• Home tour A Dutch swimming pool reimagined
ONE DUTCH COUPLE TURNED A CAVERNOUS FORMER SWIMMING POOL INTO A COMFORTABLE FAMILY HOME FULL OF INGENIOUS IDEAS AND CLEVER DESIGN
When an opportunity presents itself unexpectedly, you have to act fast. Especially if that opportunity is the home you have always dreamt of but never thought you’d find. Feija Doornenbal was on holiday and casually looking at property on the internet when she saw a building that caught her imagination. “It was part of a huge building that once housed a swimming pool,” she says. “The section for sale was the bath house. As soon as I saw it, I called the estate agent and asked him to hold it for me. I just knew we had to have it.” She and her husband Simon wasted no time – once they had viewed the unusual property, they put an offer in immediately. “This was before we had even sold our house,” laughs Feija. “Fortunately we found a buyer at once, so we were able to move in relatively quickly.”
A HAND- BUILT HOME
Feija and Simon were ideally placed to turn the cavernous space into a family home: Feija’s father is an architect, her mother is an art historian and Simon runs his own interior construction business. “We are all visually orientated,” she says, “and we share the same ideas about what we want the interior to look like.”
They quickly agreed that all the doors would go – “The house had to be open, spacious and transparent” – and that concrete, steel and glass would be the materials of choice. After clearing everything out of the house, including doors, the existing staircase, and some of the walls, the first thing to do was to replace the floors with poured and polished concrete. The second thing was to make a bedroom so that they could move in and get on with the rest. While the kitchen was being built, they made do with cooking on a barbecue in the garden. »
As is the case in many homes, the kitchen is its heart and this one has extra special meaning as Simon built it himself using one of his favourite materials, Corian, to create the cabinets and worktops ( he also used it in the bathroom). This composite material is not only tough and available in many colours but can be easily shaped. “Simon likes it because it is strong and sleek and doesn’t have any seams,” says Feija.
Simon designed and built all the furniture and fittings in the house, including the cantilivered staircase: “It’s a real eyecatcher,” says Feija. “We designed it so that it looks like it’s floating.”
A SENSE OF HISTORY
Although they wanted their home to reference the building’s utilitarian past and to feel modern and industrial, Feija and Simon also wanted it to have a playful feel. So they hung a swing from yellow ropes on the landing for the children to play on, and scattered about brightly coloured and curious objects – some sourced from young designers at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, others from flea markets or from friends.
Simon and Feija may have made the building their own, but they have not forgotten its history. Fabric panels of diving women hang on the walls of the living room, rolls of old swimming pool tickets have been kept, and a large black and white photograph of two swimmers stands against a wall in the bedroom.
The family have now completely settled into the house, and Feija considers it finished. “I don’t need anything else,” she says. “It is just the way we want it. It really is the home we dreamt of.”