Video tour: a 114 m² apartment designed for a family with a teenager

A video tour of a 114 m² apartment, an interior designed by the ARTEVRIKA studio for a family with a teenager. The host of the channel shows the apartment, and Nadezhda Guseva, co-owner of the studio, walks through every space and explains the decisions, from the dark ceiling in the living room to the way the bed is dressed in the bedroom.

Below is the full transcript of the conversation: come back to any part of the video to look at a detail again.

About the project

Nadezhda. Hello!

I'm Nadezhda Guseva, co-owner of the ARTEVRIKA design studio and school. This is a 114-square-metre apartment for a young, dynamic couple with one child.

It used to be an apartment with three separate rooms. We merged one room with the kitchen, which gave us a shared kitchen and living-dining space that comfortably fits fifteen people. We also set aside a separate master suite, a separate children's room and a guest bathroom.

In our work we set ourselves two big tasks. The first is working with the space: assessing what it gives us, how much we can do with door openings, windows, ceiling height and air. We also factor in the lighting scenarios for each room at this stage.

The second thing our work is based on is the clients' values. Our clients are into sport, they read a great deal, they work on themselves and they travel a lot. That is where the design decisions came from.

Living room

Nadezhda. If you noticed, we took an unusual approach to the ceilings. The space itself gave us a small ledge above the windows, and we used it: we came up with the idea of a jewellery box, with a dark frieze and ceiling. It's incredibly cosy.

There's a common belief that dark ceilings lower a space or feel heavy. That's simply not true, because a ceiling still reads as grey once colour elements sit on it, however much you paint it white. On our projects we use paints from Derufa: we have our favourite greys, ones that don't turn green or purple but stay a proper, neutral grey. It's the “Interior 20” paint, and it's very easy to clean.

The interior's palette is kept to architectural colours: grey, white and black. We placed the accents with a restrained terracotta. It comes through a little brighter in the dining area, echoes here and there in the decor, appears faintly in the children's room and, of course, in the bedroom. So one accent colour runs through the whole project. That is the right way to do it, and it reads clean.

You can see how we work with rhythm and texture here. To pick out the zones we used relief panels, which really helped create an interesting play across the walls. We needed to line these panels up with the furniture, but we didn't do that in advance and let them run down further. So when we came to integrate the furniture, the joiners had to work some magic too: they had to create a matching pattern on the cabinetry. I feel for the joiner, but look at how elegant it all ends up looking.

Pavel. And how did you arrive at this detail, the sockets and switches?

Nadezhda. Also Orac: a U-shaped profile that we filed down and turned into a little frame.

It's worth noting that the project budget was agreed right at the start, and we stuck to it strictly. When we were drawing up the visuals, down to every vase and every piece of decor, we accounted for all of it in the cost estimate.

Pavel. Doesn't a cost estimate usually tend to grow? Especially given the current situation, I'd imagine this renovation would cost more now?

Nadezhda. Yes, it grew a little, but not by much. And that was a key requirement from the client, so we kept to it. Because the task isn't to stack one brand on another, it's to allocate the budget so that everything is done properly and the accents are of good quality.

I'll also share a trick for designing a compact living room. Even though we merged the space and got a large volume, we couldn't fit a standard zone with a big armchair here. This is where the contrast principle comes in: there's a big, deep upholstered sofa, and an armchair we fondly call “the ant”. It stands on thin legs, it's just a loose piece of cognac-coloured leather, and it works against the sofa through contrast. When you walk into the living room, you don't get the sense of walking into a large mass; you're walking into a semi-transparent volume that also lets the light through.

The same goes for the coffee table: if a solid table had gone here, it would have squeezed the living room too, giving a sense that there wasn't much space. We deliberately put a weightless glass table here instead.

Pavel. What brand is the armchair?

