Press for Lime Laundry in Mako
This week I was excited to be featured in Mako's article on "The most beautiful and comfortable laundry rooms.”
The goal for this tiny 2-meter space was to keep it airy and enjoyable. The default for many laundry rooms is to stuff them with storage. In this apartment there was a superfluous third bathroom, so I turned that into a storage area to allow the laundry space to stay breathable and welcoming.
We're not usually excited to tackle laundry. To make the experience feel special and personal, I turned the room into an art gallery. A mirror above the table reflects light from the window and makes the space feel bigger. The machines take up one side and a table on the other side holds bags of clean laundry waiting to be folded. This keeps the rest of the home free from piles of laundry, and in turn every place in the home can breathe.
Citrus House: The Concept
Pomelo Room // Citrus House
Last year we moved to a new rental apartment. When house hunting, I look for good sunlight and a nice view. We were lucky to find both in a bright new construction overlooking rolling green hills on a quiet block. But on the inside new builds are often boxy and devoid of character — fresh but sterile. I wanted to extend the lush view outside the main living space into the rest of the apartment and make the white walls anything but. I also wanted to reuse as much furniture as possible from our previous apartment, spend no more than 10K NIS (~$3K) on new items in the first year (track the budget here), and have our new place look and feel different from our previous apartment.
Pomelo Room // Citrus House
I decided to give our apartment a citrus theme, to celebrate some of the most vibrant hues native to Israel and bring the outside in. I wanted it to feel energizing and playful, and I love using paint as an affordable way to give a room character. Each room is designated with its own citrus fruit, so walking into each one wakes you up with a surprise (and maybe even a cheerful chuckle).
Living room before:
Living room in progress:
Pomelo Room // Citrus House
So far, we have the Pomelo Room (living room), the Clementine Room (my office), and the Putty & Lime Laundry. In the living room, the couch from our previous apartment, which you can see below, did not fit well, but we weren’t ready to replace it yet. I remembered that the couch is built in two pieces and connected at the bottom. I separated it into its two parts and faced them toward each other, so that one half tucks nicely along the half wall by our kitchen (left side in the photo above) and the other looks out at the view. The switch makes the space feel cozy and intimate.
The living room in our previous apartment (Photo: Peled Studios \ יואב פלד צילום אדריכלות)
Splitting the couch freed up the right wall for the sideboard from Jake’s old office, below, which we couldn’t find a good home for in the other rooms of our new apartment.
The study in our previous apartment (Photo: Peled Studios \ יואב פלד צילום אדריכלות)
In our previous apartment Talia and Sol each had their own room. Because I needed a home office, and a place to store samples and other materials, I put the kids together in one of the more spacious rooms and made the smaller mamad (safe room) my office. The mamad looks out at the neighboring building, an uninspiring view. I thought I’d use the space primarily for storage and Zoom meetings and never want to spend too many hours at once in there. However, since it became the Clementine Room, I actually enjoy working in there.
Mamad office before:
Mamad office in progress:
Clementine Room // Citrus House
Storage so far is a simple IKEA PAX wardrobe I already had and some cinder block and plywood shelving. Though still low frills and largely pragmatic, the orange walls and slightly lighter ceiling give me the kind of get-to-work-happy slap in the face I wanted every time I walk in.
Laundry room before:
Laundry room after:
Putty & Lime Laundry // Citrus House
In our previous apartment, the standard tiny laundry room had the standard washer-drier duo on one side and a shelving unit on the other for cleaning products and the like. It drove me nuts that there was nowhere to breathe in there, but I have to admit the owner’s cancelation of the powder room (in favor of only two bathrooms instead of the standard three) was worth it for the extra space elsewhere. In our new apartment, we do have a powder room and we don’t need it, so I lined it with shelving and use it as a storage closet for all the items I used to store in our laundry room (plus more). That freed up space in our current laundry for a folding table. Though I use it more for storing yet-to-be-folded laundry than actual folding, I love having the breathing room and drop space, just as much as I love walking into a shot of lime green and artwork. My goal was to animate the tired and monotonous task of laundry and I must say — it’s still a tired and monotonous task. But I enjoy the room.
Putty & Lime Laundry // Citrus House
Next up in the Citrus House: a lemon pulp master bedroom. Stay tuned.
Features of Israeli Design: Patterned Tiles
Uri Lifshitz Building; Photo: Liat Albling
One of my favorite design elements in a space is a beautiful patterned tile. Patterned tiles appear throughout Spanish, Italian, and Mexican interiors (the three countries I turn to most for global inspiration), and to my delight they are incredibly popular in Israel and also distinctly Israeli. Israeli homes come standard with tiles; they are resilient in the hot climate and, with no local lumber industry, they offer both a more attainable and more functional solution than real hardwood. You can find ancient colorful tiles in centuries-old buildings in Jaffa and Jerusalem, retro orange and brown tiles from the ‘60s and ‘70s in apartments in Tel Aviv, and modern tiles in every shape and color in renovated homes across Israel.
