Elaine Kim

Interior design

As a young girl, Elaine Kim didn't know she would grow up to be a doctor, but she certainly had her parents thinking that she might embark on a career in interior design.

'At least once a year, I would take down everything and redecorate my room for fun, just for a change of scenery,' recalls the family physician who works at the Ministry of Health.

'I did things like spray-paint my bed and re-carpet my room. One year, I got somebody to paper the walls of my room, and the next year, I was painting over the wallpaper - things like that.'

By the time she hit her early teens, she was already designing her own dressing table and study cabinets.

'I couldn't find what I was looking for, so I drew what I wanted and sent the sketches off to a carpenter to get them made,' reveals the 28-year-old who plans to focus on palliative care so she can work with the terminally ill.

Even though she eventually picked medical school at the National University of Singapore, her interest in architecture and design continued, especially on her travels - whether it was studying historical buildings or visiting cool new boutique hotels - while reading voraciously about design in her spare time.

But it wasn't until five years ago, when her family gave her an actual design project to work on, that her hobby took a more serious turn.

'My family had some property they wanted to renovate and rent out, so they left me in charge of the fittings,' she says.

'I worked with the architects and contractors who implemented my designs and I really enjoyed the whole process. I never had any formal training so as I got to know the architects, contractors and suppliers. I honed my designing skills bit by bit along the way.'

Since then, she has been in charge of redoing her parents' house - 'I literally had an empty piece of land to work with,' she reveals - as well as helping her friends renovate or move houses.

She has also helped her parents, both doctors, in the renovation of their clinics.

'It's not a business for me, so it's all very informal. I never charge my friends and family anything because to me it's just for fun,' she insists.

'Most of the time I really only help out with the final decorations. I sit in with them at meetings with the contractors, go shopping with them, help them do the layout and choose their lighting.

'Occasionally, I will design a feature item. For example, I once designed a rotating door that has a painting on one side and a TV console on the other so it can be used by two rooms.'

Dr Kim adds that her design aesthetics tend to vary but can loosely be described as modern contemporary - usually quite neutral when it comes to backgrounds with strong colour accents.

She counts British interior designer Kelly Hoppen and the New York-based Vicente Wolf among her favourite interior designers but insists she gets inspiration from everywhere.

While she would probably never give up her day job - 'I will always be a doctor and practise medicine,' says Dr Kim - she does harbour hopes of one day opening her own little boutique hotel, and she would also like to enrol in a few interior design courses, time permitting.

'Medicine and interior design are very different but I would always like to do both because I do them for the same reason. It's really fulfilling to be able to do something for people, be it healing a patient or creating a home for someone.'

Until then, the newly-wed doctor may just have to content herself with the renovation of her new apartment which, ironically, marks the first time she has to work with an interior designer.

'I thought it would be interesting to get a different perspective so I hired an interior designer,' she concludes with a laugh.

'But, I have such strong ideas about what I want that I'm beginning to think it may not have been such a good idea.'

This article was first published in The Business Times.

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