As you know, we’ve recently bought a brand new flat, which now looks about that:
Flat 1Flat 2
Here you see a pond that’s just being created (from our bedroom balcony):
View on future pond
Since we’re planning to have it liveable very very soon, I spend my every waking moment designing, planning, looking for inspiration, ordering, changing, and convincing my husband (that’s the most time consuming part).
So today, let me share with you what will (almost certainly – see above: husband problems) become the color scheme for our main bedroom:
Generally, we plan on jewel tones (turquoise, teal, jade), with background of grey, cappucino, gold and/or black, and possibly accents of rich purple in accessories.
What do you think? Do you have any experience of living in dark spaces?
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Jak wiecie kupilismy niedawno nowe mieszkanie, w stanie deweloperskim (zdjecia powyzej).
Poniewaz planujemy mieszkanie doprowadzic do stanu uzywalnosci juz bardzo niedlugo, aby je jak najszybciej wynajac, praktycznie kazdy swiadomy moment spedzam obecnie na wyszukiwaniu, wybieraniu, planowaniu, projektowaniu, zmienianiu, zamawianiu i przekonywaniu meza (to akurat zajmuje najwiecej czasu 🙂 ) w ten weekend planujemy zdecydowac sie i zamowic wiekszosc sprzetow, mebli i oswietlenia do domu.
Powyzej moje inspiracje sypialniane. Jak widac, glownie ciemne, glebokie kolory klejnotow (jak to po polsku nazwac? jewel tones?) – turkus, szafir, szmaragd. Do tego szary, cappuccino i/lub zloty. Ewentualnie czarny ale obawiam sie jak taki kolor zachowuje sie w eksploatacji. No i zupelnie w ostatecznosci ciemny fiolet / purpura, moze jako przeciwstawne dodatki do turkusow.
…..co myslicie? Moze jakies inne inspiracje? Macie doswiadczenia z ciemnymi pokojami?
I don’t think I should even start apologizing for not being here for ages… so let us pretend those two months never happened 🙂
That would be difficult, though, as since the last post:
we finished and rented out our Polish flat within a week of posting the ad (which is a really good time in our market!),
both me and my husband started working at different companies (still within one corporation),
we moved offices to outside of London,
we moved houses in London to be closer to new offices
… and yesterday we have become owners of yet another flat in Poland :).
So this is a very exciting time for me and there is really lots going on. I am obviously going to share with you the ideas for the new flat, and can tell you straight away this is going to be tricky, as we want to finish the flat mostly remotely, and as of today there are only bare walls and windows there.
But! First things first, let me show you what we managed to do to our first flat around Christmas; we wanted to make it livable, so that it rents out quickly, on a budget of ca. £250:
bathroom
I guess you’ve seen some of our bathroom, especially the cupboard hand-made by my husband; to our great anger and despair, the glass maker did not manage to do the doors on time so our shelves are still open, but the rest was good to go:
Bathroom - view from entranceThe old trick - big mirror visually increases the size of this bathroom
bedroom
The bedroom, with the furniture set we got for free from a friend, a super-old retro ceiling lamp, and bits and pieces of decorating from my mum, with the only new element of the baroque-inspired white wallpaper to add just a teeny bit of glamour:
White bedroom with white glamour wallpaperDetailed view of the wallpaper
To complement the wallpaper, we have used a spare piece as wall art and put it in behind glass, all placed on an old shelf which I finished in a quasi-shabby-chic look. The throw also works the same theme as the wallpaper.
living room
Now, the living room, and to be completely honest this is the most haphazardly finished room ever 🙂 One feature wall covered in beautiful black wallpaper… though since it was our first time ever wallpapering, the results are far from perfect! Good tip – when working with a dark wallpaper, it’s much easier if you dab the areas on the wall, where wallpaper pieces will meet, in paint the colour of the wallpaper; this way even if your work isn’t perfect, the gaps between stripes will not be as visible as on our wall.