Cafeteria inside HaMiffal at Lorenzo House Cultural Center; Photo: Tzachi Ostrovsky via NYTimes
HaMiffal, Jerusalem; Photo: Mallory Serebrin
Terrazzo tiles, like below, were ubiquitous in Israel and made of concrete with bits of stone throughout. When renovating a home in Israel, people often remove this old terrazzo, even to replace it with a more modern terrazzo tile (which is trending worldwide). On walls you can uncover wonderful vintage tiles, which I would love to salvage and repurpose in a home, instead of completely discard. This particular Italian tile shows up everywhere:
Via Romy Silber Benit, uncovered during a renovation
Via Maya Linenberg, uncovered during a renovation
Via MaDeux, found at the Haifa flea market
These Israeli homes showcase beautifully preserved tiles in renovated spaces designed for the 2020’s:
Design: Meital Mayorchik Sarid; Photo: Shai Epstein
Design: Yael Friedlander; Photo: Nimrod Levy
Design: Emily Shkedi; Photo: Dor Kedmi
Design and Photo: MaDeux
If you have an old apartment covered in old tiles, consider giving them new life instead of throwing them all away.
Distributed Play
I set up our apartment to accommodate the mayhem of two toddlers at play who sometimes need a change of scene. Toys and activities are spread throughout the home, from living room to dining room to hallway to kids rooms. When movement is part of the design, everything feels a little less crazy.
Photo: Peled Studios \ יואב פלד צילום אדריכלות
We have an IKEA Trofast storage unit in the living room as well as by the dining table leading to the hallway. It’s easy for kids to pull out toys and for us to switch out bins with different toys from time to time to keep things fresh. I have found that removing a few bins at the top (unlike in these photos) makes for easier cleanup because you don’t need to pull out every bin to dump toys back in. Generally, having fewer toys available helps kids focus.
Photo: Peled Studios \ יואב פלד צילום אדריכלות
Photo: Peled Studios \ יואב פלד צילום אדריכלות
The kids can hop seamlessly from the living room floor to the dining room table to the play corner. Defining areas by type of activity (e.g., building, arts and crafts, make believe, reading) helps create sanity.
Photo: Peled Studios \ יואב פלד צילום אדריכלות
Immediately after putting the round rug down in Sol’s room, the kids started running around it in circles and laying dolls and stuffed animals around its periphery. It’s great to have for any activity where you want to gather around (pass the balloon, story time, etc.).
Photo: Peled Studios \ יואב פלד צילום אדריכלות
Photo: Peled Studios \ יואב פלד צילום אדריכלות
In Talia’s room, the teepee and book corner work just as well for intimate reading time as they do for going nuts with the floor mats.
La Fotosintesi, Naples & Paris
It’s not every day I add a designer to my favorites list but it’s one of those days with La Fotosintesi. Architect duo Julie Nebout and Giuseppe Punzo, a couple both in work and life, meld the modern with the local and ancient in bold primary colors. They dig through the layers of the walls and floors to resurface what was once there, and they have made me completely rethink the half-painted wall.
Paradisiello:
Quartieri:
Cavour:
Other designers I find especially exciting: Beata Heuman, Masquespacio, and Nook Architects.
Master Bedroom Mood Board and Plan
The final project for one of my interior design classes was to create a mood board and building plan for the master bedroom of a fictional client. I decided to design for a young couple buying their first apartment in Israel. This couple and I, during our fictional conversations, decided to invest in the architecture of the space and spring for a pricey Milstone tile that gives the room a unique, exotic character. It’s a busy pattern but quiet in tones, and we kept the furnishings relatively clean and minimal to maintain a feeling of calm.
The neutral furniture allows for future interchangeability. Should they find themselves, after a long gut renovation, fatigued from spending money, we could easily switch out the Tollmans Dot bed for a slightly cheaper IKEA bed; source vintage nightstands at a flea market instead of buy new (I’d actually recommend that route either way); and switch out pricier lighting for more frugal options.
A few elements here that give the room a more relaxed feel: the wall hanging, which is a kids blanket from Arket that adds playfulness; and the mixed woods, which bring out both the light and dark tones in the tile and keep things from feeling too matchy-matchy and formal.
Building plan
Furniture plan
The sleeping area at left is minimal and meant to be kept tidy and clean, though I’d recommend a few dark wood hooks on the wall for those tired moments when you want to throw something up and deal with it later. All the storage and organization happens in the wardrobe area at right, and the intention is to have some extra blank space available inside, again for those tired moments when you want to throw things in haphazardly and deal with them later. For this reason I chose a 65-cm-deep, floor-to-ceiling custom wardrobe that makes use of all the available space. However, pushing past the 60-cm standard depth makes it pricey, so if spending fatigue sets in, the couple can choose to downgrade to 60 cm.
Electrical plan
The lighting here includes two sconces around the bed, a pendant light near the foot of the bed, and recessed lighting in the wardrobe area. I do think there’s room here for a couple more sconces or recessed lights in the sleeping area — a future edit I’ll be proposing in a future fictional conversation.
