Most people have to downsize when moving to Hong Kong, but after arriving last December from New York, where they had lived for seven years, John Williams and Graham Dyer found their new two-bedroom, three-bathroom Happy Valley flat was more spacious than their Manhattan condo. “We’d done a lot of apartment living in New York but the footprint of this flat was significantly larger,” says Dyer, an Australian who works in the hotel industry. “Although we’d brought everything with us, we still had gaps – for example, we had to furnish a TV den and a second bedroom – so we had the opportunity to play around with design and add in new pieces of furniture.” Finding Hong Kong welcoming, the couple soon resolved to stay for at least five years. Although their 2,000 sq ft apartment is a refurbished rental, complete with a new kitchen and bathrooms, they wanted to put their stamp on it and make it feel like home. The only problem was they didn’t know where to start. “When we walked into the apartment, it was almost like a white cube,” says Dyer. “It felt like it needed some depth, texture, character and colour. We had an idea about what we wanted, but we needed that ‘eye’ to pull together old and new pieces of furniture as well as adding in elements that would work with the environment.” Enter interior designer Aviva Duncan, who met Dyer and Williams through mutual friends. They hit it off immediately, with Duncan able to interpret the couple’s ideas, work with what they had and add a bit of pizazz into the mix to create a truly beautiful living space. She’s not afraid to go bold: wallpaper key to rental home makeover “I usually suggest something to clients and it gets pared back but John and Graham were the opposite,” says Duncan. “They were open to new ideas and taking risks as well as happy to buy a few big-ticket items that would stay with them forever. Their home is a wonderful reflection of who they are.” After manoeuvring their existing sofa into the cosy television den, Dyer and Williams went shopping for a new one for the living area. With a large space to fill, they had unlimited design choices and Duncan subsequently based the room’s dynamic around the B+B Italia sofa they eventually fell in love with. To complement it and enliven the white walls, she suggested statement wallpaper stretching from the living room along the corridor (see Tried & Tested). An abundance of natural daylight was one of the main reasons the couple had settled on this particular flat and this also meant they could be bold with their wallpaper selection, even if that entailed going out of their comfort zones. “John and I have a pretty similar design aesthetic but we’ve taken a few turns along the way,” says Williams. “We’d never had wallpaper before, for example, and the ones we have now are more eclectic than anything we might have gone for if we were left to our own devices.” To counterbalance the feature wall in the living room, Duncan created a stunning bespoke rug. The organically patterned carpet has a wavy roundness to it, juxtaposing the geometric wallpaper, and features cooler colours to quieten the polished, orange-toned parquet floor, which they couldn’t change. At one end, the inclusion of a little splash of green brings in the emerald velvet armchair. Similarly, in the main bedroom, the colours in the mural-style wallpaper are picked up in a custom-made rug, also by Duncan, and echo the plants on the balcony and the green mountainside beyond. As well as Duncan’s design expertise, Dyer says they also couldn’t have done without her sourcing knowledge. Although Britain-born Williams had spent his formative years in Hong Kong, both he and Dyer were newcomers to the territory as adults. “Where do you start when you move to a new city? A lot of the places we ended up going to with Aviva, you’d never know existed because you don’t walk past them,” he says. “She also helped keep us to a timeline so everything fell into place. We were pretty focused on getting the apartment just right because having moved a lot, we both know that unless you do something within the first six months, chances are you won’t bother and you’ll live with it for years.” Living area The show-stopper in the living area is a stunning rug designed and made to order by Aviva Duncan (avivaduncan.com). It picks up the colour of the Bacharach swivel chair, by Jonathan Adler (jonathanadler.com), which John Williams and Graham Dyer brought to Hong Kong from New York, along with the Denso modular bookshelf by ABC Home (abchome.com). The sofa and large mirror (near the dining area), by B+B Italia (bebitalia.com), came from ColourLiving (colourliving.com). The cushion fabric was from Altfield (altfield.com.hk). The Barcelona coffee table was by Gotham, in London (gothamnottinghill.com), and the bar trolley was a flea-market find in Brussels, Belgium. Kitchen A small balcony, one of two, can be accessed via the kitchen, which had been newly installed when Dyer and Williams moved in. Balcony On the main balcony, the side table and chairs came from Everything Under The Sun (everythingunderthesun.com.hk) while the larger bar table and chairs were from Harbour Outdoor (harbouroutdoor.com). Television room The cosy television den was decorated with wallpaper by Cole and Son (cole-and-son.com) from Altfield. The sofa was bought from ABC Home in New York and Duncan had the cushions made with fabric from Altfield. The rug was from Restoration Hardware in New York (rh.com). Dining area Much of the dining room furniture moved with the couple, including the Saarinen dining table and Cherner chairs, from Design Within Reach (dwr.com); the sculpture on the table from a gallery in Chelsea, New York; and the two large Ogee Design brushed and polished stainless-steel vases, by Gregory Bonasera, from Planet Furniture (planetfurniture.com.au). The deep-blue circular rug was designed and made by Aviva Duncan and the IC Lights Floor 2 floor lamp, by Flos (flos.com), came from ColourLiving. Main bedroom The bed and bedside tables were from JG Casa (jgcasa.com) and the Osman bedside lamps, by Tooy (tooy.it), came from Zodiac (zodiaclighting.com). The wallpaper was from Casamance (casamance.com) and the fabric for the cushions and curtains was from Altfield. Duncan designed and made the rug. The cowhide armchair was bought in Brussels from a shop that has since closed. Tried & Tested Deck the walls Corridors are often the most style-starved spaces in a home. Here, Aviva Duncan has wrapped feature wallpaper along and around the corridor to continue the living-room statement and add major design impact. The wallpaper came from Casamance and the mirror, by B+B Italia, was from ColourLiving. Styling: Aviva Duncan Photo assistant: Timothy Tsang