Living room - feature wall with black floral wallpaperLiving room - view towards the ornamental blinds
The rest of the room is my parents’ old sofabed under a new throw, a red ceiling light which was supposed to be comlemented with red wall art though we never put it up (don’t ask), my teenage bedroom set, a good old piano, a spare single bed that can be put away depending on the needs of the tenants and an Ikea Lack table 🙂 Plus the really pretty blinds which unfortunately do not show too well in this light – basically when it’s light outside, they seem very pale and creamy grey, but when it’s dark, additional silver elements show as well.
kitchen-diner
Finally, the kitchen-diner, with the infamous kitchen units which never got properly fitted together (so that the worktop still floats independently of the units, there is no steel strip at the bottom and a millon other sins we committed with it and haven’t tried to make up for yet). Nonetheless we like the kitchen and maybe, some time, in the distant future, we will finally put it together once and for all 🙂 There is also an extra loveseat and armchair in the other part of the room.
Light and dark wood kitchen with green wallsRetro kitchen oilcloth
Hall
…and our hall, unfortunately I have a photo only from the time when this ugly carpet was there (with the dog’s bone and toys prominently on display) so try not to notice them 🙂
Open hall with spotlights
So to sum up, this is certainly not the best example of interior design, but we tried to make the place nicer for the tenants than the usual offering but on a minimal budget, and the result was that we rented it out just a few days after we advertised it!
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Chyba nawet nie ma co zaczynac przepraszac za to ze mnie tu tak dlugo nie bylo, wiec moze zapomnijmy o tych dwoch miesiacach 🙂
Z drugiej strony byloby to trudne, gdyz od ostatniego postu:
wykonczylismy i wynajelismy nasze mieszkanie w PL w ciagu tygodnia od dania ogloszenia
zaczelismy z mezem prace w nowej firmie
zmienilismy biura
przeprowadzilismy sie w Londynie by latwiej dojezdzac
…i od wczoraj jestesmy wlascicielami nowego mieszkania w PL – a raczej wygralismy przetarg i teraz staramy sie jak najszybciej mieszkanie ‘przejac’ 🙂
Takze ten czas jest bardzo ekscytujacy i na pewno bede dzielic sie tu pomyslami na wykonczenie nowego mieszkania; juz teraz wiem ze nie bedzie to proste gdyz duzo chcemy wykonac lub zlecic ‘zdalnie’ z Londynu, a w tej chwili w mieszkaniu nie ma nic – stan deweloperski.
No ale! Zaczynac wypada od poczatku 🙂 wiec kilka slow o naszym pierwszym mieszkaniu. W okolicy Swiat Bozego Narodzenia postanowilismy zrobic ile mozemy w mieszkaniu by przygotowac je na wynajecie. Niestety czasu bylo malo a budzet juz zupelnie ograniczony (troche ponad 1tys. zl) wiec spedzilismy troche czasu wymyslajac co mozna zrobic by we w miare przyzwoitym stanie mieszkanie wynajac.
Zdjecia powyzej pokazuja rezultaty naszej walki z nieterminowymi sprzedawcami (czytaj: brak szklanych drzwi do szafek w lazience) i bardzo ograniczonym budzetem (czytaj: wykorzystanie naszych starych mebli, mebli ktore dostalismy od znajomych, odmalowanie kilku rzeczy, samodzielne kladzenie tapety ze skutkiem mieszanym – hej! robilismy to po raz pierwszy ok?? – i kilkoma drobnymi nowymi zakupami). Kilka rzeczy dalej nieskonczonych, typu kuchnia (caly czas nieprzykrecony blat i brak cokolow, nieoslonieta sciana i inne takie), te nieszczesne szafki w lazience (szklo to jedyne czego moj maz sam w tej lazience zrobic nie moze, i cholera tak nawalili 😦 ), oraz totalny misz-masz stylow i kolorow w duzym pokoju.
Zdecydowanie nie jest to przyklad swietnego designu ale biorac pod uwage ograniczenia czasowe i finansowe jestem w miare zadowolona z efektu, i obecni najemcy mam nadzieje tez.
Budget yellow bedroom - IKEA, Leroy Merlin and Allegro.pl
Another design for the yellow bedroom – all in all (together will wallpaper not shown) I managed to keep cost down to minimum, not compromising on looks or comfort. We’ll see what the clients will say (after getting a cleaner version). I used the ‘Meduza’ lamp I wrote about after my trip to Poland.
