URBAN RETURN TO NATURE

This apartment located in Warsaw’s Wola district had great potential, however, because the space seemed shapeless and difficult to arrange, the owners did not decide to complete the interior work until many years after the purchase. They came to our design agency asking whether it’s worth modernizing and finishing the apartment to rent at profit, or if it would be better to sell it without investing additional funds.

After consulting with our partner real estate agency, we decided to prepare the apartment for a long-term rental. Our next step was to determine the scope and cost of the renovation work.

Originally, the property was a two-level apartment – we decided to remove the stairs connecting both floors and seal the opening in the ceiling. Thanks to this we gained an extra property, and in result we began work on two properties instead of just one.

Phase one was to finish the lower apartment – its original project is available here: https://jamkolektyw.com/portfolio/troche-afryki-w-warszawie/. This apartment found its new tenants only two weeks after the completion of the finishing work and home staging!

Phase two was to address the attic apartment. The most important goals for this part of the project were to organize the rather unusual shape of the interior, to emphasize the beautiful, natural light that added atmosphere to the space, and to put into use almost six meters of empty space above the living room.

Originally, the eighty-square meter apartment consisted of a living room, a bedroom with a dressing room, a separate kitchen, a utility room and a terrace. Without interfering with the arrangement of the partition walls, we proposed changing up the function of some of the spaces. An office was created in place of the kitchen, the utility room became a guest bathroom, and the kitchen and dining area were added to the open living space. 

The main design alteration was the addition of an over twenty square-meter entresol over the open living space. It allowed the very tall room to acquire correct proportions, and the apartment gained extra space, which is predominantly dedicated to being a library, though it sometimes transforms into a guest bedroom.

The entresol also added a new perspective onto the open living space and gave the interior the right proportions.