Renovators often say the refurbishing process ages them. Romanian Carmen Firescu is more positive about what she and partner Thibaut went through to transform a dilapidated flat in Sheung Wan.
'In doing up the apartment my boyfriend and I grew up,' she says.
The 800 sq ft walk-up flat, the first Firescu has owned and renovated, was bought solely on the basis of photographs because the owners were reluctant to allow prospective buyers in.
'The pictures were a bit scary,' she recalls. 'When I entered the apartment after it was mine, it was even more scary. It was incredibly old and had windows that faced a black wall, which made it feel like the end of the world.'
But Firescu was undaunted. It became a challenge to see whether she could turn a 'very ugly' flat into 'something beautiful'. She then faced another problem. The contractors she first approached were too expensive, so she chose someone affordable but with whom she had trouble communicating.
'He didn't speak English,' she says, laughing at the memory of the only disagreement she had with her boyfriend about the flat. 'He said, 'You're completely crazy.''