Since I’m dead and really need some sleep, that’s it for now 🙂
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Kolejna wersja zoltej sypialni – z uzyciem lampy Meduza o ktorej juz pisalam. Poniewaz padam ze zmeczenia, na dzis tyle, chetnie uslysze komentarze 🙂
I can’t believe how many great products and designs I’ve seen on my last trip to Poland. The interior design market is changing there rapidly, and there aren’t that many new trends that you can’t find there now; even better – most of them are available at high street retailers, making great design available for many!
But before we go into the New, first let us talk about the Old. First, a find stil bought in the UK, but which I envisage to place in the yellow bedroom I was describing some time ago. For now to keep you in suspense – still in packaging, you will see the final effect when all is ready! This vintage glamour / shabby chic mirror frame cost peanuts and is absolutely amazing; I found it on iBootSale and picked up the next day. As it turned out, it was too big even for my mutant-huge suitcase, so had to ship with DHL. But it was worth it, the new owners are thrilled to have it!
As we’re with vintage, when we visited my in-laws, I was in heaven. Here are some more finds. First, the sideboards, etc that my husband’s grandfather hand made some years ago (he was even taking carpenter order for those for local people, and funnily enough I saw a very similar one in some other garage when cycling through the village):
I’m planning to sand it, paint in a delicate pastel colour, add a few embellishments and generally keep it shabby chic / country. Whether for me or someone else – I don’t know yet!
Handmade vintage sideboard by my husband's grandfather
This is another beauty, with more bite to it and gorgeous handles… there is also a sideboard top in another shed but in much worse condition – still there is a chance 🙂
Handmade vintage sideboard by my husband's grandfather
Loads of those around as well… I’ve seen some very nice decors of country kitchens with stove door as a decoration on the wall:
Vintage stove door
…and finally our finds from a nearby house that is being refurbished – a vintage double shelf and an old radio which I am thinking about converting into a night stand. They were just being thrown away so hopefully they will get a second chance 🙂
Vintage find - old double shelfVintage find - old radio frame
And now last truly vintage items. Not obviously planning to do that, and with ideas ranging from ghost chairs to mismatched vintage, we bought 8 chairs 🙂 When we first got into this antique shop, we just came in to browse, and then we came across the two beauties:
…the raspberry-peach louis-style chairs, eight
Raspberry Louis style glamour chair
…and the black and golden stylized chairs (19th c. Art Noveau style), six
Black and golden 19th century Art Noveau style chairs
I couldn’t decide which ones are better. The raspberry ones worked well with my idea, and I even considered such chairs (with different upholstery); they are also much easier to fit with many styles; glamour, eclectic, shabby chic, etc. The black ones, though, were absolutely original and different to what you normally find, but would not suit our space as they would really require it to be much more upscale than we planned for.
But we couldn’t decide, as both sets were gorgeous. We also had to think through whether they really will work well, how much they will influence other design elements in the house, even what are we going to do with this number of chairs 🙂 At some point we wanted to get both sets, as the black ones were dirt cheap. Having slept over the night dreaming about them, we took a decision – we go again and we buy one set that will work best.
Raspberry Louis style glamour chair
At closer inspection, it turned out that the black chairs were very uncomfortable – what looked as well-formed foam was in fact a nicely shaped plank, or some other piece of wood, and the seats were darn hard. Also, the paint was peeling off at the teeniest touch, and someone actually painted (probably with spray) over part of the fabric at the back. There were a few other elements we didn’t like either.
Generally unhappy about the quality, we turned to the raspberry set. Gosh, that was comfortable 🙂 Very soft, stable, and sturdy in construction; after being told the shop can pressure-clean them, and having got a super-discount, decision was taken and they are OURS! Of course they need re-upholstering and a new coat of finish (and maybe crystal buttons?), but after cleaning they can even serve as they are for the time-being (meaning: when they are in the shed waiting until we move back to Poland, but no one knows when!).
Raspberry Louis style glamour chair
Their versatility will allow me also to use one for a work desk, and another two can work very well with some retro or modern couch.
My mother-in-law even suggested some fabrics for upholstery from her own collection:
Golden and cream upholstery for the chairs
OK! Enough of vintage, I will show you what I found in shops next time 🙂
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Az mi trudno uwierzyc ile przepieknych i oryginalnych produktow i projektow znalazlam w czasie mojego ostatniego pobytu w polsce. Rynek wnetrzarski i projektowania wnetrz naprawde jest teraz ciekawy, i niewiele zostalo jeszcze designow ktorych w Polsce nie mozna teraz znalezc. Co lepsze – dostepne sa w zwyklych sklepach, nie u drogich importerow, dzieki czemu dostep do nich ma w koncu wiele osob.
