Leonie Pauls
Hamburg, Germany
I’m sure you have seen Leonie’s Hamburg home sometime on your feed. Her home really stands out for me. She brings together soft colors with dark and masculine accent pieces like your Herman Miller chair, fun and colorful art playing with dimensions, many different chairs from various styles…With the evening light that hits her historical apartment, high ceilings and architectural details it all looks so well put together. Like she explains, she takes advantage of those happy moments, puts a reading chair right where the light hits to create a space of serenity, evoking feelings through decoration. Her home is calm, comfy, inviting, vintage and modern; a mix of a lot of things. Her choice of light colors balances the grandeur of her space. She has a love for vintage IKEA furnitures that she sources from the 70s and 80s. I truly hope you enjoy our interview, it was a pleasure of me to see some of her decision process and inspirations behind this beautiful space.
You can find her @altbau.zweiundzwanzig :)
Your home really stands out for me. You bring together soft colors with dark and masculine accent pieces like your Herman Miller chair, fun and colorful art playing with dimensions, many different chairs from various styles…With the evening light that hits your historical apartment, high ceilings and architectural details it all looks so well put together. How would you describe your home? Can you take us through your design process, for example your choice of that soft color palette…
I’d describe my home as comfy maximalism. A follower of my once described the apartment with this term and it spoke to me right away. I absolutely love Danish design but not the „hygge scandi interior“ style with a beige-grey-white color palette. The 70s and 80s have been such powerful and colorful decades interior wise and I truly hope that homes will get more play- and colorful again. Arriving at an apartment is a process for me. When we moved in back then, we only had the most important pieces of furniture and gradually found the right additions. It's important to let the rooms take effect on you. Where is the most beautiful light? That might be a nice place for an armchair to read in. Also, I didn't want to commit to one style of decor, because I usually like the furniture pieces themselves, not a particular style. The important thing for a harmonious overall concept are the colors. Soft tones in combination with wood and strong contrasts are my favorite. In the living room, for example, dominate wood tones in combination with white and color accents in pink and yellow. You really shouldn't be afraid of colors, because they often make the room look bigger.
You bring together many different items with various styles, for example many different chairs laid out all around the home. How would you describe your style and search for such pieces? What was your strategy while decorating, how did you start picking certain pieces for your layout? Was there any important element, piece of furniture you really wanted? What was your intention behind your choices?
Decorating our home is a process and a project that I do together with my husband. We like to look for "new" old furniture on secondhand platforms, looking for brands on the one hand, but also for specific eras. My love for vintage IKEA makes me of course often look for exactly these pieces. I love finding IKEA treasures from the 70s and 80s used and giving them a new home with us. I wish we had a Strategy but really it's more of a coincidence. As we change, so do our tastes and so we add new pieces of furniture to our home every now and then and because I pay attention to the colors, there is a harmonious overall concept despite the different styles. Especially with the chairs, there is no uniform style, but many different individual pieces that we like so much precisely because of their diversity. You can simply never have enough seating options, right?
Can you also share your ideas behind choosing art for your home? You have some very special pieces like the panton era wall installation...
In my opinion, art is what makes a home unique. We also found the wall panels from the 70s secondhand. They used to serve as ceiling paneling in an office building and we liked the idea of giving them a second life in our living room. Then, for example, we have posters from art shows, self-painted or prints we found online. For one picture that hangs in our living room, I made the picture frame myself out of construction foam - so you can create a unique wall decoration in minutes.
And the list we all wonder…
The pink sofa - Ligen Rosen Togo, purchased at an auction house
Wicked chair - Egon Eiermann E10, bought vintage
Neon light in our living room - it’s from HAY
Big mirror - no brand, used to be part of a dance studio
Gingham Chairs - Vintage IKEA, bought second hand
Print in our dining area - Drool
Carpet in dining area - Rugtales
Tell us a bit about both of you, who are you? How did your interest in interior design begin? What inspired you to start an interior account?
I‘m Leonie, 27 years old and based in Hamburg with my husband and 8 months old baby. Luckily I share my passion for interior design, vintage furniture, photography and content creation with my husband so we can enjoy the space of creativity we built for ourselves together. My interest in interior design began when I was about 10 years old. We received the IKEA catalogue around August each year and I spent most of my free time designing flats and writing down lists with furniture and prices for my future home(s). I also rearranged and colored the furniture in my childhood room (which didn’t always look too good haha). I started my Instagram account exactly one month before our baby was born. I used to work as a social media editor and always loved my job. But while I was pregnant I knew that it would take some time before I‘d go back to work and so I created a space for creativity and my passion on Instagram to make sure to have my own project besides raising the little one. I would have never thought that so many people would be interested in our flat but with each day the community is growing and I really love the interior enthusiasts I share my passion with.
How did you end up deciding this home is the one? It is a special one with all the mouldings and architectural details…
In Hamburg, the real estate markets decides that for you because its a real pain to get a flat and prices are sky rocketing. Our hunt for an apartment two years ago was super quick, because we found this gem and actually got it but usually there are between 100 and 200 other people on waiting lists for on flat. I absolutely love our old apartment and for me its the perfect family home.
We are very lucky because we have a lot of space and the high walls make the rooms look even bigger. There are three of us and everyone has enough space to retreat, at the same time we have enough places where we can spend time together as a family. But the feeling of home is the real reason why the apartment is right for us. When we travel, we look forward to coming home again. A feeling of safety and warmth and security. I just love every corner about our home (even the untidy ones!).
You also are a big inspiration for your vintage IKEA finds :). Can you tell us some of your favorite pieces in your home? I also want to specifically hear about that gorgeous mirror, I believe many people should be asking :)
That mirror is a true eye catcher! My husband found it online on a secondhand furniture site. We’ve been looking for a mirror quite long but with our high ceilings we were especially looking for an extra large one and that was an exhausting hunt. When he found this mirror, we measured the dimensions with an inch stick and thought: all right, the mirror is about the size of a door. My husband and my brother then picked up the mirror and when I came into the living room, I was speechless, because the mirror was just sooo much bigger than expected. I wonder to this day how it could have been transported. It's from an old dance studio and that definitely makes the mirror special.
The newest addition to our home is the white dining table. Until recently, we ate at one of my husband's heirloom tables, but the dark dining table made the room feel smaller and we wanted a modern contrast. After a quick search, we found the tulip leg oval table and love it! The secret to finding vintage gems is not to make the radius too tight. For the table we drove a total of 4 hours car but it was worth it!
The white side tables in our living room are from our landlords. The elderly couple sorted out the tables from the 70s and put them on the side of the road. They are reminiscent of the design of Mario Bellini's classics, but are from a German manufacture and real witnesses of the 70s.
