A 1930s canal house which serves as a wonderful canvas for a creative couple's lives

On stepping into Jacqueline Dehond and Koenraad Uyttendaele’s 1930s house in Bruges, it is not hard to see why the artists made the light-filled, tall-walled space their home. Few shared their enthusiasm when they bought it back in 1999. ‘It had been sitting on the market for a year and a half,’ recalls Jacqueline who works together with Koenraad under the name of Jacqy duVal to create eye-catching abstract canvases. ‘Back then there was a real appetite for minimalism, so everyone was put off by the fact that the house was quite kitsch and had lots of dark wood and fussy 1930s details, like an elaborate arch and a multicoloured marble fireplace in the living space.’ Thankfully, the couple had the foresight to see that the four-storey house could form a perfect backdrop to what they do, serving as both a home for them and their two (now grown-up) sons and a studio.

The house, in fact, is one of very few in the quaint city – where most buildings date from the medieval period or 18th and 19th centuries – to have been built between 1939 and 1941. The patch of land it occupies was used to grow orchids until around the 1920s, while the garden at the rear – now a tranquil oasis where the couple enjoy long lunches with friends – once belonged to a long gone monastery. ‘The beautiful garden is what really won us over,’ recalls Jacqueline. The couple had been living in Ghent, but both grew up in Bruges and were starting to feel its pull – not least because they could get rather more for their money than in Ghent. Remarkably, Jacqueline was already well-acquainted with the house: it had belonged to a friend of hers and, by a strange twist of fate, it was in fact the spot where she met Koenraad’s brother 40 years ago, who subsequently introduced the couple and predicted that the two creative spirits would be a very good match.

When the couple moved in, they made the wise move to not make any rash decisions, leaving the layout the same with the kitchen and dining area on the ground floor, living room, main bedroom and original 1940s bathroom on the first floor, and the remaining bedrooms and series of studios across the top floor. ‘If we’d had a lot of money, we would have probably changed everything straight away and it would have been a mistake,’ Jacqueline explains. Instead, they peeled back layers to see what was lurking beneath fussier details and finishes: existing carpets were pulled up throughout to reveal dark wooden floors, which the couple then had bleached to a lighter tone. Dark wood doors and the distinctive staircase that marches all the way up to the top floor were also bleached in a similar warm honey tone, which brightens everything up.

So too did their decision – perhaps unexpectedly for artists known for their love of colour – to paint almost every wall white. ‘It made the world of difference, especially in the sitting room,’ explains Jacqueline. It also provides an excellent backdrop to their colourful, geometric canvases, which hang everywhere – alongside the staircase, in the hallway (where a piece that almost resembles a fabric weave picks up the green glass in the doors) and in the main living space. This spectacularly wide first floor room, with doors that open out onto a terrace, now doubles as a studio space, especially in the colder months. ‘Why not work in the most beautiful room, which has a wood stove and good light?’ Koenraad says, with a smile. ‘We’re always working and it’s nice to do that somewhere beautiful.’ The ornate arch and multi-coloured marble fireplace remain, but also received the white treatment and now look rather elegant. ‘We lived with them for about a year before Koenraad decided to paint them and it was a great idea,’ explains Jacqueline.