This beautiful duplex apartment in Sweden (styled by Anna van Keppel, photographed by Elin Sylwan for Historiska Hem) has so much character and personality. The black kitchen and large dining area seem to be the heart of the apartment, from where you can take the spiral staircase up to the second floor where there is a bedroom and an office space hidden underneath the roof.

The asymmetrical living room layout features a curved sofa, a curved coffee table, and a custom module for the TV. The dining area in the adjacent kitchen has a color palette that complements the one of the living room.

On the second level, you can find a bedroom with a built-in wardrobe around the bed for optimal use of storage and a home office with a desk integrated into the window sill.

What is a duplex apartment?

A duplex apartment is an apartment that is spread over two floors, with a staircase that can be accessed from inside the apartment. Often the apartments underneath the roof don’t have so much usable floor space, so by connecting two floors together, you make one bigger unit.

Sometimes you will even have a separate entrance for the second floor, but that’s usually when two units are transformed into one unit with more space.

A kitchen with black cabinets and a beautiful living area

On the lower level of the duplex apartment, you have the living kitchen with a big dining table and a living room. The kitchen was fitted in a rather awkward layout, but works nicely with its U-shape and still leaves ample space for a large vintage dining table.

I love the style of the limestone wall by the sink, which has been covered with a plexiglass backsplash for an interesting combination of textures. The black cabinets add so much contrast to the warm undertones of the off-white walls and I like the wooden floating shelves and countertops for an effortless yet warm style.

The black kitchen is finished off with a butcher block countertop paired with a black countertop by the sink and floating shelves for keeping glasses, cups, and cookbooks.

The wall shelves are custom-made to fit the width of the wall exactly, making the asymmetrical layout of the kitchen less obvious.

A spacious kitchen dining area with an impressive wall rug

The large wood dining table paired with oak wood dining chairs in front of the kitchen window is paired with a black tulip lamp and an impressive hanging wall rug that adds a beautiful array of warm colors to the setting.

A living room with an awkward layout

It’s not so easy to decorate a room with angled walls, yet I love the way the owners of this apartment made the living room work. The angled sofa fits perfectly along the angled walls and the asymmetric coffee table makes the setting complete. It kind of feels like the furnishings were made exactly for this room.

The common wall between the kitchen and the living room is used for a custom TV unit which has been painted in the same color as the wall for a sleek tone-on-tone look.

A spiral staircase to the office space and bedroom

The black spiral staircase works so nicely with the black cabinets in the kitchen and the round shape fits the style of the space. From the kitchen, you can make your way into a rooftop office space and bedroom on the second floor of the duplex.

A custom home office space with a desk integrated into the floor plan

The office space is a great example of a custom storage solution that goes over into a desk. When you are working with sloped ceilings and angled walls, it’s often better to have someone install custom-built fittings rather than try and make regular furniture work.

The custom window sill desk includes storage cubbies on the bottom which are great for displaying objects and storing books.

A bedroom with a custom-built wardrobe around the bed

On the other side of the staircase, you can access the bedroom which has a very nice storage solution as well. The bed was built into two storage units with a headboard and artwork in the middle for a sleek and cozy effect. This solution is something you could install with ready-made storage units as well and would make a great Ikea hack. You could even cover the entire bedroom wall with cabinets, just like in this example and if you are looking to implement a similar setup in your bedroom, make sure to take a look at this post which includes a full list of wardrobe ideas that go over the bed.

styled by Anna van Keppel, photographed by Elin Sylwan for Historiska Hem