It took us awhile to really find an apartment that suited us within our budget. Firstly, the size must not be too small for our comfort. We need to have at least 2 rooms- 1 bedroom and 1 wardrobe room. Secondly, the location must be near the MTR station and thirdly, the apartment must have lift because apparently, there are many walk up buildings and it's a huge no-no for us.
We initially thought that we will just view up to 10 apartments and choose the best 2 to put an offer. However, we ended up kept looking because nothing suited us and up until the very last day we almost put an offer for another apartment, we found this apartment which we ended up renting! And this was after viewing close to 20 apartments(the process was dead tiring!) We were soo happy we found this one because it fitted all our 3 criterias and it's quite below our budget as well =) It's a 560sqft apartment and to Hong Kong-ers this is considered big for 2 people! Talk about a win-win situation hehe
Btw, I totally stinged on furnishing this apartment because we spent so much money and effort renovating and furnishing our marital home back in Malaysia, that I didn't want to do the same because technically we are still unsure how long we're going to be here in HK. So, we still want to make it a cozy and comfortable home without breaking the bank. Budget Barbie alert! And so I searched and sourced most of our furniture from Carousel, Asia Expat, Facebook Marketplace and the remaining ones from Ikea. Ikea is considered one of the cheapest furniture brand in HK. The second hand vendors sometime gave away the furniture for free or at a very minimal price. All we have to do is to find a mover to move the furniture from their place to ours.
Let's do a house tour!
The living hall.
The landlord already has a huge built in cabinet so we just needed to buy our own sofa and TV.
AFTER.
Our first 55 inch TV hehe...they said, go big or go home LOL Bought this from a second hand shop in the street of Sham Shui Po. There's a bunch of stores there selling second hand TV and we found this cheap Smart TV, a fraction of the price of a new smart TV and immediately grabbed it and ordered an Uber to bring it home on the very same day LOL there's super great deals around there and the TV was really new.
Our sofa bed! First time having a sofa bed as well. This sofa was the most drama. Due to HK apartments and its small sizes, we miscalculated the size (or rather didn't even think of taking into account) of our staircase because it couldn't fit the lift. We initially purchased a HUGE ass sofa second hand from Asia Expat and when the mover arrived, it couldn't go up the stairs due to it's bulky size. You know what happened? We had to dispose it off...OMG! What a nightmare. First time purchasing a sofa which couldn't go through the stairs. Btw, I mean the sofa is not even that huge because how big can it be to fit a 560 sqft apartment LOL it's just that it couldn't dismantle into pieces that's why. And after that nightmare, we were soo careful and calculated each and every inch of the staircase, the small ass lift and the apartment doors just to see if it fits. Luckily, this Ikea sofa bed could be dismantled to fit and finally we had our sofa bed! All in all, eventhough we had to dispose the previous sofa and wasted our money, we still managed to save money because the total price does not even equal to a newly purchased sofa bed from Ikea. It's still very new looking but because it's 2nd hand, I put a sofa cover (bought from Taobao) on top for hygiene purposes. And now, it looks just as good as new =)
The dining area.
AFTER
Our stuff from Malaysia took so long to come! Finally it arrived and we could have a proper dining table with ergonomic working chairs. We were working with bad chair and postures for quite some time LOL
The kitchen
AFTER
I bought quite a lot of things from Taobao. Gosh, my relationship with Taobao has greatly improved ever since I came to HK hahaha...I have never bought anything from Taobao back in Malaysia because firstly, I cannot read and write Chinese and since there's Shopee and Lazada, why do I need to go through the hassle of Taobao, right? But in HK, Taobao is hugely popular and it's the only delivery platform here. There's no Shopee etc here. So I have no choice if I needed anything cheap for the house, Taobao is the place to go. At first, I just tried to buy 2 things from Taobao through Google Translate just to have a taste of it. Imagine my excitement when it really arrived to my doorstep hahaha...I was really just prepared to buy some cheap stuffs and burn my money if it didn't actually arrive. But it did! And then I bought more things and then more things and before you know it, most of the small items in my house are from Taobao LOL
The wardrobe room.
AFTER.
All 3 wardrobes were purchased from Carousel. The corner hanging rod from Ikea.
Table from Ikea. This would be a study room cum wardrobe room if any of us needed to do a conference call in a quiet place.
The washroom is also a decent size and love that the landlord also provided a washer & dryer for us.
Our master bedroom.
This got us sold because on the day of viewing, the Landlord informed us that the previous tenant could fit a King Size bed into the room and we were like, okay this is the winner! When we saw other apartments, all could only fit at most a queen size and our Loplus serviced apartment's only con was having a queen size bed which was a torture LOL because we were so used to sleeping on a King Size bed and the first few nights in Loplus were us adapting to a smaller bed LMAO! Even our 21 days quarantine in Holiday Inn was with a King Size bed!
AFTER.
The hubs was very insistent to get a Sealy mattress this time around. Because at that time in Malaysia, we didn't want to splurge so much money on one although we loved the Sealy mattress in an expo. But we ended up getting a Napure due to a better deal in Malaysia.
We were ready to splurge on this final item and get a brand new Sealy for about HKD20k together with the bed frame. But...Budget Barbie saved the wallet haha...I was thoroughly browsing through every platform to find for a Sealy King Mattress and a King size bed frame. Lucky me and our manifestations secret (LMAO!) that we managed to find 2 different vendors from Asia Expat and Facebook Marketplace for the Ikea King bedframe (with storage somemore!) and the Sealy 2nd hand mattress which looks like new. We were damn lucky because this was the very last item that we sourced high & low and in fact, we even went to the Sealy showroom twice and was ready to purchase it. Anyhow, this saved us the bulk of money and I can buy more bags after this =.=
That's all for the cozy house tour!
