A Hong Kong interior designer transformed a couple’s rented apartment into a colourful, art-filled home

Having lived in their 2,330 sq ft apartment on The Peak for a few months, Scott and Katie Evans felt it lacked a bit of oomph and turned to interior designer and stylist Ana Foster-Adams for help.

“Our friends thought we were completely insane for investing in a designer for a rental property but we wanted to make it feel more like a proper home,” says Katie, who has been in Hong Kong for more than a decade and works in finance.

A Covid-19-friendly Zoom tour of the three-bedroom, two-bathroom flat reveals a space that is bursting with colour and covetable furniture, proving that living in a rented apartment doesn’t have to mean making do. Built up over the years in the hope that they would one day live somewhere large enough to install it all, the Evans’ vibrant collection of contemporary art and sculpture gave Foster-Adams an inspiring starting point and set the narrative in terms of colour.

“I’m very client-led in that I like a project to be a design collaboration between myself and my clients. This ensures that the result is a home that truly reflects who they are,” says Foster-Adams, who runs design studios in London and Hong Kong. “Katie and Scott had strong ideas about the look and feel they wanted to create and were open about experimenting.”

Katie says that Foster-Adams took their vision and ran with it. Working organically rather than systematically room by room, in mid-2019 Foster-Adams began the project, adding key pieces and decorative details as and when she found them.

Primary colours serve as the main theme in the living area, with a royal blue sofa and matching sideboard, a pair of sculptural Totem lights by Sabine Marcelis in magenta and yellow, and a large rug featuring all three colours. Foster-Adams added to this mix a couple of mid-century-modern armchairs in a monochrome print – not an obvious combination but one that gives a cool, edgy look.