Nadezhda. It's our favourite go-to brand for projects, La Redoute, and the table is from there too. It's also fairly affordable, and that's the trick. There's a story behind it: convincing a client to buy something they haven't seen in person isn't easy, and the brand doesn't have a showroom in our city yet. The clincher was that a fashion blogger did an outfit review with the armchair in shot against a white background. I sent the screenshot and said: “Pavel, look, here it is in real life, it's great, it's stylish.” In the end, once he got it, he couldn't wait to bring it up to the apartment. He unpacked it in the car park, filmed it and sent it over: “Nadezhda, it's great.”

We take decorating interiors very seriously. We really don't like ready-made decor pieces from dubious manufacturers; we have our own art workshop, where we make one-off decor for our projects. Behind me are two white squares. You might not see it straight away in this light, but they have depth, and four lines converge at a single point. Our clients work on themselves and travel to retreat centres, and in the evening, sitting on the sofa, even with the backlit TV switched off, these panels set a contemplative, philosophical mood.

Pavel. And what's this sofa, it looks suspiciously familiar?

Nadezhda. We're very careful choosing upholstered furniture, because a sofa has to last, be comfortable, and not lose its shape over time. This is one of our favourites, the Magnus model from Mononova. Notice how elegant it is. Standing on legs is its first feature: it lets air through underneath and reads as light. In compact spaces you can't place massive sofas that sit straight on the floor, like the ones from the wonderful Italian company Living Divani. We've visited their factory, and of course their pieces are built for minimalism and huge spaces. In any compact space that kind of sofa immediately looks like a brick, and it's a sad mistake that keeps turning up from project to project among beginner designers. The second reason is convenience: we have a robot vacuum cleaner doing the cleaning, and it needs room to get under the furniture.

Here the rough ceiling height was 2900 mm. We dropped it by 10 centimetres to fit the recessed unit in this area; we didn't want to lose height. What's more, from the start, given the budget, we didn't design a ventilation system here: in the hallway zone the drop goes to 2650 mm for standard ventilation, while here it's an air conditioner.

One contractor made all the cabinetry on this project, which is incredibly convenient. The bookcase is fairly simple and understated, which was an important requirement from the client: he said, “Nadezhda, I read a lot and I want to see my books.” On that side we have a walk-in wardrobe, and on this side the cabinet is recessed. A small tip: when your library has books of all different sizes but you still want it on show, just arrange the books in blocks by colour, a white block, a black one, a colourful one, a neutral one. That way the shelves will look tidy.

Everyone who's dealt with merging spaces has run into this detail: the ends of load-bearing walls that can't be removed to fully clear an opening. Most often we neutralise it with our favourite graphite-toned mirror. But there's a nuance to working with it. We don't just glue it onto a finished pier, we form a small recess to the thickness of the mirror sheet, with a metal angle on both sides, so you never see the raw edge of the glass, and there's no risk of knocking it while carrying furniture and chipping it.

Kitchen and dining area

Nadezhda. Here we are in the dining and kitchen space. Here we allowed ourselves a bit of romance with a light fitting by Slamp, an unusual play of plastic textures. And here we brought in colour. It's a restrained one, timeless, and we don't even need to talk about trends, because terracotta, olive, chocolate and ochre always contrast well and bring warmth to a neutral palette.

Our kitchen is architectural, it acts as the backdrop for this zone. We designed it entirely to our own drawings, and it was built by a company called Kubatura, who did an excellent job. The branded appliances in this kitchen are fairly economical, and Kubatura is good at responding to that kind of brief: coming up with something, making up the difference. We'd drawn up two identical volumes, but once we chose them, they didn't match in size, so we filled the gap with a black glass filler strip, and visually they read as one.

Pavel. I thought there was some kind of vacuum sealer in there?

Nadezhda. No, a vacuum sealer was there as an idea, but for the sake of visual balance it was too expensive a solution. The worktop on the kitchen and the island is “Elegron” in a slate finish, postforming. It's a fairly economical solution, but in my view it looks very decent, and it's practically indestructible, so it's the best option for the island and for the splashback and worktop alike. Every designer knows that designing a kitchen is like designing a car: there's so much to account for. But we started from the need for air. Graphite mirror is our favourite material; I use it on almost every project to add depth. Notice that when you turn round, when you're cooking or washing up, you're not looking at a wall or cabinets but at the city.

