CASE STUDY

THIS LARGE OLD GARDEN BUILDING has been vibrantly transformed into a creative hideaway, with a kitchen and even an area to sleep out. The wooden hut is on an allotment just on the edge of Amsterdam and next to fields and countryside, which suited owners Helma Bongenaar and Jeroen Alberts and their two children, who live in the city with no garden.

“No one wanted it. It was almost wrecked, but we were looking for something to do up in our own style,” Helma says. “We wanted to create a sort of primitive hunting hut. At first, we did very little to the building, but later changed the layout of the interior; originally you entered through a front door and hall, and there were two small rooms. We removed the plywood walls to create one open space and now you enter through the garden doors. We made two large built-in box beds with a dividing wall from some old glazed doors, so they let light through but give some privacy. Everything in here has either been made by us or was found, given or scraped together from secondhand places and flea markets.”

Helma, who runs the shop Stoffige Zaken, is a fanatical bargain hunter. “We collected things and painted as many of them green as we could. It doesn’t matter what shade, as it all blends beautifully and creates a restful feel,” she says. “It’s really special to have a place so close to home with a great garden where we can eat (always fresh vegetables and herbs from our greenhouse), read a book or do absolutely nothing at all.”