Wioleta Kelly: 'You are your only limit'

Wioleta Kelly is just back from her holidays when Irish Country Living visits her at home in Tournafulla, Co Limerick.

Not that she is battling the back-to-reality blues. On the contrary…

“I opened the door and I was like: ‘Ahh,’” she smiles of walking in her own front door after the week away.

“That’s what you want. You want to really feel that you’re happy and comfortable and safe.”

But then, as an interior designer, Wioleta knows just how to make a house a home; from her cosy wood-burning stove to the DIY swing she made with a door saddle and a swathe of leftover fabric that sways from her sitting room ceiling.

And the story of her own transformation is just as inspiring, from arriving in Ireland in 2006 from Poland with limited English to falling in love, making a home and starting her successful business in Co Limerick.

“The plan was to come here only for a year,” says Wioleta, who soon found a job working in the Dell factory – and a lot more besides, when she met her future husband, DP (Dennis Patrick).

“I was shy about my English and I still made loads of mistakes,” she recalls. “I remember one day I wanted to tell him: ‘Oh you must find me boring.’As in, you know, he would not have a great conversation with me. Instead I said to him: ‘You’re awfully boring.’”

Interior design

Still, love blossomed across the assembly line and in 2009 the couple bought their first home in Tournafulla, close to Abbeyfeale in west Limerick.

“So we got the key to our house… and about six months later I got redundancy,” says Wioleta wryly of the consequence of Dell’s decision to move manufacturing – ironically – to Poland. DP also lost his job, though he now works as a supervisor with Pallas Foods.

While Wioleta found work in a local supermarket, however, buying her first home had sparked her interest in interiors and soon she found herself sharing her decorating ideas on a well-known Polish website.

“Quickly I started gathering loads of followers,” continues Wioleta, who decided to complete an interior design course through the Limerick College of Further Education, as well as masterclasses in the UK with designers like Abigail Ahern.

Soon, her skills were also in demand closer to home (“my mother-in-law gave me the first job in Ireland!”) and by the end of 2015, she knew that she needed to take the leap and leave the supermarket if she was to follow her passion.

“It was a huge thing,” acknowledges Wioleta, who also diversified into providing family photography services and craft parties for kids to generate additional income.

However, it is with “Abbeyfeale Interior Design” that she is making a name for herself, giving Irish homes a new lease of life. And speaking of which, what is her pet hate?

“Pine!” she grimaces; though all is not lost.

“The easiest, the cheapest, the simplest way of upgrading any interior is painting an awful cheap pine off-white,” she explains. “Straight away it makes a huge difference, especially in a dark hallway.”

She knows how intimidating interior design can be for people – even when it comes to choosing paint colours – which is why many people automatically opt for the omnipresent “magnolia”.

“And magnolia is one of the hardest colours to work with. It is very demanding,” she says, adding that off-white is “the safest colour”, and can really lift a tired room.

“If you look at an average Irish kitchen, you have terracotta on the floor, you have an orange splashback, you have probably pine cupboards and magnolia on the walls, so when you look at it, everything is warm,” she uses as an example.

“If you have too many warm colours, you are killing it with warmth. You have to have some sort of contrast to balance it out.”

Dealing with clutter, a shortage of storage and simply too many home accessories are also challenges for people; though as a rule of thumb, Wioleta says that every time you buy a new item for your home, you should give away three older things to keep it fresh.

But she has also noticed that people struggle with having plenty of space as well.

“They don’t know what to do with it. And the thing is, the more space you have, the more possibilities you have,” she says.

“The secret is to create small little zones within that bigger zone. So, for example, if you are creating a sitting zone – a reading nook for example – make it really cosy, as cosy as possible for yourself. So where you have a little chair, put a little table beside it so you can put away a cup of coffee when you are reading. Put a little rug underneath it; a rug is going to define that space and tell you straight away: ‘Look at me. I’m relaxing!’”

Wow factor

Of course, every home is different, which is why Wioleta provides a variety of services, from a one-hour colour consultation to a three-hour house consultation.

She also offers an in-depth “room project”, where following a home visit and taking into account factors like budget and the client’s personal style, she will create a redesign of the room on her computer with a shopping list of all the items used, from the flooring and paint finish, to the smallest details, like picking the perfect cushions or tips on how to arrange personal photographs in a gallery.

“I make people’s dreams come true,” smiles Wioleta. “I get goosebumps talking about it.”

Wioleta also runs an online course called “How to give your home a WOW-factor” and has built up quite the following on Instagram by sharing her own home renovations, joking that her husband never knows what will have changed by the time he gets back from work.

“I always say that our house is my experimental field,” laughs Wioleta, who also uses her skills to play a part in her local community, such as by getting involved in the town’s Christmas festivities.

And with big plans for the future – including an interior design book – Wioleta is living her favourite motivational quote right to the letter.

Which is?

“You are your only limit,” she smiles.

For further information, find Abbeyfeale Interior Design on Facebook, call 083-307-4421 or follow Wioleta Kelly on Instagram. A one-hour colour consultation is €75, a three-hour house consultation is €200 and a room re-design project is €350, or €500 for a kitchen space.