Inside an artist’s colourful Hong Kong home, where items are curated, not cluttered

The home of artist Didi Abe, her architect husband, Richard Cunliffe, and their eight-year-old daughter, Calder, is a treasure trove.

In Abe’s family since it was built, in 1974, this 1,200 sq ft flat in Tin Hau is filled with beautiful pieces: exquisite antiques, yard sale bargains and natural found objects all happily coexist, often in the same display.

A cardboard crocodile made by Calder perches on a drawing by American artist Robert Rauschenberg. A pair of “golden bricks”, made for the floors of Beijing’s Forbidden City, prop up family photographs. Artworks by Abe, Calder and the couple’s friends line the walls, and a Ming vase, painstakingly reconstructed from shattered remains, takes pride of place on the coffee table (actually a repurposed antique Chinese daybed).

There are books everywhere, arranged on shelves, in tidy piles on tables and chairs, used as pedestals for art and as a telephone stand, their spines adding pops of colour throughout the two-bedroom, two-bathroom flat. “We’re hoping in our older age we’ll have time to read every one of them,” Abe jokes.

While the flat is crammed with objects, the effect is curated rather than cluttered. Items are arranged with an artist’s eye for colour, form and relationship. Many pieces have interesting histories – Oscar Wilde’s travelling case, blotter and pen stand; photographic art by friend Ti Foster; a blow-up of a photograph taken by Cunliffe while waiting to be rescued from an Alpine avalanche – but this is no museum. It is cheerful, warm and welcoming. This is the home of collectors, raising another little collector.

“I inherited the collecting gene from my dad and now my daughter has picked up my love of collecting,” Abe says. “We go for walks and pick up interesting things, like feathers and bird’s nests. I used to do the same on the beaches when I lived on Sanibel Island, in Florida.”