Designers share tips for creating comfortable and practical homes
- Nine ideas from design professionals to help you plan your space – from providing a good sense of arrival for your guests to using spatial symmetry.
Renovating or redecorating an apartment is a process, and it begins with planning your space properly. If you zone your spaces cleverly, your home will feel balanced, it will function well, and it will flow beautifully.
Planning space can be daunting, though – which is why we have compiled the advice of various interiors experts into nine handy tips and tricks.
1. Getting started
For Jason Caroline Design, each project begins with a brief. “I’ll start by finding out about a client’s lifestyle,” says Caroline Ma, co-founder alongside husband Jason Yung. “If you have young kids, you may want a playroom. If you have grown-up kids, your kids may want their own quarters. Do you have pets? Some families even have a professional cook, so they would need a professional kitchen.”
Elena Collins, meanwhile, suggests starting by thinking about your current home. The senior interior designer at Purcell – the design studio behind much of Tai Kwun – suggests “starting by highlighting the positives and negatives about your home. What works? What must stay? What are the problems and what you would like to change? This helps you … set aims and objectives for your project.”
2. To have or not to have
In Ma’s eyes, there are no must-haves or must-haven’ts. “For example, we did a flat on the Peak and they didn’t have a dining room,” she says. “We put a snooker table in the dining room. We created a tabletop they can put on top of the snooker table when they want to host dinner parties. For everyday dining, they eat in the kitchen at an island.”
