The usual worry when buying a dining table is whether it will complement your decor. Hema Prakash-Chishty's concern, however, was whether hers, at 200kg, would fall through the floor of her Happy Valley flat. So she asked her building's engineers for advice.
'Of course it was fine, but it gave me nightmares,' she says. 'I wanted a big piece of stone but I decided I'd never have marble when I read about how mining it ruins the environment. So, man-made stone was the solution.'
Prakash-Chishty likes to think big. She has an extensive art collection that was never going to fit inside the 3,700 sq ft apartment - most of it is housed in a storeroom in Kwun Tong.
'What you see is only one-tenth of what we have,' she says.
The art collection was the starting point for a recent makeover of her living and dining areas, by stylist David Roden. Limited in what she could do with the flat, because it is rented, she says, 'I would've gone for all white but David persuaded me to inject some colour into the scheme.'
The result is glamorous and contemporary - a place where she and her banker husband can entertain and relax.