Redecorating her family’s rented house set Hongkonger on a new career as an interior designer
- When Fé Valvekens and her family moved home in Stanley, it was the chance to implement lessons she had learned studying residential interior design
- She gained a new appreciation of wallpaper and the use of textures, went back to school to learn more skills, and launched her own interior design business
Buying a chalet in France was the motivation Fé Valvekens needed to sign up for a year-long course in residential interior design at the Insight School of Interior Design, in Chai Wan, Hong Kong. The property required a full renovation and, although Valvekens has a natural eye for design, she wanted to be able to communicate with her architect without getting tripped up by all the technical details.
“I don’t have a design background but I had been using concepts like balance and harmony intuitively, so it was good to learn to apply them properly rather than through guesswork,” says Valvekens, who is half Belgian and half Filipino, and has been living in Hong Kong for 13 years. “I finally learned the principles of design and the reasons behind why I did or didn’t like certain things.”
During her course, she moved with her husband and their three children, aged seven, 10 and 11, from their flat in Stanley, on the south coast of Hong Kong Island, into a detached two-storey house across the street. It offered the perfect opportunity to unleash her creativity and practise her new-found skills.
Because the 2,800 sq ft (260 square metre), four-bedroom, three-bathroom home is a rental property, Valvekens couldn’t gut it and start again. Besides, she hates waste. Using knowledge gleaned from her course, she set about modifying the house to suit her family’s needs. One of the first things she did was to tone down the colour of the kitchen. “When I arrived, the kitchen was overwhelmingly red,” says Valvekens. “It’s a beautiful colour but I prefer something a bit more Zen.”
I’ve learned about the importance of decorative elements and how to use them. This whole dining room started with the wallpaper
Unable to change the existing cabinetry for something less prominent, she bought a movable white island for the centre of the space and equipped the room with wooden stools. This made the kitchen more balanced, drawing the eye away from the vivid hue.
A module with interior designer and Insight lecturer Catherine Bourquin, of Atelier B, introduced Valvekens to the significance of wallpaper, textiles and texture. Previously more of a fan of neutrals and hesitant to incorporate pattern, she reset her preferences upon hearing Bourquin’s words of design wisdom.
