The brief was to create a stylish, modern, yet homely apartment with hints of mid-century modern elements. Providing additional storage that was functional and attractive was also important to Emelia. It was important to open up the kitchen so that it felt more connected to the living room, with a “must have” being to remove the ugly, outdated arch into the kitchen. Every room in the apartment needed to be completely redesigned.

The Colour Palette
With Emilia’s love for Retro and Mid-Century Modern styles, it was important to introduce some of those elements into the designs. We used Mid-Century Modern influences such as timber finishes and Terrazzo tiles, melded with orange and green colour tones of the Retro era, creating a beautiful, contemporary palette that Emilia connects with.

The Kitchen Design
The combination of Mid-Century Modern and Retro elements features in the kitchen elevating the space to make it look and feel elegant and spacious.

With the curved peninsula bench and engineered stone benchtop; and the use of Ming green, elongated hexagonal marble mosaic splashback tiles, the result really is something a bit special!

The removal of the arched wall into the kitchen has opened up the space dramatically. However, its removal created a problem of where and how to relocate the intercom! Designing the curved bulkhead on the ceiling to mirror the curve of the benchtop was a fantastic solution, as not only did it provide a way to run the intercom wiring to the opposite wall, but it also enabled us to bring additional, much-needed lighting into the kitchen. With concrete ceilings (the floor of the unit above), there was no way to attach new downlights, but the bulkhead was a great way to anchor the contemporary “can lights” over the bench and frames the kitchen perfectly.

The Ensuite Design
Emilia found the shower over the bathtub in the ensuite to be awkward and unsafe, so the bath was sacrificed for a larger, walk-in shower with a good-sized double rail shower, niche for storage and a footrest for shaving legs.

The recessed mirror cabinet provides loads of storage, with more storage below in the wall-hung vanity.

The Bathroom/ Laundry Design
With a combined guest bathroom and laundry, this space was cramped and not very nice for guests to use when staying with Emilia. I wanted to create a beautiful vanity that looked like a bathroom but functioned like a laundry…so we selected a gorgeous fine fireclay sink to do the job of the basin and laundry sink.

More storage above in the mirror cabinet and below under the sink provides storage for guests and for laundry items, as does the clever tall storage cabinet – custom designed to house vacuum and mop, a hidden clothes hamper and hang clothes for drying. We could still fit a 900 x 900 shower and a new toilet to complete the needs of a guest bathroom.