A magazine dedicated to compact interiors

Finely crafted essentials gathered in one place 23 m² Paris, France 37 000 € Cosy minimalism Retro-contemporary Studio Studio Muraczewski

Large windows, great west-facing exposure, old-fashioned charm: there's no doubt about it, this place has character! " The buyer fell in love with the apartment's luminosity," explains Mylène Muraczewski, director of the eponymous studio, who was behind the renovation of this cocoon in the ^11th arrondissement of Paris. Its new owner, a single woman working in a design agency, wanted to live there year-round, to recharge her batteries, to host... but above all to practice her passion: cooking. An ambitious brief for the interior designer, who cunningly took on the project with flair. "The idea was to turn this 23 m² space into a modular space with all the qualities of a large one," she explains. Versatility is the key word for the layout, which combines a dining table for four, a large kitchen, a shower room worthy of a hotel suite, and comfortable living and sleeping areas. The apartment's setup was completely reworked: the obsolete floor plan required a complete redistribution, "including switching place between the toilet, originally under the window, and the shower," explains Mylène. The kitchen, adjacent to the façade, was also repositioned against the opposite wall to optimize movement. The main constraint was to relocate drains and water inlets... "For both aesthetic and practical reasons, the electricity meter is integrated into the hall cupboard - a multi functional storage space that also houses a washer dryer, hot water tank and shoe cupboard. The high point of this clever renovation is the platform, which combines many functions: it acts as a base for the bed, a bench for the living room and a chest for folding bed linen and clothes. As they are both eco-conscious, Mylène and her client decided to improve the apartment's insulation. "Here, we opted for internal wall insulation. To avoid wasting too much space, we decided to use drywall reinforced with a layer of styrofoam." Easy to install, this type of panel also takes up almost half the space of fiberglass. On the kitchen side, upcycling is the name of the game: rather than buying new fronts for her cabinets, the owner salvages second-hand IKEA doors... "As the reference was no longer manufactured, we called in a carpenter to reproduce the missing panels identically," laughs the architect. This Zen bubble of an apartment subtly alludes to the occupant's passion for Japanese culture. "We let nature speak for itself, whether with the light oak parquet flooring or the deliberately white walls... Above all, we wanted to work with materials with finesse, so as to give character to the whole and make them relevant to the eye. For example, the simple tiles in the shower room are enhanced by a colored red ocher grout, reminiscent of the kitchen floor tiles. The interior window, the platform and the numerous storage units, all designed to the millimetre, are part of the same approach," the project manager explains. A smooth and charming demonstration.