We are Kirsten and JP, a couple ready to move to our next apartment located in The Hague, The Netherlands.
Our new apartment is currently being finished in a 132 apartment repurposing project of an old office building. The building is situated in the city centre (Wijnhavenkwartier) of The Hague and our apartment is on the North-West corner of the 17th floor, overlooking the city and the sea.
The apartment itself is a rental apartment (so no modifications possible) and stretched around 140 square meters with a 8 square meter balcony (the only downside as far as we can see). It’s one floor, three bedrooms and two bathrooms.
– Lifestyle: cosmopolitan. We travel a lot for business and pleasure and we love to understand and live the diversity of the world, but we’re not really into a lot of memorabilia (our memories are more important)
– Style: Nordic / Dutch design. We like clean, minimal and stylish but it shouldn’t become too minimal as a whole. We would like to try to integrate this style with a little colour and personality that gives warmth and makes it a home. We would like to have a calm, natural interior but with bright elements like cushions, vases, etc.
– Light: we love the floor to ceiling windows in this apartment because of the view and the huge amounts of natural light. Capturing that atmosphere in the lighting plan, to create a natural but comfortable and relaxing atmosphere, is a high priority for us
– Wall finish: all the walls are going to be white on delivery. Because of the brightness that we like in this apartment, we are seriously considering keep them white, but some walls may have another color shade as a contrast.
– Flooring: first off, the apartment has heated floors as the primary source of heating in the apartment. We have been looking at hard wood floors for the main areas of the apartment (everything except the bedrooms). Suggestions here are welcome, since we would also consider a solid coating floor throughout the house.
– Color: we love the natural light with clean and bright walls, but bright and happy colours in things like the couches, cushions, accessories, etc.
For the rooms, we have a pretty solid idea on how we want to use them. It will be just the two of us for now, but with enough room for guests.
1. The main living / kitchen will be the central point of our home. We love the light and we like to keep a spacious but comfortable feeling. The large windows are a main draw for us in this apartment and we would love to ‘keep the view’ and not put to many blocking objects in front of the windows. We usually spend the early morning in the kitchen during breakfast before we head out. In the afternoon and evening, the living room should be our relaxing area.
Although we really like each others company, we would also like to have people over. So the couch and sitting area should provide ample room, as well as the dining table where we like to be able to seat six people. The easy access to the balcony is also very important so we would like to prevent blocking the way to the balcony door.
Cooking is not our main forte, but if we do, we like to cook together or at least be able to talk and see each other. Another reason why we like this apartment with it’s integrated U-shaped kitchen. We would like to keep this open and integrate it as much as possible into the rest of the room.
2. Room number two will be our main bedroom and this one contains a walk-in closet. We want to buy a new double bed, but don’t know which one yet.
The bedroom contains a big window that get’s sun from around noon all the way till sundown. The view is OK, but not so cool that we need to keep it all costs. Since we have sun quite long, we really need some way to darken the room for sleeping.
3. Since we both work pretty flexible hours, we also work at home quite often. To be able to focus, we would like to turn room number three into a working environment. Essentials here are a standing & sitting desk, a relaxing chair and plenty of storage space to organise our tidbits and prevent them from spreading everywhere throughout our apartment. Just like in the living, easy access to the balcony is essential.
4. Room four should be our guest room. We would like to have a single or double be and plenty of space to relax. This room has easy access to the second bathroom so guest have a pretty self contained setup. When there are no guests, we would like to use this room as our comfortable hideout when we don’t want to see each other 🙂
For the other areas in the apartment, probably one of the most important things is the lighting. Since these areas (hallway, entrance, bathrooms, etc.) are the only ones that don’t have any natural light, we feel it’s important to pay extra attention to this.
