The budapest apartment: a hands-on visual project

It all started when…

My friend Vlado decided to invest in an apartment in Budapest and host people through Airbnb. Having never been to Budapest and since I work remote, I volunteered to help him look for apartments. We made a good team: my keen visual eye complimented his business savvy. He chose a spacious 2-bedroom with high ceilings and wood features to die for that previously owned by a young arty couple who decided to move into a house to raise their child. Of course it was the last one we looked at—and it was the right choice.

I later volunteered my services again to decorate the apartment. I started out by looking for cool Hungarian vintage prints that would compliment its bohemian-chic aesthetic. Of course the internet delivered, but the images were not suitable for wall display. Being stubborn and having a tendency to make extra work for myself, I went about converting the JPEGs into vector files by carefully fiddling with Adobe Illustrator’s Image Trace function. Then I fixed any blemishes new vector images in Illustrator and imported them into Photoshop where to convert them back into much larger JPEGs. With a few more touchups they were ready to print, frame, and hang. Easy, right? (Definitely not.)

All of the furniture was already selected, purchased, and thankfully set up in the fourth floor walkup by the time I arrived in Budapest again. Now it was my job to add the flair that makes a house into an inviting home. I had a great time visiting secondhand vintage shops (antique shops were too expensive and stuffy) buying all sorts of fun knickknacks and then carefully selecting a place for each one. However, after visiting three different Ikeas in Budapest (they have five) with a cartful of items each time, I momentarily deeply regretted not persuading him to buy one with an elevator. But my sweat and labor was all worth it.

While I’ve always enjoyed interior decorating and design and idly fantasized about pursuing it, I never expected to be so lucky to live out my fantasy in Budapest (with someone else’s money)! It’s a nice feather in my cap.

If you can make it to Budapest the apartment itself is a fantastic value. It’s a very popular listing, so be sure to book as early as possible!