Let there be light

Visitors to Edith Bagda's Sai Ying Pun flat must take an intriguing route. After twists and turns down several flights of stairs, they're rewarded with the sight of a luscious courtyard garden.

It's hard to believe that when Bagda bought the property last year, the courtyard was being used as a dumping ground for the former tenant's white goods. Now it's an oasis; the nucleus of a 1,100 sq ft flat that wraps around it on three sides. Bagda removed the waist-high walls and viewless windows that flanked the courtyard and replaced them with floor-to-ceiling, fold-back doors to maximise light inside and make the most of the outdoor space. She bricked up what had been the entrance to the flat, transforming the area into a bathroom, and made the courtyard the entranceway.

Bagda, marketing director for jewellery company John Hardy, planned the renovation herself despite not having any training. 'I always wanted to study design and I never did. Now I'm renovating apartments,' she says.

Her previous flat, in Mid-Levels, was different: 'I gave it a very modern look, which didn't feel right for this one. It's a 1960s building and I wanted to keep its soul.'

As a lover of all things vintage, this was relatively easy for Bagda. Key to her design was the installation of several glass cube walls that, although new, embody the style of the 60s. Her nomadic lifestyle - she was born in Germany and lived in Paris, France and Bangkok, Thailand, before moving to Hong Kong, in 2006 - is also reflected in the furnishings and artworks collected on her adventures.

'I found the yak skull [hanging over the fireplace] while hiking in Lijiang in Yunnan province,' she says. 'I had to bring it back in a suitcase with socks stuffed inside it. I didn't have to travel very far to find the driftwood inside the fireplace - it was on the beach in Deep Water Bay.'