Our house in spring

Spring is the season of new beginnings. One could take that very literally and pack up and move house, like my sister is doing this year and like the both of us have done so many times before. Perhaps slightly less daunting could be taking up a project in your home or simply coming up with a new activity that extends beyond your comfort zone.

As I let you know in my latest blog (The spring is new) a project isn’t easily too big for me. It usually entails starting all over, but this year I felt the need to not just start again, but to add a layer to that which former residents have established before me. Just like the great Dutch poet Herman Gorter had in mind when he wrote his masterpiece of May: to come up with something completely new that is part of bigger picture at the same time.

A new layer

When I was decluttering and clearing our apartment space in autumn, I noticed how very framed our house is. Every space is quite rectangular and (almost) all of our spaces have dado rails, inbuild closets or even original ensuite doors. Although it’s these features that make our house so characteristic, they leave very little room for imagination. There is basically only one possible lay out for each room, much to my disappointment, as I would love to just move stuff around all the time. We decided to just embrace this as a give fact, but at the same time break a little with the horizontality of it all, by adding moldings to the living room. I found and carefully followed a roadmap online by Praxis. A very helpful tool as they encouraged me to design from the midline of the wall, allowing me to come up with a great design I wouldn’t have thought of if I had done it from a scale model. After attaching the moldings to the wall with silicone sealant we had to paint anyway. Since our living room is facing north, our grey walls – albeit in a lovely colour we had used in our previous house as well – felt a bit gloomy, so we decided to paint them in a very fresh off white color with warmer undertone that would complement the wooden herringbone flooring.
But all white? That’s not for me. I wanted to add colour and decided to opt for a trend that has been going on for some time now. With dado rails already being put in place, we went for a coloured ceiling and top part of the wall, adding a sort of roof over our heads to make the living room feel friendlier and safer as it were. Coming from blue in our hallway we wanted to make the transition to the living room a harmonious one, by using a colour on the same side of the colour spectrum instead of a contrasting one. Since we already have a green sofa, green seemed to be the logical choice.

More greens

Finally, I decided to take better care of my plants. They typically don’t get a lot of light in winter, but admittedly, not a lot of love either. I put the plants who love the light in the south facing dining room and the ones who don’t need a lot of (direct) daylight in the north facing living room. I bought some beautiful new pots for the ones in the living room, big enough for our plants to be able to grow. Bonus: they match the new colour of the wall so perfectly, you would think I had the colour mixed especially (not the case, though).

It’s not easy being green

A green ceiling, a green sofa including green pillows and green plants all around might be a bit too much like we are living in a jungle. I thought it would be nice to add a different colour and considered colours we already have in other spaces of our home: bright blue (in our hallway), red (in our dining room and kitchen), but those seemed to be too contrasting. I took inspiration from one of my favourite home decoration shops called Circle of Home in Haarlem, which is run by my Feng Shui specialist. I opted for a nice lilac and added it mildly in just two pillows and some flowers. But that little touch of purple and lilac really spiced this spring living room up a notch.

How adding a layer helped me feeling new

Sitting in our renewed living room gives us a new but familiar feeling. The feeling of home, the feeling of togetherness, yet vibrant at the same time. It gives us the right energy to recharge as a family and feel safe to go out into the city, knowing we can always come home to our own sanctuary.

Shopping list

Want to use this inspiration for your own home? Check all brands below!

  • Walls in Dark Ice (Vestingh Paint)
  • Ceiling in Treron (Farrow and Ball)
  • Sofa Scandinavian Remix (Bolia)
  • Art pieces (Atelier de Rijk)
  • Green pillows (Zara Home)
  • Lilac pillows (Circle of Home)
  • Coffee Table (Gubi via Mobilia)
  • Side Table (Gubi via Mobilia)
  • Chair (Vintage, reupholstered with Kvadrat via Anne Spit)
  • Green Blanket (Enter the Loft)
  • Flower pots (Bolia)
  • Black yin vase (Enter the Loft)
  • Pendant light (Flos via Flinders)
  • Wooden dish on coffee table (Circle of Home)
  • Wooden dish on coffee table (Circle of Home)

All the rest gifted, brought home from travels or simply unknown.

What did you start this spring that made you feel all new?

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