Maria Yakushkina and Dmitry Petrov are no longer surprised by such stories, but the customers of this particular apartment turned out to be special for them.

Dmitry Petrov: This object of a very rare sense is small, but high-budget. The previous generation of secured customers could not imagine how one could afford to invest heavily in apartments with an area of ​​less than 200-300 square meters. meters But our customers turned out to be people of a new generation, they earned their wealth through intellectual activity, they have a different worldview. They did not need an apartment with a lot of crazy halls, unnecessary space, unused rooms, an empty dining room, etc. They wanted to live in a cozy, very rich, well-developed space, where each thing has its price. They needed an apartment-box ...

SALON: Did you have to redo the project that customers came with?

Maria Yakushkina: Yes, the project had to be redone. Since they turned to us for furniture, we looked at a huge number of books with them, they showed how they would like to see their apartment. Here a conflict of their desires and possibilities of the project, which was already in their hands, arose. The apartment was not designed for the English style, but for some average, vague classics. So I had to redo everything.

S: What difficulties arose with the layout?

DP: The difficulty was commonplace. It was necessary to create the feeling that you are in a large apartment in a small square. Here we have our professional secret. In each of its objects, we try to do some viewing nodes, from where a view of the most remote points of the apartment opens. That is, we try to open the space from wall to wall. But when guests come to the apartment, they do not know that they see the maximum, they somehow think that there is a continuation ...

S: Tell us about decorating techniques that you used here.

M.YA .: The apartment has a very small hall in which I wanted to immediately identify the theme of the English style. We used boiserie, tapestry - all in brown and red, and marble on the floor. The hall is a passing room, so here it is possible and appropriate to make the floor with a powerful contrasting pattern, especially since there is almost no furniture in the hall. With this picture, we simultaneously set the incoming perception scale of the apartment and adjust it to the style.

DP: It was necessary, of course, to make compromises. For example, customers asked to combine the kitchen and living room. Probably, within the framework of the area that we had, and given the family, non-public lifestyle of the owners, this was the right decision. Due to the fact that we put the kitchen here from CLIVE CHRISTIAN, the living room space has not even lost its pomp. CLIVE CHRISTIAN - the only, in our opinion, factory, which produces architectural furniture. This is when you look and do not understand where the furniture ends and the architecture begins.

S: The apartment has a very unusual bedroom ...

M.YA .: Here the principle of decoration-boxes is applied. Walls, curtains, canopy - all from one fabric. For small bedrooms it is a very good reception, it gives such an enveloping feeling. Above the bed is a tiny canopy. We made it exactly the same size so that everyone would understand that this is not serious, that this is such an English humor.

Dmitry Petrov:"This is exactly the situation when people deliberately went to create an atmosphere in the house" until 1913. "They didn’t need an apartment with columns, halls, marble staircases, etc.