How a Hong Kong family home in Mid-Levels takes you across the globe and back in a celebration of colour and contrasts
- When a young family bought the 2,000 sq ft unit below their rented flat on Stubbs Road, they knew exactly what was required to create the home of their dreams
- Renovated by Lim + Lu, the home features a French bistro-like dining room, an American log cabin vibe in the living room, and a nod to Hong Kong’s iconic trams
Before embarking on major renovations, design wisdom recommends living in a new home long enough to figure out what you really want.
The Leung family had the benefit of the next best thing. Having rented for years in a Stubbs Road mid-rise before buying a carbon copy flat one floor below, they knew where the light fell, how the layout worked, and what could be improved to suit their lifestyle.
Husband-and-wife architectural team Vincent Lim Chin-hwa and Elaine Manzi Lu, of Lim + Lu, were engaged to create a home for the owners, their two young children and two live-in helpers.
“For us, it was the first time doing anything like that, where the client was so familiar with the spaces,” says Lim. “When they purchased the apartment they saw an opportunity to create their dream home, as they’d always wanted to in the unit above.”
Rooms needed to be realigned, so most of the walls were removed and the interior gutted. The 2,000 sq ft (186 square metre) flat was sold as a four-bedroom unit but in the new configuration, two bedrooms were combined to form an out-sized main suite totalling 384 sq ft.
This allowed for a bigger en suite bathroom – the original was considered too small for a home of this size – and for enough wardrobe space to accommodate the clients’ extensive storage requirements.