Inside a Collector’s Amsterdam Home Filled with Repurposed Finds
Photograph via Helma Bongenaar
Stylist and cook Helma Bongenaar is a collector of the pre-loved. Join us for a look at her circa-1880 Amsterdam home, redone with traditional paint colors and nearly all found, thrifted, and repurposed finds.
The kitchen and entryway space was once a tavern; now it's painted in two-tone blue.
This is my most precious collection: more than 100 different designs, blue and white, 50 to 100 years old," says Helma of her vintage French coffee bowls.
A frame of vintage plates, carefully aligned, hangs above a doorway.
In traditional Amsterdam interiors, Helma says, “The kitchens were blue because flies don’t like this color, and the living rooms were green, the color of calmness.”
A curtain made from thrift-store fabric hangs at the base of the stairs to keep the downstairs warm in winter.
Vintage wallpaper serves as a headboard in the main bedroom.