Luxury Contemporary Interior Design for a Condo

Design guide

Introduction & Overall style
- We are a couple in our mid-30s, no kids yet, both having relatively time intensive jobs. In our free time, we love to be comfortable at home, have a couple of friends over to cook together, eat & drink. We like to watch TV/sports. One of us plays the piano (we already have a keyboard that can be easily assembled/disassembled) and we sing together. We do a lot of sports but have a gym in the building, so we don’t need any fitness set up at home. We do work from home a lot, sometimes even at the same time, so having separate spaces to sit with a laptop or take a call would be important. We will have guests regularly, but also not constantly.
- We like a contemporary luxury style, like you would see in a luxury hotel. We did a design test (see below) and it also described our style as modern with classic elements
- We have attached the floor plan (some measurements don’t 100% add up, so I would err on the side of caution and use the smaller number to make sure things end up fitting)
- There is a detailed virtual tour of the apartment online: https://www.thesouthmore.com/penthouses/  it’s Penthouse 1 (P1)
- We have also uploaded a lot of photos / videos in a folder, here is the link to download it: https://web.tresorit.com/l/ShYBU#x3_P7pKiKOUKAk5OT8TkvQ Let me know if this doesn’t work
- Our home should feel cozy, bright, comfortable
- Our home shouldn’t feel clutty or too densely packed
- While we appreciate design  when it comes to sofas, chairs & bedding, comfort is definitely key and more important that looks
- Our apartment home is in Texas but we are from New York and would like more of a New York style (in line with the high rise building), we do not need any local elements
- We would definitely like some plants in the apartment.
- We did think about some sort of color scheme already. I think the dark grey of the kitchen and the brown floor is already an interesting starting point. We have seen the two colors been combined with a dark grey/brown/cream/green combination which we thought was an interesting idea. But we are flexible
- Lighting is also important to us, especially for ambience at night
- Generally, please take all our design idea as suggestions only, we are no experts in this and are also happy to be surprised / inspired  we do however have some more specific ideas about the functional element of each room as you will see below.
- We would like to buy a couple pieces of art works. With those it’s all about the design element, not if they are any special or unique.
- We are not yet sure if we should buy a piano (upright piano that is placed against the wall, here are examples: https://www.thomann.de/gb/digital_pianos.html), if it goes with the overall concept, it would be great to have

Walls, floors & lighting
- We currently do not plan to redo the walls. We are not experienced with wallpapers and how cumbersome/expensive that is, but generally that’s not the plan as the walls are all nicely finished. But we are open to ideas of course
- Same goes for the lamps that are currently installed. We believe we could keep them all as they are all functional, but if you feel something could make a huge difference, we are open for it
- We would definitely like some standing lamps (or any other type of lamp for ambience) in the living room and bedroom which can be adjusted in intensity to support a night setting that’s not so bright/more relaxed. Lighting is definitely something we have both found very important in the past to wind down at night

Master bedroom
- We like to have the bedroom fully dark during the night, so we would like to add a full-length curtain. The current blackouts are not fully pitch-black (we might change them to a thick black curtain, but as we prefer the room pitch-black, we would even love to add full-length traditional curtain, this curtain should be part of the design
- We would potentially like to add a small desk and chair in case we need a working space for a Zoom call while we have guests are the other rooms are occupied. This desk can be relatively small and could find its place next to the shelf.
- We would like to get a king bed or split king bed. We will buy the mattress separately, so that doesn’t make part of the budget. We usually like a “day bed” set up as well with a few pillows and a large day blanket.
- We do not need a TV in the Master bedroom.
- Aside from this, there are no more furniture requirements. The challenge might be to fit in both the small desk and the king bed (ideally with at least one night desk)


Second room: Office/Guests
- As we do not have kids yet, we would like to make this room a hybrid office and guest room
- As for the office part, we would like a normal sized working desk and an office chair
- The challenge here will be to see if we will be able to fit in a queen size guest bed as well (maybe if it’s moved directly to a wall). Ideally, we are hoping this will be possible, but we’ll have to check the exact measurements and need a smart furniture arrangement strategy
- If we find out that desk and queen bed will not fit together, we’ll have to discuss either a smaller desk, or a sleeping couch instead. However, as we expect regular guests, we would hope to be able to fit a queen size bed
- As at least one of us will regularly work from home, it would be great, if the desk had a nice positioning getting good light
- If we get a curtain for the Master bedroom, it might be worth it to get one for the guest room as well while we are at it
- Aside from this, we do not have any requirements, but are curious if you have any good ideas for how the space could best be used

Living room (main)
- As for the living room, we would like to fit in: a large TV, a comfortable T-shaped sofa, maybe another sofa chair (both of which can look at the TV), and a dining table
- I think the positioning for the TV is straight forward at the wall that is specifically set up for TV. We will get a large TV (not part of the budget), and would like the TV not to be placed up too high (out of experience from our last apartment). Potentially there could be a shelf around the TV as well we could use for other design elements
- The sofa is a key furniture piece and we would like it to be comfortable and as spacy as the space can reasonably afford. We would like to have a T-shape (i.e., at least one person put the legs up while watching TV) and for the other person, there could be a foot chair to put the legs on. We like to lie down while watching TV. We also often lie on the sofa to read, so if the sofa had a nice view out of the windows, that would be great. Also, it would be great if we could sit there together with 1-2 friends and the size of the combined “sofa area” to make that possible
- We definitely would like a dining table, I think 4 chairs will suffice and intuitively we would like to have it in an area that gets good light as well, which would probably be the space close to the guest room. Table doesn’t (necessarily) be too big and it could be both a round or rectangular table. Let’s see what makes sense in terms of space design.
- The “bar” is very long and we can definitely see some bar stools there. Maybe three stools, so there is still open space for someone to do kitchen work. It’s important that those chairs be comfortable, because we have had bad experiences in the past, where those chairs are so uncomfortable, we didn’t end up using them.

Living room (side)
- By “side living room”, we refer to the area close to balcony and Master bedroom. This area gets a less light than the main part of the living room, which is why we believe this is not an area for the dining table
- There is a built in shelf and next to it space for a piece of furniture / design. This might be an area for a piano. Again, we do not necessarily need a piano, but if it goes with the overall concept, it would be a great to have. And maybe this might be a possible location for it. Here are digital pianos for reference: https://www.thomann.de/gb/digital_pianos.html

Balcony
- We plan to put two chairs and a small table on the balcony

Houston, TX, USA

Contemporary

As soon as possible