Studio Djanim designs complete interiors for families renovating a home in Amstelveen and the wider Amsterdam area. Amstelveen has a large and long-established Indian community, and over the years a good number of our clients have been Indian families buying a Dutch house and rebuilding it around the way they actually live.
Why this page exists
Dutch houses are designed around Dutch habits. Open-plan kitchens, modest storage, compact dining areas, one bathroom for the family. That works well for many people and badly for others. Rather than pretend every family lives the same way, we would rather say plainly what we have learned from working with Indian families, so you know before the first meeting that you will not have to explain yourself.
Every family is different, and none of the points below are assumptions we bring to a meeting. They are requests we hear often, and questions we know to ask.
What Indian families most often ask us to design
- A second kitchen for daily cooking. Frequently called a spice kitchen or wet kitchen. The real design work is in the extraction, the ventilation route and the position relative to the show kitchen and the dining table, so that high-heat cooking does not travel through the house.
- A living and dining area sized for guests. Not slightly larger, but planned for it: seating that works for twelve rather than six, a dining table that extends, and a layout where a full room still feels calm.
- A pooja room or prayer space. Sometimes a dedicated room, sometimes a designed niche with its own lighting, ventilation and storage. We treat it as a designed element, not as leftover space.
- A guest bedroom on the ground floor with an ensuite. For parents visiting for months at a time, stairs matter. Planning this early usually means it can be done without losing living space.
- Storage built for the cookware you actually own. Large pots, pressure cookers, bulk staples, a separate set of vegetarian pans. Standard Dutch kitchen units are not sized for this; maatwerk is.
- An entrance that works with shoes off. Seating, closed shoe storage and a floor finish that copes with a wet Dutch winter, right at the door.
- Materials that survive heavy daily use. A house that cooks every day and hosts often needs surfaces chosen for that, not for a photograph.
Renovating a Dutch house: what to expect
If this is your first renovation in the Netherlands, the sequence often surprises people. Design comes first, then the contractor prices the design, then the build. Contractors here are booked months ahead and they price from drawings, so a vague brief becomes an expensive quote. Our project book exists exactly for this: plans with dimensions, a lighting plan, materials with brand and type, and joinery drawings, so every contractor prices the same thing and nobody improvises on site.
Seeing the design before anything is built
Every project is modelled in photorealistic 3D. You see it on the large screen in our presentation room at Startbaan 6 in Amstelveen, and we can share the images with family abroad, which matters when parents or siblings are part of the decision. Changes happen on screen, not on the building site.
Our work
Browse our visualisation work and see what a finished specification looks like in a real project book. We also work with Turkish families, and our approach to international families in general is described here.
Frequently asked questions
Do you work in English?
Yes. A large share of our clients are international families, and we work entirely in English: the briefing, the drawings, the material lists and the project book. Dutch is available if you prefer it.
Can you design a second kitchen or spice kitchen?
Yes, and it is one of the most common requests we get. The design question is rarely the second kitchen itself but the extraction, the ventilation and where it sits relative to the main kitchen and the dining area, so that cooking with high heat and strong aromas does not carry through the whole house.
Can family abroad see the design?
Yes. Because every project is built as a full 3D model, we can share images and walkthroughs with family in India or elsewhere. Many of our clients involve parents or siblings in the decision, and photorealistic images make that possible without anyone getting on a plane.
We have just bought a house in Amstelveen. When should we contact you?
As early as you can, ideally before the contractor prices the work. The largest gains are in the floor plan, the structure and the position of pipes, electrics and lighting. Once those are built, changing them is expensive.
Do you help with Dutch contractors and permits?
We design and we coordinate with your contractor, installer and suppliers throughout the build. Permits and structural calculations run through your architect or contractor; our project book gives them everything they need in one document.
Talk to us
Call +31 (0)20 30 14 064, email info@djanim.nl, or come to the studio at Startbaan 6, Amstelveen. See also our interior design service and our 3D visualisation.