Photographer: Pasha Lutov & Dima Dychek

The designer was tasked with creating the house interior for an active young woman and her three dogs. However, during the project implementation, the family grew up as a new dog joined it. The interior of the house became a logical continuation of the pine forest around it. The live greenery in the house that replaces the curtains supports the concept of combining outdoor and indoor space.

The client wanted her home to create a sense of safety and comfort. Therefore, warm tactile surfaces and a variety of textures were logical solutions. "We chose materials that would age beautifully and would not lose their nobility after meeting with dog claws," says designer Oleksandra Vdovychenko.

The Space

The house has two floors with a total area of 250 square meters. The space on the ground floor is maximum open. The hallway is united with the living room and a kitchen. The owner has a lot of plates, which she likes to use according to the seasons, moods, and occasions, so she needed a large kitchen with sufficient storage space.

The living room has a fireplace with a large sofa in front of it. Another place to relax is a couch by the window. There is a separate dining area. Also on the ground floor, there is a small guest bedroom, a bathroom, and a wardrobe.

On the second floor, there is a master unit with a bedroom and a bathroom, a wardrobe, a guest bedroom with a bathroom, and a workshop. The workshop is a space for creativity, where the owner of the house sews and assembles ikebana. If necessary, this room can be turned into an additional guest room by lowering the bed integrated into the wardrobe.

Wood and stone

The interior combines seven wood textures. The living room wall is decorated with a century-old barn oak board that once served as beams in an old house in the Carpathians. The wall of the dining room is decorated with burnt black larch wood. Its matte surface absorbs light to the maximum, creating a chamber atmosphere. The kitchen facades are covered with oak veneer.

The parquet flooring has a distinctive wooden texture that you can feel when walking barefoot. There are no noticeable dog claw marks on the surface due to deep timber relief.
The accents of the second floor are two doors on sliding structures. Their canvas with uneven edges, knots and natural texture are thick oak slabs.

Another manifestation of wood is the wall decoration in the master bedroom. The pine planks are tinted and placed in such a way that they resemble "gont" - the shingles, a traditional wooden tile widely used in the Carpathians.
The bathroom is decorated with planks made from pieces of old wood. Cracks, chips, and bumps only add value to these things.

Stone is the second natural accent of space. Raw stone lumps replace the bedside table in the owner's bedroom and the bottom step of the oak staircase that goes from the workshop to the attic. Each of these blocks weighs about 300 kg.

Another stone is a handmade bathtub, created individually to the parameters of the homeowner. The countertop in the bathroom is made of the same material.

The walls in the house are decorated with decorative plaster to resemble concrete. The wall in the guest bedroom on the second floor imitates the texture of a rock.

The only color that does not belong to the achromatic range and shades of wood is green. You can see it in the guest bathroom in the form of a quartzite sink, ceramic tiles, and a glass wash basin bowl by Antonio Luppi.

Dogs

The owner of the house helps animal shelters. She prepares food at home, which she takes to the shelters, helps them with treatment and rehoming. Two of her four pets come from shelters. So it wasn't even about a pet-friendly space, but rather a dog-centered interior.

A large sofa was a must for the living room because Eli the dog likes to sleep on the couch. For Jasmine, a rocking chair next to the sofa was hung, and Lyalya likes to sleep on the windowsill. The new dog Alpha from the shelter, who joined the family during the project, has a traumatic experience and is therefore scared. She needed a separate secure bed to hide. It was placed next to the owner's bed instead of a bedside table.

The dogs are free to move around the house and have a separate exit to the yard. In the kitchen, they have a drinking bowl with a tap integrated into the kitchen facade.