Ale zanim o nowosciach, troche o starociach. Najpierw przepiekna stara rama, na skrzyzowaniu glamour i shabby chic, ktora planuje powiesic w zoltej sypialni o ktorej kiedys pisalam. Znalazlam ja za grosze na iBootSale i odebralam nastepnego dnia. Niestety okazala sie za duza nawet na moja gigantycznie zmutowana walize, wiec poleciala do Polski DHLem. Ale bylo warto – rama bardzo spodobala sie nowym wlascicielom!
Juz w Polsce najpierw odwiedzilismy tesciow. Moja radocha nie miala konca gdy zajrzalam do stodoly, obory, i innych skrytek. Znalazlam na przyklad dwa przepiekne kredensy / komody zrobione wlasnorecznie przez dziadka mojego meza (robil je tak dobrze ze nawet przyjmowal zamowienia od okolicznych mieszkancow, i faktycznie – rowerujac sobie przez wioske znalazlam w innym garazu bardzo podobny kredens!).
Z kremowa lub pastelowa farba i krysztalowymi galkami beda przepiekne 🙂 (choc ta mniejsza komoda sama z siebie ma piekne raczki wiec moze zostana). Jeszcze nie wiem czy znajda miejsce u mnie (w koncu 59m2 ma swoj limit!) czy jednak u kogos innego…
Mnostwo jest takze drzwiczek od starych piecow kaflowych, ktore pieknie moznaby wkomponowac w kuchnie wiejska.
…a na spacerze kilka domow dalej trwal remont, gdzie wsrod wyrzuconych smieci znalazlam piekna podwojna polke i rame starego radia (ktora byc moze stanie sie stolikiem nocnym). Cuda nad cudami 🙂
No i w koncu – ‘niechcacy’ kupilismy krzesla 🙂 no nie moglismy sie oprzec. Zastanawialismy sie nad dwoma zestawami – malinowo- brzoskwiniowymi Ludwikami, oraz czarno-zlotymi z przelomu XIX/XX wieku, w stylu secesyjnym. Przyznaje ze bardziej za serce w pierwszym momencie chwycily secesyjne, choc od razu wywietrzylam problem. Te krzesla mocno narzucaja swoj styl, ktory jest duzo bardziej elegancki niz planowalismy. Z kolei ludwiki jak to ludwiki – pasuja do wielu wnetrz (eklektyczne, glamour, shabby chic, i inne), wygladaja dobrze nawet z nowoczesnymi (szklo, plastik itd)…
…przespalismy sie z problemem, w pewnym momencie nawet uznajac ze moze kupimy oba zestawy. No ale przy drugim obejrzeniu okazalo sie ze jakosciowo te czarne nie sa najlepsze… i mocno niewygodne. Oczywiscie byloby to do zmiany ale juz nas tak nie zachwycaly jak dzien wczesniej. Malinowe (choc siedzenia bardziej w brzoskwinke wpadaja) ludwiczki za to jak najbardziej wygodne, i nawet sprzedawca dorzucil profesjonalne pranie zeby troche ich jeszcze pouzywac tak jak sa. No i je wzielismy 🙂
I tak przyda im sie nowa tapicerka z pelniejszym wypelnieniem, krysztalowe guziczki (moze) i nowy lakier, ale poniewaz na razie i tak stoja w schowku czekajac na lepsze czasy czyli nasz powrot do PL (kiedy? kiedy??…) to moga byc 🙂 Planuje jednego uzyc do biurka, i sa odpowiednio ozdobne by pasowac tez przy retro czy nowoczesnej kanapie. Kochana tesciowka odlozyla juz nawet material ktorego moglabym uzyc na obicie i inne dodatki, ale to juz zalezne bedzie od ostatecznej koncepcji. Juz sie nie moge doczekac!
No! To tyle tego vintage. W nastepnym poscie przechodzimy do nowosci jakie znalazlam 🙂
Interior Design inspirations by Indywiduum Design 