AT HOME_ urban roof terrace

April 25, 2022

The first space I wanted to get started on when we bought our house, was our roof terrace. After spending a year in lock-down with little to no outdoor space, we couldn’t wait to transform this trapezoid terrace into a cosy outdoor space. Since we didn’t own any outdoor furniture yet and I desperately wanted to start decorating and furnishing our house, this clean slate seemed the most logical option to focus my energy on.

In the three months between buying our house and receiving the keys, I started making mood-boards, comparing prices, trying out chairs and sofa’s and researching plants, hoping to enjoy our new and long-awaited outdoor space as soon as possible. The goal: turn this urban terrace into a green oasis where we could lounge, enjoy meals and have friends over from (not so) early in the morning until late at night. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, the Ever Given fiasco and last year’s rush on outdoor furniture, many items were sold out and delivery was often delayed. Sadly our terrace was only fully furnished in October (let this be a reminder for you to order your outdoor furniture now!), so my plan didn’t really work out… However I’m still very happy I decided to be patient and stick to my first choices, and with sun gracing our terrace from morning until evening, we have definitely caught up on “terrace time” during the sunny weeks we’ve already had this year! Now, let’s have a look shall we?

AT HOME_ we bought a house!

April 11, 2022

This past year has been quite the roller coaster, for multiple reasons, but one thing definitely sticks out: we bought a house! Ever since a certain health crisis kept all of us closer at home, my boyfriend and I started longing for a bigger home with a proper outdoor space, more daylight, a work space for each of us (my boyfriend is the music producer behind Boogie Belgique and was in desperate need of a home studio) and something we could call our own.

After one year of casually looking at listings in our hometown Antwerp, we bumped into this house from 1870, filled with authentic details, daylight, a roof terrace and more space than we could have possibly dreamed of. It’s been almost a year since we’ve moved in (and if you follow me on Instagram you’ve surely seen me decorate each room), but somehow this big decision hadn’t made it to the blog yet. So today, I present you a throwback to our empty home, and a close up of all the little details we fell in love with. Now that everything is looking more and more finished (don’t be mistaken, there’s still plenty to do!), I can’t wait to give you a detailed tour of each room. But first things first: let’s have a look at what we’re working with!

AT HOME_ living room update n° 3

February 8, 2021

It’s been a year and a half since my latest living room update and a lot has changed since then! A few months after my last update, my boyfriend moved in with me and while he didn’t bring a lot of furniture (that’s an understatement), we were in desperate need of some more storage space. Staying home for the past year made us very aware of other aspects we wanted to change. A dividing curtain between the sofa and our “hallway” is still on my wishlist (but probably won’t happen as we’re hoping to buy a house soon), but other than that this room feels pretty finished to me! Curious for the result? Read along!

AT HOME_ dining room update with Master Meubel

June 28, 2020

My obsession with interior design and architecture started when I just learned how to read and discovered my parents’ collection of interior magazines. At the time, they were decorating their newly built home and took my little sister and me to quite a few interior design stores. While some kids undoubtedly might have found this boring, I absolutely loved it. I still vividly remember when they took us to Master Meubel, where I was almost star-struck upon seeing all these designs I knew from the magazines in real life, not to mention how impressed I was with the stunning modernist architecture. You can imagine my delight when they contacted me to collaborate!

AT HOME_ my bedroom with ikea ivar hack

October 20, 2019

When I wrote about my bedroom before, I already hinted at the big changes coming up in my home, and it’s time I showed you the result! If you follow me on Instagram you probably already picked up on the fact that my boyfriend moved in over the summer. While he didn’t bring a lot of furniture with him, he did need a proper workspace (we both work from home) and thus we quickly decided to swap the bedroom and the home office. The result? A much more spacious atelier for the both of us (which I’ll show you later), and a very cosy bedroom, which (thanks to its cute balcony and green view) often feels like it’s somewhere in Paris rather than Antwerp. Click read more to read about our decoration process and to discover our Ikea Ivar hack!

