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Interior Inspiration: Our New Apartment
We finally added the finishing touches to our apartment and I can’t wait to share some impressions of our home with you. Six months ago I packed all my bags in Frankfurt after making the decision to finally move in together with my boyfriend. We had a long distance relationship for almost two years and it was clear that one of us had to make the move. Since I am more flexible with my job it was me in the end. I did not only move to a different city, but to a new country: To Rotterdam in the Netherlands to be exact. Read more about my move here.
We were quite lucky with the apartment that we found- it is really spacious, we have one spare room that I turned into my home office and what was important to me- a balcony. We are living close to the city center and still have free parking. The only downside was that there was a lot to do. We had to paint all the walls and lay the floor. As we are both not very handy with those things it took us quite some time. However now I can finally say that the apartment is finally finished, all we need to add is some more decoration.
As I am away with my job as a flight attendant quite a lot and still do a fair share of traveling in my free time, it was very important to me to create a place I feel hundred percent at home and like to return to. Luckily my boyfriend and I were pretty much on the same page when it came to furnishing the apartment and we picked most pieces together. Only with the wall color we had a bit of an argument: I was very keen on getting a ‘greige’ wall color, a mix between beige and grey, but he wanted to get a green-grey wall color. After coming back from a flight he had painted a big part of the apartment already and told me he had gotten my color, but somehow it turned out differently than expected. Truth was he had bought the color he wanted in first place 🙂
But now let the pictures speak for itself. I am trying to tag the pieces that I can still find online.
Welcome to our new apartment
This is the first thing you see when you enter our apartment. Our hallway is rather small, however we decided to get a big lamp and a mirror for it so it appears more bright and spacious.
Mirror: Ikea
Lamp: Straluma
The Living Room
Both of us are really into interior design and especially like the modern-industrial style. Therefore you will find a lot of metal, steel and glas in our apartment. Most pieces that my boyfriend picked are black, therefore I thought that it would be a nice contrast to choose the other pieces in white and white and black. I also liked to add a lot of plants to the apartment to make it look more fresh and lively. I mainly choose palm trees and cactuses as they don’t require too much water.
In a lot of pinterest pictures I saw the “Ben Ourain” carpet and really wanted to have one like that too. The original ones are handmade and therefore incredible expensive. I was so happy whenI found an almost exact copy in a Dutch hardware store. Who would have thought.
Our couch corner is definitely my favorite part of the apartment where you will probably find me the most, thanks to Netflix. The only piece that is still missing is a comfortable armchair that we want to add.
Couch: Second Hand
Carpet: KARWEI
Standing Lamp: KWANTUM
Couch Table: Ikea
Pillows: Ikea
Plant: Ikea
Map poster: mapiful
Another favorite piece of mine is the picture. I discovered mapiful a while ago and really wanted to get one of their map prints. You can literally choose any city in the world and then design the map according to your likings. A great idea for travel lovers: have a little reminder of your hometown or of your favorite cities hanging on your wall.
Our eating corner: I love to eat and I also love to try out recipes from all around the world and cook for friends. That’s why I found it important to have a big dining table. Once again you can see that we sticked with the industrial design. Black metal and wood. I added the grey chairs later to have a little bit more of color and there are also way more comfortable than those plastic chairs you also see a lot on instagram. On the table I always keep a big bowl with fruits to keep me from snacking unhealthy things.
Table: Straluma
Plastic Chairs: amazon
Grey Chairs: KWANTUM
Hanging Lamp: Straluma
We do like to drink a good glass of wine or two. Since we don’t have a wine cellar (yet 🙂 ), this has to do for now. We like to keep some special bottles on the wine rack and I do think the wine rack is a nice decor piece, almost a piece of art even.
Wine Rack: amazon
So what do we do in our free time? When we are not traveling we like to read or watch movies or series. My favorite series at the moment is Narcos. I am so addicted to Netflix. We also like to collect some nice art books and books with photography. One of our dreams is to travel to Japan together: That’s why we got some books with travel photography of Japan, which we like to pick up sometimes and plan our trip. The old camera I found on a flea market and even if it does’t function anymore I think it nice to look at.
TV Table: Ikea
Wallrack: woonexpress
This is my boyfriend’s nerd corner. He likes to collect whiskeys and comic books and this is his shrine basically 🙂 There are also one or two lego star wars figures.
My home office
We had one spare room and decided to turn it into a home office. I always wanted to have a space where I can spread out and be creative. This dream has finally become true. I think an office shouldn’t be too cluttered, therefore I kept it as clean and minimalistic as possible and chose the furniture in a white color. The travel books and polaroids remind me of my trips and are my source of inspiration.
Desk: Ikea
Chair: Ikea
Bookshelf: Ikea
Small Carpet: Sostrene Grenes
Big Carpet: From my travels in Laos
Lamp: amazon
Polaroids: clixxie
This is one of my favorite pictures that I took in Myanmar and it now hangs as big print in my home office. Instead of buying pictures I rather use my own ones and get them printed. So much more personal and brings back a lot of good memories when I look at it.
The Bedroom
We spend almost half of our lives with sleeping and therefore why not get a comfortable bed? I love the boxspring beds and always sleep extremely well in them in hotels. Our last investment for the apartment was a good boxspring bed as we thought that this would definitely last us quite some time. The pillows and bedding was a birthday present to my boyfriend from his sister. I love the grey in grey tones and the knitted overthrow. So pinterest-worthy 🙂
Bed: Swiss Sense
Bedding: H&M Home
Plaid: H&M Home
Carpet: Sostrene Grenes
The Balcony
I think it is so lovely that the apartment has a balcony. The flat I was living in in Frankfurt had one and I enjoyed it so much to sit outside in the summer, drink coffee and read a book. It wasn’t a criteria of mine that the new apartment needs to have a balcony, but it is nice to have. Last summer we were really busy with the inside of the interior and by the time we were finished it was already too cold to do anything with the balcony. So far we only have those sun chairs, but I would love to get a lot of plants, light bulbs and maybe some lounge furniture. My project for this year 🙂 Let me know if you have some ideas or know some cool pieces.
Beach Chair: Ikea
I hope you enjoyed this post. Very curious to hear what you think and let me know if you have some other ideas and inspiration for us.
Super schönes und gemütliches Zuhause! Besonders das Weinregal gefällt mir gut.
LG, Helen