Park Avenue Custom Made Furniture — Upgrading a Family Flat Without Moving Out
A 2001 apartment does not need gutting. It needs the right pieces replaced, the retained finishes respected, and the work sequenced so the family can sleep at home every night. See the full service, read the occupied-flat method, or request a quotation.
Custom Made Furniture — Contemporary, Eco Wood Home Furniture
D-8 Limited provides custom made furniture design and manufacturing services. Our contemporary, eco wood home furniture is tailored to fit your space perfectly.
About Park Avenue, Olympic Station
Park Avenue stands at 18 Hoi Ting Road in Tai Kok Tsui, beside Olympic Station in the Yau Tsim Mong District of Kowloon. It was built by a consortium including China Overseas, Sino Land, the MTR Corporation and Kerry Properties, with an occupation permit dated 20 February 2001 — putting the building in its mid-twenties, which is precisely when original joinery reaches the end of its useful life.
Composition and layouts
- Five blocks, numbered 6 to 10, with approximately 1,624 residential units
- Together with Central Park at the same address, nine blocks and roughly 2,935 units in total
- Saleable areas from 449 to 1,777 square feet, spanning two, three and four bedroom layouts
- Clubhouse with swimming pool, sports and beauty facilities
- Roughly a six minute walk to Olympic MTR station, with podium retail access
- Primary One Admission school net 31, secondary allocation in Yau Tsim Mong District
Why the brief here is rarely a full gut
Most enquiries from this estate come from households who have lived in the flat for years, or from buyers of a well-maintained resale. In both cases the structure of the home is fine: floors are often serviceable, doors and skirting are sound, bathrooms may only need refreshing. What has aged badly is the joinery — hinges that sag, drawer runners that grind, wardrobe interiors sized for a household that no longer exists, and a kitchen laid out for how people cooked in 2001. That makes this a joinery-led partial renovation rather than a demolition project.
What to Keep, What to Strip
The single decision that controls the budget of a mid-life renovation. Judge each element on its own merits rather than replacing everything because some of it is tired.
Usually worth keeping
- Floors that are sound, level and matchable — new joinery can be plinth-mounted or scribed to existing skirting
- Doors and architraves in good condition; refinishing costs a fraction of replacement
- Kitchen carcasses that are structurally solid — new doors, new hardware and a new worktop transform them
- Sanitary ware that is unstained and functioning, with taps and a mirror cabinet doing the visual work
- Window frames that seal properly and operate smoothly
Usually worth stripping
- Built-in wardrobes with failed hardware — refitting a tired carcass costs close to a new one without the lifespan
- Cabinets with water-damaged bases, particularly under windows and beside bathrooms
- Interiors sized for a former household — too many shelves, too little hanging, no luggage volume
- Anything blocking a socket, a switch or an air conditioning drain
- Deep base cupboards in the kitchen that should be drawer stacks
- Cabinets sealed against a damp wall, which are hiding a problem rather than solving one
The honest arithmetic
Retaining sound finishes is what makes a partial renovation viable, and it is worth doing even when the aesthetic result is slightly less unified than a full strip-out. Where the retained element cannot be matched, contrast it deliberately instead — see matching new to retained below.
Renovating While You Still Live There
Moving out for six weeks costs more than most joinery packages. Working around a household is entirely feasible if the sequence is planned rather than improvised.
- Decide what stays and what goes — the audit above, done before anything is quoted.
- Sequence rooms so one is always usable. At least one bedroom, one bathroom and a cooking point must remain available every night. Typically the least-used bedroom goes first and doubles as the temporary store.
- Set up containment before demolition. Zip-screens on doorways, full route protection from the lift to the working room, retained furniture covered, and cutting confined to a designated area or the workshop rather than the living room.
- Strip old built-ins and repair behind them. Fixing holes, unpainted patches, unlevel screed where the old plinth sat, and occasionally damp — all of it priced, none of it a surprise.
