Blue fabric at the windows, a patterned wall at the landing and a wool runner on the stairs set the tone before the rest of the house comes into view. The first rooms lean into a classic modern interior, where old-world cues are kept, then edited with cleaner lines and sharper finishes. Light fittings stay visually quiet, while the wallpaper and textiles do the talking. It is an interior project built from contrast: ornament against restraint, colour against calm surfaces, and custom pieces shaped to fit the house rather than flatten it.

A statement entrance hall with patterned wallpaper

The entrance hall is the first clear sign of that approach. Patterned hallway wallpaper covers the wall with a theatrical rhythm, but the effect is held in check by slim, minimal lamps and the wool staircase runner underfoot. The stair itself becomes part of the composition, not just a route between floors. That opening sequence gives the house its statement entrance hall, and it also prepares the eye for the stronger colours and custom work that follow deeper inside the plan.

What makes the hall convincing is the way each detail is allowed to register on its own. The wallpaper reads as a surface, not decoration for decoration’s sake. The runner softens the steps without hiding them. Above and beside it, the fittings stay spare. This is where the classic modern interior begins to show its method: keep the shell legible, then introduce pattern and material only where they change the room’s pace.

A blue bespoke kitchen built into the house

The kitchen shifts the mood again. Timber cabinetry has been painted a deep blue, giving the room weight without making it feel sealed off. It is the clearest blue bespoke kitchen in the house, and the custom interior design around it makes the room read as built-in rather than inserted later. Copper sinks, a marble slab, round door handles and glazed cabinet fronts bring small changes of texture across the surfaces. The result is specific rather than flashy, with each part picked to catch the light differently.

Near the dining area, a built-in bench is lined with cushions in mixed colours, which breaks up the dark blue and wood. That detail matters because it keeps the kitchen and eating zone connected without making them identical. The cabinetry follows the room’s proportions closely, while the metal and stone accents provide a firmer edge. In a classic modern interior, this is often where the balance can slip. Here it holds because the palette is controlled and the joinery is exact.

Small details that shift the room

Round handles, copper basins and the marble surface are not treated as accessories. They interrupt the painted timber and give the blue bespoke kitchen its pace. Even the glazed sections in the cupboards work as a change of density, opening the joinery just enough to stop the run of doors from feeling heavy. These are the kinds of decisions that make custom interior design read clearly: not more detail, but the right detail in the right place.

The Shanghai room and its layered textiles

The dining room, known as the Shanghai room, brings a different register of colour and reference. The name nods to the place where the couple met, and the room uses that memory through textile rather than literal decoration. Curtains in silk with a red-pink pattern drop beside a wall painted in red, while the surrounding furniture stays darker and more grounded. The room feels more expressive than the rest of the house, but it is still controlled by the same discipline of tailored pieces and precise surfaces.

Textiles carry much of the mood here. Silk catches the light differently from the heavier fabrics nearby, and the layered curtains add depth without crowding the room. The red wall holds the composition in place. In a cosmopolitan home style, that kind of contrast matters: one room can be more extroverted, as long as the materials are chosen with care and the furniture keeps its scale. The dining space does exactly that.

Calm colours in the main bedroom

The main bedroom moves away from the richer lower floors. Grey and blue take over, and the room settles into a quieter rhythm. Instead of pushing for variety through colour, the design looks for it in the materials: linen, silk and cotton each catch light in a different way, so the room changes as the day moves across it. The palette is restrained, but the surfaces keep it from feeling flat. The bedroom shows a softer side of the classic modern interior without losing its clarity.

Because the tones are close to one another, proportion becomes more visible. The bed, curtains and soft furnishings sit in a deliberate relationship, with nothing shouting for attention. That discipline gives the room its calm. It also makes the contrast with the lower floors more effective. After the patterned hall and the blue kitchen, the bedroom’s quieter colour range feels like a pause rather than a retreat.

Tailored storage turned into a display

On the landing, the tailored storage does something unusual: it keeps handbags and shoes in plain sight. The cabinets are made to measure, and they are lit so the contents read almost like a display line. Books are nowhere in view. Instead, the collection becomes part of the route through the house, visible every time someone passes. This is tailored storage used as a daily gesture rather than hidden utility.

That decision says a lot about the project as a whole. The owners did not erase the character of the house; they translated it. Visible storage, patterned wallpaper and the blue bespoke kitchen all work the same way. They accept the existing frame, then adjust it to a more personal register. The result is a house that still feels rooted in its classical shell, but now moves through a far more individual sequence of rooms.

How the interior holds its contrasts

What ties the rooms together is not repetition, but a controlled set of moves. Pattern appears in the hall and dining room. Blue returns in the kitchen and bedroom, but with different weight and texture. The lamps stay minimal, while the textiles do the more expressive work. Even the circular handles and the glazed cabinet fronts fit into that system. Across the house, the classic modern interior is built from visible choices that let each room shift mood without losing contact with the next.

There is also a clear sense of route. The hall introduces the pattern, the kitchen deepens the colour, the dining room raises the temperature through fabric, and the main bedroom lowers it again. That progression keeps the interior project from reading as a set of separate showpieces. Instead, it unfolds room by room, with each surface doing a little more than decoration and each detail helping define the house’s own pace.

Photography: Carin Verbruggen and Ferry Drenthem Soesman