Elsebeth Bout-Van Blerkom was born in Vlissingen in 1919. In 1938 she began training at the Institute for Arts and Crafts Education in Amsterdam. She chose to major in interior design. After completing this course, she aspired to study architecture. During the war she prepared for this study by taking private lessons with the architects Mart Stam and Koen Limperg. From them she was taught architectural design and statics. After the war, she continued her studies at the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam. After her studies, she kept her preference for interior design. She later taught at the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam and Arnhem. In 1948, Elsebeth Bout-van Blerkom and Ineke Deenik-Boks started a bureau for interior architecture under the name "Interieurarchitectenbureau Van Blerkom and Boks," located on the Amstel River in Amsterdam. The bureau designed mostly interiors of residential houses, but also offices, a publishing house and a bank. Not all the projects they designed together. In the 1950s and 1960s, many of Bout-van Blerkom's colleagues became involved in the activities of the Goed Wonen Foundation. This foundation wanted to improve housing culture in the Netherlands through model homes, advice, courses and a magazine. Although Bout-van Blerkom agreed with the principles of Goed Wonen, she found this way of working too massive. She preferred working for a private client with whom she could communicate directly. Work by Elsebeth Bout-van Blerkom and Ineke Deenik-Boks was published several times in the magazine Goed Wonen, but was never commissioned by the foundation. Starting in 1950, the Van Blerkom and Boks firm worked for Werkspoor N.V., formerly the Nederlandsche Fabriek van Werktuigen en Spoorwegmaterieel. The firm began by designing office interiors; later it also designed train interiors and provided other industrial design. The collaboration with Werkspoor went so well that Elsebeth Bout-Van Blerkom was asked to design the locomotive for the international Trans Europe Express (TEE). Her design was realized in 1957. In 1955, the Van Blerkom and Boks firm began a five-year project: the interior of the GAK office by architects B. Merkelbach and P. Elling, located on Bos en Lommerplein in Amsterdam. This commission occupies an important place in Bout-van Blerkom's oeuvre. Not only at the GAK did Bout-van Blerkom and Deenik-Boks collaborate with Merkelbach and Elling, they also did so at the Gilissenbank in Amsterdam (1955) and the Ketjenfabriek in Amsterdam (1957). In 1964, Bout-van Blerkom was commissioned to remodel an apartment on the Singel in Amsterdam. This apartment had an area of only forty square meters. She managed to make the best use of the space. In the late 1960s, Bout-Van Blerkom decided to quit her job and broke off all work contacts. After several years of not working as an interior designer, she started a firm again in the mid-1970s, this time together with Frank Pluym (Bout & Pluym). They opened an architects' store or ideas store in Amsterdam. In the early 1980s, Bout-van Blerkom stopped working permanently.