THE BRIEF: Renovating an apartment? Start with what you can’t see

Apartment renovations can look deceptively straightforward.

There’s no extension to design. No new roofline. No excavation. Perhaps it’s a floor plan re think, new kitchen, two bathrooms, some joinery and new finishes.

But apartments come with their own set of rules. And often, the most important design decisions are the ones you need to make before you start choosing anything at all.

Whether it’s an Art Deco apartment with beautiful original proportions, something contemporary with very little architectural character, or an older apartment full of eccentricities accumulated over decades, the starting point is the same.

Understand what you have before deciding what it should become.

Before asking what you want, ask what can move

One of the first things I look at in an apartment renovation is the existing plumbing and services.

Where are the waste points? Where are the risers? What is happening above and below? Can the kitchen actually move to where you imagine it? Can the shower move to the opposite side of the bathroom? And if it technically can, does that make it a sensible decision?

These aren’t particularly glamorous questions, but they can have an enormous influence on the design.

I would much rather establish those parameters at the beginning than design a beautiful bathroom or kitchen only to discover later that moving the plumbing is prohibitively expensive, requires additional approvals or simply isn’t possible.

The building is part of the brief

Apartments don't exist in isolation.

Depending on where you live, there may be strata or building approvals, acoustic requirements, waterproofing standards, restrictions around common property and rules governing what can and can't be altered.

Windows, external doors and other elements that appear to belong to your apartment may actually form part of the building itself.

The terminology and regulations vary from place to place, but the principle doesn't.

The architecture, construction and rules of the building need to become part of the design brief.

That doesn't restrict creativity. In many ways, I think constraints can make a project more interesting.

A better apartment isn’t necessarily a bigger one

This is where spatial planning becomes particularly important.

When space is limited, every decision has a knock-on effect.

Moving a doorway by 200mm might allow a longer vanity. Changing the direction a door opens might make a bathroom significantly easier to use. A beautifully designed piece of joinery might provide storage, conceal services and improve the proportions of an entire room.

Sometimes the best solution isn't adding anything at all.

It's understanding how the available space could work harder.

I often find that the smallest adjustment on a floor plan can have a disproportionately large effect on how a home feels.

Don’t start with the finishes

It’s tempting to begin an apartment renovation with the enjoyable decisions.

Stone. Tiles. Tapware. Paint colours. Lighting.

I love those decisions too.

But they should sit on top of a resolved plan, not compensate for one that doesn't quite work.

Before choosing the marble, I want to know whether the kitchen functions properly. Before selecting the bathroom tile, I want to know that the shower, vanity and door have enough space around them. Before designing beautiful bespoke joinery, I want to understand what it actually needs to store.

The aesthetic layer becomes much easier once those questions have been answered.

Character doesn't have to mean conventional

This is perhaps the part I find most interesting.

Some apartments come with obvious architectural character. Others acquire it through the people who live in them.

Not every beautiful home needs to be quiet, neutral or perfectly coordinated. There is room for eccentricity, collected pieces, unusual colour, art, objects from travels, inherited furniture and things that simply make the owner smile.

Equally, an older apartment doesn't need to become a museum of the period in which it was built.

The question is what deserves to stay, what can be reinterpreted and what the next layer of the home's story should look like.

Sometimes that means retaining original mouldings while introducing a completely contemporary kitchen. Sometimes it means allowing an unexpected piece of furniture, artwork or colour to set the tone for an entire room.

The architecture provides the framework.

The people living there provide the personality.

And the most interesting interiors, to me, usually contain a little of both.

Resolve the expensive decisions early

The most expensive time to discover that something doesn't work is once construction has started.

That's why I spend so much time at the beginning of a renovation looking at plans, circulation, services, storage, proportions and how the client actually lives.

There will always be decisions to make during a build. That's inevitable.

But the big ones shouldn't come as a surprise.

Good apartment design isn't about squeezing as much as possible into a floor plan, nor is it about imposing a particular aesthetic onto every home.

It's about understanding what deserves the space, what can be simplified, what should be celebrated and where one carefully considered decision can solve several problems at once.

Because in an apartment, every centimetre has a job to do.

And ideally, the finished home should feel less like the designer who worked on it and more unmistakably like the people who live there.

Thinking about renovating?

If you're at the beginning and aren't yet sure what should move, what should stay or what's possible within your existing floor plan, my Two Hour Design Consultation - Claritās is designed for exactly this stage.

Two hours, in your home, to look at the space properly and establish some clarity before the expensive decisions begin.