One of my favorite things to do about my work is giving interior design consultations. Last year I spent two months in the Netherlands and I had the pleasure to do a consultation. Now that I think about it I should have sell myself better those two months over there. But I was also doing a course, so I was basically focusing a bit more on that. Anywho….
I was asked to give some ideas on how to get this apartment up and running. I do have to say that this “client” is a friend of mine, so it was with pleasure to go to The Hague and have the consultation with her. She just got her keys to her new apartment. It was a new-build apartment building, so she needed flooring to wallcovering to window covering. It’s a rental but with some freehand to do whatever you would like to do.
But she managed to get it completely in her style. She’s not one to take on vivid colors and run wild with it. She wanted something simple but yet stylish. We did every room, but I’m going to focus on the living space in this post.
She already bought her sofa a few months prior and that was in storage. So I used the color of the sofa to create a color pallet in her living space. She’s not into the bright colors, but I wanted to add color in her space to add some playfulness.
I first planned out the layout of the furniture before going into the color scheme. You need to plan that first out before going into details of colors. Because of the shape of the sofa and the location of the windows and outlet of the TV, the bestest way to place the sofa was in the center of the room. Making it also a divider in the room (dividing the kitchen and the living room).
The space between the kitchen and the living room isn’t big, so to take less space I suggested to go with a round table instead of a rectangle table. Adding a round element in the space is also a way to soften all the straight lines.
One other color I picked was just staring her in her face. Yes, the other color was already in the room. The color of the window frames was a beautiful soft green. And it was a great color to combine with grey. For the walls, I suggested just plain white. Giving her a calm atmosphere. So now her color pallet was grey, white and olive green.
TIP ONE:
Check if the window supplier (or the owner of the building) can check out the RAL code of the color of the window/door frame. With that color code you can go to any paint supplier and ask them to make the paint color for you in that exact color shade. Or you can take any product with a particular color and let them scan it so they can make the same color (the nearest color) for you in paint.
She had then 3 base colors. With that in mind, she could add some extra colors of her choice. Her pop of color of choice was the blue-ish (kind of blue sea color). The blue came from the TV cabinet. And she preceded to let it go through in her room like in the rug, plant pot and window treatment. The last color that pulled it all together was the color black. How so? Like the hanging pendant, dining table & chairs legs, the plant holder, the wall shelves and the mirror.
TIP TWO:
Seek out your pop-up color in your furniture or art work in your space. This way the color will come back in subtle way or with a bang (it’s your personal choice).
The last touch was in the hallway. She was all happy that she managed to be okay with the color in the living space. I asked her if she didn’t want some color in the hallway, as it would be then too white. I suggested to paint the wall next to the entrance door, which is a not a broad wall in the same color as the door. This green is a bit more brighter than the one in the living space. But she forgot to paint it.
So I suggested to add a wallpaper. She wasn’t a fan at first, because she couldn’t imagine one there. We went shopping for something else and I saw this wallpaper. It was exactly the green like the door. I told her she needed to buy it asap. It had the color pallet from the hallway in it; the grey from the floor, the white from the wall and the (exact) green from the green entry door.
She went for it and it is her little statement wall in the entrance. Once it was on the wall she loved it. Because it’s also where she later decided to hang her coats and stuff, the wallpaper isn’t in her face.
All by all, with the advice she got from the consultation, she managed to pull it off in her own time. With some extra guidance through whatsapp (she’s in Holland and I’m on Curacao), it became her own little space.
*First four photos send by her. Last taken by me (all photos are taken with a mobile phone).