It's worth noting that the starting conditions of the space are wonderful: the number of windows. Four windows across the kitchen, living and dining area, and we really didn't want to cover them with fabric, so we found some interesting shading solutions: curtains, like in the sofa zone, and black blinds.

One of our signature moves: we never put the bin under the sink. First, it matters on an energy level. Anyone familiar with Vastu Shastra will know that rubbish isn't disposed of where there's a source of water; the two processes shouldn't sit too close together on an energy level. And if you apply some critical thinking, think about where this standard “sink with a bin underneath” arrangement came from in the first place.

Pavel. From cramped old apartments?

Nadezhda. Of course, from cramped old apartments. These entrenched misconceptions need pushing back on when you actually have the space. We all know that when you're cooking and chopping, you constantly need the bin, and if it's exposed there, or a bulky pull-out bin is in the way, that becomes inconvenient. That's why we always place the bin away from the sink. Under the sink we keep cleaning products and the water filter. We already have plenty of closed storage, and we deliberately left some open space here for everyday use.

The kitchen furniture is by Caligaris, which is a balance of good design and flexibility for a project: you can choose any type of finish. The island is planned so three people can fit comfortably: the “breakfast” scenario. Closest to the cook's right hand is the nearest serving point for both the dining zone and the island: the cutlery. The dishwasher is right there too, and further along, drawers and storage. Here we have a filler strip: as usual, where a radiator or a windowsill projects out, that's a blind filler panel on the cabinetry, but here it's a pull-out basket instead. The kitchen is small in area but very functional: it earns its keep with every movement.

Pavel. What lighting scenarios does the kitchen have?

Nadezhda. We measured the island lighting so it never shines into anyone's eyes while they're seated, and instead lights the table setting and the plating, plus lighting for the work zone, a neutral strip built into the mirror. Once again: decor should bring positive emotions, make you dream or smile. Take this lovely planter and its “hair”; we chose the plant for it specifically, and it will keep growing into a kind of cap. The star of the kitchen zone is the twisting steel, a signature technique combining three types of metal finishing: honest metal that creates an unusual play of light and shadow. We developed this whole composition together with Kubatura. They built the bar unit, which is almost invisible during the day, but has a warm LED strip built in that works in the evening as festive lighting for the dining area.

Hallway

Nadezhda. Our studio's approach to designing an entrance area is always about the first impression of the space. If you walk into a catacomb of corridors and only then does the space open up, that's not particularly skilled design work. It's much better to get the first impression from your very first step. Here we gave it depth and air through graphite-toned mirrors along the right-hand wall, and the entrance to the primary suite is set into the same wall.

The floor-to-ceiling doors are by SOFIA. The functional part is storage for clothes as soon as you take them off. One of the details is the shade of porcelain stoneware in the hallway: it shouldn't be too light or too dark, because either way you'd see every smear or speck of dust off shoes. It's important to plan the ergonomics so you can keep your shoes tidy quickly, because beauty is one thing, but you notice inconvenience straight away.

Using architectural devices, we always highlight zones with designer pieces; in this case a leather bench that will never go out of fashion, with a simple shape and pockets on the sides for small items.

A really important part of a hallway that every designer knows about is the front door. Most often it's an “ugly pencil”, as we call it, and if you don't think about what to do with it right away, rescuing that detail later is very hard. We picked out, again with Kubatura's help, a veneer stain that came very close to SOFIA's own finish. And of course, we're greeted by the sun and a bold statement at the entrance: an ochre shade. I really recommend bringing it into interiors, because it's timeless, and that touch of sun always works. And all these decisions were already made at the sketch stage; nothing appeared by accident later on.

Children's room

Nadezhda. Here we come into the children's room, a room for a teenager, 15 years old. In the layout we placed a large work zone along the window, a storage system for books and equipment, a sleeping area built into the wardrobe, a bed one metre twenty wide, a TV and a mirror.

Something important for a teenager: anyone with children knows they don't put things away neatly in a wardrobe. So we specifically found something called a “valet”, where you can toss clothes for two or three days, and it won't look messy, because it's elegant in its own right and designed for exactly that.

