The owner of this apartment, Julia, is passionate about decorating apartments. Together with her husband, they bought a two-room apartment in the historical center of St. Petersburg. The condition of the housing left much to be desired, but our heroine was not afraid of the difficulties and organized the repairs on her own. It turned out to be an incredibly beautiful and cozy space with cool features.
We have long dreamed of buying an apartment in the center and renovating it: we wanted the old building in order to face all the difficulties of renovation. We found the apartment by chance; the ad didn’t even have a photo of the arched window. There were two photographs of the apartment – the house itself and a piece of the bathroom. We went for luck, but when I saw the arched window, I said – we are buying this apartment!
Next was the choice of builders: on one day they specially invited a large number of teams and checked, asked the same questions, looked at who took with them a level, a laser, a meter tape. Small details, but they say a lot. We chose a guy who came in with a suitcase and a bunch of all sorts of gadgets – we knew right away that this was our man.
A team of designers also helped us with the drawings: it is important not to skimp on this, it is better to delegate the drawings to specialists, otherwise they will set you up in such a way that you will have to redo everything. We also turned to lawyers for help to legalize the redevelopment of the apartment, I’ll tell you about this in detail.
Initially there were two rooms: we made a double room, a combined kitchen with a living room, a separate bedroom, two wardrobes, a combined bathroom and a separate laundry room. The ceiling height is 3.20, but we stole 20 cm, so we have 3 meters, since we ran all the electrics along the ceiling and made drywall.
We made a very functional circular layout: you can walk around the entire apartment in a circle and return to the starting point. Instead of an empty corridor, which is usually not used in any way, we made a walk-through wardrobe – the same corridor, only closed on both sides.
This is my second full-scale renovation, plus I’m decorating apartments – I already have a trained eye, I can walk into Leroy Merlin with my eyes closed. When choosing a design, we were inspired by Pinterest. There is also a life hack: the apartment itself gives clues; you need to look at the house itself, at the view from the window, at the front door.
This apartment asked for nothing but a classic interior with moldings, ceiling moldings and herringbone parquet. I wanted to recreate this entire classic interior and play with modern details.
I diluted the classic interior with slightly crazy details, modern posters, futuristic furniture, a polka dot carpet and, for dessert, a pink bathroom.
The arched window is the main figure in the apartment. Of course, here it was necessary to make the main room of the house – the living room. I knew right away that we would combine the kitchen with the living room and create one bathroom. I love large bathrooms and combined ones.
I really don’t like bulky kitchens with a bunch of upper cabinets: I like to use minimal space. Instead of upper cabinets, you can make shelves. We bought the kitchen from the Harmony factory .
It was important to organize storage under the sink: we purchased a very convenient sliding trash can that opens when the door is opened, and pull-out shelves – they are installed very easily, you don’t even need to drill anything.
About the living room
My advice is to experiment with paintings. Don’t be afraid of bright decisions and remember that if the painting you want doesn’t exist, you can create it yourself. For example, the painting Where is my mind hanging in the living room was partially made by me – I ordered the poster separately, the frame separately (I needed an aged one), and also plexiglass, because the frame was sold separately. The result is a full-fledged painting that cannot be bought anywhere.
Forget about the rules here: you don’t have to buy two bedside tables – you can have one and an accent one. A work area was also thought out here.
Lifehack: buy additional aesthetic boxes or baskets to store all kinds of chargers, headphones and wires. To ensure that nothing overloads the surface, you can buy one beautiful container, put all the little things in there and put it on your desktop.
We decided to divide the wardrobes into two. The first is outerwear and shoes, the second is everyday items and underwear. Still, dirt from the street and other disadvantages are present – I didn’t want to interfere with one space. Although initially we thought about one wardrobe, but a large one.
You may have noticed that I have bouquets of dried flowers throughout my apartment: it’s very convenient – I bought it for life. You can create beautiful compositions: in the hallway there is a huge vase with a bouquet, and on the bedside table there is also such decor.
An intercom without a handset is also one of the best and most convenient repair solutions. I just pressed the button and that’s it – no tubes on the wires. I bought it on OZON, it comes in different colors.
Next, it was very important for me to create a separate laundry room: I love cleaning and when the house is clean, so I wanted a separate utility room, a dryer and washing machine in a column, and also a place where all household chemicals would be stored.
We came up with the idea of making a laundry room in the bathroom and building two square meters for it. Everyone tried to dissuade me – why make so many walls? But it was important to me that it was a separate small room. I don’t like cabinets – I don’t have them in my apartment, except for the kitchen ones.
In the bathroom I wanted to play with color. After all, the bathroom is the room where you can safely experiment.
Since my husband and I live in the same household, we made two sinks – this was one of the best decisions in the renovation. Insanely convenient: even when you both come in from outside and go to the bathroom to wash your hands, no one crowds around the sinks. Everyone can wash their hands safely in their own sink.
