Feminine industrial apartment

This year, i had the pleasure of renovating a home for the loveliest young lady and her partner. The apartment is located in the center of Ljubljana and offers great views of the castle hill. When i first met the owner i fell in love with her vibrant yet relaxed energy and wanted to create a home that would reflect it. She craved a modern apartment with scandinavian industrial vibe, unexpected details and a collage of affordable and designer furniture pieces… All of which is coincidently my design dna so i could instantly envision the end result. The apartment has been previously updated many times but it really craved a complete makeover that would connect all of the spaces into a coherent home. The owner felt as some elements like the kitchen and the sofa were worth keeping and I naturally agreed; it makes no sense to waste perfectly useful pieces of furniture. The only challenge was to seamlessly incorporate them into the new design, which was easy enough to do with the sofa… The kitchen cabinets, however, were bright orange! Paired with old wooden dinig set, parquet flooring and orange wall the space looked really dated, but I could see the potential.The hallway was not that bad to begin with; it just needed some paint, cool hangers and a big mirror to make it appear larger.Windows were pretty dated and dark brown so we decided to exchange them for new, white ones that blend in with the walls and make the space look bigger. As far as floorplan goes, we didn’t really change much; we wanted to keep the flow of the space as fluent as possible while making the rooms warm and welcoming. Having in mind the fact that the bright orange kitchen cabinets were staying i wanted to gradually soften the color scheme from the strong, lively impact of the orange to the mellow relaxing grey tones of the bedroom.
In the bedroom, furniture and clutter is kept to a minimal to ensure the relaxing atmosphere. To still keep a little bit of industrial feel we chose black metal nightstands and lighting with the exposed vintage bulbs. The custom velvet bed and grey curtains add softness and let the wallpaper take center stage. The wallpaper covers the door as well, making it look practically invisible when closed.
In the bathroom, the goal was to create a bright, airy modern space which we managed quite well by installing a custom shower cabine and keeping the color palette simple. To keep the coherency of the whole apartment we chose to use the same tiles as for the kitchen backsplash and the contractor really had his hands full with installing the rhombus shaped tiles. Living room is designed pretty simple; consisting of black metal pieces and soft furnishings. Note, we exchanged the old brown radiators for sleek white ones that almost blend into the wall.
Apart from keeping the kitchen and the sofa, the owner wanted ample storage space for all of clothes, sports equipment and clutter. Therefore there are huge built in storage units running along the entire living room and bedroom wall. We wanted to avoid the storage looking too bulky so we kept them as minimal as possible – all white and without handles. The only thing we wanted to emphasise is the owners love of books so we incorporated some open shelving, differentiated from the rest of the storage space by this beautiful shade of dusty blue. The original kitchen lacked a proper backsplash so I designed a custom one using rhombus shaped tiles that spread up the wall in a fun pattern. To give the space as much scandinavian vibe as possible we paired the orange cabinets with minimalistic and industrial pieces; all in black, grey or white.
The wallpaper takes the center stage in the living room as well as in the bedroom.

Photos by Anže Vrabl

Many thanks to Formadoma, Kubus Interier, Yankee Candle Slovenija and Lesnina for letting me use the home accessories!