Peeking in at Gert’s place
Peeking in! It’s fun! Today we are peeking in at Gert’s place, the contact person for our professional clients at Carrodrain. He lives with his partner and their son on the second floor behind a sandstone façade in the heart of Antwerp.
Gert has become a real city dweller over the years: “The city gives me peace. After a busy day in traffic, I can park my car. On foot or by bike, I can really relax here. The city is really our home. The realization that there is so much happening within walking distance, and yet there is nothing I have to do, is the real luxury of living in the inner city.”
“Our bathroom is probably the best room in our apartment. When we looked at the project developer’s plans in 2015, we knew what we wanted the end result to look like. We removed the modern glass doors and had the old door recovered. A great move, as it turned out.”
“It won’t surprise anyone that I had a clear opinion about how we were going to design the bathroom. A free-standing bathtub combined with a walk-in shower immediately gives your bathroom that extra bit of luxury. But it also provides a significant added value for resale down the road. Investing in a bathroom with style always pays off.”
“Because our bathroom is centrally located in the apartment, it is not only a functional room, but also a connection between the children’s room and the master bedroom, the dressing and storage. It was a challenge to create enough privacy here.”
“By putting a full wall between the bathtub and the shower, we created a cosy shower shall and we could hide a sliding door in it. When we have overnight visitors, or soon, a teenage son, our shower room can serve as a separate bathroom.”
“The wall behind the bathtub got two blind doors, so that there could be daylight in the bathroom and it could be connected to the master bedroom when we want it to. From spring on, the leafy canopy of the sycamore trees in the Antwerpse Leien gives us complete privacy and a beautiful green view. In the winter, the streetlamps provide an atmospheric view of a bustling city.”
“In my homeland, the deep Kempen, they sometimes say I only like new things all the time, but that’s not entirely true. Some of our things are often 50 years old. But I understand why they think that. By regularly playing with our interior design, there is always movement and it often looks like we have updated our interior once again,” Gert laughs.
“Everywhere, including in the bathroom, you will find travel souvenirs, houseplants, nostalgic discoveries and paintings. Our story, our memories… that ensures that it is not a showroom interior, but a home with character. And those things move through the house, so we never get tired of them. We both really like natural materials. The wood floor, Mortex and genuine wooden slides provide texture and warmth. Colour is only in the layer above that. A qualitative base with a timeless look offers a lot of possibilities to allow your interior to evolve or to make quick changes. A bright-red accent wall? Not for us. We’d probably get bored with it after about a week, I’m afraid.”
“In my homeland, the deep Kempen, they sometimes say I only like new things all the time, but that’s not entirely true. Some of our things are often 50 years old. But I understand why they think that. By regularly playing with our interior design, there is always movement and it often looks like we have updated our interior once again,” Gert laughs.
