How a Hong Kong couple future-proofed their home to welcome any additions to the family
The 800 sq ft Tin Hau flat has been cleverly designed to not only let in natural light but also allow for a family’s potential expansion
Future proofing a home can take different forms. For Carmen and Callum Tse, who drew up a 10-year plan, it meant ensuring there was room to grow.
Before that could happen, however, the couple had to find a place to live. “We wanted to be able to get to work in 30 minutes,” says Carmen Tse, who works in merchandising in Tsim Sha Tsui while her husband, a physiotherapist, commutes to Central.
This 800 sq ft Tin Hau flat met their requirements, says Carmen. But to ensure they’d be happy in their home for the next decade, they called in Leung Chi Ling, an interior designer who had been recommended by friends.
Letting in more light was top of the agenda. Although twice the size of the unit the couple had been renting, their new apartment was dark at its core, with rooms on two sides of the living area blocking the sun. The solution was relatively easy: space-saving sliding doors fitted with ribbed glass provide privacy but allow in natural illumination.
Where there had once been a foyer eating into this space, the main door now opens directly into a living and dining area with a dedicated (and tiled) space for TRX workouts. On the opposite side, picking up on the dark-grey aluminium doors and light engineered-wood flooring is a curvaceous wall unit and mirror that bounces light and softens the predominantly straight lines elsewhere. Leung, of Millwork Interiors, says: “I always like round corners. It’s so nice to feel them.”
The rooms themselves remained roughly in their original locations: apart from the main bedroom, with its striking blue feature wall and an en suite bathroom, there is a spare, future bedroom, another bathroom plus a “study” – really a music room with desks accommodating Technics turntables at optimum spinning height for Callum Tse.