A simple mathematical exercise inspired one couple to stop renting and buy an apartment in which to make their vision of a peaceful home a reality.
Sometimes the numbers say it all. When Marianne Bray and partner Stephen Ezekiel realised how much money they'd spent on rent during their several years in Hong Kong, they were motivated to buy. Bray found the apartment she wanted on her first day of house hunting. 'I looked at five places in Mid-Levels - they were all dark and had no view - then walked into this place and knew we had to have it,' Bray says of their Happy Valley flat. She was most attracted by the expansive views of the race track and the design possibilities offered by an older home.
The front door of the 1,100-square-foot apartment opens into a small passage, to the right of which is the large living/dining area, made to look bigger by a stretch of mirror opposite the picture windows. The door to the master bedroom faces the front entrance, is next to a television room/study and is attached to a long corridor, at the end of which is the guest toilet and kitchen. 'We really worked within the confines of our space,' Bray says of the design process. 'And unlike other apartments, where you walk in and see the whole place, here you enter and uncover new spaces.'
The apartment had other quirky aspects. The front half of the flat had been renovated but the back half was still in its original condition. 'The kitchen and back toilet hadn't been touched in 30 years,' Bray says. 'The kitchen was Chinese-style with fluorescent light and had only one gas burner, for a wok.'
The long corridor connecting the front and rear sections was, according to Bray, large, considering the overall size of the flat. 'When it occurred to me to paint it red and make it a photo gallery, it inspired the design of the rest of the apartment.'
Bray and Ezekiel brought in Joey Lau of A-O1 Designers (tel: 9082 0597) to implement the project. They decided to redo almost the entire flat to harmonise their vision. Everything except the original master bathroom - which was finished in a style they liked - was renovated. Working primarily within the parameters of the original floor plan, Bray and Ezekiel created a new master bedroom from one bedroom and a walk-in wardrobe and turned what was the master bedroom into a study/music room/yoga/TV room, leaving the master bathroom to be accessed through this multipurpose room.