Next-door apartments knocked together into a Hong Kong home with Scandinavian furniture, his-and-hers fridges and a cosy man cave
- A couple turned two flats in Wan Chai, on Hong Kong Island, into a 1,574 sq ft, one-bedroom home and filled it with Scandinavian furniture
- With two refrigerators – one for her and one for him – and an entertainment room (read man cave), the home perfectly serves both their needs
Some couples like his-and-hers basins; others opt for different bathrooms altogether.
When they expanded their Wan Chai home, on Hong Kong Island, last year and installed a new kitchen, gemologist Jada Lam and chef David Lai gave themselves separate refrigerators.
“Mine has just daily stuff, whereas his is sometimes all restaurant stuff,” says Lam, opening their Samsung fridges, positioned side by side next to Gaggenau appliances in their now 1,574 sq ft (146 square metre), one-bedroom home. “He never has to look for stuff in mine and I never look for stuff in his. It’s very civilised.”
Not to mention organised. On Lai’s refrigerator a freezer list indicates duck gizzard and cuttlefish bill, among a score of other ingredients, stashed within. But then there are items outside, too. A restaurateur (and chef at the popular French-Italian establishment Neighborhood in the city’s Central district), Lai takes work home on occasion, making use also of sunny spots outdoors.
“When we were measuring the site, we found fish drying outside on top of the air con,” says interior designer and Hintegro founder Keith Chan Shing-hin, who, with colleague Stephanie Ip See-tung, was keen to undertake a project that would entail out-of-the-box thinking.
A first for them was the inclusion of a Japanese charcoal grill and Unico kitchen system, specified by Lai. The designers also had to consider the big-picture renovation, which required the overhaul of two flats.