Taking Cues From Nature: A Breathtaking Dining Room

Would you like a sneak preview of an apartment behind the prestigious walls of Jerusalem Estates?

The grandeur of Jerusalem Estates is truly unparalleled — from the perfumed car parks to the breathtaking lobby and the aristocratic hallways, it's an experience on a whole new level. I considered how to carry all of that into the apartment I was designing.

My client gave me the keys, and this is what the apartment contained: a fitted black kitchen, brown American walnut window frames, and white bare walls. That was basically it.

So I got to work.

Kitchen and dining

In the kitchen I added cool lighting systems, a glass backsplash and shelves.

Moving to the dining room: being open plan to the kitchen, I brought the black metal elements from the kitchen into the mirror frame, the table, the coffee table and the table legs. I carried the walnut from the window frames into the modern floating shelves and the kitchen lighting.

But it was time to bring in another colour that worked well with American walnut.

Where the olive green came from

Intuitively, olive green came to mind — until I realised I was simply replicating nature: a wooden tree trunk and olive green leaves, giving an agrarian ambiance to my client's vacation home.

Taking my cue from nature: אין צייר כאלוקינו.

The oval ceiling

I knew I wanted a wow factor in the lighting. Since there were already pendants over the island, something built into the ceiling was needed. I designed a unique stretched ceiling in an oval shape with a double moulding around it, with both direct and concealed lighting over the oval table.

That's how all the components came together.

Carrying colour room to room

To create harmony in an apartment, it's important that colours flow from room to room. Since black dominated the kitchen, I decided to run with it into the bathroom.

The illuminated floating ceiling against the black and wood-accented bathroom wall creates elegance and sophistication at its peak. Despite clients hesitating to use dark colours in small spaces, I believe that as long as the lighting is done correctly, dark bathrooms are a great way of creating drama.

The master bedroom

I still used black, but accompanied it with a dusty mauve to give it less of a masculine sentiment. Diagonal lines in the headboards give the room character — I bought ready-made black and white linen and had the diagonal lines embroidered on.

Finding master bedroom lighting tricky, I designed a unique light fixture and had it custom made, with black velvet trim and handmade violet glass balls hanging from the shade.

When I came across the nightstand as a ready-made piece, I knew it would work because of its slanting diagonal sides — but the colours were wrong. So I had it upholstered and added a black glass top.

The guest room

Black again, but in minute amounts, just as borders to complement a mainly cream and ochre geometric design. I added a cream bevelled glass top to the desk to coordinate with the cream glass sliding closet door.