Sources: Tiles // Bed // Rug // Pendant Lampshade // Nightstand // Wall Hanging // Sconces
Carmei Gat Penthouse Living Room
I’ve been decorating a penthouse in Carmei Gat, the new neighborhood in Kiryat Gat, and here’s the completed living room. They wanted a contemporary American style and to incorporate their couch and artwork. You can look back at the original mockup for the room here. Below: the before photo when the apartment was empty, and the before the before in their previous apartment.
In Progress: Sol’s Room
I’m finally making Sol’s room Sol’s room. He’s been sleeping in his room for over a year but it’s also been half an office for a period and a temporary guest room multiple times. Below was its most recent iteration as a guest room (a speedy touchup purchased entirely from IKEA):
To the right of the door is a wardrobe that spans most of the wall. With one wall covered in the light oak wardrobe and another wall with a window that I want to span with light curtains, I decided to view the room as cut by a diagonal: the top left triangle will be dark and the bottom right triangle will be light.
Here’s the room painted. The top is Black as Night (more navy than black) and the bottom is Garden Seat, both by Tambour. The rooms in a typical new apartment in Israel are clean and modern and … boxy. In Talia’s room I added curvature with a painted mountain mural (some updates happening in there soon), and I continued in that vein in Sol’s room with a wave pattern. Once curtains go up on the wall at right, their 3D curvature will complement the painted waves and bring some more movement and dimension to the space.
Speedy IKEA Guest Room
I put together a quick interim guest room for my mother-in-law’s visit while prepping to finally decorate the room for Sol. For a year and a half this room has had almost nothing but an IKEA PAX wardrobe and a crib. I hate the crib, which I half-unintentionally bought off Facebook Marketplace, but that’s a story for another time. Here’s the before:
Sad state. The crib might work in a more traditional home, but it makes no sense in mine. Crib aside, whenever we have guests we move Sol to our room. Often people sleep on the floor:
The chair is now in Jake’s office and the runner is in our bedroom, so there wasn’t much left to make the room inviting. Since I was already gearing up to turn Sol’s room into something other than four walls, I decided to pick up a few extra things while at IKEA to warm up the guest room.
Rules for shopping at IKEA include:
Don’t get one of the ubiquitous geometric rugs. Instead choose a neutral one, like a LOHALS or HJORTSVANG or SVÄRDBORG.
Steer clear of the art.
I broke both of these rules in this room. I picked up the (in)famous STOCKHOLM rug for Sol because I love the black and white. This rug might be the most IKEA-screaming rug of all IKEA rugs. But it’s been around for so long I feel like it has turned a corner from cloyingly pervasive to … iconic. Surely debatable. I skipped the art section entirely on this visit, but when I backtracked to pick up something else, I spotted a giant peacock on the wall. It’s the new PÅLHULT hanging tapestry and for ₪75 ($19.99), why not.
The MOLNSKIKT lampshade has a suede-like texture and will stay in Sol’s room. The NEIDEN bed is on loan from Talia’s room and on it I put the TIMJANSMOTT bedspread with a NATTSLÄNDA pillowcase (Talia is using its comforter cover). I took the doors off the IVAR storage unit we already had to make it a bookshelf, and I picked up a bunch of the SÄCKKÄRRA bags for linen storage to clear out space in the closet for guests.
I moved one of the chairs from the kids’ LÄTT table to by the bed, stacked coffee table books on it, and clipped on the NÄVLINGE light so it can be used as a temporary bedside table. Then I added some more artwork that I had in storage: a photo I took of the Sea of Galilee, a small map of the Washington D.C. area where I’m from, a green Warhol cat, and a tiny painting from Mexico. The large leaf fell off a tree outside our building.
The result is, no doubt, very IKEA, but for two weeks it will serve its purpose.
Color Exercise
I’m in Yael Steinberger’s interior design program (read about it here and here) and one of her introductory assignments was to add color to this black and white room. To me it looks like a seating area in the upstairs corner of a hotel or conference center, so I considered it as a commercial space. If I could edit some of the items, I’d replace the standing lamp with something grander or with sconces, switch out the artwork, add more variety in the types of seating, etc. But sticking with what was given, here’s how I colored it in in Photoshop:
I started with the flooring because I didn’t like the dark glossy floors and in general it’s helpful to work upwards. I’ve always loved these Barcelona cube tiles (especially in this apartment) and they felt appropriate for the Spanish–Italian-style seating. Normally I wouldn’t make every seat in a grouping a different color — and probably not turquoise — but the sameness and largeness of all three called for some differentiation. I added a velvet texture to tame the original pleathery look. I didn’t love the large panels by the curtains, so instead of accenting that feature with solid blocks of color, I made them wood to add warmth to the modern space. The cement adds a contrasting texture to the back wall. About three quarters of the way through, the turquoise couch was feeling a little lonely, so I added the blue-hued rug and leafy wallpaper to tie all the tones together.