I've bought myself a flat.
It's been a long process. I originally started looking late 2019/early 2020 not banking on a pandemic disrupting life in unpredictable ways for the next several years.
Having taken a while to get here I'm now taking a while to decorate it. That's because it's the kind of thing that really matters to me I guess, so I thought I'd try and record some of my process here.
This is the flat layout:
It's about 40 metres square, a good size for living but the kind of size you want to be careful with your furnishing choices not to fill it up and crowd yourself in.
It's a newbuild with a kitchen already installed. I always considered myself a period house person, but that attachment to character did take a knock per the last flat I rented in London, which was late Victorian, freezing cold and host to a lively population of mice. Good layout though. Anyway, I've developed an appreciation for tight-fitting windows and rodent-free cupboards.
And after all, I'm a designer, I surely have the skills to turn a blank canvas into somewhere with warmth and character... if I can ever make a single decision about anything...
Actually it's not quite a blank canvas. I would say the choices already in place with the floor covering and kitchen unit doors skew towards a particular look, and it's... well, I don't know if there's a name for the look, but you could called it neutral modern luxe, DFS gothic, or just greige:
Unfortunately, this could hardly be further from my taste.
As for what I do like, there's lots of answers. I've got time for almost every style I can think of apart from the above. But there's also a difference between what I admire and what I would feel at home in. For example, I'm a big fan of modernism and Brutalism, but as for living in such a space, I'm fundamentally not that person.
Though I hate to admit it, due to the slightly cluelessly reactionary sentiments associated with this aesthetic preference, there's more than a little of the cottagecore and the boho girly about me. I like the cosy, folksy, worldy and hippyish. On a faourite podcast, Sentimental Garbage, the hosts talked about how they found there was something moving in the fact they were delighted by the same silly decorative thing - is that case a pink tutu skirt - across all their ages. I liked that sentiment. That while its important and rewarding to be curious and open-minded to aesthetics outside your comfort zone, there's a core you linking back to when you were five and hahead to when you're 95. I'm always going to be the Tibetan prayer flags girl at heart.
At the same time I do have a strong aversion to twee. Maybe everyone does, they just draw the lines in different places. For me, my cottagecore hippy instincts get balanced out with a fondness for more modernist materials and a modernist (even industrial) honesty of material. I like plywood, OSB, concrete and plaster more than I like heavy varnished oak, turned table legs and carving. This small moodboard deomstrates about where the gauge sits for me, at least in terms of kitchens:
Even with the cottagecore tempered here by the plywood and the lighter colours, though, the above isn't a vibe that fits to a newbuild bones as readily it might, say, a Victorian terrace.
Seeking inspiration for how to square my aesthetic urges against the bones of the flat, and also against practicality, these are the kinds of images that get closest to what I think want, in particular for the bedroom and perhaps hall spaces:
These spaces feel both warm and airy to me, occupied by peole and things but not cluttered by them.
What I notice with these kinds of images is that while there is plenty of colour it's not really on the walls. These are people, like me, who own a lot of colourful mismatched things, so they have gone for a light and neutral backgroup to showcase and cohere it all. The fairly humble objects are showcased for all the charm and value the owners find in them. The bookselves are full of well-read, cheaply-printed books much like mine, but the design choices make them feel anything but a placeholder for posher books.
The materials and lines are more modernist or Scandi than old fashioned. Black-painted metal, pine veneer shelves on white brackets, wallpaint. To me these spaces feel friendly and full of personality without feeling stressfully cluttered, dark, and affected.
I've also been feeling inspired by a Youtube series called Never Too Small, in which designers (who are usually also the occupiers) of small appartments show off the choices they've made to make their spaces practical and beautiful. Far and away my favourite is the flat of Melbourne-based architect Daniel Dorall, which offers all the pleasures of one of those pencil cases where the pencil sharper would pop up and the eraser compartment slide out at the touch of a button - all without feeling like a novelty or an overcrowded caravan-like space. He also seems like a lovely, unpretentious man just really interested in the problem-solving of the exercise and maximising his ability to appreciate what he loves and values in life.
I've even gotten a few useful tips from this video as he's not afraid to utilise an Ikea hack or several. I'm having that flip down hook as hoor stop idea.
So I think I can find a version of my aesthetic which doesn't fight against the basic bones and choices already in place. With one exception: unfortunately, and expensively, I do think I'll have to get rid of those kitchen unit doors. I find them ugly and also obtrusive. Since my living room and kitchen are one room, and especially as that room isn't massive, it's important that the kitchen not feel too dominating or eyecatching especially in ways I find unattractive.
I want to replace them with plywood doors. There are companies who can cut plywood to size for you and even drill the hinge holes. It's no more expensive that buying pre-made doors, but sadly no less expensive either, and as such it's one item I've moved to the 'later' list.
One day I might also mess with the layout. The intergrated fridge freezer is pretty dominating to have right in the middle of the room like that, and I'd like to put it in the little space next to the door like this. It will mean moving a radiator from there, which shouldn't be too expensive, and detatching the current fridge-freezer housing from its neighbouring units and worktop which could be more troublesome.
So one for the 'much later' list. First it's painting and furniture and rugs and lighting and all the rest...
Yorumlar