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Apartment living with kids: interior designer shows how he does it

November 20, 2020 3 Comments

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By Lorenzo Logi

Balancing a growing family, a new job and a renovation is no small achievement. Further complicate that with heritage restrictions on a company titled property and competing design objectives in a compact space, and you have a truly acrobatic undertaking. 

Such was the challenge facing Spanish interior designer Jesus del Toro and his family as they embarked on the redesign and build of a 1920s Walter Leslie Nielsen apartment in inner-city Sydney. After months of open houses and budget-busting auctions, and having reluctantly abandoned their hopes of finding an affordable home near the beach, Jesus and his wife Agnes were charmed by the central location and Art Deco setting of an elongated unit in Potts Point with views of St Maryโ€™s Cathedral and the CBD skyline.

Jesus del Toro’s family of four are loving life in their tiny Potts Point apartment

The apartment was in sore need of renovation, however, with a dated, compartmentalised layout that squandered the abundant natural light. And, bound by exacting heritage conservation regulations, the task of adapting the space to the needs and tastes of a modern family of four promised to be challenging. 

โ€œThis unit was not in our brief for house-hunting,โ€ says Jesus. โ€œWe were looking for something completely different. But this was very eccentric, urban, well-connected, and we were excited by the classical style and also the potential to do renovation works.”

The old, early thirties layout was dark with one long corridor and single rooms. Moreover, the kitchen was designed as a cubicle to be occupied solely by household staff, and the bathroom needed decades worth of updating.

โ€œBut there was huge potential to turn it into something awesome, to flip it around and make it contemporary, while respecting the existing features and empowering them with new ones in the same style,โ€ Jesus explains. 

Even with the freedom to rearrange the layout, the task of how to coax all the needs of a young family out of an 80sqm space remained complicated. For Jesus, however, finding resourceful solutions in limited spaces was a familiar challenge. โ€œIn my house when I was growing up, we were nine people, including my four older brothers and two grandmas. That means everything inside the house needs to do two or three things. My room was shared with one of my older brothers. I still had my little desk for studying, which doubled for table tennis and foosball. My mum or my grandma was, usually, doing the ironing or the washing in there too. It was a multi-use sort of room, with fold-down beds.โ€

Unsurprisingly then, Jesus’ design included a number of occasional or versatile areas: โ€œIn the living space, we have a day bed, a massive standing desk and a library. Here we dry our clothes, practise yoga, play soccer, do ballet, play the ukulele, perform theatre acts for the kids and even take salsa lessons!

โ€œEven though it may seem a little bit scary to have such an open plan home and not be able to have your own space, it is surprising how many little spots you can be in by yourself or as a family in the exact same way,โ€ he observes. โ€œYou donโ€™t even realise that it’s the space doing that for you. Plus we get the advantage of having the Art Deco designed glass doors with blackout velvet curtains, blocking visually and acoustically as needed.โ€

As well as pairing the constraints of the unit with the needs of his family, Jesus wanted to preserve as much of the buildingโ€™s heritage flavour within the apartment as possible, sustaining elements from common areas in the unitโ€™s interiors. From the preference for pendant lights over downlights, to the French panelling chosen to match existing cornices and ceiling bands, the rich details of the Art Deco era peek through an otherwise more contemporary, pared back aesthetic. The ensemble is completed by a lashing of industrial texture, courtesy of the exposed steel trusses of the portal frames with their Harbour-bridge evoking lattice steel motif. 

Storage has also been carefully considered and integrated wherever possible beneath or behind furniture and joinery, and the family tradition of multi-functional spaces lives on. Their four-year-old daughter Noahโ€™s 8sqm play area morphs into her bedroom with a wall-mounted fold-away bed. The homeโ€™s spaces comfortably satisfy a variety of functions, with the added advantage of promoting an intimate, convivial environment.

Jesus was also committed to preserving a sense of fluidity and play in the apartment, especially in his daughterโ€™s room. He chose to experiment with the ceiling, and developed a simultaneously sophisticated, simple and economical decorative feature in the form of hanging sheets of paper arranged to create a flowing, wave-like effect. 

โ€œIt adjusts its height to the shelving edge. It reacts to where the lamp is. It adjusts its curvature to the window to allow more light in. It’s one of those little exercises that is in fact really inexpensive. It’s just paper and Blu-Tack.โ€

The ceiling featureโ€™s affordability and ease of execution, however, are contrasted by the masterpiece that is the bathroom! Riding a wave of creativity and inspiration, Jesus recalls how one morning he was browsing designs for tiles, frustrated at their prohibitive cost. Deep in a YouTube tile-manufacture-video rabbit hole, he was surprised to see how mechanised the allegedly โ€˜handmadeโ€™ process was. โ€œThey were absolutely spotless and perfect, as if they were manufactured by a machine,โ€ he criticises. โ€œIt didn’t have the impression that it was actually made by hand.โ€ 