One of the interesting details: behind a decorative strip there's RGB lighting, which turns an ordinary room into a “semi-club” scene when the room's owner has friends over. And importantly, he can control the lighting straight from his bed, just like all the other lighting scenarios. All the furniture in the children's room, apart from the accent armchair, is very restrained; its job is to work, not to draw attention to itself. The furniture is in two tones: anthracite and mouse grey.

Guest bathroom

Nadezhda. This is the guest bathroom, which doubles as the children's bathroom, and it sits very close to the children's room. Here we used our favourite neutral grey, in the paint and in the porcelain stoneware, along with everyone's favourite terrazzo: timeless, not too bright, with terracotta flecks. A lot of attention went into designing this compact space so that everything would be convenient: a floor drain, a black shower column. For one person it's compact and has everything you need.

Pavel. How right is it to walk into a bathroom and see the toilet rather than the basin? Could the layout here have been different?

Nadezhda. Great question. One of the main principles I teach at my design school goes: “head towards the beautiful”. When you step into any space and it opens up, you should be walking towards the beautiful thing. But sometimes a project has zones of compromise, and this is one of them: it's absolutely wrong to walk straight towards the toilet, you should be walking towards the basin area, but there was no other way to do it here.

Primary suite: dressing rooms

Nadezhda. Once you go through this door, you're in the primary suite, which has a dressing room for sports clothes and a dressing room for smart clothes. It's still filling up, but in the evening it works really well with the lighting in this area.

There was a chance here to make a simple blind wardrobe and an ordinary corner, and we'd have ended up with awful narrow corridors. We thought carefully about making sure the space opened up rather than running through narrow corridors: if this weren't reflective glass but just a wardrobe with blind doors, it wouldn't look this good either. It's all about air. I call it a “wardrobe with an entrance”.

Here we've got room for dozens of running shoes and sportswear, close to the front door and close to the utility room where all of it gets looked after: washed with special sports shampoos and products. If we hadn't planned for this, where would the client put his trainers after a run: by the front door, in the wardrobe where guests hang their coats? The layout itself didn't allow for one big dressing room split by clothing type, so we solved it by making two separate ones.

This is the “Cane” light fitting; the project actually started with it, as an idea. I dug it up and started building this whole story of unusual decor and compositional accents around it. It's not just a corner: it's decorated and accented.

Utility room

Nadezhda. From here we come into the utility room. Here we pay a lot of attention to looking after footwear, both sports shoes and everyday ones. We understand that even for a family of three, every season brings three or four pairs of different shoes that need washing, cleaning, drying, sometimes laundering. We always place a stainless-steel utility sink, with shelves nearby to take out insoles and dry everything properly, and a heated towel rail for cloths; that is what makes everyday life easier. A washing machine and tumble dryer, shelves for products, laundry bags for dirty washing, a boiler, somewhere to dry laundry, a charging point for the Dyson, the robot vacuum, spare chairs, a special recess for a stepladder, and an ironing board. And of course, like any new homeowner, you always need to keep a can of touch-up paint in stock.

A room like this absolutely needs forced ventilation: here, when we walked in and switched on the light, it came on with it.

Bathroom and corridor

Nadezhda. On the subject of working with long corridors so they don't feel boring: it comes down to working with different textures. Here, on the wall opposite the bathroom entrance, there's a relief texture, and here it's simply a painted wall. To open up the space, again graphite mirror, which you can check yourself in while getting dressed in the morning.

And of course, when you have a lovely feature like ours: a window in the bathroom. There are a lot of bathrooms with windows in this building, and we put the principle “let the light in” first. Here we used a glass door: with the artificial lighting off, daylight pours over the panel and into the corridor, which is really lovely. The door is a pivot door, which makes it easy to move in and out of either space, corridor or bathroom. The textured glass means nothing can be seen through it. On the theme of “head towards the beautiful”: we dressed this otherwise plain wall, texture and all, with a backlit panel. It's clearly visible while you're in the bath, and when you step out you always step out to face this image, which brings the sea to mind. In the evening, with one of the bathroom lights on and this panel lit, the corridor doesn't feel boring at all: the reflected light plays around, and it's a very pleasant place to be.

