How to make a little room for romance

You arrive home from the office exhausted. There may be work to finish and kids needing attention. Who's in the mood for romance?

If cupid could do with a little nudge, a simple answer could lie in your interior décor. Home is, after all, our most intimate space, so where's the harm in allowing it to wrap you and yours in a relaxing, romantic, sensual embrace?

In her best-selling book The Sensual Home, Ilse Crawford, interior design doyenne, says an environment that encourages us to slow down and submit to the senses enriches our lives. Can interior design choices really "liberate your senses and change your life", as the sub-title suggests?

A big call, perhaps, but not impossible, even in a city as frenetic as Hong Kong, says designer Monique McLintock. When a sensual interior is on a client's design brief, McLintock takes her cue from her parents. Married for 47 years, they maintain that an intimate "couple space" is important to a successful relationship. "For my parents, it was the master bathroom," McLintock said. "My father was a contractor so he built my mum her dream bathroom and the two of them would spend hours in there chatting. I think it is vital to a relationship to have a place where the two of you can connect and catch up as it is so easy to drift apart."

Hong Kong bathrooms tend to be crowded, but if you have an outdoor space, that could do the trick. "A well-designed and perfectly lit terrace makes the ideal place to open a bottle of wine and stare at the sky," says McLintock, who designed a "zen-like terrace" for a client in Kennedy Town. She has also designed an outdoor shower on a Sai Ying Pun rooftop. "There is something very sensual about taking a shower at night on your rooftop," she says.

For households packed to the rafters already, designer Suzy Annetta has a solution. "Create a sense of privacy or romance with a canopy bed/tented room, a 'room within a room'. To me, fabric always has a sense of warmth and comfort, which adds a sensual factor," she says.

Another tip, even where space is tight: make room in the bathroom for a champagne bucket. There's nothing like it to relax the mood and amp up the romantic atmosphere, Annetta finds.