Our city pad
2 people. One 2-bedroom city apartment. No furniture. Blank canvas.
I’ve been living in my new city pad for, oh, 3 weeks now, and its time to start designing the place. I’ve decided to document this process as a new feature on my blog. Dearest blog readers, I don’t want to build up hopes that my interior designs will come even close to the fabulous Sarah Richardson (love you, Sarah!). But I’m going to give this blank canvas a go and make it a bit more like home.
In London we lived in a fun old one-bedroom flat on the main floor of a Victorian house near the Thames. It was, by our best guestimate, 400 square feet. We also had a lovely little garden outside, which made the 400 itty bitty square feet bearable. My style is definitely more suited to a Victorian older house. Which therefore presents my current challenge.
Flash forward 1 year and we are now in the heart of a North American city in our new city apartment. This is a temporary solution while we get to know this city and where we want to be, however, I want more than a place to drop my bags at the end of a work day. I want to create a home. I have no idea how to take my design aesthetic and apply it to an urban, modern place. I’m a little baffled and daunted to say the least!
My goals for this project include:
- Sustainability: Re-use, refurbish, re-fabulous as much as possible
- Hominess: You know that feeling when you enter a space and it feels comfy, alive, healthy, happy, loved.
- Personal touches: Using inspiration from our passions, travels, values and personality to infuse our place with ‘us’.
I’m using a variety of design places for inspiration. Some of my favourites are Ideal Home magazine (UK), Design Sponge (US), and sadly, the now defunct Domino magazine. If anyone knows of any other great places for inspiration that have a similar aesthetic, I would love to hear about it.
Over the next week I am going to put together some design story boards for inspiration. I did this for my wedding and it saved time, anguish and money when making decisions mid-way through the design process.
That’s it for me. Now over to the design magazines for the evening! Thanks for stopping in!
Sounds fantastic. Love your storyboarding process and your re-use ethic – it’s so nice to do that rather than to go to shops and buy new stuff. Does TO have some good antiques markets or other places you can get interesting and unique items?
Can’t wait to see the boards!