Our bathroom is entirely grey, and here's a good way to save money: on walls that water never hits directly we use moisture-resistant paint, and in the rest of the zones a single tone of porcelain stoneware. The accent decorative light fitting is from the same brand as in the dining area. The bath is a rounded model, because the approach to the toilet and to the little window meant a right angle simply wouldn't have worked. The vanity unit and basin are in Krion, a really good material these days, resistant to harsh cleaning products, matt, white and very elegant. When designing a bathroom, it's always worth paying attention to where the bathrobes go. Sometimes people forget about function in favour of a clean design, but we never do: there's a really spacious cupboard for all the products.

Bedroom

Nadezhda. It's worth noting that once you step into the primary suite, we changed the flooring type: here it's carpet, and straight away there's a completely different feeling, soft, like an expensive hotel.

When designing a bedroom, you always need to think about where you'll put the textiles from the bed, because beauty is, first and foremost, order. When you fold back the throw and the decorative cushion onto the bench, you can also drop your T-shirt there, and the whole room ends up looking tidy. Without that kind of piece, ordinary everyday routines turn the room into a mess.

This is our favourite, the “Forsa” bed from Mononova. Notice how elegant it is. We didn't want to frame it with cabinet-style bedside tables, so, again on the theme of contrast, as with the “ant” armchair in the living room, we put in two metal side tables on very thin legs. There's velour piping on the wool headboard, the headboard itself is slim, and the bed on legs feels very light. Accessories like the wall lights look as though they're simply hanging from loops. That's La Redoute again too, little pearls in warm metal.

Pavel. So how do people read here before bed?

Nadezhda. Yes, they read in the armchair: lying down is comfortable for watching a film, but an armchair is more comfortable for reading. This is a rare detail in the project that changed. We originally had a fairly understated armchair here, but the client said, “just make it comfortable.” And we chose this armchair, as they say, with our backsides: we sat in them, walked around, spent probably two months looking at German, Italian and French options, and ended up choosing an American manufacturer, because the Americans are simply gods of comfort. And this floor lamp puts you under a cloud of cosy light, and you read.

This is the room where we used heavy fabric: the curtains close, and it becomes quiet and dark. That's the core principle behind designing a bedroom, three conditions: quiet, dark and enclosed. On a physiological level, those three conditions let you get proper psychological rest.

I run a separate course on what's called “dressing the bed”, and I'll share a quick version. The right approach is for the pillow zone to stay open throughout the day, like the composition you see in hotels when you arrive. Physiologically, a person loses a noticeable amount of moisture overnight, so if you just get up, put the pillow down and cover it with the duvet straight away, it dries out less well. There's a joke that messy people are healthier than tidy ones, and that's exactly why: they leave that kind of “lump” of linen and pillows on the bed, and in that state it dries better, and germs and dust mites don't take hold. And in its unfolded state, it's very easy to keep clean.

With a light touch in the morning you straighten the pillows and fold back the part that needs to dry; you can fold it back further, that's fine too. At the foot of the bed we placed a throw, or a compact blanket, which is more convenient than one large bedspread: even if you lie down on the bed during the day, your feet land on the throw. You move the decorative cushion onto the bench, and the throw with it, and you go to sleep. In the morning you straighten the duvet, set the pillows, put back one decorative cushion and the throw. The whole routine takes three minutes, and it lets you come back to a good-looking bedroom in the evening. Our bed linen is chosen to match the headboard by shade, with ochre inserts, and the throw's texture sits well against the woven sisal. For this kind of dressing the linen itself has to suit, with no busy pattern, or the effect is lost. But that is worked out at the decorating stage.

On this project we provided design supervision and decorating services.

What to read next

The full case study with photos of every zone is on the portfolio page “Interior design of an apartment”. The video tour above expands on the case with an off-camera breakdown of the decisions straight from Nadezhda, with details that don't always make it into the photographs.