Life on display

The lady of the house is a keen mosaic artist and displaying her work was very much taken into account when designing the interior.

MARCH 12, 2015 10:53

Interior design (photo credit: URIEL MESSA) — Interior design

(photo credit: URIEL MESSA)

‘I know that modern interior design is supposed to be clean, cold and impersonal, and if this is what the client wants I will do it,” says architect Orly Eran, who has an office in Tel Aviv and has worked for many years in design.

“But I feel a home should show your personality – it shouldn’t just look good on the pages of a magazine, it’s your life on display.”

When she was asked to renovate this old house by the young couple who bought it, she immediately saw the potential.

“It’s a very old building in the Green Ramat Aviv area, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv,” she says. “These houses were thrown up in the ’50s to accommodate the waves of immigrants flowing into Israel – and they had to be built quickly without too much concern for design.”

The original houses were small, about 60 sq.m., and usually held very large families. When the clients – she is an organizational adviser, he is an accountant – bought the old house they knew that the Tel Aviv Municipality would grant them permission to expand the original house as this was happening all over the city in the old neighborhoods.

It took three years of waiting and bureaucracy, but eventually they got the go-ahead and set about transforming their old property. They expanded on either side of the original building, to the north and south and added another floor, removing the original tiled roof.

“We had to clear everything out of the old apartment as there was nothing worth saving,” Eran says, “and we ended up with 150 sq.m., 90 on the lower floor and 60 upstairs.”

The lady of the house is a keen mosaic artist and displaying her work was very much taken into account when designing the interior. The couple inherited many antiques and the rooms were designed to display these in the best way while including the necessities of modern living.

The staircase became not just a way to get to the second floor, but very much a design feature in its own right. The oak parquet floor used all over the apartment except in the kitchen was continued up the stairs, and the ornate wrought iron balustrade becomes the visual focus of the whole area.

Displaying the mosaic and ceramics of the owner is not the only function for this striking feature. The usually wasted under-stairs area was closed in for storage with white-fronted cupboards and drawers and a place for the wine refrigerator to fit snugly into its own niche.

With plenty of room for linen, cleaning materials and even the vacuum cleaner, it is an effective and maximum use of otherwise wasted space. The mosaics are displayed also in a niche halfway up the stairs.

The furnishings are an eclectic mix, but traditional predominates. In the lounge they were able to recycle a particularly loved corner seating unit by changing the upholstery to a mustard/beige suede-like material and smothered it with burgundy and other cushions to pick up the rich plum color of the rug.

The windows were made to go right down to the floor, which was meant to give a feeling of connecting the outside to the room.

“Even though there is no balcony, which was not allowed, you get the feeling of living outside,” explains the architect.

The dining room adjoining the lounge is furnished with a large heavy wooden table and chairs upholstered in gold damask. A decorative mirror demonstrates the owner’s mosaic talents, while another wall hanging shows family photos similarly displayed.

In the kitchen, the upper cabinets are olive green and the lower are distressed cream color with round brass knobs. The only natural light that comes in is from the adjoining lounge.

“That is the problem with an extension to both sides of a building,” explains Eran. “The inner rooms get no light.”

To counter this, a multicolor tiled wall was added and the whole area is used as a display for the owner’s mosaics, including the kitchen table that she covered in mosaic tiles. The wrought-iron chairs echo the design of the staircase. They decided that the parquet used everywhere else would not be practical for the kitchen and chose dark gray tiles instead, while the marble work tops are a sand color. Light fittings range from crystal chandeliers to brass spots fixed to the wall.

One gets the feeling that the architect really enjoyed creating this home with all its color and detail.

“Nothing should be over-designed,” she says.