By the time this article is published, interior designer Sue Bond's Repulse Bay apartment will probably look different. Bond, whose duplex's interior changes with the wind, has designed a home that serves not only as a base for her family but also as an advertisement for her creative talent. Because it's her job, she says, investing in it is like spending 'ad money': 'People walk in here and I get the projects.'
Where now there are soft blue and grey-patterned fabrics everywhere, a week earlier there were shades of aubergine. 'I decided on Monday that I wanted to lose the purple ottoman so I phoned my upholsterer and he made me a cover in two days,' says Bond, whose tornado-like energy can be felt in every room of the roughly 4,000 sq ft, three-bedroom duplex.
What might surprise those visiting for the first time is that this is a rented property and the family has lived in it for only 2 1/2 years. So complete is the set-up it looks as though it has been a Bond house forever.
'It took a week to install,' says Bond, explaining that her family decamped from their native South Africa to Hong Kong 3 1/2 years ago, and moved into their first apartment, also in Repulse Bay. A year later, Bond, her banker husband, Craig, their two children (Simon, now 15, and Jamie, 12), a Jack Russell and a rescued cat then settled into the duplex, which took seven days to refurbish.
As with the homes in Hong Kong and elsewhere she has helped to overhaul, Bond's was created with a lifestyle budget plus a decorating one. The first, she explains, is money you 'throw away': '[You say to yourself] I'm spending this on my enjoyment. I'm making this practical and I can't take it with me. And then you decide on your decorating budget.'
Although Bond appears not to have scrimped on expenditure anywhere (save for the kitchen and bathrooms, which she left much as they were), she didn't shy from buying Ikea cabinets and inexpensive Lockhart Road handles and hooks, some of which (see Tried + tested) have been used for decorative purposes. As part of her 'lifestyle' costs, she laid custom-fitted carpet, affixed wallpaper, installed shutters to hide air-conditioning units outside, demolished walls and removed doors so a study downstairs could become a family room. Bond also painted extensively and created a beautiful garden and terrace, complete with a jacuzzi, outdoor shower, circus-sized trampoline and Chinese-inspired lattice screens. She even laid a lawn, beyond which is a glorious sea view.