When it comes to smaller spaces it is easy to want to play it safe and just use light neutral colours, this is what the owners of this one bedroom apartment in Cape Town had done, until they realised it didn’t actually work.
The owners decided to ask Marius and Robin Pool from LMEY services (@lmey_services on Instagram) to reimagine their space and inject character into it. In this department Marius and Robin did not disappoint.
Before the Makeover: A Spectrum of Grey
Grey, white and beige with lightly coloured wood leaves the space feeling drained, the eye isn’t drawn anywhere and somehow even with very little in the room it seems cluttered.
In the bedroom cream is used which takes the number of neutral colours in the apartment to 8! Ranging the full spectrum from dark greys to pinky creams, believe it or not neutral colours can clash and this space is a good example of this.
After the Makeover: A Cosy Atmosphere Full of Grandeur
Marius and Robin’s first trick might not be immediately obvious, but if you look a little closer you will see their makeover of the living area achieves a number of important objectives. First, they own the smaller space by creating a cosy atmosphere, a deep blue creates a calm, comforting feeling, this atmosphere is reinforced by using wood panels to give the twenty something square meter space a feeling of grandeur.
Carrying the grand Baroque feeling through to the bedroom Marius and Robin matched the headboard to the paint colour of the living area and framed the bed with the soft and slightly moody Reece Mural from Wallpaper Online. The soft petals and dusty pinks uplift the space and introduce an air of drama, ensuring that the space is anything but “flat”. As a final touch a mirror is strategically positioned to reflect the wall mural and create even more depth and space in the room.
However, this isn’t the trick we were referring to earlier, if you look closely you will see they have used colour to completely differentiate the living area from the kitchen. This contrast immediately creates the impression of two distinct rooms, visually they have in-fact doubled the space in the apartment. The icing on the cake of this transformation is the genius inclusion of a point of interest on the opposite side of the apartment. As soon as you walk through the front door your eye is immediately drawn through the entire space to the back wall of the bedroom where Marius and Robin installed a maximised floral mural from Wallpaper Online. This trick increases the perceived size of the apartment immensely.
While already impressive during the day, the final trick used in the redesign of this interior was saved for after dark. The highly intentional use of light to create an almost supernatural atmosphere. The warm light spreading out from dark lampshades creates highlights and lowlights on the wall mural, tricking the eye into seeing the flowers in 3D, a truly masterful final touch to this transformation.
This makeover showcases how with the intentional use of some wallpaper, clever lighting, bold palettes and a willingness to colour outside of the lines; small spaces can be made to feel not only spacious but grand!
