kitchen, the bathroom, bedrooms and living spaces, windows and the household shelter: each room’s rules and trades.
5 guides →
Every guide, in order
All 21 guides on one page, in the order a renovation happens: from the first plan to the end of the works.
See all guides →Start here
All guidesThe stages of a home renovation in Singapore, in order
A renovation runs in six stages: plan and budget, hire, get approvals, hacking and wet works, carpentry and fittings, and handover. The order matters most at two points: approvals come before any work starts, and the dusty, wet trades finish before the carpentry goes in.
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Which renovation works need approval in Singapore?
It depends on the home. HDB flats need an HDB permit for most hacking, re-tiling and window work. Condos answer to the MCST’s by-laws, and to BCA for anything structural. Landed homes answer to URA and BCA once you add floor area or touch the structure.
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Interior designer or renovation contractor: which do you need?
An interior designer designs your home and manages the trades who build it. A renovation contractor builds what you’ve already decided. Neither is a licensed profession on its own, but in an HDB flat whoever carries out the works must be on HDB’s directory.
Read the guide →
How renovation payments are staged, and how to protect your deposit
Pay as the work is done, never far ahead of it. CASE suggests a small deposit on signing, stage payments as each part is finished, and the last part after everything is completed to your satisfaction. Renovation had the highest prepayment losses reported to CASE in 2024.
Read the guide →What SpaceToReno is
A guide, not a renovation company’s brochure. It explains how a renovation works in Singapore and what the rules are, and links each rule to HDB, BCA, URA or the other official source. It doesn’t list or rank interior designers or contractors.
Who runs it
The team behind Junk to Clear, a Singapore company that handles clear-outs and renovations. Where a guide reaches the point where you’d want quotes, it says so and offers a form. Everything else is the guide.
How SpaceToReno works