I was singing the praises of instagram only last Monday and the beautiful (and I mean really freakin’ beautiful) home of Maaike and her family is another reason why it’s so ace – you find stuff like this.
Maaike lives in the Netherlands so unfortunately it was um a bit out of our budget to go and visit and take pictures as we normally would for a home tour. However, I simply had to share so Maaike kindly sent us her own images and I asked her a series of questions which I’m hoping the associated answers will provide you with some ideas and inspiration on how to re-create her very unique and feminine look.
Maaike actually had me at piano. And then her daughter Amelie’s room. And then just about everywhere else.
You can follow Maaike yourself via her instagram account.
What kind of home do you live in?
We live in an old church. We have 3 bedrooms, one kids room, one nursery and our bedroom. We have our bathroom upstairs. Then there is downstairs, where there is the living room with dining area and kitchen, the hallway and toilet and two other separate rooms. One is Onno my husband’s workspace and the other is for me, but it leads to our garage, so I use it as storage for my books and magazines. We also have an area downstairs with a sauna, shower and toilet.
Your home is so incredibly light, is this aspect really important to you?
It just happened this way. I love colour and print, but I think in a church you can’t go really crazy, so I combined it with a lot of neutrals and whites. And I love to change my interior, so I kept all the furniture basic, and gave all the accessories and wallpaper print and colour. And then there is the high windows, when the sun comes in it’s really pretty and light.
I absolutely love your colour palette, is this something you adhere to when decorating, to ensure every room is cohesive?
It all started with the wallpaper from Thibaut. I love to start with a print, and then combine it with other prints, that are different but somehow seem to match. I’m very strict in colour. I never use more than 3 colours in a room. I think you can keep it calm when you don’t use to much colours. The teal and peach became my favourite and then it slowly took over the house. Now I love to add some bright pops of neon orange, red. That makes the pastel a little more sparkly.
What are your favourite websites and magazines for interior inspiration ?
That is a difficult question, I usually have an idea in my head and then I start looking for it at Marktplaats, Dutch Ebay if it is vintage or just Google what I am looking for. I think instagram is a huge source of inspiration now, but most of the time I get my inspiration from a print, and then I add accessories and illustrations and then plants. Sometimes I find a vintage item and build a whole idea around it. I like to maintain my own style, so I try not to copy other styles and so inspiration has to come from unique items or wallpapers, prints.
Your wooden floors are beautiful, how do you maintain them?
The wooden floors are the real old church floors. They were polished and treated with white wash, to make them lighter.
The detail in your daughters room is amazing, I want a tipi!
Amelie is happiest when she has Tinky from the Teletubbies, She loves her tipi. She plays hide and seek in it and in the summer it goes outside and she has a nice spot in the shade. I made the tipi myself, Onno, my husband searched for some nice branches and I got the fabric and together with my mum made the tipi. I wanted a room that was girly but not too girly, so I began with the girly wallpaper and then added the industrial star, lockers and black and white posters to make it less feminine. I also used some bright neon pink, to spice the room up a little. Then I added some vintage items, I think they make the room more unique. I made Amelie a puppet theatre myself and bought a vintage rocket swan.
You have the perfect mix of olin white walls and statement wallpaper, is there anywhere in particular you would recommend for finding such unique designs?
Thank you, I buy my wallpapers at Miss Marpel . The wallpaper from Amelie’s room is from Mr Perswall. I also love the designs of Morris & Co.
Oooh I am so excited by this…! I’m coming back to read it all later and look at every picture 10000 and with a magnifying glass for every little detail. I follow her on instagram too and am half way through making a tipi after she said she made this one and that it was fairly easy… (I’m still struggling with the maths of a triangle but there are enough sleeps left before Christmas to get my husband to help!) This house is just the dreamiest dreamy dream house…!
Utterly gorgeous. Adding a few accent colours to white is a genius idea – it’s cohesive, pretty and still light and bright. LOVE!
WOW. How does this house stay so white with children around?!
We have just had our house painted entirely white (!)
I figured if it was any other light-ish colour then marks would show up equally as easily, the white we used was quite cheap too so I figured we’d just touch up every so often…let’s see how that pans out 🙂
Our old apartment was entirely white and managed to pick up some black smudges – word of advice do not touch up even with the same paint as it will show up worse! We learned the hard way. It looked like we’d knocked lots of holes in the wall then filled them in haha x
Beautiful! I love the muted colour palette, it’s so fresh and light. I imagine it must be a lovely calming place to relax!
Really love the long draping curtains in the living room – can anyone recommend where is good to find curtain material like that in the UK? Don’t want anything too heavy and struggling to find what I have in my mind! Ideally I would like to have a voile layer and then a coloured curtain so investigating whether this would require 2 curtain poles… Any help would be much appreciated!
Stunning! I love how light it is, the windows are gorgeous and oh! Those chairs!! Brilliant stuff. I second Clare Hobb’s comment though, we’ve got three kids and I’m sure our house wouldn’t stay that white (which is why we don’t have a white interior, much as I love the look 🙂
What a beautiful house, I love the decor.
A B S O L U T E L Y W O W
Please can i wake up here on Saturday morning and someone bring me a bacon sarnie? (white bread that you have to cut yourself, in a nice thick slice – no butter and HP sauce, bacon on the crispier side, please?)
Thanks so much for sharing!
Nicola x
This is incredibly beautiful! The light, the colour palette, everything about it is stunning! Thanks for sharing!
A converted church sounds like an amazing challenge, and what a fantastic job they’ve done here!
Wow Amazing Pictures