- Confirm services against the new interiors. A 2001 socket layout rarely suits a modern cabinet. Fix positions before boards are cut, never after installation.
- Complete each room fully before opening the next. Install, adjust, touch up, clean, hand back. Daily clearance of packaging and dust is what makes living through works tolerable.
Where the scope grows to include wet trades, rewiring or partition change, this becomes a Design & Build engagement, and the full eight-stage sequence is on our process section.
Removing Previous Joinery Properly
What comes off with the cabinet
Old built-ins are usually screwed and glued to plaster. Removing them takes paint, sometimes plaster, and occasionally tile edges with them. A quotation that includes only new cabinets and no making-good is incomplete.
The plinth line
Where an old cabinet sat, the screed underneath is often unlevelled and unfinished, and the floor finish may stop short. New joinery can cover it, but the base detail has to be designed knowing that, otherwise a gap appears at the toe.
Hidden damp
A cabinet against an external wall or beside a bathroom sometimes conceals staining or soft plaster. This is the moment to deal with it. If the wall shows spalling — where moisture has reached reinforcement and the concrete is lifting — repair of structural elements is a minor works item requiring a prescribed registered contractor. D-8 Limited is a Registered Minor Works Contractor Class II; see Spalling Repairing Works and our credentials section.
Disposal and estate rules
Dismantled panels are bulky. In a large managed estate, disposal routes, refuse arrangements and permitted hours are specified, and removal on the same day beats accumulation in a corridor.
Salvage where it makes sense
Sound drawer boxes, solid shelving and serviceable hardware can occasionally be reused in a store room or utility cabinet where appearance matters less. We flag those opportunities rather than assuming everything is scrap.
Matching New Joinery to Retained Finishes
Match closely or contrast clearly
A near-miss on timber tone or white shade reads as a mistake; a deliberate contrast reads as a decision. We record the retained floor tone and direction, the skirting profile and height, and the door and architrave finish, then choose one of those two routes — never the middle.
Hardware finish as the unifier
Where old and new cabinetry must coexist, a single consistent hardware finish across the flat does more to tie the scheme together than trying to colour-match boards from different decades.
Base and skirting details
Because the floor stays, new cabinets either sit on the finished floor with a matching plinth, or land against existing skirting with a scribed filler. Cutting into a retained floor to recess a cabinet is rarely worth the risk.
Refacing as a middle path
Where a kitchen carcass is sound, replacing doors, hardware and worktop delivers most of the visual gain at a fraction of full replacement, and produces a fraction of the waste. It is worth pricing both ways before deciding.
Keep the finishes schedule
Recording board, laminate, edge banding, hinge and runner references means a damaged door can be matched in five years instead of guessed at. In a phased renovation this is essential, because phase two happens months after phase one.
Joinery Across 449 to 1,777 sq ft
The same estate contains compact two bedroom units and large four bedroom flats, so priorities differ sharply by size.
Two bedroom, around 449 to 600 sq ft
One full-height wardrobe run in the primary bedroom, an entrance shoe cabinet with a drop shelf, and either a platform bed or a desk integrated into the wardrobe in the second room. A TV feature wall concealing router and equipment finishes the living area. Consolidate storage on one wall and keep the rest clear.
Three bedroom, around 700 to 1,000 sq ft
The most common brief here. Primary wardrobe with stacked short-hang and a top box, a children's or guest room with platform or loft bed, a study wall that often lives in the living room, a utility cabinet for vacuum and ironing board, and a kitchen upgraded to drawer stacks with a tall appliance unit.
Four bedroom, up to around 1,777 sq ft
Storage stops competing with circulation. A walk-in closet or dressing room becomes viable, a library or study earns its own room, and a laundry and utility area with a sorting bench becomes worth building. Long runs at this scale need tighter tolerances and batch-matched finishes, since a two millimetre drift compounds visibly across a nine metre wardrobe.
