Cat Yenn in her small apartment in Sydney, which also serves as her art studio. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian View image in fullscreen Cat Yenn in her small apartment in Sydney, which also serves as her art studio. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian Australian lifestyle Repaint, curate trinkets and go ‘curtain crazy’: how to give personality to a boxy, bland apartment As construction costs rise, soulless white-cube housing is becoming the norm in many cities. Here, new-build residents share how they’ve added character to their homes
Prefer the Guardian on Google Y ou’ll recognise the hallmarks. Banners with renders of utopian urban dwellings – a marriage of contemporary lines, streamlined surfaces, open-plan living spaces and floor-to-ceiling glass, alongside manicured green spaces and lifestyle imagery of young professionals and families. Not necessarily the vision of a quarter-acre block with a white picket fence but in urban centres the Australian dream of home ownership is being recast in the form of white-cube, new-build apartments.
In the US, “5-over-1” buildings are fast becoming ubiquitous, while in Europe, where apartments have always been smaller, there’s a rise in shared-space models with communal kitchens and amenities. Shanaka Herath, a senior lecturer at the school of built environment at the University of Technology Sydney, says: “We know that land costs have been rising, construction costs have been rising, so what the builders do is that they build smaller and more affordable units.”
View image in fullscreen A bedroom in Jono Fleming’s Sydney apartment. Photograph: Jacqui Turk In Australia, he says, “The combination of high demand and construction costs with limited supply encourages compact apartments in the cities as a model.”
But how does one make the space between these generic walls feel personal as well as practical? An off-the-plan apartment owner and artist, Ben Mazey, says even when the foundations are basic, like a supermarket sponge cake, “You can do the icing yourself, and you can make it yours.”
Having a bath was on Mazey’s wishlist when he bought a two-bedroom apartment in Melbourne . With the help of an interior designer friend, he made changes early on. In the kitchen, he had custom stainless-steel cabinetry and handles installed to replace the original timber-veneer fronts, and added a stone island bench and stone tiles underfoot, instead of timber flooring. In the bathroom, he bypassed the half walls of taupe tile and chose floor-to-ceiling white “norm-core” square tiles, and had his desired bath accommodated into the layout.
View image in fullscreen Yenn with Wonton in her studio apartment. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian To create his “Carrie Bradshaw moment” he repainted his walk-in-wardrobe a vibrant shade of pistachio, separating it from the main bedroom. “Paint’s straightforward, not that expensive and can absolutely transform a space,” he says.
Cat Yenn, a designer and artist, has been in her studio apartment in Sydney for two years, sharing the space with her partner and her rescue chihuahua, Wonton. Visual division is crucial to avoiding chaos and clutter.
View image in fullscreen Curtains add ‘softness and warmth’ to Yenn’s home. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian “I took inspiration from small Italian apartments and went curtain crazy,” she says. “I found gingham fabric and ended up making curtains to cover my fridge nook and exposed sh…