AT HOME_ my dining room

June 30, 2019

Of all the rooms in my house, the dining room took the most effort to get together. I arrived in this apartment with a simple table and the three chairs (I couldn’t fit more) I borrowed from my parents for my studio apartment. The combination already looked bleek in the dining room of my next apartment (which was a little bigger), but when I upgraded again, the dining room looked downright sad.

I could easily picture what I wanted it to look like, but it took me a good year to find the perfect pieces and – not entirely unimportant – save money to be able to afford them. I didn’t exactly buy the furniture in a logical either, as I was still saving money for my table and chairs when I bumped into the perfect sideboard at a vintage web shop and couldn’t resist buying my dream carpet at a 40% discount (which I have moved to the living room, where it’s safer from stains, and have replaced with a different one recently). A few months later the carpet and sideboard were joined by a marble table, after which I only had to decide on the color combination of my chairs (with a little help from you in my Instagram stories!) and wait patiently for the custom color combination to arrive at my doorstep… My plants and deco still regularly switch places here (as they do in the rest of the house) but the core pieces of this room are definitely here to stay. Enough talking now, let’s have a look at the final result! In case you’re wondering, you can discover where I bought all these pieces at the bottom of this post. I’m curious to hear what you think!

AT HOME_ another living room update

June 16, 2019

My home is a never ending work in progress, a point I want to proof today by showing you the result of my latest living room update. You might have caught a glimpse of it already on my Instagram stories (you can relive the evolution of my interior in detail here) or in a few magazines (that’s right, my interior has been published both in Sjiek magazine and the Belgian and Dutch Flair magazine in the past few weeks), but I still wanted to share the result in detail on the blog.

The biggest change with my previous update is probably the carpet swap. I initially bought this super cozy carpet for the dining room but ended up stressing too much about stains to thoroughly enjoy it. Thus I moved the previous carpet to the bedroom and moved this fluffy wonder to the living room. I’ve also moved my DIY sidetable (which I’ve made years ago) to the wall, where it is less distracting. I’m super pleased with the result, as it is much calmer than before (you can see the evolution yourself here and here), but I have to admit I’ve made more changes since I took these shots… I’m not quite done with this room yet, so you can expect more updates in the future. In the meantime, I’m curious to here what you think of this update!

AT HOME_ my bedroom

April 28, 2019

An interior is often a work in progress and that’s no less true for mine. Change is coming in my home (more on that later), but first I wanted to update you on what it looks like at the moment. It’s hard to believe I haven’t shared pictures of my bedroom here before, as it’s been one of the most finished rooms for a long time. The finishing touch however, was the carpet that I moved from the living room. Now the space feels much lighter, less empty and the carpet is a joy to set foot on when I wake up in the morning! I’ve kept the rest of the bedroom light too, thanks to my parents’ old sideboard which I gave a coat of white paint and white linnen sheets. They let my plants, clothes, jewelry and the few decorations I have on display take all the attention. Enough talking now, let’s see those pictures!

AT HOME_ living room update

January 27, 2019

As some of you might have seen on Instagram, my living room got an update ever since I first shared it on the blog. It was the first room I ever showed here of my current apartment, as it felt as the most finished space around the house at the time. However, my interior (and yours too, I’m sure) is always a work in progress. The majority of the pieces in this room had been with me ever since I was living in my studio apartment and thus I couldn’t resist making a few changes! I moved a few plants around the house, hung a print from Studio Proba and a photo made by my late grandfather and added a few small accessories, but the biggest change is my brand new couch by Sofacompany! I chose my previous sofa because of its storage compartments, which were a lifesaver when living on merely 35 square meters. However, placed in my current 90 square meter apartment, the proportions suddenly felt a little off and I started dreaming of something that fitted my current living situation better…. and that’s were Sofacompany decided to lend a helping hand!

