The Amsterdam-based stylist & creative Nicole Huisman opens the doors to her Dutch dike house and the thoughts behind her renovation and decoration choices.
Tell us about your aesthetics and style.
Nicole Huisman: Bold, cosy, and colourful, that would be a good description in three words. I like our home to feel like a warm hug, like being on holiday every day, with exciting objects and colours. Not too serious but grown-up – that’s my goal.
Where do you find your inspiration for interior and fashion?
Nicole Huisman: I like to endlessly browse Instagram and then Google designers, artists, or creatives that I find inspiring. Our home is an old Dutch dike house – so the original style of the house was my starting point. A little Dutch, a little British, a little Danish. Influencer Lucy Williams was renovating her home at the same time, and I really enjoyed following her steps and ideas for her home. Also, the home of Ditte and Nikolaj Reffstrup from GANNI was a huge inspiration (so quirky and cool!). And I’m a big fan of the work of Luke Edward Hall: the bathrooms he created for hotel Les Deux Gares were a direct inspiration for our bathrooms.
Nicole Huisman in her Kitchen
Tell us about your home and what makes it so special.
Nicole Huisman: It was always my big dream to buy an old house and renovate it exactly the way wanted. No more safe, standard choices like in our previous rental apartments, but statements that reflect our style and taste. The renovation was a rollercoaster, but I’m so satisfied with the end results. It’s an old house from 1936 and we haven’t changed too much of the layout, only some smart things with the help of a befriended architect. I have worked as a stylist for years, but imagining layouts and interiors for an entire house from scratch was a first. I’m so proud how it turned out, especially since we didn’t have a million-dollar budget available, and I did everything based on intuition. I had to be creative and innovative, and also accept the fact that not everything was possible or is perfect right away. And there’s something magical the fact that a house is always a project from the heart, and that it grows with us –to (hopefully someday) a warm, family home.
What features does an item need to have for you to like it?
Nicole Huisman: I’m very sensitive to specific colour combinations. For example, our HAY Two-Colour Table by Muller Van Severen: I’m not the biggest fan of red, but I love it in combination with the blue tabletop. It’s also a matter of feeling, I either immediately like an item and I want to have it right away, or I don’t. Form does something with me, too: I feel attracted to ‘friendly’ shapes, like round, or soft edges. Oh, and I’m a sucker for retro elements, like ribbed glass – I love that! In the end, it’s the combination of colour, form, and material that makes or breaks it for me.
What is your favourite room in your home? And your favourite furniture/decoration item?
Nicole Huisman: That’s a hard one to choose! I love our kitchen, it’s where we spend most of the time: together, alone or with family and friends. I just put all my favorites together in one room there: black & white 70s tiles, yellow, olive-green, purple, blue and red, oak and marble. Everything turned out so nice and surprisingly calm! In addition, the ’secret’ bathroom, behind the kitchen is something special: I had to be creative there with a vintage sink and old stock tiles. The chocolate brown plus lilac is one of my favorite combinations in the house.
What do HAY pieces bring to this home?
Nicole Huisman: HAY brings fun to our home, without losing the practical aspects. There’s no day without HAY! It’s the combination of items that do the trick for me. A black floor lamp on its own wouldn’t be my very ‘me’ per se, but in combination with my curtains and all other colourful elements in the house, it contributes to a cool, grown-up place.
What does colour mean to you?
Nicole Huisman: Colour is everything! Colour boosts my day and brings light and energy. I like to surround myself with colour, it makes me happy.
How does a typical day look like to you when you’re home?
Nicole Huisman: First, I clean up the house – my mind works better in tidy surroundings. I prefer things clean and organised nicely. However, my boyfriend always jokes that ‘we’re not living in a showroom’, haha! And he’s right. It’s just my passion – and my job – to play and move things around in the house. I light a scented candle and find myself a nice playlist. I open my laptop in the living room while I look out the window and see the cows and sheep graze right behind our garden. We live in Amsterdam, but it feels like the countryside sometimes – the best of both worlds!
Living with HAY captures how people live with their favourite HAY furniture, lighting, and accessories.
