Reader's home - a renovated apartment in Sarajevo
Tue, 7 Jun 2011Belma Mujezinovic-Pribilovic is the owner and editor-in-chief of Enterijer.ba, a popular online interior design based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The site provides free of charge expert advice on interior design with 20 architects and interior designers oin staff. Belma wanted to share her site as well as her home with us.
It was designed by the architect of Enterijer.ba magazine - Arijana Suvak, but my husband and I were involved in choosing decoration and giving it the final touch.
Completely renovated - some walls were removed to create an open space - it is a home that we have always wanted to live in. It has 80 square meters and two balconies - enough room for us and our cats Tigra and Zorro :)
We are great fans of red (as you can see in the pics) therefore each room had to have at least a splash of that color.
Living room has a lot souvenirs from our trips. There is a wall decoration made of our pictures from honeymoon and renewal of our vows in Cuba (i personally created the photo montage of those pictures). We brought the sand from Cuban beaches and placed it under the glass of commode.
All furniture was custom made.
Here is a before photo of the living room:
And after what appears to be ALOT of work, her newly renovated apartment is modern yet homey, bright with bold additions of colour and features a killer view. I think it's fabulous. (P.S. Photos of her cats will be featured in next Monday's pets on furniture post).
Reader Comments (43)
It was great to see our apartment on Desire to Inspire. Thank you Kim for sharing it with your readers. I am sad that it caused squabbling and harsh comments.
However, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We live in it and we love it!
Thank you all for your comments. It good to know opinion of people around the world.
All the best ...
I love the red couch! I've always had a red and green (I call them Christmas colours) theme through my homes and I've recently fallen in BIG love with orange so I obviously like your colour choices. I especially love the green tiles that you've used in your kitchen.... nice and fresh. Your view is magic. Congratulations on creating a home that you love (and for having the courage to post it).
I have to say that the overall effect isn't doing it for me. I would definitly change a couple of things.
I also wonder if we all had to post pics of our homes if the rest would all be impressed with the way they look. Its so easy to critisize in a harsh way especially when you are anonymous.
Remember style changes. What some of us might consider trendy now might be soooooo tacky ;-) in the years to come.
Beside guys "Design" is fun fun fun. Lets not get so worked up about it.
All the best Belma :-)
Wow! who thought that an interior design post could make viewers so emotional! Hello, this is interior design, not world peace. By the way I am an interior design junkie so before anyone bites my head off..
I will admit that I am not a particular fan of the decor of this flat but I am perhaps conditioned by my culture and my travels (essentially western european and mediterranean).
Belma has put a lot of love and of herself in her flat, she is proud of it and quite righty so.
It is natural not to share the same taste but please be grown up and open minded in your judgement. I don't particularly enjoy reading nasty comments here and really don't mind if they are removed. If I wanted bitchiness I would be reading Perez Hilton's blog.
I can't figure out what is with all this comments criticizing someone's place or design. As a regular on these pages I have seen more good- then bad ideas offered, but still keep coming back fore more. Comments like Tom's are clearly not helping anyone, but it's essential to have different views, even if they are not that constructive in the end. I am looking forward though to see what is Tom ready to share, cuz I think he actualy gives a sh.. what people will say about it. Don't get me wrong, Tommie, but this attitude won't get you far, even if we are talking only about the interiors and design. Long live D2I
I feel like writing my personal comments here. First, this is a "real" living space, not an inpersonal showroom feel. I live in a small house, deep in the woods, and the kitchen shown here was inspiring for me. I even saved the image for future reference. Granted, some cohesion is lacking here but the effort put into it shows. This blog shows us houses from different countries and not everybody is into immense cold lofts or all white. This blog has helped me discover what I like and what I do not ever want as a house.
By the way, something I have noticed: finally, finally, there are less of photos that are hazy, where one sees only one or two features on a blurred whitish picture. I so dislike this type of photos.
Merci.
