Meeting in the Middle: A Warsaw Apartment Equal Parts Colorful and Minimal

The husband-and-wife team of Katarzyna and Tomasz Widawscy favor minimalist, white interiors. But their clients, a married couple with two young children, asked that bright color figure prominently in the 970-square-foot Warsaw apartment Widawscy Studio Architektury was designing for them. So, the architects negotiated a happy medium between monotone and polychrome with a few graphic elements inspired by Pop Art.

But first, the layout needed tending to. The architects merge dliving functions into a single loft-like space: Cooking, dining, socializing, work, and play commingle in the brightly lit public half. The private half is given over to the master suite and children’s bedroom and bath, along with numerous closets. A small entry hall terminates in a mirrored wall that bounces daylight throughout the compact apartment.

The envelope is predominantly white walls and red oak flooring. Color is introduced gently at the entry via dove-gray porcelain floor tiles,which reappear to demarcate the kitchen. Bolder hues turn up in small doses: The lime green of a pair of stools in the foyer is echoed in the two cabinets above the kitchen sink, the living area’s rug, and the wall tile in the kids’ bathroom. Pattern emerges through wallcovering selections: a swath of exuberant stripes in the living area, a convoy of toy trucks in the children’s bedroom, a black-and-white cityscape in their bathroom, and soothing damask in the master bedroom. “It has a glamorous vintage style,” Katarzyna Widawscy says of the latter. The entryway’s graphic wallpaper pleases everyone: it has the subtle color palette Widawscy Studio likes, while its words are helping the clients’ children learn English.