AT HOME_ home office

September 23, 2018

When I moved across the hall almost a year ago, I quickly decided that the brightest room of all had to become my home office. Nothing as depressing as slaving away behind your computer in a dark room, no? While I already owned enough furniture to decorate the rest of the apartment, I never had a home office before and thus had to start with a blank slate. I knew straightaway my grandfather’s drawing table (which you’ve seen before here) would make its comeback as my desk, and when I discovered the Veberöd shelving units at IKEA, I decided to team up with them to create the home office of my dreams.

AT HOME_ brunch

August 5, 2018

It’s about time after ten months, but the interior of my not-so-new-anymore apartment appears to be finally coming together this summer. You might have caught a few glimpses of a new dreamy carpet and a fabulous sideboard on my Instagram already, but I still wanted to show you these photos I snapped in my dining room right before a family brunch a few months ago. As you can see, the furniture I took from my tiny apartment doesn’t really live up in this rather spacious new home of mine, but I’m working on it! After all, creating a home takes time (and some saving up) and as this blog is as much about beautiful interiors as the way they grow and evolve (just dive into my INSIGHTS archives in case you don’t know what I’m talking about), I wanted to share images of this in between stage as well. Keep an eye on the blog for more updates on my home soon!

AT HOME_ my living room

April 15, 2018

After living here for 6 months, it’s about time I shared a little peek into my new apartment. First up? The living room. While most rooms still need some work, this is the one room that feels the most finished. A good thing, since it doubles as my entryway (yay for good first impressions) and it’s the one room where I spend the most time, whether it’s in company of my friends or relaxing with a good book or some Netflix on my own.

AT HOME_ reset the table + giveway

June 11, 2017

There are few things I love more than delicious food and good company, so when Iittala asked me to host a dinner for my friends to highlight their Reset the table campaign, I didn’t have to think twice. I invited Lies, Eline and Paulien, stocked up on flowers and wine, set the table with the dotted blue plates and light blue bowsl from Iittala’s Teema collection, complemented with items from their Kastehelmi collection. Pro tip from someone who’s clumsy and living on a budget: mixing and matching is the solution when you can’t afford to buy a whole set of tableware at once or when you happen to drop a plate once in a while, plus it gives your table setting an original twist! Iittala understood and made sure that all of their tableware goes together, allowing you to create a set that matches your taste perfectly. Good news by the way, you can win a set of Iittala tableware for two on my instagram right now! (Or just buy them here.)

AT HOME_ my home

August 28, 2016

After all that teasing, I’m finally sharing the last post about my ikea x au pays des merveilles collab today! As you may remember, I was sharing a house before, which had its perks, but after sharing homes for the past 7 years, I really felt the need for a place of my own. So once I found a job, I kept an eye on the ads and after 6 months or so I finally found that dream place. With a limited budget (I’m still only an intern after all) it wasn’t easy, but I managed to find a charming place in my old neighborhood of Zurenborg.

AT HOME_ furnishing my home

August 14, 2016

INSIGHTS furnishing my home - hannelore veelaert for au pays des merveilles

In this second post about my collab with Ikea, I’d like to give you a closer look into my studio. As you can see in the image above, it’s quite a small space, where you enter straight into the living and sleeping area, with a small bathroom and narrow kitchen on the left. Despite the limited square meters and the lack of a separate bedroom, I immediately saw the potential of this studio: there are big windows on both sides of the space where light floods in thanks to the studio being located on the 4th floor and the arches divide the space into a sleeping and living area, while adding a bit of character.

AT HOME_ my bedroom

May 7, 2015

hannelore veelaert for ikea family live-7

When I moved about a year and a half ago, I promised I’d show some photos of my new bedroom soon. Somehow I never managed to do so, until I was contacted by Ikea Family Live magazine to share some pictures of my house in one of their online issues. As I share my home with 3 other people, I’ve limited the photos to only my bedroom, but this is my favorite place in the house anyway.