An Interior Designers Own Nordic-Inspired Apartment (Apartment Tour)

Being a designer is a bit like being a conductor of an orchestra. There's kind of finding that rhythm and finding the right voices to be heard at the right time. My name is Anna Karin. I'm the principal of Anna Karin Design Studio and this is my home, Solidaire. So Solidaire is located in Elizabeth Bay, Guranjin. It's a highly densely built suburb in the east of Sydney and consists of predominantly apartment buildings. 98% of the built environment is apartment blocks. There's only about 12 single residences in the whole suburb. It was pretty clear when I first arrived here I hadn't seen that many apartments. But when I walked into this room where I'm sitting now and I saw the arched window, the high ceilings, the little window seat, I was sold immediately. I didn't need to see much more. My job was really just to remove all the walls that were in the wrong place and reveal its kind of true nature. So as you enter the apartment, you come through the hallway and into this dark, narrow space. And on the left there are two main rooms, which is the study and the bedroom. On the right you have a sort of guest toilet and the main toilet. And then you walk into the main room, which consists of the kitchen and the sitting room. So working for myself, I mean, the process is very similar, whether it's me or with a client. Ultimately, it's about trying to identify and draw out the unique aesthetic of a client. Even though I'm aware of my own aesthetics, I still had to go through kind of the same process as I do with a client. And I kind of had to do much of the same thinking for myself. How do I want to be feeling in this space and how do we want to live here and what are the emotion that this place should evoke? So every project we start with the same process and that is to find three emotive words that will express the space. And in this case, the words that I pulled out of myself and my partner was serene, evocative, in cosmopolitan. And every project, we do also have a theme song, and it's Solid Air by John Martin, which is one of the first songs that my partner, lan, sent to me when we first met. And I love the idea of solid air as well, because there is a solidity and a grounding in it, but it also has a lightness. So it's like it's connecting to both heaven and earth. Solid Air. I think the mood is kind of monochromatic. Everything is the same colour, colour that I've designed for this apartment. And it's loosely based on the tapware, which is Vola grey. And there's something about this grey that is predominant in all the materials and in all the joinery in this colour, which basically that it changes colour. Sometimes it's blue, sometimes it's a bit green, sometimes it becomes a bit yellow. And the limestone in the bathroom is in the same colour the quartzite in the kitchen. The only sort of space, or the only area that's not in that color is in the kitchen bench. And I really hate when there's a black cooktop sitting in a light bench. So that's why the back bench is black, purely that reason. And that's a black quartzite. And then there's the kitchen island. I'm not a big fan of kitchen islands generally, but I wanted the island to sort of almost disappear or float. So the majority of the pieces in this apartment actually came with me from Sweden when I moved here almost 30 years ago. And then I like to find things and repurpose them and reuse it. So I wanted a round table in the kitchen and I found this one on Facebook Marketplace, and we stripped it back and sealed it with beeswax finish from. I really hate when there's a black cooktop sitting in a light bench. So that's why the back bench is black. Purely that reason. And that's a black quartzite. And then there's the kitchen island. I'm not a big fan of kitchen islands generally, but I wanted the island to sort of almost disappear or float. So the majority of the pieces in this apartment's actually came with me from Sweden when I moved here almost 30 years ago. And then I like to find things and repurpose them and reuse it. So I wanted a round table in the kitchen and I found this one on Facebook Marketplace, and we stripped it back and sealed it with a beeswax finish from Tasmania. The dining chairs are J39s Morganson. We bought them from a vintage store here in Sydney and restored them. The cowhide casino chairs was also found in an antique store. And there's also the coffee table, which we.