One thing Derrick insisted on having was a smart home. It’s his dream to have a connected, voice-controlled house and the tech enthusiast spared no expense outfitting it with intelligent devices. He reckons that it cost about $5,000 to wire up the home. During the interview, he tells us about IR (infrared) blasters and life-changing appliances like their automated laundry system that can dry clothes in a couple of hours. He even installed smart speakers around the house so he and his wife can “page” each other… in their, um, four-room flat?
“A lot of things are very ‘extra’, but they come in useful. It’s more about the convenience and improving your quality of life, rather than a necessity. It frees me up to do other more important things and can also minimise conflict [with the wife]. If my wife tells me to turn off the lights, I can just tell Google to do it. You may think these are little things, but they all add up. If you don’t handle them with finesse, they will affect the marriage,” muses Derrick.
You know what they say, “happy wife, happy life”.
8 DAYS: Did you have any concerns about buying such an old flat?
DERRICK HOH: I was more concerned about buying a repurchased flat ‘cos I might encounter issues like loansharks. But my mum came here to kaypoh around and she found out from the neighbours that the previous owner had passed away of old age. So, we thought that was kind of a good vibe ‘cos she lived a long life, and I could potentially do that as well.
We were also not allowed to view the unit so we didn’t know the condition of the place. But we were pretty lucky ‘cos before we put in the deposit for the flat, we came here to take a look and just so happened someone was laying the tiles for the kitchen so we asked if we could go in to take a look. The condition was really bad. There were burn marks ‘cos I think the previous owner burnt incense, but my contractor said it looked okay, so I was confident to buy it.
Renovations began last December but you only moved in in June. What took you so long?
A lot of it was due to us being unable to make decisions on a lot of things like which wall to hack and how we wanted to do up the kitchen. My contractor kept chasing us and because she is family, she was very brutal. It was also very difficult to get hold of carpenters, plumbers and electricians during the pandemic so she was really kan cheong and wanted to book these people. It came to a point where she just went ahead and booked them and gave us the deadline.