4 ingenious ways to update your apartment look and feel guide, Best architects tips, Contemporary building advice

4 Ingenious Ways to Update the Look and Feel of Your Apartment

11 May 2022

You have just found the apartment you want. It is on a higher floor in one of the swankiest developments in town.

The apartment faces the water, offering glorious sweeping views. It is also flanked by a mall and many dining and recreational options. It’s perfect, just like those creek-facing apartments in Dubai, the ones beside Dubai Festival City Mall that you couldn’t stop gushing about.

There is just one problem. While you love the location of your new apartment, you’re not so enamoured with its current style. There’s nothing wrong with it if you’re being completely honest. You’re just not in love with what the designers have done to it.

There’s an easy answer, of course. Remodelling, upgrading, redesigning — call it whatever you like — is something you can certainly do.

Here are some ingenious ideas to get your creative juices flowing.

Swap the curtains for blinds — or just bare it.

Curtains feel lavish, extravagant, and all manners of things, but they can be overwhelming, too. They can also drastically date and crowd a room depending on the style. Furthermore, if you have a large picture window or a floor-to-ceiling window framing a magnificent view, curtains might detract from your apartment’s best feature.

Remove those curtains and watch the light flood your space. The natural light hitting your walls and furniture — that might be all you need to get a fresh surge of energy flowing into your apartment.

Additionally, leave the space beside your view-framing window bare. Make the window the focal point, make it open and welcoming, inviting people to walk up to it and look outside.

In line with this, refrain from putting a couch or other furniture against the window. To enhance the framing of the view, you can arrange your settee, so it’s perpendicular rather than parallel to the view. If necessary, a low-back bench can face the window, but you must adequately set it back to avoid obstructing the view.

If you must add window treatments, go for vertical blinds or window shades. Choose something automated or remote-controlled, so you can easily raise or lower it. This way, you can leave it open by default and just drop it as needed.

Put on a fresh coat of paint.

Change the wall colour and texture, and you should immediately notice a difference in how your apartment looks and feels. Painting the wall is seriously one of the most impactful changes you can make to your apartment.

You can change the paint on just one wall. How about you swap that plain eggshell for something textured that alters its appearance depending on the lighting? Apply an artistic decorative paste (think Toile Tissée) and finish it with decorative paint.

Note that the interplay between light and paint is an essential element of room design. Before you proceed, try your planned changes on a small section of the wall. Leave it there for a few days, and observe it during different times of the day.

For efficiency, test various options simultaneously so you can also compare which one you like best. However, don’t put different patches so close together. One option may affect your perception of another. Furthermore, it might be best to test the wall with primer, so the existing paint will not influence how the fresh coat looks.

Change the cabinet hardware.

A big update can also happen with a simple cabinet and furniture hardware change. Simply changing those cabinet knobs, pulls and handles can have a significant impact on how your apartment looks.

It could be that you don’t really have any objection to your apartment’s paint, colour scheme and finishing, but you still feel like something’s amiss with the apartment design.

In this case, it could simply be the cabinet and furniture hardware that are turning you off. Perhaps you are drawn to the modern contemporary aesthetic, but those French baroque pulls in antique pewter on the sideboard are striking a discordant note.

Change the lighting.

The influence of light on space cannot be discounted when updating the way your apartment looks. Therefore, a simple change in lighting can change how you feel about your apartment.

One of the considerations is light temperature. Should it be cool or warm? Generally, warm white feels welcoming and is a good choice for most spaces, and you can even go for very warm white when choosing lighting for the bedroom. Cool white works best for bathrooms.

Naturally, you also need to consider the room function. If it’s the kitchen and other functional spaces, you want something colour accurate. In the bedroom and the living room, you want mellow lighting.

It can get more complicated than that, moreover. You might want different sets of lights or a system that can automatically shift from day- to night-appropriate lighting for the best results. Ideally, your rooms should mimic natural light, so cool in the morning, white at midday and warm white at night.

By the way, make your lighting decisions before you make painting decisions. Specifically, test your paint patches in the new lighting. However, if you have already made your paint and colour changes, then decide on lighting that will flatter your current colour scheme.