Less stuff. More colour
Gertrud, a teacher, moved from Tartu to Tallinn very spontaneously due to a great offer. In the middle of the week, with a suitcase in one hand and a pet carrier with her cat Bob in the other. Then she started looking for a home.
She moved in with her mother in Kalamaja at first, and although Gertrud is best friends with her mother, it was definitely a temporary solution. “But the rental market in Tallinn was what it was,” Gertrud reminisces. “I actually reserved an apartment in another of Liven’s developments, Väike Tallinn, but that would be finished first to the end of 2021, so I would have to live longer with my mother.”
A 100% right place
When Gertrud went to view the house on Alasi Street for the first time, the walls were still under construction. But she arrived at about 17 in the evening, in incredibly beautiful sunshine, and she realised at once that this was 100% her place. “I instantly imagined myself sitting here on the terrace in the evening sun,” Gertrud says. The feeling did not deceive. “This terrace is magnificent!” Gertrud is still happy after moving in. In warm weather, she spends all her time there and her friends choose this time to come to visit. And the cat likes the apartment for its long terrace which allows rather long exploring trips. Some evenings, Bob even takes longer walks in Kopli in a walking harness with her owner.
Colours instead of things
The two-room apartment has a bold colour palette and plenty of space and light. “I hate interior accessories,” Gertrud says. “I wanted to have lots of colours and as few things as possible. I’d rather have one impressive lamp in the ceiling instead of many different details. This one highlight completes the space for me.” Even the single painting in the home was under consideration for a long time, but it’s a present from her mother and was finally put up in its current place.
She was very happy with the layout of the apartment, so she was in no hurry to change anything. The options offered by Liven for the bathroom were also suitable, but the rest was too restricted for Gertrud’s taste. The living room with an open kitchen has an eye-catching kitchen area in a shade of pink and colourful curtains, while Gertrud deliberately chose cooler, softer shades for the bedroom. She specifically requested this shade for the kitchen, although all advisors vehemently disagreed and thought it would be too overwhelming. Gertrud herself is still very happy with the choice and the pink which looks very intense in the photos is actually warm and soft in the sunny apartment.
As Gertrud moved to Tallinn with a single suitcase, she started furnishing the new home from a clean slate – apart from the dining table which waited for a year in a storage in Tartu before it arrived to the new home.
“I’m normally not at all emotional about things and don’t take anything with me but this is the table at which I’ve had the most fun parties with my friends,” she says. Even a friend who visited got nostalgic when she noticed a circle on the table from an evening together, now faded and hardly visible. This is a very versatile table for gatherings with friends or working in the home office.
As a minimalist, she does not miss a TV stand, for instance, even if all her friends keep asking when she will get one. For her, it’s not the furniture that makes a place a home but friends, a cat and the right ambience – and these are all here.
Photos: Terje Ugandi