{"id":2891,"date":"2024-01-24T22:59:09","date_gmt":"2024-01-24T14:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/homeofmaterials.com\/2024\/01\/24\/this-is-the-house-id-leave-amsterdam-for-a-familys-airy-springy-1893-quarters-in-haarlem\/"},"modified":"2024-01-24T22:59:09","modified_gmt":"2024-01-24T14:59:09","slug":"this-is-the-house-id-leave-amsterdam-for-a-familys-airy-springy-1893-quarters-in-haarlem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/homeofmaterials.com\/nl\/this-is-the-house-id-leave-amsterdam-for-a-familys-airy-springy-1893-quarters-in-haarlem\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cDit is het huis waar ik Amsterdam voor zou verlaten\u201d: De luchtige, lenteachtige woning van een gezin in Haarlem uit 1893"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It was a Sunday and as usual Arianne Bonthuis was perusing the Dutch real estate sites. Arianne and her husband, Derk, and their four young kids had long ago outgrown their Amsterdam apartment when a banner ad on Fonda.NL caught her eye. \u201cAfter a few clicks on the pictures, I turned to my husband and said, \u2018This is the house I\u2019d leave Amsterdam for.’\u201d An extensive tour later, Derk, too, was ready to commit, and the project, which had been on the market a long time, was soon theirs.<\/p>\n

The appeal of the 1893 grote mensen woning<\/em>\u2014\u201dbig people house\u201d or mansion\u2014was its size and original detailing. Plus its location in Haarlem, just 20 minutes west of Amsterdam. Derk is a policy advisor at the Dutch Ministry of Finance and Arianne is a tax lawyer, and even with four kids and the Covid curveball of homeschooling, they enthusiastically took on a major remodel. Getting it ready required eight months of heavy lifting, from roof and window replacements to floor plan adjustments, the installation of a new kitchen, and plasterwork restoration, among other things.<\/p>\n

The couple worked with a very capable contractor: \u201cDerk and I both think in images,\u201d says Arianne. \u201cWe looked through the house and immediately envisioned what it could be. We didn\u2019t hire an architect because we both love to think about design problems. Our style might be described as vintage-Scandinavian: we like a light house with some color for coziness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now fully moved in, the family manage to keep their main quarters uncluttered enough that, to help defray costs, they rent rooms for photo and film shoots via location agency House of Bullet. Join us for a tour.<\/p>\n

Photography courtesy of House of Bullet.<\/p>\n


Above: The front door was emblematic of the place as a whole: the original was mostly in place but in need of work. The door, formerly white, received several layers of paint, broken yellow glass was swapped with wavy glass, the mail box\u2019s missing handle was replaced, and the stained glass is now sandwiched between insulating glass.
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Above: A monumental beech tree, shown here in autumn, screens the house from the street. \u201cWe don\u2019t know much about the former habitants, but at some point our place was probably used as an office judging from the flooring and the amount of cables in every room,\u201d says Arianne. \u201cWe\u2019ve met people who considered buying it but were scared by the amount of work it needed.\u201d Scroll to the end to see a series of Before shots.,

Above: The garden room, with new French doors, opens to a large backyard. The upholstered bench is the Monday Sofa from F\u00e9st of Amsterdam. The Calderesque Brass Leaves Mobile is by Lappalainen: read about the workshop in our post Living Above the Studio.
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Above: The rooms retained their tall ceilings, moldings, and fireplaces; the tall windows and baseboards are new. Herringbone parquet floors were introduced upstairs and down. (Read our Remodeling 101: The Difference Between Herrington and Chevron Patterns). The pink sofa is from the Sofa Company and soon to be replaced: \u201cIt got ruined by our kids and professional cleaning no longer helps.\u201d <\/p>\n

Arianne loves online vintage shopping on Marktplaats.NL and Instagram (@tidjperk_interior, @sprinkelhop, @tonysgaragesale) and says a lot of the furnishings came from late-night browsing.<\/p>\n


Above: A newly widened entry opens the living room to the library, the family\u2019s homework and crafts room. Note the restored marble mantel: see its earlier state below. Curious about the wicker box above the braided money tree? Arianne and Derk made it to cover a Sonos speaker.,

Above: There\u2019s a reading chair and classic French Jield\u00e9 lights in the adjacent dining room. The table is surrounded by a mismatched ensemble of chairs\u2014for similar brightly colored Windsors, consider the Salt Chair .
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Above: The formerly closed-off ground floor rooms now flow into each other.
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Above: The family\u2019s new kitchen, bigger and brighter than what was there, is an Ikea hack. The brass pendant lights are &Tradition\u2019s Utzon JU1 design from 1947.
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Above: Ikea Metod cabinet bases are finished with Classic Style doors, drawers, and brass hardware from Noremax. \u201cThey\u2019re clean but not boring,\u201d says Arianne of the cabinet fronts. \u201cAnd we could choose from all the Farrow and Ball colors\u2014we went with Studio Green.\u201d Thinking about your own Ikea hack? Here are 11 Companies that Offer Ikea Kitchen Upgrades.,

Above: The pink subway tiles in a diagonal stack are Azulejos Detroit Rose from Dutch online source the Tegel Store. The countertop marble came from a local stone shop. The mixer faucet is by Meir.
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Above: Arianne and Derk found and painted the vintage countertop cabinet.
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Above: A Normann Copenhagen Phantom Lamp hangs in the upstairs hall, which formerly had blue linoleum flooring and stair treads.
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Above: In the upstairs home office: a wallpaper mural from Swedish source Photowall over an Ikea Ivar cabinet hack painted Willow II from the Paint & Paper Library. The pale green on the walls is Green Stone from Little Greene.,

Above: Arianne and Derk\u2019s room has an en suite bath and floral wallpaper from Bor\u00e5stapeter, Sweden\u2019s Oldest Wallpaper Company.
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Above: The wall behind the tub is painted Pink Peach from Vestingh.
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Above: The reconfigured attic is now divided into three kids\u2019 bedrooms, each with painted antique furniture and accent walls papered with Bor\u00e5stapeter botanical designs.
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Above: The attic beams were not only stripped of paint but repositioned. The bed is from Dutch auction site Vintage.nl.,<\/p>\n

Voor<\/h3>\n


Above: The garden room had a porthole window that felt out of place.
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Above: Doors closed off the living room and there were next to no baseboards.
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Above: The library\u2019s marble mantel was damaged and the missing pieces were nowhere to be found. The couple tracked down another period mantel that was in pieces and its parts were used to restore this one.
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Above: Blue linoleum covered the second floor. The WC got converted into a laundry room.
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Above: The garret was garish. <\/p>\n

See more of the house on Instagram @haarlemsegrotemenenwoning.<\/p>\n

Here are three more favorite historic house remodels:<\/p>\n