Loulou
Well, it would be nice if every "reader" had a killer brownstone and a gargantuan budget, but let's face it, that is far, far more fantasy than the reality of refurbing a Croatian apartment. It's interesting to see it all. And if a reader is willing to put their home on the block for critique, it seems to me it can be discussed in a civilized manner.
As for this apartment: plusses would be the light seems very nice - enhanced by removal of the quasi-wall, the green tile is nice, lights over the bed :-), like the floors, like the simplicity, and overall seems very fresh. Minus': it feels staged, and a bit like a vacation rental. What if you changed the red walls to aubergine? I'm just wishing for some warmer, earthier colors for a more welcoming, homey feel. The Asian accents are too sparse and tiny to really set a mood (ie: the fan over the bed just does not have the gravitas to carry that space). Maybe ditch all the small accessory stuff and get a few big, sculptural modern items and lamps, and a few big paintings?
Can't wait to see your KITTIES! :-)
Thanks for sharing, and thanks as always to DTI for bringing so many different things to us daily! Love you!!
I think this post could be used for some teaching. We can all learn things from it, first how to be patient with lack of knowledge, lack of taste, and above all, lack of experience. This is probably the single attempt of this architect to ”fix” an apartment. She was obviously very ambitious to leave her personal touch on every single thing, buying all the furniture and decoration props in her neighborhood. There are many of those around. I live in Sarajevo and I see these straw baskets and cheep indian elephants made in China quite often, in so called ”Ethnic Designers Shops”. But as every product find its costumer (we say here)- we should look at this post as an anthropological contribution... It asks - What are the faces of ”beauty”? This post is extraordinary example of how different people (yet an architect) see a beautiful apartment. And for those of people who feel nostalgic for East-European specific taste - this is only bad window-shop esthetic - nothing authentic as such exist here. East-European stile is quite something else.
All the best from Sarajevo - I'm great fan of you site Kim.
I am writing from Peru, I love your blog and always read it.
My comment was erased on this post. I dont think that is a cool thing to do, specially because this is a blog to express our ideas.
Design, esthetic and taste is universal, and this post does not show any of them. It was not at the standards that you always show. I do not like any part of this apartment.
Love the view, I think the living area is quite correct so the bedroom wich has some creative solutions... As a spanish saying goes " If you don´t have anything nice to say about anyone, don´t say anything at all"...sorry about my english...Regards from Valencia (Spain)
I absolutly agree with Nacho :-)
Really cute. Love the colors. Some very unusual knick-knacks and yet the look is still simple. Great job. I love seeing apartments from all over the world.
Wow. I just went back and read the comments after I posted. I wonder if we are seeing the same apartment. I love it. I think there is just the right balance between sparseness and kitsch. And I love the bed. Love the built-in headboard with lights and shelves on either side. I've seen some homes on here that were dubious of praise, but this is not one of them.
Congratulations Belma on creating a home you love. May you have many happy years there.
I love the idea of this bedroom ! .. a little bit styling all-around and it would be perfect :)
Tastes are different. Places/locations are different. I'm from Eastern Europe and I think 90 percent of American kitchens are ugly and tasteless BUT...
I love to see them! And the other-country kitchens.
To see how people LIVE!
What desing INSPIRED them...
Hi! I have to say, I love your blog but this post was a bit confusing for me. I am an architect and often in my discussions with clients, if I need to give them some references, I “send” them to your site. If the quality of the posts is not consistent I cannot take the chance and do that again. I really don’t want to upset you, it’s just a thought I think maybe you wanted to “hear”….Also…the allusions on “homes from different parts of the word” is a bit upsetting. This is not an inspired apartment but I am sure that it doesn’t represent the quality of interior design of whole Sarajevo.
Thank you, Irina
Hmmmmmm, sorry to say but not so great, actually not so good either. I am surprised that there wasn't more interesting furniture placement, color use so it wasn't so matchy. Maybe it would have been good to see the before and after of the architectural redo and less emphasis on the terrible interior design/decor.