Seeing the light: gloomy penthouse apartment in Hong Kong gets an upgrade with luxe Italian interiors, and rooftop is reconfigured for outdoor drinking and dining
- A couple’s 1,300 sq ft, 4-bedroom penthouse apartment in Sai Ying Pun felt ho-hum and dark. Opening it up and sacrificing 2 bedrooms transformed their home
- Interior designer Susan Chiow and her landlord scoured Italy virtually for luxury fittings and materials, and made the most of a 1,000 sq ft rooftop garden
It started with a leaking tap.
As any tenant would, Susan Chiow contacted her landlord. What might have been a simple fix turned out to be a bigger problem, and since Chiow and her architect husband, Silas Chiow, would have to move out anyway during the repairs, the newly minted interior designer, having lived there for seven years, mentioned that more could be made of the top-floor, 1,300 sq ft Sai Ying Pun apartment.
“It was a penthouse, but just didn’t feel ‘penthouse-y’,” says Susan Chiow, who recently set up her own studio, Poem Intuitive Interiors.
The Italian owner, intending to live there when he eventually returns to Hong Kong, was on board. Thus began a “simple renovation” to turn the four-bedroom flat into a two-bedroom home. However, one thing led to another and there were more surprises than envisaged.
They offer all kinds of space-saving ideas
One particular pain point in the property, built in 2009, was the main bedroom. “It was ho-hum,” says Chiow.
Lacking in privacy because of the doorway arrangement, it had a small, poorly fitted wardrobe, and an en suite apparently designed for one – even though there was room for two.