814 sq ft

So after returning to Hong Kong after a trip home to Sydney at xmas last year, we decided to look for an apartment to buy in Hong Kong. We've been living in HK for over 4.5 years now, and it's been a somewhat temporary existence, as we thought we'd only be here for 1-2 years before returning to Sydney. But now we own our own litle slice (well, the bank does), all 814 square feet of it!

On March 15th the flat officially became ours. It was a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom flat, but we're changing that! It's now on it's way to a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom. Well, the 2nd bedroom isn't really a bedroom, and the 2 bathrooms aren't replicas of each other... let me explain.

Original floor plan
The flat was in original condition when we bought it. It had one master bedroom and 2 very small bedrooms! They were only 2 metres by 2.2 metres! So we knocked down the wall between the 2nd and 3rd bedroom, and are making it one big, open room where we'll have a wardrobe, bike storage and computer desk. The original 2 doorways have been knocked into one extra wide doorway which we are not putting doors on. Hopefully this makes the area seem more spacious and will let the easterly light flow throughout the hall area.

Original floorplan

The original 2 bathrooms were identical to each other - vanity, toilet and bath/shower in each. We decided we really don't need 2 bathrooms; we're never fighting to use the bathroom together. Question was, do we knock the wall down in between and make one long bathroom? Or do we move the wall and make one bathroom about 1.5 times its original size, and make the other small room just a toilet room or perhaps a very small laundry area? What we've decided to do is keep the wall where it was, but one bathroom will have just the vanity and shower, and the other will have the toilet and laundry. Positives for us:

• this gets the toilet out of the middle of one bathroom so we don't have to trip over it while showering and brushing our teeth
• making one room into a toilet/laundry room means we can get the washing machine out of the kitchen (standard for Hong Kong) which gives us more cabinet space in the kitchen

 Other rooms in the flat are of course a kitchen, living/dining area and a master bedroom.