Tour a Stylish Kazakhstan Apartment with Perfectly Imperfect Walls

Elina Mussakulova, cofounder of Kazakhstan-based inside studio Sdelaemremont.kz, has by no means designed a kitchen with no vent hood. So when her shopper, Mikhail, was adamant he didn’t need one in his condominium’s galley house (he’s not an enormous prepare dinner and the constructing’s laws didn’t require extract air flow), Mussakulova felt anxious, to say the least. “He needed to inform me to relax,” she says with amusing. However she didn’t simply depart the wall behind the stovetop clean. As a substitute it’s half painted, type of haphazardly, a darkish inexperienced. “I requested the builder to color it with a chaotic edge, to nearly convey a way of carelessness, however he was too scared to do the daring brushstrokes and it seemed too neat,” recollects Mussakulova. So she picked up a paintbrush and did it herself.

Quite a few these undone components elegantly permeate Mikhail’s 527-square-foot house. Positioned within the metropolis of Almaty, the condominium dates again to 1952 and stole his coronary heart from the very first viewing, “nevertheless it was in such unhealthy situation, and so outdated, that it scared me at first,” he admits. Mussakulova helped translate his Pinterest boards, which have been full of moody, light-filled residences in Berlin, into an area that honored the integrity of the constructing. She additionally reconfigured the format, swapping the lounge for a bed room with a walk-in wardrobe, whereas the bed room turned a lounge with a gap to the kitchen. A beforehand slim hall was freed up within the course of and now capabilities as a worthwhile utility closet. 

Whereas the designer restored some unique particulars, equivalent to doorways and cornices, many of the house’s allure comes from the patinated partitions—caked-in, decades-old paper and cracks that she left as is. Mussakulova additionally saved the prevailing parquet ground (an enormous value saver). When the format tweak uncovered locations the place it was lacking, equivalent to between the entryway and the sitting room, she stuffed within the gaps with white tile. “It’s important to be prepared to simply accept imperfections,” says Mussakulova of working with the prevailing options. She additionally notes that embracing uncooked components could make an area seem chilly and Brutalist, “nevertheless, in case you expose just a few particulars and never all, the impact will be heat and welcoming.”

As a result of that is the primary house Mikhail has purchased, he felt prepared to accumulate some furnishings classics like a Pierre Paulin Pacha lounge chair and Louis Poulsen lamps (a “you solely reside as soon as” splurge) he scored at a retailer in Copenhagen. “I needed to have items that inform a narrative, that may be handed down,” he says. Mussakulova tried to steer him away from the Verner Panton “flowerpot” lights within the hallway (“I really feel such as you see them lots” she justifies), however Mikhail gained. One element she needed to persuade him about was the massive, summary pendant lamp above the mattress. “Lights are probably the most noticeable function in interiors. You may change the texture of an area by merely altering the lighting,” she shares.

Each of them have been firmly on the identical web page when it got here to artwork. Mussakulova is “in love” with the work of Kazakh artist Kuralay Meirbekova, and as luck would have it, she was already on Mikhail’s radar and he jumped at buying the portray that now hangs over the console within the hallway. “For me, this piece is just like the face of the inside,” the designer says of the portrait.

As of late when he’s hanging out at house, Mikhail enjoys film nights, coupled with a glass of wine and a scented candle. In different phrases, you continue to gained’t discover him whipping up a feast for one within the kitchen, proving that the client is (nearly) at all times proper.