Interiors: a family’s nest in the city

Living in a big city and strapped for space? You’re not alone. In this Amsterdam apartment, we helped Noémie and Shu make the most of their space and create a cozy home for their growing family.

When I met Noémie in November 22, she was expecting her second child and facing an issue all too common to inhabitants of big cities: lack of affordable space. When moving is not an option, it’s time to get creative with the space you have and that’s where we come in. With a clever layout and calming aesthetics, we helped Noémie make the most of her space and create a cozy nest for her young family.

Noémie, her husband Shu and their 3-year-old daughter Lily-Rose had been living in the 90m2 apartment for a few years already and they loved their light-filled, characteristic 1930 home. Moving to a larger home would have meant looking much further out of the city, far from the Watergraafsmeer neighborhood where they felt at home. However, with the arrival of their second baby due in a few months, the lack of space was starting to weight on their daily lives. The major challenges? The size of the bedrooms of 6 and 9m2, and the absence of practical storage which led to cluttering.

The first decision was to swap the bedrooms, moving the parental bedroom into the 6m2 so the girls could share the 9m2 one. With a shoebox feeling and hardly the width to fit a queen-size bed, making the 6m2 space look cozy was a real challenge. We addressed this by designing an alcove with an Ikea headboard with Plum Living doors which helped define the space while adding much-needed overhead storage.

We added shelves on the side to display books and carefully curated objects. Noémie chose the Etoffe wallpaper and the Hubsch wall mirror to complement the Moka color of the cupboards. Adding a vertical separation on the left side of the bed, symmetrical to the cupboard on the right, really tied the space together and made it feel grounded and peaceful.

In the girls’ bedroom, we helped Noémie optimize the layout, working around the constraints of the room: the whole wall-length window, the old fireplace duct and the wall radiator. We created two distinct sleeping corners for the children while maximizing the play area in the middle to allow space to play. This made the most of the available square meters and really allowed the tasteful decoration picked by Noémie for her daughters to shine. Complete with a new wardrobe on the landing which replaced open clothes rack, the bedrooms floor feels serene and propitious to rest and play.

The living room is the family’s favorite spot in the house, and also functions as a home office for Noémie. To make the most of this multi-purpose room, we defined distinct zones based on their function: a play area for the girl, a wall dedicated to storage, Noémie’s office corner, and the lounge area for the family with the sofa and library next to it - a must have in this book-loving family. To address the storage issue, we placed Ikea’s Bestä cabinets at ceiling height and used Plum Living fronts for a higher end look. The result is a joyful and airy space where the young family can enjoy time together.

It has been a pleasure working with Noémie on this project and we are in love head over heels with how gorgeous it turned out. The biggest compliment for any of our interior design projects to us is to hear that people enjoy living in the space, and that is certainly the case here.

Thank you Noémie & Shu for trusting us with your home!

Noémie is also a talented photographer and content creator, check out her work on Noémie Memories.