November 30, 2022

Interview with Pavlína Louženská at Her Home

Pavlína Louženská is the woman behind the successful platform #HolkyzMarketingu and, as a Google certified mentor, she helps startup brands grow. Pavlína let us peep inside her home full of iconic designs. Read on to find out why she compares interior design to web designs, what her rituals are and where she finds original items for her apartment.

WHAT MAKES A HOME?

Home is not a place, but a feeling. Home is where I feel safe. Home is where I feel like something belongs to me. Home is where I feel like I can throw off my shoes and release the button on my trousers. Home is where I can be me. I believe a home reflects who you are, your values and what you like. That’s why inviting someone into your home feels like such an intimate thing. And that’s why that at-home feeling is so hard to achieve in hotel rooms. They’re not yours at all.

DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE RITUAL?

Spending the whole evening in the bath. And moving things around. My mum spent my whole childhood moving things around and I inherited this from her. I get nervous when things in the flat stay too long in one place.

WHAT SHOULD EVERY HOME HAVE?

A place where you can curl up into a ball. Watch Too Hot to Handle or take care of your wounds after a bad brake-up. Basically, a place where you feel safe and can wind down. It can be a corner, an armchair a bed or anything else.

WHICH IS YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE IN YOUR HOME?

I love any space empty of stuff. I grew up in a small flat in a block of flats, where storages spaces were forever being optimised. Boxes under the bed, hidden storage inside a sofa, high shelving in the toilet. We were forever trying to come up with new ways of how to store stuff. I have a box room and a walk-in wardrobe in my current apartment which results in lots of free open space to breath and live my life.

WHERE DO YOU MOST LIKE TO SHOP FOR FURNITURE?

I love the stuff the guys from Nanovo manage to get a hold of. They always sell a story with the lamp or armchair I buy. My favourite brown armchair, bought from them, was originally bought by a newly-wed couple with money they got from their parents at the wedding for the purchase of a car. On coming across a pair of armchairs in Texas, they decided to spend their money on the armchairs instead! And grow old in them together. Their daughter inherited these armchairs and brought them into Nanovo. Apart from the fact that it’s the comfiest armchair that I have, it’s also heart-warming to know that the guys helped it get another chance to live on.

I also spend hours on furniture second-hand stores. From Sbazar to 1stdibsto to flea markets. I have a soft spot for IKEA vintage pieces.

WHAT MAKES A HOME LOOK COSIER?

Cosiness is more about what makes you feel good than anything else. It’s not in the number of blankets you have, but in the way you add personally made-to-measure items. We’re told every person is an original, yet many of us end up living in copies of IKEA showrooms. And that’s a shame!

When I help friends design their flat, I talk to them about how they live, what they do and how they spend their free time. Those who spend most of their time on their laptop and rarely have visitors, won’t need a large table. When designing a website, one uses tracking tools to see how the visitors use the site, and I use a similar concept when designing an interior. I create a movement heat map to reconsider why I don’t spend much time in the living room or in some armchair and wonder what needs to be changed to make me want to spend more time there. And that’s why I often move things around.

Ilse Crawford (1) and her approach to interior design influenced me greatly. She claims that interiors should reflect and evoke emotions. That you should first identify the feelings you want to have in a certain place and only after this, think about what sofa you need and where it should be placed.

But to be a little less abstract- when I spoke to interior designers, their advice was to focus on lighting. Light should come from a number of sources at different focal points. And the light bulb temperature is also important; no-one wants to live under hospital corridor bright white blue lighting. That’s why I have a lot of small lamps all over the apartment. Most of them come from Nanovo

(1) Tip: A document about her is available on Netflixu called Abstract.

YOUR LOVESTORY FOR CHAIRS IS FASCINATING. TELL US MORE!

Chairs are symbolic. When buying a chair, we often make a promise to ourselves at the same moment. Like, from now on, I’m going to read more, from now on, I’m going to have a big family that will sit at the table, from now on, in this office, I have a place of my own.

Chairs always carry a story. When I listen to people talk about their favourite piece of furniture, they almost always talk about a chair. Always having reasons why it’s special: because it was designed by Eames using innovative methods, because it belonged to my grandmother, because it’s ‘his’ chair at the table, etc.

Chairs are a safe place. They’re big enough to carry the load of our existence, yet small enough to make us feel safe. Ages ago, we hid and found comfort in caves from all the dangers outside, and now, armchairs take their place.

And last but not least- chairs are a sign of progress. For a long while they were a privilege of the royal court. Only knights were allowed to sit (on a chair) around the round table. Only Marie Antoinette could eat strawberries on a daybed. Only a king could sit on the throne.

There’s so much more! Read more about chairs in my newsletter.

WHERE DO YOU LOOK FOR HOME INTERIOR DESIGN IDEAS?

Pinterest. I’ve about twenty thousand images saved from there and most of them are of interior designs. I’m inspired by my favourite interior designers (Ilse Crawford), books and magazines (Milk, ELLE Decoration, Kinfolk, Monocle and many more), newsletters (Tyler Watamanuk writes about chairs) and design museums. This summer I visited the Vitra Design Museum in Basilio again, and left with a head full of new ideas on how I would move things around in my apartment.

I like it when I know the story behind some particular design piece, or when I understand the context within which the design came to life. That’s why I have a soft spot for wooden pieces by Artek or the bench by Lexová & Smetana.

WHAT’S YOUR LATEST HOME ACCESSORY PURCHASE? AND WHAT’S ON YOUR WISHLIST?

The latest additions are a wooden spoon by Tadeáš Podracký, Lasvit glasses, a crystal ball which throws rainbow flecks when the light hits it, and a drill.

My wishlist includes the Roly Poly chair from TooGood, a small table from Hem, a painting by Matěj Macháček and a large kitchen.

WHAT THREE THINGS WOULD YOU GRAB IF YOUR APARTMENT WAS ON FIRE?

Excluding personal things like photos and jewellery, or the things I need for work, I’d grab my favourite Vitra LCM chair, my painting from India which I got from my grandmother and the book The Last Unicorn which I got from my boyfriend.

WHEN DO YOU FEEL THE HAPPIEST AT HOME

When I’m not there alone.

TELL US YOUR FAVOURITES

Your favourite Lejaan product?

White bed linen. I adore hotel beds, where you get a whole lot of pillows, two bed throws, and a fluffy freshly covered duvet.

Your favourite plant?

One that doesn’t die. Apart from house plants, I always have fresh flowers in my flat. I probably spend half my earnings on them! Green Decor at Dejvická offers ecological fair trade a locally-grown flowers.