Filling up your apartment with nice furniture and home items is not an easy thing to achieve in Budapest, simply due to lack of nice and budget friendly stores.
Majority of Hungarians browse and shop in IKEA, which is quite visible in each and every flat which goes on rent. I don’t say that IKEA is a bad choice, it is actually very good one when it comes to basic furniture which let’s say are not going to rule the roost. This was my case, as I know that I need to buy a big wardrobe which need to be located in some corner of my living room. As I did not want it to be so visible, I decided to buy a white, two-door wardrobe which was supposed to merge with the wall. The next item was a big L-couch, which was damn difficult for me to find. The one I liked cost nearly 600 000 huf, which was way too high, considering its quality. Then I discovered some of the Hungarian furniture stores such as – ‘Möbelix’ , which to my surprise did not offer only the furniture from the 90′, (quite common case here), but I was able to find a very nice, simple gray couch. Adding few pillows from H&M home, boosted the final decor. Finally the coffee table, quite small piece of furniture but how problematic! I wanted something, in old gold color but, clearly the one I liked cost a lot (classic). I bought then simple, black round table from IKEA and my super talented friend from Think Boutique refurbished it using simple spray and acrylic paint, which were available at Kreatív Hobby stores.
Another home decor store where I spent hundreds of thousand of Forints was ‘Butlers’. You can find really nice items there and prices are not that bad as in other premium stores. I got from there, my lovely wooden, white desk and simple, gray chairs for my dining table.
When it comes to my bedroom, it was a bit challenging to find proper furniture, due to really small size of the room. The biggest problem was bed, where basically I could forget about the king size. I went to another good but an bit expensive store – KIKA, where I found a nice sofa, which could be extended to bed. The only good thing about it was the petite shape and nice dark gray color – along with decorative cushions looked like really modern piece of furniture. Another necessary item was a small wardrobe, which I managed to find in IKEA. I could only get it in white, which I did not really like, but this was the good opportunity to use my creativity and simply paint it to another color. I painted it to medium grey and added very nice, greenish knobs from Butlers.
Kitchen, even if bought in IKEA does not need to be so monotonic. It’s enough when you will think about some good overall composition. That’s how I did it. Instead of making string cabinets, I rather created old-school dresser, and I must admit a lot of people really liked this solution.
My corridor is also a pretty special place. As I hate to see tons of coats and shoes which are usually occupying little space of our hallways, I was very pleased to have a storage room, which has been devoted to all of those things. I wanted to have a “WOW” effect the moment I entered through my main door, and by that I meant an ultra fancy wall paper, which I bought in a little store next to Csillaghegy street (right in front of Hév). This was accompanied by massive silver mirror, which I bought in JYSK. I would not say that my wall paper was cheap, but if you want to get the best quality you need to actually pay for it. This shop ordered it for me from Belgium and I guess this was my most favorite item in my home and the first one which I actually bought! Unfortunately, my wallpaper could not cover the side wall, around 30 cm was missing. As it was quite expensive item, it would be senseless to buy the whole roll just to cover this little part. Again, I asked for help my friend from Think Boutique, who got me little butterflies made out of dark blue paper.
What would be a flat without attractive decorations? They are the ones which complete the look of our apartments. I bought a lot of great items in Butlers, OBI, Zara Home and of course in one of my favorite store Mömax (the recent discovery), from where I got my beautiful zebra and furry carpets! My house is filled with a lot of framed photos, courteous real paints and posters. I don’t really like to have empty walls, and since I am the greatest fan of fashion shoots presenting hot bodies that could not be missed in my apartment. I bought a lot of golden frames in really nice art gallery which used to exist on the same street as mine.
credit: CAPN
Above all of the furniture and decoration, most important thing in my view is to keep our apartment tidy and clean. There is nothing worse than having a bunch of useless items which are in every single corner of our place. Also I do not understand the idea of keeping a lot of furniture, each representing a different style. It’s like somebody got a bunch of ugly things for free and is too cheap to get rid of them. I rather prefer to have empty space than filled one with a million ugly items. It always kinda suffocate me! Small advice for all the beginners or those who do not have a clue about how to arrange their apartment – use Pinterest! This is the best source of inspiration. Just by giving a key words such: minimalist, Scandinavian, eclectic style etc., you will be able to find a million of mood boards with home interiors. Sometimes when I did not know which color of the pillow will match my carpet, I was simply typing on Pinterest , the phrase and have a ready solution. If you need interior design /architectural&urban photographer, you should definitely get in touch with Claudio from CAPN!. But if you feel, you need to refurbish your furniture, there is no one better than Erika from Think Boutique.
Here are the links to all my favorite stores in Budapest along with Google map – as always to make your life easier!
Butlers, Möbelix, KIKA, Mömax, IDdesign, GOAMAMA, Möbelkunst, Orangerie, Praktiker, IKEA
1 Comment
Hi!
I love your style.
I have just bought an apartment in Palace District and have chosen my Farrow and Ball paint colour scheme, to show off my beautiful parquet floor like yours.
I wanted to ask, where did you buy your chandelier ?
Many thanks for these recommendations x it’s a great help to someone who has bought flat in Budapest.