I love colour!” This is the phrase Alieke Couturier uses unabashedly numerous times while giving InsideOut a tour of her four-bedroom villa in Al Barsha. It’s a bright, joyful home that she shares with her two daughters, seven-year-old Claire and five-year-old Zoe, and her husband Sebastian. As she guides us through her home, telling stories about the intricate fabric, bold wallpaper and eclectic pieces she has collected, created or revived, it is clear that her home – furnished and accessorised with the help of some stylish and creative friends – is not just a roof over her head, but a labour of love. It’s an ongoing art project that has, so far, been two years in the making.
She says that when they were looking for a new house to move into, “the first option for me was to live in Barsha because I like the houses. I like that they’re a little different from the other areas in Dubai and they’re not all exactly the same as the neighbours… We liked the design, the floor, the kitchen tiles – it’s fun, it’s a bit different.” She adds that she and her husband were also attracted by the fact that it was spacious enough to accommodate their growing girls, but not so big that it would feel empty.
On entering the home, guests are greeted by incredible eye-catching striped printed wallpaper by Eijffinger. “I saw it in Holland years ago. We didn’t do this right when we moved into the house and for a long time we wondered how to use this space under the stairs, but it worked out pretty well. Every colour is there; it’s so nice when you come in. I love it.”
For the first few weeks after moving in, the living room, dining room and entrance hall were empty. “We didn’t want to have all new stuff right at the beginning; we wanted to see what we needed and what we wanted to add over time. So we swapped things in and out two or three times before we made our decision.” One of the things that stayed was the dining room table, which Alieke brought out from the study where she had been using it as a desk. “It was a light wood but I wanted a darker colour, so we stained it. And from there I realised that the walls needed to be darker too and that’s when we came up with this brown, which I think is perfect,” Alieke says.
The dining chairs from THE One were originally brown leather but when Alieke stained the table, she also stained the legs of the chairs and reupholstered them in magenta, purple, blue and pink. “I saw this in a magazine and I really liked it. It’s such a bold statement!”
On two sides, the dining table is flanked by big bright arched windows that run nearly the length of the floor to the ceiling to take advantage of the glorious Dubai sun, while the wall behind the table is adorned with a piece of art created by Alieke and her friend. “I was working with Susan creating a kids’ collection, decorating tin cans and other items,” Alieke says. “And we thought that something like this could be nice to make. The squares are made mainly from Japanese origami paper, although we included some red and gold paper of the type that’s used for offerings in some temples.”
In the living room, Alieke has opted for a casual look with a sofa from THE One that has been reupholstered in a sandy-ivory colour, a woven rug, a concrete-look table from Crate & Barrel and an oversized armchair and ottoman also from Crate & Barrel, which she has accessorised with massive pillows she picked up while hunting for treasures on a recent trip to Jaipur and Jodpur. “The brown footstool came with the sofa from THE One and both were originally grey, but I had the footstool done in this fabric I got from France,” Alieke says. Osca Blom, her friend and colleague at Sofa Studio in Create in Al Quoz, helped her. “We resized the footstool too. It used to be a rectangle so we made it a square. We just cut off the edge and moved the legs over.” Adjacent to the sofa is an exquisite Afghan wall hanging Alieke and her husband purchased on a visit to Global Village then cut and framed to fit the wall.
Walking into the kitchen, Alieka says she was initially shocked when she saw the pebble-motif tiles on all four walls, “But it’s kind of fun and it works well with the colourful poufs under the table.” These poufs are Alieke’s current creative venture, made from oil cloth that she sourced from Mexico.
For the master bedroom, Alieke began with the curtains and blinds, which she got from Designers Guild. “I chose grey for the walls, but I knew we weren’t going to make it all grey, so I decided to spice it up with a little lime – and it works!”
With a creative mind, an eye for colour and an artistic knack, Alieke is always thinking of new ideas for her home. “I would like to do a little more outside, especially around the pool area.” She bought some daybeds in India that she’s keen to set up once they arrive – especially now the weather is perfect. “They have a steel frame and the guy who was making them was weaving blue ribbon through, so they are going to be nice when they come. And I was thinking I am going to make some blue cushions for them.”
This story first appeared on InsideOut in December 2013