He remembers thinking, โ€œI donโ€™t have the budget but I do have patienceโ€. So was born a DIY tile-making project that would see Jesus, his family and friends hand-make more than 3,000 glazed, fish scale tiles over the course of 15 weekends โ€“ including preparation and testing of clay, glazing and moulds. And, while at times he questioned his initial enthusiasm, the end result speaks for itself: the bathroom nestles among walls clad in the cool, mossy green tiles, each slightly different to the next, carrying in their warp and weft the story of their origin. With a wry smile, Jesus reflects: โ€œIt was a much more lengthy approach. It was absolutely, totally worth it.โ€

With its blend of modern and heritage, work and play, and its deceptive ability to accommodate a multitude of activities and moods in a limited space, the apartment is a role model for how we might intelligently and happily embrace inner-city living โ€“ an ever more pressing aim as more of us grapple with the demands of working from home. Coupled with Jesusโ€™ attention to detail and investment of personal creativity (and time), this compact home is ready to host many years of comfortable, beautiful family life. 

Photography: Jesus del Toro

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I haven't done one of these in YEARS so there's possibly thousands of you who don't know my back story. Here's a few things you may not know about me!

โœ”๏ธ I'm English ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ and I moved here (just for one year) back in 2008๐Ÿ˜† 

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โœ”๏ธ Before becoming a blogger and running my own small business, I was a journalist from the age of 18. My favourite news gathering times were as a newspaper crime reporter (bit different to interiors!) ๐Ÿ““ 

โœ”๏ธ I once worked at New Scotland Yard in London ๐Ÿš” 

โœ”๏ธI had an interview at Oxford (didn't get in!) but chose not to go to uni at all after being offered a job on the local paper #universityoflife ๐Ÿ˜

โœ”๏ธ My mum died when I was 3, I have an excellent dad and one sister (younger) in the UK โค๏ธ ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง 

โœ”๏ธ At school, my favourite subject was French ๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ท and I was head girl ๐Ÿค“๐Ÿค“

โœ”๏ธ I'm addicted to โ˜•๏ธ , long hot baths and๐Ÿ’„ (been wearing it since I was about 14!)

โœ”๏ธ I'm not a phonecall person and will never ever pick up an unknown number. Ever. They can leave a message ๐Ÿ˜

โœ”๏ธ My favourite cuisine is Japanese ๐Ÿฃ ๐Ÿœ and Damian and I honeymooned in Tokyo and Venice 

โœ”๏ธ I have zero design qualifications. I just started blogging about my passion, which is trying to persuade everyone to #heartyourhome That was 11 years ago...

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โœ”๏ธ My official surname isn't Bishop. I kept my maiden name for work after I got married but changed it for everything else. Often confuse myself!

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Hope you feel like you know me a bit better ๐Ÿ˜˜

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Blue, green or lilac? ๐ŸŽจ @nood_co coloured con Blue, green or lilac? ๐ŸŽจ 

@nood_co coloured concrete basins is a great Aussie business success story. Although co founder Matt Di Costa first found fame as one half of Matt and Kim on The Block, he hasn't relied on this to build his brand.

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Pic 1 by @naibudesign_ and 2 by @twostyleinteriors
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We couldn't resist featuring this Canadian house tour today. The amazing Kelly Green  hutch (swipe) was an upcycled $200 find ๐Ÿค—

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Create an unexpected city oasis with an emphasis o Create an unexpected city oasis with an emphasis on light and nature.

That was the brief for the conversion of a corner shop and a warehouse bakery into a luxury family home in Sydney's Newtown. And how about the library?!

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The things that excite me as a 40 year old ๐Ÿคญ N The things that excite me as a 40 year old ๐Ÿคญ

None of us enjoy laundry (OK, there are a few of you out there who do. Weird!) but we have to do it. And often. So if your laundry bin can be as good looking, functional and space saving as this, then why wouldn't you?!

I've lost track of how many baskets I've thrown out because they've gone soggy or mouldy. They look pretty, sure, but they're not fit for purpose and they're often messy and overflowing.

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TOLD you this was going to be exciting!

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"Living rooms are important spaces where our publi "Living rooms are important spaces where our public and private lives intersect."

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"They are where we gather to welcome guests and entertain. But they are also where we decompress and relax at the end of the day. Increasingly, they are open-plan spaces and need to work within a greater scheme. Bringing all the elements together cohesively requires care and consideration. And, if you want a space that lives up to its true potential, make it personal and create with conviction."

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Kids and husband messing with my vignettes again๐Ÿคจ

PS. The coaster was RIGHT THERE ๐Ÿคช
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Comments

  1. AvatarArthur K says

    November 22, 2020 at 5:24 am

    Looks like they have that home under control. Great location.

    Reply
  2. AvatarMarie cottier says

    November 26, 2020 at 9:58 am

    What a great article.. very clever design. We have a lot to learn from Europeans in regard to small spaces.

    Reply
  3. AvatarJesus del Toro says

    April 25, 2022 at 10:55 pm

    Thanks Marie!

    That has been the most common compliment I receive since we landed in 2012 and it comes down to ‘how we grew up’ all crammed in a city unit in the 80’s. Lots of the things we did are based on that childhood ๐Ÿ™‚

    Cheers

    Reply

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