About me

Hi, I'm Anya—Ukrainian-born and internationally-trained Interior Designer.

I studied in Florence and worked in Kyiv, New York, and Amsterdam. Now I live in Leiden, the Netherlands, and pick up projects from all over Europe.

Why interior design?

I've been designing interiors for 18 years, but I decided what I wanted to be when I was 13.

I was the youngest child in my family, so I had the smallest and darkest room, with an old, massive wall-to-wall wardrobe and purple-brown wallpaper (who on Earth came up with that pattern?). My parrots and guinea pigs lived with me too, and the room was so cramped that other family members rarely dared to enter.

One day, my dad and I went to a wallpaper store and fell in love with a collection covered in stars — white with yellow stars, yellow with blue, and blue with yellow. We loved them all, so we bought two or three rolls of each colour and created something completely wild. The wallpaper went not only on the walls but also across the ceiling, with the patterns merging into one another and creating an entirely new world.

Then I discovered that the stars glowed in the dark. Every time I turned off the light, I smiled because I had my own little universe.

Today it might sound a little overwhelming, but back in 2001, after adding a blue carpet and new furniture with colourful knobs, my room became a legend. Classmates even told their friends about Anya's room.

But the most important thing I discovered was that with better lighting, functional furniture and wallpaper I loved, the room no longer felt stuffy or cramped, even though the guinea pigs were still there and the window hadn't magically grown any bigger.

The connection was immediate: beautiful and practical = a space that feels good.

That is still what I love most about interior design: turning a space that doesn't quite work into somewhere that makes you feel good every time you walk through the door.