A remote makeover during Covid pays off handsomely for an interior designer and her partner
an you imagine buying a flat without ever actually stepping inside it? And then doing up the entire place – bashing down walls, jettisoning fittings and reshuffling the floorplan – remotely? For most of us the answer would be an emphatic, “Of course not!”
Covid played its part. Verbist and her partner, Sofie Van Waeyenberge, were enjoying a break at their weekend cottage on a beach in the Netherlands when lockdown struck. They had just bought the apartment, sealing the deal with a text “sent at midnight”. Previously occupied by a penniless aristocrat, the property had been untouched for decades. With its dark corridors and a damp-ridden bathroom, it was the definitive fixer-upper.Verbist was unfazed.
The catalyst for the tutti-frutti colour scheme was a kelim rug. Hauled home from a trip to Istanbul 30 years ago, it has travelled with the couple from home to home ever since. “The dogs have eaten bits of it. But that doesn’t matter,” says Verbist. Counterintuitively, painting the rooms different colours – Tuscan pink, emerald green, cocoa brown – makes the space feel larger.
Moving from a larger home they cherrypicked favourite furnishings and possessions. “We started in a large townhouse and have been downsizing ever since. Which is the opposite of what most people do. But I like the process of refining your belongings.”
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