The rooms families always underestimate
The entrance and the utility store. Shoes, parcels, umbrellas, sports gear, suitcases, seasonal bedding and cleaning equipment need assigned volumes, or they migrate into bedrooms and onto balconies regardless of how good the wardrobes are.
Materials and Hardware
These are the line items that explain price gaps between quotations, and in a partial renovation several of them exist because something is being retained.
- Carcass board — grade and thickness, with lower-emission eco wood options where preferred
- Back panel thickness — carries racking loads on tall units
- Door finish — durable laminate for daily contact, veneer or lacquer for feature pieces; light-stable choices where sun reaches
- Edge banding — the detail that decides whether cabinetry still looks crisp in five years
- Hinges — soft-close with stated brand and cycle rating, since failed hinges are why the old wardrobe is being removed
- Drawer runners — full-extension with stated load rating
- Scribed fillers and adjustable feet — to meet retained floors and out-of-true walls
- Plinth to match retained floor — so the base line reads as intentional
- Moisture-rated substrate — for vanities, utility cabinets and walls that previously showed damp
- Consistent hardware finish — the cheapest way to unify old and new cabinetry
Samples of these boards, laminates and hardware are kept at our Kwun Tong office, and we bring retained-finish references to site when matching matters.
From Survey to Room-by-Room Handover
- Site visit and condition survey — existing joinery, floors, doors, skirting, kitchen, bathrooms, service points and any damp, all recorded with photographs.
- Keep-or-strip decisions — element by element, with cost implications stated.
- Storage audit — hanging length per person, folded stacks, shoes, luggage, seasonal and bulky items, so capacity is designed from real numbers.
- Phasing plan — room order, which room stays usable, where contents are stored, and how many campaigns.
- Joinery shop drawings — internal divisions, hardware, finishes, plinth and filler strategy, socket coordination.
- Containment and demolition — protection, screens, strip-out, patching, plastering and repainting behind removals.
- Final measurement, fabrication, installation — measured after making-good, fabricated off site, installed within booked lift slots.
- Adjust, touch up, clean, hand back — room complete before the next one opens.
The complete drawing set is listed on the Design Project page if you want documentation only.
Estate Access and Compliance
A development of this size, with podium retail and shared lifts, runs a formal fit-out regime.
- Works application — schedule, contractor details, insurance and a refundable deposit
- Service lift booking — timed slots, competitive in a nine-block development where many units renovate at once
- Delivery route — specified routes that avoid retail and lobby areas, with protection in place first
- Permitted hours — noisy operations restricted, which shapes the room-by-room sequence
- Waste — dismantled joinery removed the same day rather than stacked in corridors
- Minor works — any alteration to partitions or structural elements falls under the Minor Works Control System and must be carried out by a prescribed registered contractor, with Form MW03 as the notice of commencement and Form MW04 as the certificate of completion for Class II works. D-8 Limited is registered as a Minor Works Contractor Class II
How a Phased Joinery Upgrade Is Quoted
Joinery is priced per cabinet or per running foot, but a partial renovation in an occupied flat carries specific additional items that an honest quotation shows separately.
Line items specific to this kind of job
- Demolition and disposal of existing built-ins
- Patching, plastering and repainting behind removals
- Containment, screens, route protection and covering of retained furniture
- Daily cleaning and same-day waste removal
- Scribing, filler and plinth work to meet retained floors and skirting
- Electrical adjustments and socket relocation as a separate provision
- Mobilisation per phase, if the work is split into campaigns
Where to spend first
The primary bedroom wardrobe, the entrance storage and the kitchen. Those three remove the most daily friction in a long-occupied family flat. Feature walls and study joinery look impressive but change less about how the home functions. Our fee models and an 18-point quotation checklist are on the quotation page, with warning signs listed here.
Custom Furniture FAQ
You Do Not Have to Move Out
Send the floor plan and photos of what you want gone. Free site visit, free measurement, written itemized quotation. Call 9135 3998 or email enquiry@designd8.com.
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